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Summary:

As the new Archivist debates between life and death, the Eye ponders on what to offer him in order to avoid an encore of the unfortunate situation with his predecessor.

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Gerard Keay opens his eyes at what feels like fuck-ass in the morning, inside a room with far too little space and far too much dust.

Notes:

This was inspired by Everchased's beautiful Jon/Gerry/Martin on Tumblr, and my need to give Jon as many boyfriend's as possible because he deserves them.

In other words I had feelings and I'm making that everyone's problem.

A HUGE thank you to Mx_Carter for being a super patient and helpful beta and providing the most hilarious comments!

Chapter Text

 

 

 

I

The Eye thrives on knowledge, of course. On understanding. Not necessarily on moving the pieces across the board -that's the Spider's domain, though perhaps that's why they work so well together, one knowing exactly where pawn needs to be to strike the king, the other moving it forward with the slightest pull of a string- but on seeing all details, and predicting all outcomes.

More than anything else, the Eye feeds on Knowing its chosen, and how to lure them in until they not only can't find the way out, but until they don't want to.

When Jonah Magnus first sat on the Panopticon, the Eye rewarded him with life eternal. It offered Gertrude Robinson all the gifts it had to give, and watched in delight as she -for all that she refused the powers- fed it knowledge acquired specifically to annoy other Entities. When young Gerard Keay marked his body with its image, the Eye gave him the ability to See, just enough to entice him, to bring him onto the path of the Beholding and let the Archivist use him.

Now the Pupil has chosen it a new Archivist, and as he debates between life and death the Eye ponders on what to offer him in order to avoid an encore of the unfortunate situation with his predecessor.

Gertrude Robinson clung to her humanity with the same cold ferocity she used to guide so many innocents to their death -and worse- like lambs to the Slaughter. She was aware the monsters feared her, relished in the fact. She only ever gave the irony of it a passing thought.

Jonathan on the contrary, is painfully human, even as he steadily moves towards his realization as an Avatar. The Eye knows what he yearns for the most is the people he's lost. The ones he thinks will keep him human.

He's going to be sad, when he wakes up and finds that two more are gone.

It's not outside the realm of possibility, to bring one of them back for him. Make it blatantly obvious that it was a gift from the Ceaseless Watcher, and that more can be given if he surrenders himself over fully and willingly.

Entities bring people back from the dead all the time. Dying is after all, a requirement to become an Avatar in full. Terminus is patient, mostly because Avatars of all kinds usually end up feeding it with their victims. Their patrons get their fear, The End gets their lives.

Resurrecting people marked by other Entities, however? Not as simple.

Sasha James fed the Stranger when she died, so long ago and before she could form a meaningful enough connection to the Entity that would have been her patron. She survived for a while even in her state of not being, banging against the inside of mirrors to try and make her friends notice the reflection didn't quite match up to the impostor.

It never worked.

Alice Tonner is not dead, and even if she were, the Hunt has her well within its grasp. The connection grows fainter each year-long day she stays in the coffin, but as she is now, she's not a possibility.

Timothy Stoker is promising. Though he was marked by the Stranger in his youth, though the Desolation turned its flaming gaze to him the moment he pressed the trigger with only destruction in his mind, Tim belonged to the Beholding for years.

They were also friends. Well before the Archives, before the Knowledge, before the pain. Nights out in which the awkwardness became comfortable merely because of its familiarity, jokes that struck too hard and apologies that were more heartfelt than they were good.

Jon requested Tim be moved to the Archives because he thought his presence would make the new space safe. Tim followed because his love for people has always manifested in a need to be there, regardless of if 'there' is the Old Opera House or a stuffy old basement with too many statements to sort through.

The Eye knows better of course. It always does.

Jon flinched away from Tim's every movement, feared his barbed words as much as he sought them out. Drank in the bitter poison of his hatred as though it might kill the monster inside him, as he tried to hold back his new instincts for fear of driving him further away. Jon and Tim loved each other once, and even in the last months of his life Jon still held on to the hope that if he regained Tim's affection it would mean he was human again.

A misguided notion, and a dangerous one at that.

The Eye needs someone who has loved monsters. Someone who will do so again.


Gerard Keay opens his eyes at what feels like fuck-ass in the morning, inside a room with far too little space and far too much dust.

Of course, the fact that he wakes up at all takes priority in his mind over his apparent taste in nap spots, since the last time -or what he expected to be the last time- he closed his eyes, his page on mum's bloody skin book was finally going to burn, after years of being forced to play spooky Wikipedia for a pair of nutcases.

His head spins when he sits up on the cot, and he has to bend forward and rest his elbows on his knees until the world. Stops. Moving.

Why the on Earth is he still here?! Hasn't he earned his rest? He helped save so many people, he-

"Coma! Great," comes a muffled voice, and the world stills so suddenly he almost misses the nausea.

Gerry very slowly lifts his head, but the dizziness doesn't come back. Before him is a heavy door with a small window made of thick glass, glowing softly against the darkness of the room in an insinuation of light somewhere beyond.

"Let's rearrange his office," the voice says again, just as Gerry climbs to his feet. He feels much more steady than he expected just from his wild excursion into sitting, as he follows the familiar voice towards the door. "Sleeping people don't need pens."

He leans down to look through the glass.

There, down a long corridor and much too far for Gerry to reasonably be able to listen to, is Jonathan Sims.

That explains the sense of familiarity coming from the voice. But... it makes no sense. Jon promised to burn his page, and Gerry-

Gerry actually believed him when he did.

He seemed so different from Gertrude, eyes looking at him like a person instead of a tool, even when he had most decidedly stopped being the former and moved firmly down the scale to the latter. Had Jon broken his promise? Had he kept-

But no, this doesn't feel at all like waking up from his page. He feels… real. Human enough to be sick, to be sore and tired and-

"Melanie!" a burst of energy pumps through his veins -he's got veins?- when Jon speaks again, but when Gerry looks up he's not sitting at his desk anymore. "It's very good to uh- Melanie? Are you- WHOA!"

His hand tightens around the doorknob almost out of its own volition, and he sends the door flying open.

"Melanie, it's- it's me!" Jon's voice has a slight hint of fear in it. Of desperation.

Gerry takes a step down the corridor, and he stops for a second. His muscles tense and relax and he can feel his weight on his bones, smell the dust and the scent of old paper. He'd forgotten the human body could feel so many things. It's so stupid that he never stopped to notice when he was alive.

"No! I- I'm back!" A new set of words floats down the corridor, pouring into Gerry like warm water over a strained limb.

Oh right. The Archivist.

He runs then, flying towards the door as fast as his limbs can carry him. He arrives into Jon's office first, a small room with a desk that's much too neat for anyone to have used it recently, but he barely has enough time to take it all in before Jon's voice pulls at him again, towards the open door.

"What?! No I just- I didn't meant to-"

"How did you make it out then hm?!" Now that he's close enough, Gerry can finally hear the person Jon's arguing with. They sound like a woman, angry and dangerous and-

Much smaller than he'd expected, when he finally peeks through the door. The slight, bony woman exudes an air of violence -there's something wrong with her; Gerry can See it but not place just what it is- as she squares up to a very fidgety Jon, with a hand firmly stuck down her jacket pocket.

"What?" Jon asks. The single, nervous word is almost hypnotic, and a sneaking suspicion is beginning to form in Gerry's mind.

"Tim's dead. Even Daisy's dead, so why are you just fine?" The woman, Melanie, since Jon called her that a moment ago, asks.

"W- no! I've been in the hospital for six mon-"

"Something has been in the hospital for six months, something with your face!" Melanie pulls her hand out of her pocket and yeah, that's a knife. "I warned Basira to not let you back in here, but she! Doesn't! Listen!"

Everything happens at once then. Melanie takes a step forward -she's not wielding the knife as much as she's holding it, Gerry notices, like one would a stress ball-, Jon takes a step back and right over a piece of broken porcelain on the floor, and Gerry takes one out the door. It's like a very weird, surprisingly organized ballet.

"I wouldn't stab him if I were you" Gerry says right as he walks out. Both their gazes hone in on him, one much heavier than the other. "I don't think it'll do much good anyways"

"Who the hell are you?" Melanie turns the knife to him -definitely wielding it now- at the same time Jon lets out a strangled sound.

"Gerry?" Jon asks, eyeing him up and down with a frown. "I'm- That's not- I burned your page!"

"See, that's what I wanted to hear. That and some answers, but instead I have to keep you from getting stabbed as soon as I wake up." Gerry shrugs.

"Don't move" Melanie snarls at him, before turning to Jon. "Who is he?"

"That's Gerard Keay," Jon says as quickly as if he'd been compelled, his eagerness to be found trustworthy almost painful to witness. "he was- is... He worked with Gertrude. And he should be dead."

"Twice over," Gerry confirms with a nod. "apparently I just can't get any rest around you Archivists. That room at the end of the corridor needs a dusting, by the way."

Jon merely gapes at him for a moment. "I- This doesn't make any sen-"

"I'm calling Basira," Melanie cuts into his words, a mobile already lodged between her shoulder and ear.

"I thought you said she never listened," Jon mutters, and Gerry snorts.

"It's me. Get down to his office, now," and she hangs up, before pinning Gerry with a glare again. "Get in."

And really, Gerry's genetically predisposed to rear back against literally any order he's given, but something about Melanie tells him the knife isn't for show. If he's really alive, refusing to go into a perfectly normal room he was in just a minute ago feels like a very dumb hill to die on.


"Yeah, I've heard some of the ones he shows up on," Basira nods. She's leaning against the closed door of Jon's office and he has no doubt no one will be getting in or out while she's there. "The Hunters had him didn't they? Back in America."

"Not my favorite time, I'll admit," Gerry says, and Jon looks over at him, still somewhat refusing to believe he's real.

He looks... Solid. It sounds like a dumb trait to remark on, but it's the one thing Jon can't get out of his head. The last time he saw him, Gerry was a spectre. A memory of a memory, not even the real him, an echo of pain bound to the pages of the book. Now he's sitting on top of Jon's desk, directly on top of a now very crumpled statement and all Jon can focus on is on how he can crumple paper, cast a shadow, push his paperweight around. His skin folds and stretches as he moves, and the eyes marked over every joint give the appearance of blinking every time he stretches his fingers.

"-n? Jon!" Basira's urgent tone pulls at him, and he looks away from Gerry's hands to find her staring at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Uh... What?" Jon asks. Did he miss part of the conversation?

"You tell me," Basira rolls her eyes. "I was asking you how is he alive, if you burned his page before the Unknowing?"

"Well, how would I-" know?, he means to add. But of course now something is pressing against his mind, like the beginnings of a headache only it feels like a thousand people whispering in his ear at the same time. "Urgh..." Jon frowns, pressing his thumb to his temple uselessly. Pressure doesn't work too well against these sort of migraines, he's found.

"Jon?" Basira takes a step forward, and Melanie's hand immediately shoots forward to pull on her arm.

"Don't touch him," she warns. Jon has little to no doubt the knife is back in her hand, and that she's waiting for him to sprout an extra eye so she can stab it. It would serve him right.

"I'm-" Jon grunts "just a moment, it's-" he stops talking then. It's distracting, and he needs to block-

"Ride it," says Gerry. Jon parts his eyelids -he has no idea when he closed them- and finds he's still sitting on his desk, leaning his elbows on his knees. He's intertwined his fingers, and the way his knuckles align with each other makes it so there's a line of eyes staring back at Jon.

"I- what?"

"You're Knowing something aren't you?" Gerry asks casually. "Gertrude had some of those too. Don't push back, just... Ride it out."

"I'm not going to just let it come, that's- I don't want this!" Jon doesn't know if he's trying to convince himself or Basira and Melanie, but the pressure just keeps getting heavier and heavier-

"You're just going to hurt yourself, you're going to pass out, and when you wake up you will Know," Gerry rolls his eyes. He certainly seems as snarky as when he was a book ghost. "Come on, let Daddy Eye tell you."

Jon darts a desperate look at Basira, tries to ignore how Melanie looks like she's a wrong movement away from launching at him with the knife.

He's... grateful for a moment, that Tim isn't here. That Martin isn't. He wouldn't want them to see him like this.

Basira sighs. "Just... Do it. I guess it works in our favor this time," she says, and it's all the permission Jon needs to just let go.

He closes his eyes again, and when he finally stops pushing against the Eye the knowledge gets implanted in his head almost gently, like it's rewarding him for giving in. It makes him feel nauseated.

"T- The Watcher resurrected you." Jon doesn't say 'for me', because it would sound just as disgusting as it felt when the thought was dropped into his mind "It... I think it's a show of power. To... To make me-"

"To convince you to stay a good little monster?" Melanie hisses "Do what you're told, and you get people back? Whether they want it or not. Sounds right up your alley, if you ask me. You can just keep getting people killed, and we'll keep-"

"Melanie," Basira cuts into her rant with a single word. Jon looks at her gratefully, but her sharp, dark eyes are looking at him more in suspicion than sympathy. "Is she right? Can the Eye bring others back?"

And just like that, Jon is abruptly reminded that he wasn't the only one to lose someone in the Unknowing.

"I... Don't know? Maybe?" He runs a hand through his hair in an old nervous tic that was much more convenient before he went into a coma and had no time for haircuts. "If I- if I serve it well... Maybe it will-"

"No," Basira's lips are a tense line, her eyes averted from Jon's "Forget it, I- we don't want to give it what it wants."

"... No. Of course not," Jon nods, though he Knows at that moment, very acutely, that Basira is not saying what she truly feels about the possibility they're being offered. "so... what should we do with Gerry?"

"It's going to sound crazy, but may I suggest you ask Gerry?" says the man himself. He looks... very unimpressed. But it's ok. Jon is starting to get used to that look aimed at him. "Maybe he has an opinion about being the Ceaseless Voyeur's toy."

"No offense, but I'm still debating on whether or not to kill you." Melanie crosses her arms. "If the Eye wants you alive, I'm pretty sure we don't."

"Well, I'm pretty sure I don't care." Gerry slides off the desk and turns his head side to side to crack his neck. "Gertrude, the Eye, the Hunters, you. I think I'm going to do my own thing, for a change."

He makes it as far as the door because Basira of course hasn't moved, and she's showing no inclination of doing so anytime soon.

"I'm not letting you out," she says simply.

Gerry thrusts his hands in his pockets, looking down at Basira. Jon doesn't remember him being so tall, but then again he supposed it's hard to really estimate a ghost's height.

"Are you going to kill me?" He asks.

Jon holds his breath. Melanie still has her knife, inching back and around Gerry silently as if waiting for Basira to give her a signal. Gerry's eyes don't follow her, but he has to know, right?

"... No" says Basira after what feels like an eternity. Jon knows she doesn't kill innocents, that she prefers not to kill at all if there's another way -that's Daisy's M.O., Basira has never heard the blood sing in her veins- but he still worries.

"Great. Is there any other reason to keep me here then?" Gerry asks again. His voice sounds pleasant and conversational, like it did when teased Jon about not knowing anything about Gertrude's plans.

He finds himself thinking this might just be how Gerry is, all wrapped up in humor and snark to keep out the rest of it.

"You're alive, and you shouldn't be." Basira still hasn't moved from the door, but she gives her head a slight shake. Jon sees Melanie pocket the knife with a huff.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say I'm not the only one in that category." Gerry takes a step sideways to pivot on his heel, and Jon flinches a little when both of them look at him. "Start stabbing, I'll go after Jon."


They let him go after that, of course.

Gerry wanders the London streets for about a week afterwards, trying to figure out a plan of action while ignoring the fact that he doesn't feel the need for sleep, drink or food. He manages to find two of his old emergency stashes, one in a park, the other at the air vents behind a public library so at least he's got some money and two sets of credible fake ID's.

At some point he considers leaving the city. He ought to be able to find a job out by the countryside, and finally be out of this for good. If he doesn't go out looking for trouble, none should follow him. If some does, he knows enough to make it regret the decision.

The normal, boring life Gerry always wanted.

Instead he falls back on old habits, because it's the only thing he knows how to do.

He watches people, sitting on park benches and standing at bus stops. Most of the time they're perfectly normal, just people going about their lives and giving the big, scary looking man a passing look and a wide berth.

Sometimes they aren't.

When Gerry Sees marked people, he follows them from a distance until they're alone, and then he approaches. Some are easier to help than others, and he's both pleased and unnerved that the Eye didn't just give him his Sight back, but made it stronger too. It's much faster to just go up to a man and tell him to think of his daughter waiting at home, instead of trying to convince him he's no threat, or at least not compared to whatever it is he's going to fall into soon.

He also sees an Avatar out hunting, once.

She's wearing heavy clothes and a facemask that bulges and squirms disturbingly as she stalks down a group of schoolgirls. Gerry sees a wasp crawl out from under it and into her nostril.

The girls stop in front of a store window to chatter excitedly about what the mannequin -which is thankfully just a mannequin- is wearing, and Gerry hurries his step to reach them before the hive does.

"Hey," he says, stopping a meter or so away from them, because it won't do to scare them into running. The girls look up at him, already on edge and one of them clenching something inside her raincoat's pocket. Good. Smart girls. Still, he raises his hands to show them he means no harm. "Some freak's been following you. Go into the store for a bit and call someone to pick you up. I'll scare him off"

It takes them a moment to comply with his request, and Gerry applauds their instincts but really wishes they'd hurry because the hive is coming closer, lurking behind a bus stop only a short distance away. Eventually though, one of them nods and takes one of her friend's hands to pull her into the shop. The rest follow.

"It's very rude to interrupt other people before a meal." The woman's voice is accompanied by a loud buzz and more squirming when Gerry approaches her. Her eyes are bloodshot and littered with yellow dots he suspects are eggs when she lifts her sunglasses to look at him.

"My mum didn't raise me too well," Gerry shrugs. "Go away, before I kill you."

"Are you with the Hunt?" the woman asks. A wasp crawls out of her ear. Gerry arches an eyebrow, but he decides not to draw attention to the literal dozens of eyes across his body. Corruption Avatars, at least hives, never seem to actually be all there; maybe their parasites eat the key parts of their brains?

"I've got what it takes," he says instead of confirming anything. It's dangerous to align yourself with an Entity, even just in word. A larva begins to squirm out her tear duct, and god, Gerry hates hives. "Last warning. Go away." He bats away the ear wasp that's trying to land on him.

"Hm... rude," she mutters, before turning to walk away with her lone wasp following. Gerry stays at the bus stop until he sees a car stop and the schoolgirls climb into it, darting suspicious looks all around.

He starts feeling the strain by the beginning of the second week.

It's subtle at first, a little exhaustion like he'd been standing in the sun for too long with too warm clothes. With his stylistic choices, it's a feeling he knows well.

Then one night he catches sight of a man sitting alone in his car by the piers, and he tries to See if he's having a normal middle age crisis or staring out into either the Lonely or the Vast; that's when it hits him.

His legs feel weak, and for all that he feels his breathing quicken Gerry's acutely aware he can't feel his heartbeat doing the same. The dizziness from his first day comes back, and black begins to creep along the edges of his vision.

When he wakes up the next day the man's car is there, but he's not.

Gerry struggles to his feet, the nausea just this side of tolerable, and moves closer. The car's windows are clouded over from the inside with a heavy fog that has no business being inside a vehicle, much less under fairly strong sunlight.

He sighs, disappointed. This is one he could've saved.

He doesn't try to See again, but sometimes he can't help it, and every time he finds a mark on a passerby he feels weaker and weaker, until an idea pops up in his mind.

He's running out of battery.

It's a jarring thought, but he supposes it makes sense. While he doesn't think the Eye brought him back as a full on Avatar, he's been using Beholding traits to help people. He hasn't been feeding -regular or monster food-, but he doesn't feel the need to either. There's no telling what the Watcher wants.

It doesn't seem to want to tell him either, so Gerry just... keeps walking.

If worst comes to worst, he'll die. It's not that bad, and presumably this time it will be for good, as there's no skin book or Archivist in sight. Besides, he's helped some more people since coming back, so at least he did some good.

After two more days of aimless walking, Gerry leans back against an alley wall and lets himself slide down to the ground. His legs can't carry him anymore. Maybe this is what a wind up toy feels like?

He rests his forehead against a bent knee, his arms falling down limp by his sides. Maybe he won't die. Maybe his body will just... Shut down, and Gerry will be trapped inside it just like he was in the book. Maybe they'll find him tomorrow, think he overdosed, and bury him.

He certainly never expected to end up feeding Too-Close-I-Cannot-Breathe.

"Yes, I do," says a voice, and Gerry's head whips up almost on its own. "I'm- My name's Jon. Jonathan Sims. I moved in a few weeks ago, but I'm at work a lot."

Each and every word Jon says feels like a small bolt to his nerves, and Gerry remembers the suspicion he had that day at the Archives.

Amazing.

"Yes it's- very nice to meet you too Doris. I should be going in now," says Jon, and Gerry's got enough strength to get to his feet again and look across the street.

The alley he collapsed in is in front of a small residential building, and he can just see the back of a messy haired head disappear behind a door as an older woman in a bright yellow cardigan begins to walk away.

Gerry hurries across the street -who knows how long this burst of energy will last- but slows down before reaching the woman.

"Excuse me?" He asks, trying for once to make himself look smaller and not threatening. Doris still eyes him warily, and he doesn't get any closer. "Did you come out of that building? My friend Jon lives there, but he's not picking up his phone. Do you know which one's his buzzer?"

That does the trick. Doris' mistrust evaporates like mist under the sun and she gives Gerry s perfectly pleasant smile.

"Oh yes! The new tenant, I just met him," she says, clearly very pleased with herself. "He's in 4A, and he just came back home, you're lucky!"

"Yep. That's me. Perfect timing." Gerry smiles back, though he feels his eyelid twitch a little. "Thank you miss, have a nice day."

"Oh, you have a lovely one too! Tell your friend to eat something though, he's awfully skinny!" Doris pats Gerry's shoulder before going on her merry way.

Gerry chuckles a little under his breath, imagining Gertrude in Doris' flashy cardigan, wishing him a lovely day.

Then, he goes back to the building, and jams his finger on the button labeled 4A.


Jon closes the door to his flat behind him, and immediately collapses face down on the living room sofa. It's comfortable enough, but whoever the previous owner was left it smelling strongly of essential oils and Jon has to turn his face to the side to avoid choking on the scent of lavender.

He'd rented the place fully furnished, because he doesn't have the time nor the taste to actually fill up a place he's only been using to sleep. Or to lay in bed looking at the ceiling until it's light out again. Whatever.

It's been... hell.

Jon's not one to look at a gift horse in the mouth, and he's very aware that waking up from the coma was his choice in a pretty literal way.

Still, nothing's going as it should.

Melanie has stopped attacking him on sight, but she still pulls out the knife if he gets too close to her. Basira says to just leave her alone, but that's difficult to do when one is quite literally sharing an office with her.

Then there's Basira herself. She spends all her time reading either books from the library or old statements she finds lying around, and she loses herself so completely in them she doesn't even seem to notice people around her when she does. Jon's tried talking to her about it, but she insists she's fine, and doesn't feel any different.

Jon also knows she's been seeing Elias at jail, but whenever he's gone to do the same he's been turned away without an explanation. It's not like he wants to talk to Elias, but the man could at least do him the courtesy of answering some questions.

And Martin.

He saw him today, and Jon's willing to bet it's part of the reason he feels so drained. Martin looks... well.

He's not pale or haggard, hasn't lost any weight or started sporting any prominent eye bags like the ones Jon sees in the mirror every day. He keeps busy, rarely going down to the Archives anymore.

Always going through some file with a slight frown on his face, and all Jon can think of when he sees him is that Martin didn't use to frown so much. His face is too soft and too open for the gesture, and Jon doesn't like it. He remembers the slight nervousness, the uncertainty in his eyes and the curve of his lips when he opened the door to Jon's office with a steaming cup of tea, and he can't help telling himself that this too is his fault.

Martin is dealing with Lukas on his own to keep the rest of them safe, because Jon can't do it.

Back when they were... friends, Tim used to say Jon didn't know what middle points were. Either he didn't care about something, or he went all in, no holds barrelled. He'd joked that had been what scared his ex-girlfriend away, and then apologized when Jon had gone too quiet too quick.

The joke came back when they moved down to the Archives. "First you didn't even want to check out the place, now we can't get you out, boss. It's ridiculous," he'd said. Jon had rolled his eyes at him, because of course he wanted to keep working as much as he could, Robinson's 'system' was absolute chaos, and they were no closer to fixing it months after starting.

"Now you care all of a sudden huh?" Tim had said that last night before the Unknowing. Jon had looked at him and had the thought that he couldn't remember the last time he saw him smile. "First we're all murderers out to get you, now you 'can't lose me too'. Typical Jon."

It's the last time Jon remembers hearing the joke, when it wasn't one anymore.

He's forced to concede the words some measure of truth, because he's been awake for two and a half weeks and all he can think of is Martin and the others, and how to protect-

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Jon blinks.

He... doesn't remember giving anyone at the Institute his new address. They're not going out -can't go out- anyways, so it's unlikely to be them.

He guesses Helen could bring them in if she wanted, but the Distortion doesn't need any buzzers when it could open a door directly into Jon's living room.

So probably someone who wants to kill him.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

They... don't seem to be giving up.

He should probably find a way to go out before they break in. Only he's in a fourth storey flat, so that really only leaves the fire escape.

One way or the other, he has to do something before one of his neighbors goes to check. At least he can't die so easily now.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Jon sighs, before pushing and pulling and finally getting off the sofa and over to the panel by the door.

He presses the button to speak to whoever it is downstairs.

"Hello?" he asks. Has he always sounded this tired?

"It's me. Let me in," says a grainy voice through the intercom, and Jon feels his eyebrows climb up his forehead.

After he walked out of his office a week or so ago, he never thought he'd be hearing of Gerry Keay again.

The voice at the back of his head -it's not really a voice so much as a tight bundle of Knowledge that sometimes feeds Jon with thoughts and instincts that aren't his own- wants him to open the door.

Gerry was a gift for him, and there can be more if he plays along. Tim could be back. Daisy even. Sasha. It makes no sense to refuse what the Watcher has gotten for him, he deserves it, for stopping the Unknowing, for saving the world.

Martin's slight frown flashes in his mind, and Jon's finger freezes on its way towards the button to open the door.

This would be giving in, wouldn't it?

And all Martin is doing, all he's going through will be for nothing if- Okay, Jon's not so egotistical as to actually think Martin is placing himself in danger just for his sake, but... But if he's fighting, if he hasn't given in, then Jon can't either. Jon can't-

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Jon groans, and pushes the button. Martin will have to forgive him.

Gerry looks a right mess when John opens the door to the flat. His hair falls in lifeless strings by the sides of his sunken in cheeks, his clothes hanging off his frame like-

"Have you been eating?" Jon asks. The compulsion leaves a metallic aftertaste in his mouth, and Gerry gives him an unimpressed look.

"No. I've had snacks and stuff, but I don't get hungry anymore. Don't sleep much either." He shakes his head a little. "You don't need to compel me for that. Besides, I'm not the one who just woke up from a coma. Let me tell you, it shows."

Jon feels his face heat up lightly. It's not that he's purposefully not taking care of himself. It's just… he only really feels well when at the Archives, at least in a physical sense.

"Well, at least I've got an excuse," Jon crosses his arms over his chest. "So you don't need food or sleep anymore?"

Gerry only deigns to give him a shrug before going to sit on his sofa, leaving Jon standing there like an idiot in front of an open door.

"Do you?" Gerry asks from the sofa as Jon closes the door. "Your sofa smells like an old lady."

Jon shifts a little on his feet. Gerry's sitting on the center of the couch, knees spread wide and arms thrown over the backrest, leaving absolutely no space for Jon to sit. There used to be an armchair, but the landlord took it out before Jon moved in with some commentary about getting it reupholstered -Jon Knows he actually just took it back to his house, because it's very comfortable and he's wanted it for a while- and never brought it back.

After a moment, Jon sits on the coffee table, and when he looks back up he finds Gerry's staring straight at him, unblinking and with a raised eyebrow.

"What?" Jon frowns, flinching back a little as Gerry leans forward, shifting to rest his elbows on his knees.

"What else did it tell you? Gerry asks. "About me?"

"N- nothing!" Jon purses his lips shut and by some miracle manages to not avert his gaze.

"Jon, I admire your dedication to lying badly, but I have a feeling you're literally killing me right now." Gerry leans even further forward, now well and truly into Jon's space. The many metallic bits and pieces in his face catch the light coming from above in a very interesting way, and Jon chooses to focus on that instead of- Gerry's hand wraps around Jon's jaw, tilting his face up. "Focus."

"That's very unnecessary..." Jon pushes out through squished cheeks and lips.

It's... been a while since anyone's touched him. Even more since he's been touched without harmful intent.

He'd almost forgotten it was a possibility.

"I need to know, Jon. Please tell me the truth." Gerry's eyes are very intense this up close, and Jon has a second to think that maybe he finds the eye contact so unnerving because no one looks at him directly anymore, too scared of what he could see if they give him the chance. These eyes don't look scared. They look tired and pained, a perfect middle between green and blue that Jon doesn't think he's seen before. "Why did the Watcher bring me here?"

And he lets go of him slowly, softly. Like Jon is a wild animal he needs to keep from bolting.

He considers lying -badly, it seems- for about a moment. But the man before him has never done him that disservice, not even when Jon held his entire existence in the palm of his hand, and could've denied him his rest.

"It was... the Eye brought you back for me," Jon says after a moment that he wishes could've been longer. He feels disgusted even as the words leave his mouth, another confession to another slight against another person that deserves so much more than the life they're trapped in. "Some sort of- a present. Melanie wasn't too off the mark. It meant to entice me into serving."

Gerry makes a low, contemplative noise, and Jon looks up to find him worrying at the ring that wraps around his bottom lip.

It does not escape his attention, how not surprised he looks.

"You already knew?" Jon asks, frowning. Why isn't he more... upset? Tim would definitely have tried to deck him by now.

Gerry stops biting at his lip and lifts a broad shoulder in a lazy shrug. "I had the suspicion, but I settled on it when I realized your voice gives me strength," he says. "And not in like the nice inspirational way, I think I was about to die again when you started talking to Doris."

Jon blinks.

"My- when I what?"

"It's polite to remember the names of your neighbors, Jon" Gerry rolls his eyes, still much too calm for the kinds of truths he's revealing. "She's got a great cardigan. Would suit you actually, if you wore bright colors. You rock the octogenarian look alread-"

"Gerry that was just now! You should've- that's why you look so bad!" And now that he knows about it, he can see the effect of his words on Gerry. His skin looks less clammy, his eyes brighter, his cheeks less sunken and Jon feels disgusted. The Eye brought back a man who fought for a sliver of freedom his entire life, and it bound him to Jon in the absolute worst way. "Why- how come you're so... So okay with this?"

"How can you not be?" Gerry arches an eyebrow at him. "I literally cannot go away from you for too long, and you get a free sucker you can throw at the monsters."

"That's not what I want at all!" Jon exclaims, almost tripping over his words in his haste to get them out. "I didn't ask for- you can't possibly believe I would want-" Jon's voice grows weaker with every word, until he's left gesturing meekly at the space between the two of them.

Gerry's gaze on him feels almost searing, the weight of his judgement bearing down on Jon as the silence stretches by. Jon thinks of apologizing. This one in particular wasn't his fault, but hadn't Melanie said so? Everything happens because of him, every death and every wound a means to get him where the Beholding wants him.

He's just opened his mouth, when Gerry snorts and lets out a bark of laughter.

"Oh man, you should see your face," he says after the initial burst, and Jon's head whips up mouth agape to find him looking down at him in amusement. "Nah, I know it's not your fault. These things... they work in their own ways. You gotta roll with the punches, then find a way to punch back harder."

"I-" Jon stops talking so abruptly he nearly bites his tongue off, when a heavy hand lands on his head and messes his hair; like it needs any help.

It occurs to him that he never expected Gerry to be this... tactile. Maybe because he never expected to see him in a way that would allow contact, or because of the whole goth, aloof persona.

"Wipe that look off your face, come on," Gerry says once he stops assaulting him, and he drops down on his back, swinging his legs over the sofa's armrest like he owns the damned place. "You're making me feel like I killed your puppy. Do you have a statement lying around? I could still use a pick-me-up."

Jon stays there for a second, watching him in shock. Another thing he didn't expect Gerry to be was optimistic. Kind. It's weird to remember that under the cynicism, the snark and the eyeliner is the man that saw a young woman marked by the Lonely, and put his life on hold to try and give her the tools to survive.

"Uh- Ok. Yes, I have one." He gets up from the coffee table to find his briefcase, wherever he left it. "Are you sure this is alright?"

"It's not. But you've got to know by now it could always be worse." Gerry shifts on the sofa, burrowing more comfortably on the loose stuffing and letting out puffs of lavender.

"That's... not reassuring." Jon comes back with the statement on hand, and hears the click of a tape recorder switching on somewhere in the room. Gerry's now taking the entire sofa for real, so he sits back on the coffee table after a moment's hesitation.

"Didn't think so. Do you do the voices too? Gertrude said it was an Archivist thing, but I always thought she was just dramatic." Gerry crosses his arms under his nape, and Jon is quite lucky his eyes are closed like he's about to hear a bedtime story, because otherwise he'd see his face flushing again. Maybe taking AmDram classes is part of the requirements to be an Archivist. "Give me the spook, Jon."

Jon rolls his eyes, before clearing his throat. Gerry does look a bit healthier, and he knows from experience how replenishing a statement can be. If this can make things a bit better... then it's worth it.

"Statement of Pamela Moreno, regarding a visit to her childhood home...."

Chapter Text

 

II

"I thought you were going to do your own thing," Basira says when Gerry walks into the Institute with Jon next Monday. "Was he hiding with you?" she adds, giving Jon a pointed look.

"He wasn't hiding, just- he's been staying at my flat," Jon mutters. It's interesting to see he doesn't try to meet her eyes when he speaks. Gertrude definitely never had that consideration with anyone, and Gerry doubts Elias does either. Just another little way Jon is different from the Beholders that came before him.

Basira arches a thick eyebrow in suspicion. "Why?"

Gerry's not about to just let it out in the open that he now literally feeds off of Jon's voice, especially to one of the women that was so adamant on killing him on his very first day back here.

"I didn't exactly have a place to live," Gerry says before Jon himself has any chance to respond. Basira's big, deep brown eyes latch on to him with such intensity Gerry doesn't even need to See to know the owner of the mark on her soul. "And I like Jon."

"Do you now?" Basira's gaze turns skeptical, and Gerry gives her a shrug.

"Don't you?" he asks back.

He knows the question was a mistake almost immediately, from the way Basira's expression shuts off.

"We'll just- I have some things to work on," Jon's voice breaks the silent stare-off. His hand is slightly raised towards Gerry, like he was going to reach for his forearm but then thought better of it. "Gerry's going to be assisting me with some research, Basira. We'll be in my office, if... in case anything happens."

Gerry gives Basira one last look before he follows; she's watching Jon go and her expression is stony, but her eyes look troubled. In the end she just turns around and leaves, and Gerry's left thinking he's missing some sort of context.

"In my defense," Gerry starts saying as soon as he closes the door to Jon's office, "she was supposed to say yes."

Jon lets out a weird little noise that could pass for a laugh if it didn't border on hysteric.

"Not your best guess by far, I'm afraid." Jon sits down behind his desk and starts booting up his laptop, apparently unaware of Gerry's eyes on him.

Gerry stays by the door, arms crossed and brow furrowed as he watches Jon. He's... a bit awkward, yes. And a danger magnet, considering he visited America exactly one time and somehow ended up both tagged by the Stranger and trapped by the hunters. And he does look like he's constantly having a nervous breakdown and has forgotten what food and sleep and combs are.

But, see, Gerry has known bad people.

His mother is still a shadow well pushed against the back of his mind so he only ever thinks of her accidentally. He's met avatars that take a perverse delight in feeding their patrons, instead of merely doing it to survive. He's seen humans at their lowest, when they'd gladly throw others into the line of fire to get a few extra seconds to run.

Gerry knows bad people, and Jon isn't one.

Gerry spent enough time with Gertrude to know that getting close to Archivists is a surefire way of getting killed, and he's also painfully aware he barely has any reason to trust Jon.

But he looks... lonely. Not capital 'L' lonely, but still enough so that Gerry can't just let the matter rest.

"You're not unlikable," comes out of his mouth before he can stop it. Jon's hands still over the laptotp keys. "I'm also getting the feeling no one here likes each other, so maybe don't take it personally."

It takes a few more seconds for Jon's fingers to go back to tapping a tuneless melody on the plastic keys, and Gerry guesses that's all there's going to be. Just a little moment of encouragement that didn't quite land as he hoped it would. He still kind of wants to defend Jon for some reason. It's either some sort of Eye thrall, or leftover loyalty for the only person who's ever respected his wishes.

After a while, Gerry moves to pull a chair to sit on, and grabs a statement from a file box next to Jon's desk. Apparently these are the fake ones, because it narrates an encounter with a demon duck that Gerry suspects was only a regular pissed off goose chasing off a group of very intoxicated young adults.

"We used to- we liked each other, before," comes Jon's voice by the time he reaches the statement' thrilling conclusion. Gerry's still getting used to this, and he still can't tell how much of the soothing warmth comes from Jon's words feeding him some kind of monster energy, and how much is just the fact that Jon has a very nice voice. "Or they did, at least."

"You didn't like them?" Gerry asks without looking up from the paper. Jon keeps tapping away, the sound lulling in its repetitiveness.

"I never tried to- they liked each other." Jon's voice tastes like a confession. Gerry wonders how much of it is true, and how much is only Jon's perception. "My assistants at least, Basira and Melanie never quite- they're different."

"I would have never guessed," Gerry says, because he can't think of anything else.

The silence broken by the tapping on the keys stretches for another long pause.

"But- but thank you, I guess." Jon pauses in his typing. "It was... a nice try."

He looks up at Gerry with gratitude in his dark eyes and the smallest, saddest hint of a smile in his cracked lips, and a single thought flares up in Gerry's mind so suddenly it surprises even himself.

Fuck.


"Hey," Melanie drops a paper Krispy Kreme bag on top of whatever bullshit it is Basira's reading right now. If she's lucky, the grease will stain it so bad Basira won't be able to read it anymore.

A much better alternative than ripping it out of her hands and tearing it into a million pieces. Every time she sees Basira do anything but hate this place Melanie feels her blood boil and her hands itch to hurt.

Basira frowns at the bag, before looking up at Melanie. "How did you get this?"

"Helen dropped me at the loos," Melanie shrugs. Basira goes to open the bag, and Melanie feels her near-constant irritation soften when she sees her lips twitch as she pulls out a chocolate frosted doughnut from the bag. "I was craving something sweet. Had to guess at what you'd like."

"Hm. It's been a while since I've had one, thanks." Basira toasts her with the pastry, and Melanie smiles. That's right. Basira is... not her friend, but not her enemy either. They're both trapped here. Melanie doesn't have to protect herself against her. "Helen's still in the tunnels?"

Melanie takes a seat across her and reaches for a doughnut as well. She hates red velvet with a passion, but she got one because she's been thinking of Georgie lately, and those are her favorite.

"She says she likes them." she bites into the doughnut. She still hates it. "Any news about our other resident abomination?" Melanie still refuses to believe the thing that woke up at the hospital is Jon, but it's getting harder to keep up with every day that passes because he's just.... Jon.

If anything he's become more quiet, trying to blend into the background or hiding behind a statement, like keeping up the appearance of productivity will somehow make him seem more human.

"He's fine. I guess." Basira frowns at her half eaten doughnut like it's personally offended her. "I've been thinking."

"Mm?" Melanie chews the red velvet viciously. If she has to suffer it, then it has to suffer her too. Basira's eyes are heavy on her, and she looks up from her phone when she can't stand the staring any longer. "What?"

"You're going to get mad ," Basira says carefully. "Not that you aren't all the time, but-"

"Just say it," Melanie rolls her eyes, already feeling the rising irritation prickling at her mood. "I'll keep it in."

They both know what it is, the memory of the Flesh's creatures squirming and crying out at her hands still fresh in both their minds.

Basira waits another moment, until Melanie rolls her eyes and pulls out her knife from her jacket and hands it over to her.

"I'm- I think we're going about Jon all wrong," Basira says finally. Melanie arches an eyebrow. "I think... maybe that's why the Eye brought Keay back."

"Basira, either you're not making any sense or you think you've given me much more context than you have."

The other woman huffs angrily, before pinching the bridge of her nose.

"We- Is there anyone Jon is close to anymore?" Basira asks. "Martin is up with Lukas, Tim is dead, you said your friend isn't talking to him... you make it no secret that you'd turn on him at the first wrong move, and I'm- I used to like him."

"Oh fuck, did you really?" Melanie frowns. Logically, she knows Jon is not- she knows people can like Jon. Georgie certainly did once. Tim too, if he was actually saying the truth when they got drunk in the freak's office while the doll had him kidnapped. Martin does, or did as well.

She expected Basira to have a bit more sense though.

"Not at first. I was- it was a trap. I gave him Getrude's tapes because I wanted him to trust me, we thought he'd killed her and we wanted him to slip."

"We?"

Basira seems to deflate at the question.

"Daisy and I. She... she was very interested in him from the start. I guess now we know why." Her lips curve into a dry, humorless smile. "But he was actually nice. Weird, awkward. Bit paranoid. But nice enough. He made jokes sometimes."

"I'm sure they were hilarious," Melanie mutters through gritted teeth. The conversation is setting her on edge, her hands white knuckled around the edge of the desk.

"Oh they were terrible. But seeing him try was funny." Basira's lips curve into another soft smile, but this one makes Melanie want to scratch at her face because she's smiling at the fucking monster that dragged them all into this. "Mel. The desk. You said you'd keep it in."

She hates that nickname so much. The boys at her high school used it to mock her, and it always makes her feel small and soft, like she's not being taken seriously.

Basira takes her seriously. Melanie knows this. Basira doesn't mean it in the way they did. She doesn't know, because Melanie won't tell her, because a nickname is just that and it doesn't affect her at all. It's just a name. Just-

"Okay. So he made jokes that were bad. What's your point?" Melanie only looks back up once she's got her breathing under control. It was only a slip.

"The point is it doesn't matter if we like him or not," Basira marks her emphasis on the last part, but Melanie's not too convinced anyways. "What matters is we don't want him to turn full monster. I've read about other avatars, Melanie. You saw Hopworth, you know how they can be, when they're truly gone."

"So what? The power of friendship is going to turn him human again?" Melanie snarls. "We have a sleepover and do each other's hair and that will fix-"

"Well I don't know, Melanie!" Basira snaps back, and Melanie actually stops at that. It's so rare to see her lose her cool. "All I'm saying is that it's very suspicious that the Eye decided to give him a new best friend right now. We don't even know what Keay is."

And they really don't. Melanie's been watching Gerard Keay ever since he came back to the Institute last week. He walks Jon in every morning, then goes away for the rest of the day and comes back just as Jon is leaving in the evening.

She followed him once, and saw him hurry up after a man dressed in construction gear and grab him by the shoulder to lean in and tell him something, before going to beat the snot out of the avatar of the Buried that had been following the poor sucker for three blocks.

Whenever they meet, he keeps his eyes on her and his back to the wall. He somehow always seems to know where she's carrying the blades that day, but it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that he knows Melanie's dangerous, and treats her as such despite towering over her and probably doubling her in weight, despite all his experience in fighting beings made out of fear.

Melanie likes Gerard Keay precisely because he does not trust her.

"Does it matter?" Melanie asks. "If he becomes a problem, I-"

"I think it does matter, because right now he and the statements are all the influence Jon has," Basira points at the closed door of Jon's office across the room. "For all we know he's encouraging Jon to be- well, worse."

Melanie arches an eyebrow at her words. She'll rip Jon's heart out before pretending to be his friend. Maybe it'll be enough to kill him for good and they won't have to worry about this anymore.

"And what do you want to do about it?"

Basira sighs.

"Nevermind. I don't know what I expected," she says, defeated.

"A sounding board?" Melanie's irritation evaporates as quickly as it boiled, now that Basira has stepped back. "Good luck with that!"

"You could at least try you know?"

"I really couldn't," Melanie gestures with a smile at the crescent moons her nails dug into the wood of the desk. "Think of me as a backup plan. When you fail, I'll deal with him."

Basira groans, and digs into the bag for another doughnut.


It's raining heavily by the time he leaves the Institute.

Jon huffs a little as he walks towards the front door, wondering if Gerry had the good sense to buy an umbrella while he was out there doing whatever it is he does, because Jon certainly didn't think to grab one this morning when they left.

It definitely still feels a little unnatural to think of Gerry living with him. Of course it's not like Gerry wants to be there, but Jon is very aware that he's the reason Gerry's alive and therefore homeless, and he's not about to kick him out when he does need a place to stay the night.

It's also very comfortable to not be alone, he thin-

That's when Jon bumps against something soft and warm and firm, and promptly bounces back and trips over his own feet. His reflexes are lackluster even at the best of times.

A large hand clamps down on his forearm before he actually goes down, and Jon uses the support to right himself.

"Jon?" says a soft, open voice, and Jon freezes.

"M- Martin!" This is great, this is amazing. He hasn't seen Martin in two weeks and he had to literally run into him now that he looks a right mess and... and of course Martin doesn't care how he looks, that's- why is he even thinking about that? "I'm- How are you?" he asks, and the unnerving, heavy pressure on his stomach intensifies.

"Oh? Ah, I'm just-" Martin averts his eyes from him, and Jon feels himself deflate a little. Sure, no one really looks at him in the eye anymore, but the fact that it's Martin makes it a different kind of painful. "I'm...fine?"

"You look fine." Too fine almost, for someone who's been hanging around Peter Lukas for months. Jon takes in the soft curve of his face, his full cheeks, and his strong brows. His sad green eyes behind his glasses. Jon's stomach tightens even more. He really has been blind.

"I... I have to go now Jon," says Martin, and only then does Jon notice how long he's been standing there in silence just staring at Martin like a creep.

"Would you- I mean we could-" Jon stumbles to get his words out because Martin is here and they're technically outside the Institute, and he can't just let him go. "Uh- a coffee? Just-"

"I can't- Jon I've really got to go," Martin sighs. "Here, take my umbrella, I'll grab a taxi."

"I'm- it's ok. Gerry has one, he's just around the corner." He Knows this suddenly, only really hears the static after the words come out of his mouth. "Uh- you've heard about Gerry?" It occurs to him that not everyone has supernatural means of knowing things, and it's been a while since Martin last went down to the Archives. "Gerard-"

"Peter told me, yes." Martin opens his umbrella with a single, practiced push to the runner. "Get home safe Jon," he says, giving him a last over the shoulder look before walking out into the rain.

His eyes are grey.


Jon is suspiciously quiet as they walk to the bus stop on the way to the flat that evening.

Gerry's spent the last two nights out looking for people to help, and he's starting to run low on juice, so he'll have to sit this one out. The rain hopefully means there'll be less people out on the streets, and while he knows the entities can reach people at home just as easily, he also doesn't really want to be out there getting soaked.

"Who was the marked guy?" Gerry asks as he tries to keep the umbrella over the two of them while accounting for the fact that Jon is trying very hard to not step into Gerry's space. "The big one with the glasses."

That makes Jon stop walking, and Gerry has to hop aside to not bump into him.

"Watch it, I'm going to run you over next-"

"Is it the Lonely?" Jon looks up at him with tired eyes, like he already knows the answer. "I... guess I should've seen it coming," Jon says after Gerry's silence extends a minute too long. "That's- he's Martin."

The name in Jon's voice tastes like devotion when it slips into Gerry. Ah shit...

"I'm going to guess Martin is not an easy subject." Gerry watches Jon's face for a reaction. "Do you want to like... talk about it? I know a good Chinese place nearby."

Jon's lips curl into a humourless smile. "You don't eat."

"I do. Just not Chinese." Gerry guesses it'll make a good side dish at least. "You don't have to tell me. But maybe I can help."

"I don't think Martin wants anyone to help," Jon says instead of answering.

The rain's starting to come down harder. Gerry looks down, and the boots keep him pretty much dry, but Jon's trousers are already starting to soak up water from the splashing sidewalk.

"C'mere," he grabs Jon by the shoulder and starts moving again.

If anything, Jon looks a little less miserable holding a hot cup of jasmine tea, even when he's telling a very sad story about a man who took a new job without knowing what he's really agreeing to.

"-and I- of course I don't like it. But Gerry, I have to trust him. He's- it's the least I can do. The least he deserves." Jon's expression is almost desperate, like he expects Gerry to disagree with him. "He's doing this for a reason, and I already- look where not trusting people has brought me. I made a choice and... and I have to stand by it."

After all this, Gerry thinks he's formed a pretty solid idea of this Martin, and his conclusions are not too favorable. Gerry's spent his entire life pulling people out from this world, and this man is arrogant enough to think he can waltz in and come out unscathed.

Still, he doesn't mention it. Gerry's not unobservant by any means. The whole marked by the Eye thing helps, he guesses, but even a blind man could probably see how bad Jon's got it for his former assistant, and bringing a less than stellar opinion to the table is definitely not going to do any good.

"Lukas is dangerous," Gerry offers. Nothing Jon doesn't know already, and probably nothing that will help soothe his worries, but it's the truth. Jon deserves that. "But at least your Martin doesn't seem too far gone yet."

"I- he's not my Martin," Jon stammers out, his flushed face noticeable even under the harsh yellow lights of the restaurant.

Gerry chuckles. Jon's not a bad looking man, under the unkempt exterior, and he's definitely much gentler than he shows at first. He can see why Martin liked him. He can also see how Jon didn't notice.

"Of course he's not." Gerry makes his eyeroll as exaggerated as he can, and it has the desired effect of making Jon go even redder. The tea's gone cold long ago, and the server already brought back Gerry's untouched food in a take-out bag.

Jon is avoiding his gaze by studiously looking at Gerry's fingers where he's taping restlessly at the table. The tattoos, probably. They've always been -excuse the joke- eye-catching.

"Let's go to your place," Gerry days after a moment, and Jon's face whips up as if startled. "You okay?"

"I- yes. You're staying tonight?" Jon asks, lifting an eyebrow. "It's raining."

Gerry guesses he technically doesn't have to, Jon's recounting of his transformation into the Archivist was enough to top him off.

But Jon looks... oddly hopeful under the questioning look. And it would be a pretty bastard move to have him lay out such a personal story and then just leave him alone.

Gerry looks out the window at the distorted reflections of the streetlights. "Yeah, I think I could stay," he says, and pretends not to see how Jon's entire stance relaxes on his seat, the little satisfied curl to his lips.

He can definitely see why Martin liked him.


There's really no reason why Martin should keep coming down here to brew his tea.

Elias', now Peter's, office has an en suite kitchenette, and it's just inefficient for Martin to make the trip down to the Archives' break room every time he wants a drink.

But -and he guesses this is the main reason he'll have to stop coming down here- this place feels like home in ways that hurt, but also remind him just what he's doing this for.

This is where he and Sasha and Tim sat down and planned Jon's birthday party, because Jon never really came in so the place was basically theirs. They had a whiteboard with ideas and lists littered here and there with Sasha's little doodles.

"Oh no, trust me. He's a cake guy," Tim had said with one of his trademark mischievous smiles. "He can pretend he isn't, but you'll see."

Martin had been so jealous back then, because he often forgot Tim and Jon were close and Tim actually knew things about Jon and hung out with him and- it all feels very silly now. Like something that happened to someone else while Martin watched. He wonders if it's the Lonely's effect or just the PTSD from the past four years.

He sighs when he comes back to the present and looks down to find he's preparing two cups instead of one, before he goes to return the extra one to the cupboard. Those days are over.

It's probably for the best.

That evening a few days ago, Martin was far too close to saying yes. A coffee date on a rainy day with the man he loves is everything Martin would've wanted some years ago, but he made a deal with Peter, and it's the only way to keep Jon-

"So you're Martin?" someone asks behind him, and Martin just about flings the cup into the sink out of surprise.

He turns around to find a man looking him up and down with a raised eyebrow, like he's evaluating him and Martin isn't scoring too well. The man is nearly as tall as Martin is, with broad shoulders and tattoos and a bunch of facial piercings, and Martin is pretty sure he knows who he is even before he gets to the truly awful dyejob.

"And you're Gerard Keay, aren't you?" Martin asks as he gets his pulse back under control. "I didn't know you were here."

"I'm not usually, I have better things to do," Gerard says none too gently. Martin is... very surprised to find he doesn't care too much that this man finds him lacking. He just wants to be left alone. "But I'm checking on you. For Jon."

It would be so much easier to save the world if Jon hadn't chosen this moment to care about him, Martin thinks. "Did he-"

"He doesn't know I stayed. I usually just drop him off." There's something casual about the way Gerard says this, and Martin's stomach prickles with irritation. He should be glad Jon's got someone keeping an eye on him, especially since he apparently hasn't moved into the Institute like Basira and Melanie. If two archival assistants -however reluctant- can't go out without half the Entities trying to get a piece of them, the Archivist probably shouldn't either.

He's not too glad.

"So what do you want?" Martin crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against the kitchenette counter.

Gerard takes a step towards him. Martin tilts his chin up, the way Tim used to do when he got into fights with Jon in those last days. He probably doesn't look nearly as intimidating, but he hopes it'll come across as a warning.

"I don't know what you're playing at," Gerard takes yet another step into his space, his eyes hard and narrowed. "But you better have one hell of an anchor, Blackwood, or you're not going to like what happens."

Martin feels something hot and ugly climb up into his chest from the pit of his stomach. Who does this guy think he is? He doesn't know the least of it, he has no idea the sheer amount Martin is sacrificing for-

"That's very nice. Thank you for the advice," he says through gritted teeth. "I don't think I owe anyone an explanation though, least of all you, Mr. Keay."

Gerard lifts a pierced eyebrow, unimpressed. "What about Jon?"

"That's what you're here for, isn't it?" That's what Peter had said. Well not exactly, Peter had taken it as some kind of blessing from the Watcher, a new way to convince Martin to isolate himself.

"See?" Peter had said, "the Eye knows how important our mission is. He doesn't need you to keep worrying about him," like it hadn't become as natural to Martin as breathing by this point. But if it keeps Peter away from Jon, so be it.

"Ugh. Listen, I don't care for your little soap opera, Jon is worried about you and-"

"I don't care," Martin cuts into whatever Gerard was about to say. Of course Jon is worried, of course Jon cares. If anything, that's Jon's biggest problem. "And if you ask me, not minding your own business has historically ended very poorly for you, so I'd advise against it. Excuse me," he says before walking past the other man. He thinks about shoulder checking him just to be petty, but the thought of touching another person triggers a deep feeling of revulsion.

Peter would be proud, he thinks as he makes his way to his office, tea-less and bristling.

"That was a splendid display." Sure enough, Peter's voice comes from behind him right as he reaches the office. Martin looks right in time to see him slipping out of the fog. "I must admit, I've been worried you keep going to that break room out of some sense of nostalgia, but it seems to be making you more lonely, so by all means keep doing it."

Martin hates that he's right.

"Mhm. I'm going to need you to sign some papers today," Martin knows better than to engage with Peter unless it's absolutely necessary.

Peter chuckles, and Martin knows every move he makes is playing right into his hands. It's what he wants, but it doesn't mean he likes it.

He thinks of Jon, to try and remind himself of why he's doing this, but the thought brings less and less comfort every day.

Chapter Text

III

Jon Knows the door to his office will open about a second before it does, but he still flinches a little when Gerry barges in and slams it closed behind him.

"I thought you'd left for the day," Jon smiles a little as Gerry drops heavily on one of the chairs before his desk. "You're in a mood huh?"

"I don't like your Martin," Gerry says, crossing his arms over his chest. The eyes on his elbows look at Jon as his face grows hot.

"Please don't call him that," Jon mumbles. Gerry's real eyes are also fixed to his face, and Jon only grows more flustered at that.

"Met him just now at the break room. He's got a good bite- are you sure this is the guy that spent two weeks hiding from Prentiss?"

"Very," Jon says dryly. It's still a sore spot for him; he should have known that wasn't Martin, he should have-

"You could do better." Gerry's still frowning something awful, and Jon can't help the tired chuckle that escapes his lips. "What?"

"I really couldn't."

"Oh come on!" Gerry shakes his head. "Of course you'd think that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jon frowns, but Gerry only rolls his eyes and looks to the side, the chair's front legs lifting off the floor as he leans back on it. After a few more minutes of silence, Jon resigns himself to spending an undetermined amount of time with a grown man sulking, and goes back to finishing his emails.

Jon's not too used to being quiet around Gerry, probably because when Gerry seeks him up it's because he needs Jon to feed. The silence feels odd, and Jon finds himself stealing glances across the desk from time to time.

Gerry looks like a statue, completely still except for the ring around his lower lip that periodically shifts against the flesh, glinting almost hypnotically under the cold lights of the office.

"He used to- he was always looking after me, you know?" Jon doesn't really know why he's telling Gerry this, other than he needs him to understand that Martin is so much more than what the Lonely is making of him. Gerry's teeth flash into view as they bite and pull the silver ring. "He went through the trouble of getting some of Prentiss' ashes, so I'd feel... safe."

"Hm." The ring flips a little more aggressively, Gerry's lip pushed pursed and pressed under a slightly chipped -from a mosh pit when Gerry was sixteen, the Eye informs helpfully- front tooth.

"And he was always making sure I had something to eat and that I took breaks even when-" his voice falters a little, and licks his bottom lip in a thoughtless mimicking of Gerry's movements, "-even when I was acting like a tool and stalking them all because I was sure they were trying to kill- Gerry!" Jon stops abruptly, when an index and middle finger each lay on the sides of Gerry's bottom lip and his tongue flicks between them in a very suggestive way.

Gerry's only response is a loud bark of laughter, and if Jon's face was warm before when talking about Martin, now it's positively boiling.

"W- are you twelve years old?" Jon stutters out, feeling the keen burn of embarrassment in his stomach. Gerry, mouth is curled in a devilish smirk he remembers from when Tim used to joke around and tease him, and the corners of his eyes are crinkled in amusement. "You're ridiculous."

"You were just so focused on it," Gerry cackles, and the chair's front legs land again with a heavy thud. "It's ok. I still don't like him, but I'm not going to try to convince you. I'll just keep an eye on him."

"...I've come to learn stalking people doesn't bring great results, but suit yourself," Jon grunts, focusing on his computer screen again with a dark frown.

The chair creaks, and Gerry's eyes peek over the edge of the laptop's screen. Jon scowls, and Gerry pushes the laptop closed with a hand, his chin resting comfortably on the other.

"It's rude to ignore your presents, Jon. The Eye might start to think you didn't even want me back." Gerry's still sporting that infuriating smirk, and Jon narrows his eyes.

"Personally, I'm starting to think you're more of a punishment, Gerard." It's too hot in the office; it wasn't so hot before. Jon stands up to make sure the radiator is turned on, and grabs the box of real statements from the shelf on his way back. "Now, I have work to do, unless you want to keep distracting me."

Gerry lifts his hands in surrender, and Jon rolls his eyes. It's still too hot in the office, but a statement should make him feel better. A tape recorder clicks on in one of his desk drawers.

"Alright then. Statement of Sergeant Terrence Simpson, regarding an outbreak of violence in the crofting community of Lancraig, Ross-shire..."

He does in fact feel better after reading it, at least in a physical sense. In all others thought, it's… an absolute downer.

"Slaughter is nasty," Gerry offers, and Jon almost jumps on his seat. He was so focused on the statement he completely forgot Gerry was there. He's made himself at home with his legs on the second chair and his arms behind his head. "Normally the Fears go one on one, but you get a single wielder into the mix and suddenly you have dozens of dead or injured."

"Yes... honestly I'm very surprised Melanie has kept it under control all this time," Jon nods. Gerry's head whips towards him, and he gets his feet off the chair. Jon pays him no mind, following his train of thought instead, "with that bullet still in her leg, pumping her up with violence and- w- did I read that somewhere?"

Gerry leans across the desk. Jon can hear the static now, but he keeps his eyes fixed on Gerry's as the man gives him an encouraging nod.

"Ride it," Gerry whispers, "let me hear it."

"W- well yes. The- the bullet. From her trip to India." It's much easier to let the Knowledge out when he's telling it to someone else. "It didn't show in the scans, in any of them, but it's still there. Just above the tibia and getting infected-"

Gerry nods. His entire demeanor has changed, Jon notices. His brow is furrowed, his shoulders tense. This is most definitely not the man that teased Jon into a flustering mess just an hour ago.

"We'll get it out," he says. Jon doesn't doubt him, but he also doesn't know exactly what to expect, and he definitely doesn't want Melanie dead or- or worse.

"I need to get Basira," is all Jon says before climbing to his feet and hurrying out the door.


Melanie's sleeping.

Basira knows the cocktail she has every night is enough that she won't hear them unless they're deliberately loud, but she still worries. Melanie's dangerous under the best circumstances, and Basira can't tell she's too keen on her waking up and finding Basira looming over her with Jon and Gerard Keay of all people.

"The guy said you'd need to hit the right nerve or it won't work," Basira hands over the syringe and takes a step back. "You know much about-"

"Here," and he points to a spot on her leg that looks perfectly unremarkable to Basira.

She arches an eyebrow. "You sure?" she asks, then when he nods, "ok, go for it then."

"Right," Jon takes a deep breath, and leans over Melanie's limp form. Basira cringes a little; Melanie's her friend, but-

"Pray the injection doesn't wake her-"

"Yes thank you, Basira-" Jon's increasingly annoyed voice is cut off when Keay slaps a hand down over his mouth.

"If the injection doesn't wake her up, you will. Just poke her," the man says in a hoarse, tense whisper. Basira blinks in surprise when Jon lifts a hand to pull Keay's hand from his mouth but doesn't actually push it away.

"... Okay," is all Jon says before he pushes the needle into Melanie's leg in a single move that seems almost practiced in its certainty. Keay waits only as long as it takes for him to slip the needle out again to pull Jon back. "Now... now we wait."

"You better be right about this," Basira says as she sits down with her back against the wall.

Jon looks at her with a pained grimace, like he wants to smile but knows she doesn't want to see it. "I am."

He and his shadow sit against the wall across Basira, and she takes the opportunity to watch them. Jon's sitting partly turned towards Melanie, which leaves his back half exposed to Gerard Keay, and he doesn't seem too worried about that.

Basira somehow doubts Jon had an easy time being touched even before the multiple kidnappings and attempted murder, so this has probably got something to do with the Eye, making him feel like he's safe in Keay's presence so he grows even more distant from other humans.

She's been... trying. She greets him back when he comes into the Archives, waves goodbye while trying to ignore the boiling jealousy that he gets to go home still. She wasn't lying to Melanie; once upon a time, she liked Jon.

But Basira still can't forgive him for surviving when Daisy didn't.

Every time she sees him it feels like he's stealing a breath Daisy should've had. Like some cosmic power placed them both on a scale and decided Jon was more important before it took Daisy away without leaving even a body for Basira to mourn over.

She knows she's being unfair, and she doesn't like it. She's better than this, more objective. So she tries harder.

"I should've noticed before," Basira offers tentatively, an olive branch that Jon jumps on much too quickly. Once upon a time it would have been endearing.

"No, of course not. You didn't know Melanie before..." he makes a vague gesture pointing at his leg, "a- and she's very uh- assertive. Even without the Slaughter, I think it would've translated into violence once you all started being in danger and there was no one else to... protect you." He seems to catch on to what he's saying, because he looks away almost immediately.

"Hm," is all Basira says. She should've known this would bring her back to Daisy. Everything does. She can feel Keay's eyes on her, and she focuses on not fidgeting. He doesn't scare her.

"You... you're living here too?" Jon asks after a moment, his voice dubious like he doesn't know if he's allowed to continue the conversation after he ruined it once.

"It's not safe out there. I got a camp bed by the tunnels," Basira shrugs. "I like to keep an eye on them."

"I... see. And- and Martin?" Jon asks. Keay makes a sound like a groan behind him, and Basira arches an eyebrow. Jon however, seems much more interested in a loose thread in his sock.

"I think he's still got his own place. Whatever he's doing for Lukas seems to be enough to keep him safe."

"That's... not ideal," Jon tells the floor in a voice so low Basira can barely register it.

"No. I guess it isn't."

Neither one of them is too interested in conversation after that, and when Jon finally looks up and says it's time Basira hops up to her feet immediately. It's been a long thirty minutes.

"The scissors, please," Jon extends a hand to her.

"I thought you had the scalpel?" Basira scowls. Surely he's not planning on cutting her leg open with sci-

"For the trouser leg!" Jon snaps in an exasperated whisper.

"Oh- right," she hands them over.

Jon snips at the fabric until the trouser leg falls away, and he takes a deep breath.

"God... look at that," he mutters. Basira feels every hair on her body stand on end, as a familiar static begins crackling around them. Jon's eyes are giving off a faint green glow as he looks down at Melanie, before he turns to face Keay. "Can- do you see it?"

"I see the mark," Keay shrugs. He looks normal enough, no eerie glow or sharp teeth or anything, but by now Basira knows not all the monsters are that obvious.

"It's a leg," she says dryly.

Jon shakes his head. "It's all rotten inside."

"See the bullet?" she asks. Jon nods, and she tilts her chin towards Mel. "Get it out then."

"Easy for you to say... she's probably not going to swing at you," Jon tightens his grip on the scalpel.

Basira doesn't try to contradict him because while she's sure none of them will be safe if Melanie wakes up, she's even more certain Jon is going to be the first target.

"Here we go..."

And then Jon is sinking the knife into Melanie's leg, and then his fingers, and Basira heaves a little when he pulls out a bright gold bullet dripping something black and slimy.

That's when Melanie wakes up.

"GET OFF ME!" Melanie's first lunge sends their makeshift operation tray crashing to the ground.

"Oh Jes- get her, she's- she's not supposed to be-!" Jon yells out, taking a hurried step back and crashing into Keay.

"Melanie, it's alright!" Basira tries to reach her from the back- a chokehold won't calm her down, but it'll keep her still.

"Jon, get back-"

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" It must be the Slaughter's residual effects, because there is no way Melanie's slight frame has enough strength to shake Basira off this easily- "I'LL KILL YOU!"

Basira sees something silver glint in her hand as she lunges at Jon, and she screams. "She's got the scalpel!"

Jon screams when Melanie stabs the knife into his shoulder. Then she's pulling back, and Basira knows she'll go for the throat this tim-

The dry smack of a punch against flesh cracks over them and Melanie backs down, dizzy enough that Basira can wrap her arms tightly around her torso and arms.

"Run!" Basira yells, but Keay's already half carrying, half dragging Jon away towards the exit.

The bullet sizzles as it burns a hole straight into the floor of the Institute.


If whatever Jon and his friends did at the Unknowing didn't destroy it outright, the Anglerfish could take some notes from the Archivists, Gerry thinks. For a couple of avatars that gain absolutely nothing from having people devoted to them, they're both especially adept at luring them in.

Gertrude knew perfectly well what to give people in order to ensnare them. Gerry never did fall for the dainty old lady image that she so carefully cultivated to make both avatars and assistants drop their guard, so she never tried it with him.

It kept him from ending up like Michael Shelley, but of course that only made her come at him from another angle.

He knows now she never cared for him. Not as a person; not enough to not mutilate his body and tie his soul to the book and then not even take it back with her. But at the time it was easy to let himself believe this woman could give him at least some of the things his mother refused.

Sometimes during their trips, when they were just having supper at a small roadside restaurant or another, Gerry found himself stopping and marvelling at how normal it felt.

"Decaf for my mom please, she's very delicate," he'd tell the server of the day and smirk at the way Gertrude's eyes gleamed dangerously from the other side of the table.

"My son's paying," she'd say at the end of the meal when the bill landed on the table, giving the server a sweet little smile like she hadn't just poured a couple hundred pounds of concrete onto a woman with as many arms as she had fingers. "He's always treating me, a real sweetheart," and Gerry would have to burn some more of his emergency cash on a meal.

At some point he started believing 'normal' was 'real', and when Gerry tasted acid on his tongue and smelt burnt hair before his body started seizing, the most reassuring thought in his mind was that Gertrude was there with him as he reached a hand to her.

He doesn't know if she took it.

Jon is a different story. It's difficult not to notice when one spends every other night at his flat, but Jon is so alone that Gerry's a little surprised to find none of the ten marks he bears belong to the Forsaken.

Jon flinches when Gerry touches him, and Gerry knows he should stop, that not everyone is ok with it, but Jon never really seems uncomfortable, just... surprised.

Jon smiles very rarely, but when he does he almost always looks down, like he doesn't want you to see it. His smile is a bit lopsided, his teeth a little crooked and there's a worm scar right at the edge of his lip. It's a good smile, in Gerry's opinion.

Jon takes up an eternity to dress up every morning because his right hand only barely works, and Gerry can't bring himself to offer to help because Jon always mutters little apologies for the delay and he thinks it would only make him feel worse.

Jon greets Melanie and Basira every morning and says goodbye every evening, even when Basira's the only one that responds and even then only sometimes. Gerry can pinpoint the days she doesn't because he comes out looking a little more deflated.

Getrude had her assistants, Decker, Leitner, Gerry himself and half of the avatars moving across a chess board only she could see. Jon has a man willingly feeding himself to the Lonely -allegedly- out of love, and a poor imbecile who apparently can't resist people who are as broken as him.

"How's your shoulder?" Gerry asks as though he can't see the bright pink new skin through the loose neckhole of one of the oversized shirts Jon wears to 'sleep'. "Wounds from the Slaughter take a while to heal."

"I'm- I think it's doing fine," Jon fidgets with his sleeve a little, before going to sit at the opposite end of the sofa. "Martin's still avoiding me."

Jon's voice is perfectly calm and unaffected, and Gerry knows it's full of bullshit. He reaches to lay a hand atop Jon's head consolingly.

"Still not your Martin?" he asks, only the slightest bit teasing. It still manages to bring a pained little smile out of Jon.

"Not anymore, in any case." Jon sinks back against the sofa's plush backrest, his head heavy against Gerry's hand. "Basira told me his mother died while I was in the hospital. I didn't even know."

"If Lukas is keeping him isolated for some reason," Gerry doesn't say 'asides from sacrificing him to his patron' because he's not insensitive, thank you very much, "it makes sense he can't just come into your office to talk feelings over a cup of tea."

Jon sighs. "It's not his fault. I- it's selfish."

"How is caring for him selfish?" Gerry arches an eyebrow. His hand in Jon's hair moves the slightest bit, only enough to ruffle through it softly.

"Because I'm not caring for him. I'm caring about what he thinks of me. If I- I should respect his decision," Jon finishes lamely, pulling his feet up onto the sofa to circle his knees with his arms.

"You are. It's not a crime to miss someone you like." Gerry never had a cat, but he imagines this is how it feels to pet one. Careful not to move too much or too abruptly lest he shatters the fragile trust he's managed to build. "They- if they don't want to save themselves, you can't do it for them, Jon."

Jon's head tilts sideways so that he can aim his big dark eyes at Gerry. "We saved Melanie."

"And look what it got you."

"It doesn't matter what happened to me. Melanie is... recovering. That's all there is to it," he says, and Gerry has no doubt Jon actually believes it. "Are you going out tonight?"

Gerry's not stupid by any means, and he knows a diversion tactic -and a request for space- when he hears one.

"I'll see you in the morning," Gerry says before climbing to his feet. Jon's muttered 'be careful' follows him through the door and prompts a small smile out of him.

Jon is easy to grow fond of, or maybe Gerry just doesn't learn from his mistakes.


It's almost midnight when Melanie wakes up from a fitful sleep. It was probably the nagging hunger, so she sets to digging around the fridge for something she can put together with minimal effort.

"That's a good bruise right there," says a familiar, amused voice. Melanie smiles. Helen doesn't usually manifest her door outside the lower levels of the institute, but Melanie hasn't gone back down yet, choosing instead to sleep on a sofa at the makeshift infirmary Basira set up for her in the break room. She must be worried.

"Jon's new boyfriend has a good hook," she says as she turns on the sofa to face Helen's distorted, ever-changing form. "I think he almost dislocated my jaw."

"In my defense, I was only trying to knock you out. Is that the Distortion?"

Both of them turn at that, and Helen's long fingered hand wraps itself protectively around Melanie's shoulder. Melanie's pleasantly surprised to notice the touch doesn't trigger the mix of irritation and rage it did just a few days before. Now she's only grateful to have Helen by her side as she looks up at Gerard Keay.

"Michael knew you," says Helen, tilting her head to the side a few degrees further than a human could reasonably go.

"I saw him a couple times," Gerard shrugs. "Who are you now?"

"I am me. But Helen is also me."

Gerard nods. "Sans Getrude in the mix, I'm guessing a sacrifice that outsmarted you somehow?"

Helen's smile curls at the corners, her eyes swirling with delight when Melanie looks up to check on her.

"Michael was getting distracted. Archivists have that effect, I've found."

"And Helen doesn't get distracted?" Gerard asks.

Helen's smile keeps growing and curling into itself, but she doesn't respond. Her hand tightens around Melanie's shoulder.

"What do you want?" Melanie knows there's a knife behind her. A blunt one, only good for spreading mayonnaise or butter, but it's still a knife and she's still aware of it. Her feeling for these things has diminished over the past two days, but she figures it'll be a long time before it's gone. If it ever is.

"To check on you, mostly. You didn't go full avatar, but that bullet still did a number on you."

Melanie's fist clenches by her side. "Well, no need to worry now. I'm back to being inoffensive little old me." The truth of it aches at her like a bad tooth. Logically, Melanie knows the bullet was bad, and that it made her terrible and feral. But she'd been... powerful. She'd driven out the Flesh's creatures by herself, she'd saved everyone. And now the power is gone, and she can lie to Basira, but not herself.

She misses it.

"I somehow doubt that." Gerard gives her a wary smile. "The Slaughter goes for tigers, not kittens. But without that thing inside you you should at least be thinking more clearly."

"...I am," Melanie responds after a moment's hesitation. She's not quite sure she buys that the Slaughter only powered up what was already inside her, but... this guy would know, wouldn't he? "How- how is he?"

"Healing. A statement or two and he should be right as rain," Gerard frowns a little when Helen chuckles behind Melanie. "Do you know something we don't, Helen?"

"You know the answer to that question." Helen's smile looks angular now, like they're looking at it in a fractured mirror.

Gerard rolls his eyes and shakes his head, before turning to Melanie again.

"He'll be happy to know you're feeling more like yourself."

"I still don't like him," Melanie crosses her arms over her chest, "don't give him any ideas."

"As if Jon would ever willingly believe anyone likes him," he smirks, but it's a soft, amused smirk Melanie's seen before on people talking about Jon- seriously, what do people see in him?!

Do Georgie and Martin and this guy just have some sort of... disaster human fetish? And that's another problem because if Georgie does have it, that doesn't say anything good about Melanie herself, one way or the other.

"How do you not... hate him?" Melanie asks. Whatever Gerard thinks about Jon, there ought to be some resentment in there.

"Jon?"

"No, the bloke that keeps leaving used spoons next to the sink, of course I'm talking about Jon!" Melanie snaps. He's got to be making fun of her, it's the only explanation. "You died, you were dead and you wanted to be dead and now you're back in this fucking mess!"

The man lifts a pierced eyebrow. "It wasn't Jon who brought me back."

"But it was because of him! We're all trapped here because-"

"Because Elias is an asshole?"

"Elias isn't here!" Melanie snarls. Helen's hand tightens around her torso again, from shoulderblade to clavicle, and Melanie thinks if the bullet were still in her she'd be at Gerard's throat already.

"If you're going to blame Jon for all that's happened to you, you might as well blame yourself for knowing Jon." The absolute bastard has the gall to shrug at her. "That's how much choice he had in the matter, or how much you did."

"So what, you're saying this was going to happen one way or another?" Her teeth grind as she tensed her jaw. "That we had no choice?"

"Oh no. There were definitely choices involved," Gerard seems to sense she's about to jump at him, because he readjusts his stance a little. "Jon chose to take on the promotion at work. You chose to come and give your statement. Your friend here chose to open the door-"

"Leave her out of this. She couldn't have known what would happen if she opened it, I couldn't have known coming here to tell a story would end with me being- being turned into some kind of monster!" By the time she's finished, Melanie's panting for breath. Hot, angry tears burn at her eyes that she won't let spill.

"There you have it," Gerard says simply. "I was born into this mess. You pushed a domino and ended up here. Not everyone is Martin Blackwood."

"What's that even supposed to mean?" At some other point she'd find this hilarious. Two men pining over an absolute mess of a monster. As it stands, the only thing she feels is the slightest wave of protectiveness towards Martin; because she's known him the longest out of the two of them.

Gerard shrugs.

"Jon may trust him... but Martin knows what he's doing. And I don't trust anyone who chooses this willingly," he says, averting his gaze. "I knew a woman who did."


Martin doesn't like to think of Elias at all, much less in positive terms. He has to admit though, that unlike Peter, he at least knew something about running an institution. Peter disappears for days, sometimes weeks at a time, and when he does show up all he cares about is how Martin's self isolation is going.

He caught him talking to a tape recorder a few days ago, and Martin had to sit through another lecture on how this is for everyone's good, including Jon, and he's been doing a wonderful job but needs to work harder and... Martin had lost interest after that, the gist of it is the same every time.

As long as Peter believes it's working, he'll leave Jon and the others alone.

Martin sits down before the two steaming mugs -he keeps brewing an extra one on reflex-, and pushes his glasses up to his forehead to rest his face on his hand. At least the Archives' break room is free again, after Melanie recovered from whatever it was that happened to her leg.

There's a very familiar click below the table, and Martin's lips twitch into a smile.

"Hello there," he greets the tape recorder when he bends down to retrieve it. He places it behind Jon's cup of tea, and it does make him feel a little bit better. "Not doing anything really interesting right now, but you can stay if you want."

The tape whirs away, and Martin nods at it.

"Yep. Just taking a break, Peter can get really exhausting, but you've heard him before, I'm sure you know." It's a fun little exercise, pretending the tapes talk back to him. It still makes him feel very lonely, but in a different way. One way or another, this is Jon here with him. "Not really, I mean if what he's been saying about the Extinction is true then we do have a bigger problem in our hands but God, sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. He doesn't even know his email password, you know? Has to change it every time he logs in, I think by now we're up to Tundra22. One would think the head avatar for a supernatural entity would be a bit less incompetent."

The tape recording gives two little clicks, and Martin chuckles.

"Yes I know, but Jon could at least log in to his email, even if Sasha was always guessing his passwords. But you're right, maybe it's an avatar thing." He takes a sip of his tea; this is the most at ease he's felt in days. "How is he doing by the way? I guess it's good he's not alone, he makes... really poor decisions when he is. Or when he thinks he is- remember when he dug my Mum's letter from the trash? What was he thinking? I wasn't going to confess to a murder over a letter, much less throw it in the bin!"

Click.

"Yes, fear makes us do stupid things, I know." He rolls his eyes, feeling a wave of fondness for the man. "I just... I wish I could talk to him. But thinking about it, I don't even know what I'd say. 'Hey Jon, did you hear me when I read to you at the hospital? I missed you at the Institute, but at least it was very reassuring to know where you were instead of wondering if you'd been kidnapped again'? Not great conversation starters."

Click. Whirr. Click.

"I mean... I want to think so, of course. But I don't know if you can really think when in a coma, much less miss someone. I- if he wanted to miss me of course!" Martin is such a mess, getting flustered at his own imagined conversations with an inanimate object. "I'm just- I'm going to get back to work, I've already spent too much time talking to you."

A series of accusing clicks.

"Don't give me that. I know you can just pop into my office whenever you want anyways," he gives the tape recorder his best stern look. "Go back to him, come on. Before he decides to... I don't know, go find another ritual to stop and almost gets himself killed again."

The click this time sounds amused to Martin's ears, and he chuckles as he climbs to his feet.

"Yeah, alright. You can- you can keep his tea. It's not like I'm going to drink it anyways."

He walks out of the room before he can convince himself to stay. He really does have things to do, and the last thing he wants is for Peter to come find him.

Inside the break room, a door opens that hadn't been there before, and a long fingered hand snatches the tape recorder from the table.

Chapter 4

Notes:

I'm sure many of you saw this already but check out Everchased's amazing art for chapter two because I screamed for minutes.

Trigger warning for some very lightly mentioned domestic abuse and sexual assault (molesting of a minor). During the first POV.

Chapter Text

 

 

IV

Nighttime at Jon's flat is a strange ritual.

The first variable is whether or not Gerry will be staying, which has been happening more often lately. On those nights, Jon usually grabs the first thing that catches his attention from his bookshelf and sits on the coffee table or the carpeted floor -all of Gerry's teasing about his 'old lady sofa' doesn't stop him from hogging it for himself- to read aloud.

"I thought you didn't sleep anymore," he says whenever he looks up from the pages and finds Gerry stretching out mid-yawn.

"I don't need it." Gerry's voice gets hoarser and more relaxed after these naps. "But the experience is still nice."

The same must also apply to the many times Jon's seen him picking at a bag of crisps or sipping from a cup of coffee.

Jon doesn't mind. He enjoys his reading, and it's nice to see Gerry at ease; Jon doubts he had many chances to just sit back and take a nap before, and it's... it's nice to feel like he's a safe space for someone.

"If you're going to doze off anyways, we could move to-" Jon stops himself a moment before finishing the thought, after catching the arched eyebrow and the amused glint in Gerry's eyes. "Nevermind."

"No no, by all means ask me to your bed, Jonathan."

Jon sighs, "I don't know why I even bother, Gerard." Gerry scrunches his nose at the name and Jon rolls his eyes, but he's smiling. It never feels like Gerry's making fun of him, and it makes him miss Tim -the Tim from before, when Jon hadn't ruined everything yet- a little less.

On the days Gerry's not around, though, Jon has to find other ways to keep himself distracted from the hunger.

It took him a while to notice, probably because the statements were all he needed for a so long. The warehouse worker had been an anomaly, something Jon tried not to think about. He'd been out purchasing some groceries, compelled another random shopper on accident, and it had been just his rotten luck that the man had a story to tell.

Then, the day after Melanie's... impromptu surgery. Jon had read statement after statement trying to relieve the ache of the wound on his shoulder, but each had brought only the feeling of a cool breeze on a burn; enough to lighten the pain but not doing anything to heal him.

He'd thought the stroll would clear his head and it had almost done so, until he'd seen her. Long brown hair falling over her shoulders in loose ringlets, a wrinkle of worry on her brow and a birthday card signed by all her co-workers wishing her a great day tomorrow.

The scalpel wound had been covered in new skin by the time he'd gone back to the institute, and Jon knew he'd be seeing Zaida Mossen in his dreams.

Sometimes he watches TV, picks a documentary and tries not to Know the next piece of information before the narrator says it on screen. One time he tried looking at old photos on Facebook, but he ended up Knowing his primary school best friend is now trapped with three kids and a woman that beats him every other night, and that his secondary school teacher got away on a technicality after he was found molesting a student. He closed the app before he could come across a picture with Georgie or Tim in it.

Overall, he avoids sleep.

The nightmares were just that, before the Unknowing. He could focus on the fact that he didn't want the visions and he'd wake up soon enough, to try and drown out Naomi Hernes' screams. To ignore the resigned, sad gaze of Karolina Gorka when she lay down next to the old man crushed by the chair. He can't do that anymore.

Tonight Jon is tired after days of Knowing little details unwillingly, and sustaining himself only on old, stale statements. He sits on the edge of his bed and looks through the window to wait for the sky to lighten outside, because he knows if he lays down he will sleep, and if he sleeps he will See.

Dr. Elliot's fear tastes of desperation. He'd been respected, an expert on his field, he'd only taken on the class as a favor. Now he holds out an apple spilling endless teeth around him, begging for someone to take it. He knows they all think he's mad.

Helen Richardson -the real one, one of Jon's biggest screwups- has an aftertaste of madness, which makes sense considering the entity that claimed her. She'd been so scared of losing her grip on her mind, because she'd always been so sharp, so... consistent. Sometimes she looks sadly at him over her shoulder before she opens the yellow door.

Tessa Winters has a flavor Jon recognizes well. She regrets clicking the link and downloading the file, and she's scared she started something without an end, something that will keep tormenting her forever. She has never watched the video again in real life, but every night she tries to turn off a screen in which Sergey Ushanka's gums bleed around the chewed up glass.

They know he's watching them. The new ones scream at him for help, the older ones have given up. Both reactions bring Jon a feeling of bliss before he looks up at his patron and the cycle starts again.

"Hey," comes Gerry's voice as Jon's bedroom door creaks open. "Ready to- oh. Didn't know you were sleeping, I- are you alright?"

Jon blinks up at the ceiling, confused. The pillow is soft below his head, he feels replenished, and he Knows of at least three other people between here and the Institute that he could hunt down and add to his archive.

The edge of the bed sinks beside him, and a curtain of Gerry's hair shields Jon's face from the rising sun as he leans over him.

"Jon?"

"I'm- it's alright." Jon's voice is hoarse from sleep too, but where Gerry's is pleasant and calming, his sounds like he's been gargling on gravel. "Just nightmares, is all."

The corner of Gerry's lips twitches into a side smile, but his eyes are sympathetic.

"That's our bread and butter, isn't it?" he asks. The punishing sunlight hits against Jon's eyes when he stands up, the bed bouncing back a little at the lack of weight. "Let's get you to the Institute, some statements will make you feel better."

The bedroom door closes behind him, and a long, tired sigh blows past Jon's lips.


Gerry counts seven members of the Church of the Divine Host on their way to the Institute. Funnily enough they stand out like sore thumbs in daylight, even without him using his Sight. The closed eye pendant makes something in his stomach coil with irritation, but he ignores it. He knows perfectly well by now that this is not his own feeling, but rather the Beholding rearing up at the perceived slight.

For larger than life beings of cosmic horror, the entities are pretty much just angry cats swatting at each other very ineffectively.

Jon gives off a little grunt; he's much more ensnared in than Gerry, so he supposes it makes sense.

"Come on now, don't go picking fights with any more Entities." Gerry gives his shoulder a little push as the bus rolls to a stop. Jon complies, but he turns to face Gerry as soon as he hops on the street with him.

"Excuse me? I don't pick fights with-" Jon's massive lie fades off into indignant blustering when Gerry wraps a hand around his right wrist and brings his hand up to eye level, giving it a little shake with a raised eyebrow. "W- well that's different, have you met Jude Perry?"

"Yeah, and she gets along fairly well with other avatars. Even Gertrude never went around looking like she stuck her hand in a deep fryer, and Perry hated her guts." The burn scars on Jon's hands are silky smooth when Gerry runs his thumb along the skin. They feel like his own. "If she did this to you, I'm going to go out on a limb and say-"

"I did not compel her," Jon interrupts him with the most pompous, offended voice. Gerry gives his wrist a little squeeze, grinning. Jon sniffs, and Gerry can see the corner of his lips twitching. "But I did try a whole lot."

"I wouldn't expect anything less from you," Gerry cackles, letting go of his hand. "But you're right about the Dark. They're growing bolder, I think we're going to get a visit sooner rather than later."

Jon gives him a side look with a curved eyebrow.

"We?"

"Well yes, who else is going to lull me to sleep with his dulcet tones and extremely specific facts about the Russian Revolution?" Gerry rolls his eyes. "If the Dark comes for you, they come for me."

Jon doesn't say anything to that, but he looks extremely pleased for the rest of the walk to the Institute. It's very endearing, Gerry thinks with a smile as he watches him descend the stairs into the Archives.

"Oh my god." Gerry turns at the sound of the voice, and finds Melanie shaking her head at him.

"What?" Gerry figures if anyone here is going to get offended at his lack of manners, it's definitely not going to be the woman that was one death away from becoming a physical incarnation of violence.

Melanie rolls her eyes. "Nothing. You're going out?"

"Yeah?"

"Okay. I'm going with you, you're going to explain some things." She doesn't wait for an answer, moving towards the front doors instead. Gerry blinks a couple times, trying to process this new turn of events, before he follows after Melanie.

They end up at a little park a good ways away from the Institute, and Gerry can't help but notice that with every step Melanie takes away from the building her posture relaxes, and so does the ever-present frown at her brow.

"So... What is it that you wanted me to explain?" Gerry asks after they've sat down against a tree trunk, away from any passersby. They must make a terribly stereotypical sight, a cute little couple out on a date instead of a woman on a mission and her hostage.

Melanie looks up at him, her dark eyes especially striking behind her brightly colored turquoise bangs.

"What am I?" She asks. Then, like the thought just occurred to her, "I'm not like him am I? I mean, I didn't- I can't heal from statements or make people tell me things or-"

Gerry shakes his head. "That's an Archivist thing, and there's only one of those."

"So I'm what? The Assistant? Because that's a pretty lame title and I don't care for it." Melanie gives him an unimpressed stare, and Gerry chuckles under his breath. Either she's very likable, or he just has a soft spot for blunt people.

"Nah. If anything, you were going to become an avatar of the Slaughter," he says, gesturing at the bandaged spot that he knows is under her trousers. "I call them wielders, but the Beholding is really the only one that has titles for its avatars. I think that's why no one likes them, too presumptuous."

"Them?" Melanie asks, "aren't you one too?"

"Not really," says Gerry, feeling a shudder run down his spine. No thanks. "But I'm marked by the Watcher, just like you."

Melanie takes a deep breath, clearly trying to keep her patience. "Didn't you just say I'm an avatar of the Slaught-" she gives him a furious glare, when Gerry slaps a hand over her mouth.

He pulls it back before she can decide to bite a few fingers off. "Don't go proclaiming that stuff. These things take that seriously and Jon didn't almost get himself killed so you could invite the Slaughter in again."

Melanie rolls her eyes. "Fine. What does 'being marked' mean then?"

"Well, just that really. It's when an Entity had a grip on you at some point, usually because you ran into an avatar or a monster," Gerry shrugs, twirling one of his rings around his finger just to have something to do with his hands. He doesn't like talking about these things too much; too many years playing database for the hunters has left him very wary of people who want his knowledge. "Some marked people get abilities, like me. Some grow into full avatars, some don't. It really depends on the person, and whether or not the Entity thinks they're a good fit."

"And the Eye doesn't think you are?"

"I don't really care about knowledge as much as I care about using what I know to help people. I'm also marked by the End, but again, not a match." He gives her a disappointed pout, and her mouth twitches. "There's really no limit to how many Entities can mark you, other than your bad luck I guess. Jon has like ten marks on him."

"Ten?" Melanie arches her eyebrows. "Why so many?"

"A week ago he only had nine," Gerry gives her a pointed look. Sure, she wasn't herself back then, but he still remembers the small, exhausted grunts of pain as he helped Jon peel the blood soaked shirt off.

Melanie looks forward and her lips purse in a way that could be either sheepishness, or an attempt at holding a smile back. even with his meager understanding of Melanie, he doubts it's the first one.

"Well, I couldn't eat solids for two days after," she says in the end, and Gerry rolls his eyes.

"You were going to kill him. For real." He hadn't even thought before throwing the punch, because the only thing in his mind had been getting her away from Jon.

"Okay, okay," Melanie waves a hand as if trying to bat the topic away. "I'm sorry for stabbing your boyfriend."

Gerry doesn't bother correcting her, just like he didn't that night at the break room. As long as they don't figure out his relationship with Jon is merely, truly parasitic, they can think whatever they want.

There is, however, a lie he will call out. On principle. "No you're not."

Now Melanie smiles for real, even letting out a little huff of amusement.

"No, but I know I should be sorry. That has to count for something, right?"


Basira hates a lot of things about the Institute.

For example, how she can feel herself changing with every word she reads on the damned books she can't put down to save her life. How she's trapped inside the building, and the only time she really braves the outside is when she goes and outruns whatever monster of the week is waiting for her because she feels Elias has something to tell her. How the building seems to have been designed with the sole goal of making its inhabitants as unnerved as possible.

She hates every corner and every brick, every dark room where the light switch is placed just out of reach when you first walk in, and how it always feels like someone is watching-

"You were there," says a rough accented voice, and Basira freezes on her spot. The light switch is three more steps to the right, she knows this room, she can-

A large hand wraps itself around her neck and pulls her away from the door. The door closes behind her, and Basira no longer knows how far it is to the light switch. She's never been in this room- is this a room?

"You're not doing that. We're friends, you and I. We don't need to see each other." The voice evokes a sense of familiarity within Basira, but something inside her is screaming at her, a primal urge to fight or flee. "Don't you remember me?"

"I do not know you," Basira says dryly, and the voice laughs in delight. A man, she's pretty sure it's a man... unless it isn't? Maybe it's a woman. Or neither. She should- she knows this person.

But didn't she just say the opposite?

There's some steps behind the door, so there must be a door. If there is a door, and there are steps... Then there has to be other people. People she knows. People who are real. Is she not real? If she knows this person, and they're not real, then maybe she isn't either.

But... but no. She has to be real, because she opened the door. Doors are real. They go to real places -most of them at least- and that must mean this is a place, and it's real. If it's a place, then she can... Basira frowns, feeling like she's at the edge of something, if she could just..."This is a plac-"

"Don't say a word." The hand tightens around her throat. It doesn't feel like any human hand Basira has touched before, only Basira suddenly isn't so convinced she has touched any human before. Or perhaps she has and they all feel like this. Does she not feel like this because she's not human?

The door opens, and the tenuous light that makes its way into the room is enough to chase away the shadow of uncertainty in Basira's mind.

This is the Institute, she's Basira Hussain, and she's in danger. That's all she needs to get to work.

"Jon, don't turn the light on," she orders, her voice calm and steady. "Go and find Melanie, quick."

It isn't until she gives the order that she remembers Melanie no longer has the bullet, and Elias's stupid voice comes to haunt her. You lost Melanie.

"It's alright Basira. I know he's here." Jon's voice is like she's never heard it before. No warmth, no hesitation, no sign of the man that measures his every word to try to not hurt anyone, and ends up doing so anyways. She can barely see his silhouette where he's profiled by the light behind him, but she can see his eyes emit the eerie green glow they had that night by Melanie's bed.

"So what are you doing?" she asks.

Three steps. Click.

Jon looks at some point behind and above Basira's shoulder.

"I imagine he's here to deliver something." Jon's words are punctuated by a low thrumming static. "Let her go." Basira can feel each word vibrate with power, and the hand around her throat starts trembling as the creature fights the compulsion

It's enough for her to twist out of its grasp. She doesn't go stand by Jon, but moves in his general direction until she's closer to him than she is to the... thing.

It looks like a man. It has all the parts. Skin, face, hands. It is not a man.

"Is- the deliverymen," she blurts out the realization as soon as it comes.

"Deliveryman," Jon says by her side. Once again she's taken aback by the coldness of his voice, and the way his eyes are fixed on the being. "Which one are you?" he asks, and the glow from his eyes pulsates once as the static rises.

" 'm Breekon," the thing says immediately, then takes a step backwards. Jon takes a step forward and vaguely in Basira's direction, and she realizes he plans on stepping between them.

"And where's Hope?" The static in his voice remains, and the thing squirms a little more, clearly uncomfortable.

"Hope's gone," says the monster.

'Tell me about it,' thinks Basira, before she takes a deep breath.

"And what? Are you here for revenge?" Hope turns to face her as she speaks, and stays silent. Jon gives a tired sigh, and repeats the question. It takes a few more seconds, like the fact that Breekon isn't holding eye contact -if it even has eyes- delays the compulsion. It's not enough to stop it.

"Yes. Like when we- when I put the mutt in the pit," it says, and gives something at his feet a little kick. It's only then that Basira sees the rough wooden coffin with its rusted chain and the scratched warning on top. "It knew where it was going, I think. It was scared of it. Never seen a hunter scream like that."

Breekon gives a dark chuckle, and Basira feels molten hot rage spilling from her stomach, prickling at her eyes. Of course Daisy was scared of the fucking thing, she saw it in her dreams every other night, Basira would know. Her hand itches for her gun, but Jon's voice comes before she can even begin reaching for it.

"Easy, Basira." It's not compulsion per se, and his voice does get softer when he spares her the quickest glance, but Basira still bristles at the words. What right does he have to ask her to hold back and be reasonable, when he's been trying to corral Martin into talking to him whenever he'll stand still for long enough?

"Daisy's in there?" She asks instead, just to confirm. She cannot go into the coffin, her mind's clear enough to push the desperate thought away but... but she needs to know.

The monster turns to her again, and huffs in what she guesses is amusement.

"Answer her," says Jon calmly, businesslike. Breekon shudders.

"Nikola should've killed you faster," it says, and Basira gets the feeling he's trying to stall for time. Probably just to get on their nerves, because what is there to hide when he's already told them? "Sure. Whatever's left of it at least. Go find it for all I care."

"Why are you here?" Jon asks again, taking another step between Basira and the deliveryman.

"Hm. Dunno. 'S not much to do without Hope around," the monster shrugs. Out the corner of her eye Basira sees Jon stiffen. She remembers Daisy doing the same at times, freezing like a hunting dog with prey in its sights. "We've always been together."

"...Jon?" Basira reaches out to touch his shoulder, but he doesn't react. The glow in his eyes is brighter now, and Basira's pretty sure he's stopped breathing. The static in the room gets louder, and she snaps her head towards Breekon, her hand now firmly on her gun. "Get out."

"Make me."

"Stop." Jon's voice reverberates all the way through Basiras' bones, and she and Breekon freeze.

"Jon, what are you doing?" Basira doesn't try to touch him again. His form appears too sharp somehow, like those pictures that are so high quality they seem unreal, and his eyes look glassy and green as Breekon squirms under his gaze.

"Wh- stop. Stop it." Breekon moves strangely, like he's trying to take a step back but he's stuck to the floor. Basira has a flashback to the butterflies and moths pinned to cork boards at her secondary school, their wings spread wide and their bodies exposed for everyone to look. She shudders. "Stop looking at me!"

"No." Jon's voice echoes inside Basira's head, and her vision goes white. She has the briefest sense of satisfaction as she hears Breekon scream and gasp, and she's aware only part of it is bitterness over Daisy. The other is some sort of instinctive pleasure; she guided Jon here, the Archivist needed this information and she found Breekon for him to See, she- she scowls. That's not her.

That's not her at all.

The room reforms around her piece by piece as she shakes her head and her vision clears. She sees Breekon's heel disappear behind the door, before Jon is stumbling towards the closest desk.

"Get me-" he starts to ask, but Basira's already offering a pen with movements that aren't entirely her own either. His eyes are back to normal, but Basira only stays for long enough to see him start scribbling on a notebook page, before it becomes too much.

She makes sure not to turn her back to him as she leaves.


The thought is almost too weird for her, but Melanie finds herself enjoying the little excursion. She does wonder why no one -nothing- has targeted them yet, but she doesn't get attacked when she's out with Helen either, so maybe the monsters are just opportunistic bastards and don't like to risk it when the odds aren't in their favor.

Gerard is very easy to like, for someone so infuriatingly fond of Jon. Melanie finds herself thinking they could've been friends, if they'd met under different circumstances.

As things are now, she's far too aware of the way his eyes keep drifting towards the Institute, even though they've walked far enough that the building is well out of sight and behind several twists and turns.

"Are you feeling him?" she asks when they finally climb to their feet after a few hours of fear talk. The question is somewhat awkward in her mouth; she doesn't like Jon, but Gerard does, and she's decided she likes him enough to not want to offend him. The desire to not hurt still feels foreign in her mind.

"Mm? Oh. Not really," Gerard shrugs, looking down at her. "I don't know? I just know where he is. Like the general direction."

"Hm. That would've been useful last year, he got kidnapped like three times." Melanie pats the back of her shorts to get rid of any dirt and grass that decided to come up with her.

"Did he now?" And yeah, the urge to maim someone is back with the fond little smile on Gerard's face. "And he has the gall to say he doesn't get into trouble."

"Well, he does. What now?" she asks, opting to only bump his shoulder with hers instead of punching his arm. This guy can be as infatuated with a supernatural disaster as he wants, and she won't feel any strong way about it. No violence here, no siree, Slaughter who?

"Well... we go back, I think? Unless you have more questions." Gerard looks at her as he shoves his hands into his pockets. Melanie deflates a bit; it is a nice day, and she gets very few chances to leave the Institute.

They do end up going back, but Melanie makes a point of stopping for ice cream on the way back. Gerard gives in suspiciously quickly, and Melanie finds herself liking the guy more and more.

Her phone buzzing with an incoming text from Georgie as she's handed her double caramel scoop only makes this an even better day.

"That's a big smile," Gerard comments as she taps away at the keys. She looks up at him disbelievingly, but there's no indication he realizes how much of a hypocrite he's being as he calmly sucks on his cherry ice lolly.

"The nerve." Melanie rolls her eyes. "It's my- a friend."

Gerard bites off a chunk of the ice lolly, and it does more to convince Melanie that he's not human than the fact that he walked back from the dead.

"Sounds complicated."

"I'm trapped at Spook Central because of her ex boyfriend, it is complicated," Melanie mumbles. Georgie's one of the few good things left in her life, and she's determined to keep her away from this horrible, horrible circus. "Besides, not all of us get wingmanned by an eldritch entity."

"She's Jon's ex?" Gerard arches an eyebrow as he leans forward to try and peek at Melanie's phone.

"Do you have selective hearing or something?! Get back!" She punches and shoves at his shoulder until he retreats with an amused smile. The act doesn't leave a taste of metal in her tongue, she's surprised to find. Or a craving for more, harsher action. It only feels... companionable. Almost playful.

Melanie had forgotten what it felt like to be friendly with someone, she thinks as they come back to the Institute.

She'd never say it aloud, but if she counts Georgie and this guy -and even Martin whenever he's not being a bitch and a half because he's on a Secret Mission- Jon doesn't have terrible taste in people.

There's a man coming out of the building, and Gerard's arm shoots in front of her chest to stop her just as she realizes it's not a man at all.

"Is that-"

Gerard nods. His frown melts away after he looks at the building again, head tilted as if hearing a sound Melanie can't register.

"Fuck," Melanie mutters under her breath. Of course this would happen now, after the bullet is gone and on the one day she decides to go out. "There's another entrance at the back, let's-"

"They're alright." Gerard sounds thoughtful as he watches the creature stumble its way into a side street. "Beholding marks don't suit the Stranger well, it seems."

She looks up, and the smile on his face looks dangerous, somehow.

"Jon?"

"Did a right number on it." There's a hint of dark pride to his voice, a polar opposite to the ridiculously soft demeanor he usually adopts when it comes to Jon, and Melanie finds it that she much prefers the absurd fondness to whatever this is. Basira's words from a few weeks back play through her mind, and she remembers she still doesn't know what Gerard is. Or why the Eye brought him to Jon. "Go check on them, I'll finish it off."

"I'll come with you," she decides in a split second. "I can still do it."

Gerard turns to look down at her, and whatever it was that made her stomach knot in worry is gone so fast Melanie wonders if she imagined it in the first place. There's a dubious frown on his brow, and his mouth, still dyed red by the stupid lolly, is pressed in a tight line.

"I don't doubt you could," he says after a moment. "But I don't want you to. Don't invite it back in, remember?"

She does, but she also doesn't trust the shadow that passed over him not a minute ago.

"Then I won't do it. But I- I need to watch," she tries again. "Or I won't be convinced it's gone."

Another long moment of Gerard measuring her up, before he finally nods.

"If you need it," he says, leading the way into the side street the monster took. Melanie follows with careful steps.

She likes Gerard, but she's not naive enough to forget she's been wrong before.


When Basira walks into the windowless room, Elias is reading a celebrity gossip magazine, and she wants to rip his eyes out

"Good evening, Det-"

"Drop it," Basira interrupts, and Elias' thin lips curl into a smile. Her hands curl into fists, to keep from wrapping around his neck. "Breekon came to see us yesterday. He brought-"

"The coffin, yes." Elias nods. "I must admit it was quite pleasing to see you work with Jon so seamlessly, Basira. But I suspect you're not here for my praise, are you?"

Basira advances on him until she's looming over his sitting form, and she bristles at the calm look he aims at her.

"I hope you're not so surprised to know Miss Tonner is alive?" He arches a carefully shaped eyebrow. Of course this bastard uses jail to catch up with his beauty routine. "Surely you know by now that the Eye rewards those who are loyal."

So that confirms that.

"That's what Keay is then? A reward for Jon?"

"Oh, he didn't tell you?" Elias tsks in disappointment, shaking his head. "One would've thought he'd learned to be honest to his team by now." His poison green eyes focus on Basira's face again. "Well, I guess it can't be fixed... Despite my best efforts, you never did bond."

"Shut up!" Basira snaps finally. Bond. Like they're a cute little group of misfits in a TV show instead of an armload of hostages. Her right hand digs into Elias' hair, grabbing a fistful and tightening as she pulls back until his neck is twisted at a very awkward angle. "How do I bring her back?" Elias smirks again. She tightens her grip until she feels a few hair strands snap. "I am not in the mood for your games."

"Always so direct," he says in the end. "But as I said, the Eye rewards its own. Let me give you some leads, Detective."

Chapter 5

Notes:

Hi! Just wanted to let you all know the support for this fic is really heartwarming and it keeps me going. Your comments make me smile so much! I'll reply to the ones in last chapter later tonight.
Come yell at me on tumblr! My username is the same, and we can yell about Gerry together!

 

Mild content warning for Gerry having a panic attack

Chapter Text

 

 

V

"Please stop finding me."

Martin makes sure no one -a very specific someone, truly- is waiting outside for him, before he walks out to hail a cab. He used to grab the bus back to his flat, but lately the thought of being trapped with all those people sends a pang of nausea right to his stomach.

The driver forgets to charge him when they get to Martin's place, but he still drops enough money to cover the fare on the backseat before climbing out. The man looks back with a start when the door opens and closes, but he doesn't see him. If he somehow did, he will forget it, Martin thinks with relief.

A stream of heavy fog flows out of the flat when he opens the door, and the inside is colder than it ought to be. Martin drops his shoes on the rack by the entrance and watches them get enveloped in the swirling mist with a curious sense of detachment.

There's not much left to eat in the kitchen, but Martin isn't hungry lately. He realizes at times, that the reflections on the windows don't show him moving around the flat like they should. That's... nice. He doesn't want to see himself either.

When he crawls under the covers it's still far too early to sleep, but when he's not conscious he doesn't have to listen to the sounds of the world going on outside his window, and the soft gray dreams are always quick to come.

Martin wakes up an indeterminate amount of time later after a series of rapid clicks by the side of his bed, and he's relieved. He shouldn't be, he knows. The Lonely's taking to him almost naturally, and he should stop fighting it. These are the terms he agreed to, and it guarantees Jon will be safe.

A quick look to the window confirms he's visible again, and he turns to look, knowing very well what he's going to fin, with a tired smile already on his lips.

"Why did I ever think you'd do what you were told for once?" Martin asks the tape recorder whirring away where it's nestled snugly on his pillow. It brings Martin hope, at least the part of him that stubbornly checks for mails and opens his messaging apps and types out texts but can never bring himself to press the send button. "Still, listening to me sleeping is a bit too much, no? There's not even anything to record. Unless I snore. Do I snore?"

A long pause.

Click.

"Hm... Good to know." Martin lifts a hand up to his face, and it seems more solid than it did before he went to sleep. The tapes do help, then. Pity. "I really- I wasn't kidding when I told him I need him to leave me alone... and I think that means you too."

Click. Brrrrr.

"Having you here is a sign he still cares about me. A-a- and I like that! But that's the problem, I shouldn't. Peter's keeping a close eye on him as it is, with this whole pissing contest with Elias. If he knows I still... the people he sends away are also a punishment for me,you know? It's always the ones I talked to last. If you ask me, the message is very clear."

The tape clicks another button sympathetically. Or maybe it just clicks, it's just a tape recorder, for god's sake.

"Is he... well? I saw one of the deliverymen in the surveillance cameras the other day. I figured it was looking for him. Can't have been too easy to see a reminder of something so awful. God knows I still can't stand the taste of canned peaches."

The surveillance cameras are pointed towards the street -why would Elias need cameras to watch someone inside the building?- so Martin had only seen the monster go out and away from view. He'd also seen Melanie and Gerard Keay go after it, so Martin's pretty sure that's done and dealt with.

Martin is still not sure how he feels about Gerard Keay.

He's seen him with Jon a few times, when he's intangible enough that others don't notice him right away. He doesn't... it's not stalking or anything, Martin doesn't follow them home or look into their trash bins, he has just happened to be there when they're there too, and they don't see him because seeing them together tends to make him even more ethereal.

Gerard is always touching Jon, little points of contact here and there that feel almost sacrilegious to Martin, who's always had this idea that Jon is averse to being touched. Maybe because Tim had always been the only one to take that freedom with him, before he stopped wanting to.

The fact that Jon doesn't seem to mind only makes it more irritating.

"It's ridiculous, isn't it?" He tells the tape. The fog's starting to come back, thicker this time. He spares a look to the window, and he still hasn't disappeared, but he can see through his silhouette. "The world is at stake and I'm here being jealous over Jon."

It does make him feel a little better to know he never really had a chance, if Gerard -who is certainly attractive and flashy and assertive and everything Martin is not- is an indicator of Jon's tastes. But then why does Jon keep trying to get him to come back, and why are the tapes still following him? Is it some sort of mistimed loyalty for the last member of his original team still standing?

"I... I guess it makes sense, though. I'm doing this for him." Martin runs a hand down his face to wipe away the cold condensation of the fog on his skin. "He has to be safe, it's the only thing that matters and... and if Gerard keeps him safe, then we're sort of working for the same goal, right?"

Click.

"Don't be ridiculous, two people are barely enough to keep Jon out of trouble," he huffs. A loud yawn catches him off guard, and Martin burrows deeper into the covers. It's never warm with the Lonely, but the softness is still comfortable. "I suggest you click off now, unless you want more snoring."


Helen cracks her door open just an inch. Martin's snores are soft, just like everything else about him.

She adds the tape to her collection. It's growing very nicely.

Helen closes her door with a click, and moves it to a loud, busy nightclub with bright yellow doors leading to the loos.


"Do you really have to do that in here?" Jon groans when he walks past the open bathroom door and sees Gerry bent over the sink, making an absolute mess of the off-white porcelain.

"Now that you mention it, no," comes Gerry's voice from under the mass of hair, and Jon scrunches his nose at the offending smell of chemicals. "I'll just go dye my hair in the Tube station loos."

Jon rolls his eyes. "There's places that do that for you, Gerry."

"I've done it myself all these years. Why stop now?" Gerry shrugs and goes to spread a glob of black dye over an already soaked lock.

"You're not even-" Jon's hand shoots forward, "-you're not even getting all the roots! One would think after this long you'd at least know how to do it effectively." It's around then that he notices his hand is clamped down on Gerry's wrist, and he freezes. Gerry touches him all the time, but maybe it's not a two way street and-

Gerry shifts a little, and then there's a blue-green eye looking up at Jon, almost too bright amongst all the black.

"I mean, you could help me." Gerry's voice is still amused, and he takes a half step back to move out from under their joined hands. He then straightens up to full height, splashing a Pollock on the bathroom tiles when his hair whips back. "Or else I'm going to end up making a real mess. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

"I should ask the Eye if there's some sort of... return rec- please don't touch my towels!" Jon groans. "Just get in the tub, alright?"

"I knew you'd come around. There's dye all over your hand by the way, you should be more careful with that." Gerry smirks as he climbs into the bathtub and plops down on one end.

Fixing an undead man's dyejob at four in the morning and then cleaning the entire bathroom afterwards is not exactly how he expected to not sleep tonight, but weirder things have happened, Jon decides.

He sits on the edge of the tub behind Gerry, and begins working the hair into a knot at the top of his head, like Georgie used to do when she did this. Gerard's hair is a bit coarse, probably because of the dye itself. He wonders idly if it would get softer with enough listening to Jon's voice. This texture is not bad anyways, he finds.

"Do you remember Andrea Nunis?" Jon asks as he begins to apply the dye to Gerard's roots. They're a dirty blond color, and it gets swallowed easily enough by the black.

"Uh... who?" Gerry's voice comes after a moment, and Jon can hear the confused frown in it. He disentangles another lock from the top; his grandmother was always a bit too rough with his hair -an old woman out of practice and without the energy needed to be anything other than ruthlessly effective- so he runs his fingers through Gerry's carefully to get rid of the knots. "I'm going to need more context, Jon."

"Eh? Oh." Jon snaps back to reality, and the question he just asked. "The- the woman. In Italy. You saw her in a café, and you told her to think of her-"

"Her mother," Gerry ends the sentence for him. "I remember. It's good to know she made it out."

"Was it... does it have to be a family member? A- a person?" The whole process is almost soothing in its repetitive motions. Comb, apply, move aside. "Your anchor?"

"Not really." Gerry shrugs. His voice sounds the slightest bit drowsy, and Jon smiles. "Sometimes it's things... or thoughts? I knew a man that walked right out of the Dark because he and his wife had plans for brunch with his in-laws the next morning, and he didn't want to miss out on his father-in-law's quiche."

"... A man defeated the Dark through the power of breakfast food, is what you're saying?" It sounds as unconventional as anything else that has to do with the Entities, but Jon is starting to get very tired of nothing making any sense.

"Must've been one hell of a quiche, don't you think?" Gerry's neck is bent at a weird angle as Jon tries to reach the side of his head, so Jon sits back for a second and twists until his legs rest at both sides of the tub, his knees framing Gerry's shoulders. "Why do you want to know?"

Jon has a lie prepared. He's had it for about a week when he read the statement of the man in the flooded house. He's practiced it enough that he can deliver it casually, and no matter how bad a liar he is, it should be believable.

"Basira wants to-" Gerry lays his cheek on Jon's knee, and Jon flinches and sputters in surprise, his mind drawing a blank. "Sh- Daisy's in the coffin. The- the Buried, I mean. Daisy- I want to bring her back."

Gerry straightens up immediately at that -Jon has a spare second to wonder why he feels so incredibly aware of the spot on his leg where Gerry's face rested on for less than a second- and turns to look at Jon with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

"What was that?" Gerry asks, voice low and serious enough to make Jon ignore the hastily made bun at the top of his head. "Jon?"

"Basira wants to get Daisy out of the Buried," Jon parrots off his well practiced lie. "I promised her I'd find out more about anchors so she-"

"Basira would have to be incredibly stupid to try that." Gerry's eyes are still narrowed at Jon. "Climbing into the Buried willingly is as good as killing yourself. But you know that already, right?"

Jon clears his throat. "She."

"Of course. She knows that." A drop of half congealed dye is tracing a long line down the wall. Jon follows it with his gaze, until Gerry pinches at his knee. "Jon."

"I'll- I'll let her know," Jon forces out, voice strained. He looks back at Gerry after a moment. His frown has softened, replaced by something that looks more like concern. He used to catch that look on Martin too sometimes. "I-"

"You can't let Basira into the coffin, Jon," Gerry says with such intensity that Jon wonders for a moment if he actually caught his lie, because surely Gerry worrying this much about Basira would be less weird than Gerry worrying this much about him. "For real. Promise it."

"I... I'll keep her away from it." Jon's nod feels a bit robotic to him. "I'm still not done. With you- w- with your hair I mean. The- the top..."

Gerry's eyes remain on him for another long moment, before he gives his head a little shake, and turns around again. Jon moves to grab another lock of hair.

"You say Martin is trying to keep you all safe, don't you?" Gerry says, and Jon's hands freeze. "He'd be pretty bummed out if Basira died for nothing, don't you think?"

"I-"

"So let's not let anyone into the coffin. For Martin."


Melanie recognizes the sound of a blade sinking into flesh the moment she walks past Jon's closed door. She stops for a moment to try and identify the feelings it brings her, and she's both happy and disappointed to find curiosity as the most prominent. She opens the door after her self exploration, a bit surprised to find it unlocked.

Jon is standing hunched over his desk and gasping in pain, one hand laid flat on top of a towel that's doing a piss poor job of absorbing a small puddle of blood, and a knife held on the other one.

"What are you doing?" Melanie asks, leaning back on the door to close it.

"Oh!" Jon's head snaps up to meet her, and he drops the knife into an open drawer he pushes shut right after. "I-"

"Yeah, that makes everything much less suspicious." She rolls her eyes. "Where did all that blood come from?"

"Uh- me, actually," Jon says apologetically. The towel makes a squelching sound when he folds if over. "I'm- would you believe me if I told you I'm trying to save Daisy?"

"Has your first idea for 'help" always been bullshit surgery, or is this a new development?" Melanie crosses her arms over her chest, and begins tapping a finger against her arm. Even just being in a room with Jon is irritating. Not enraging anymore, but he's just... eugh.

"... I'm- Basira said you didn't want to see me-"

"I didn't," she shakes her head, arms still crossed. The tapping finger is now a fingernail lightly dragging -not quite scratching- against her skin.

"-But I'm- I'm very sorry Melanie," Jon says, and Melanie rolls her eyes.

"Fuck off," she mutters, and even the way Jon flinches back at her voice makes her angrier. "You 'saved' me, isn't that what you wanted? Go, team Archives."

"I... I wanted to ask you." Jon's voice is low. "To-"

"Yeah, no. The only reason Gerry was able to get me off of you was because I was fighting the anesthetic, the sleeping pills, and the bullet was already off." Melanie gives a humorless laugh. "Basira was right, the only way to do it was to betray me and effectively destroy the last space I still felt somewhat safe in. So thank you."

"Basira said you were better..."

"Basira doesn't care if I feel better, Jon." Melanie sinks her nail into the meat of her arm, and the momentary flash of pain serves to keep her grounded. "She only cares that I'm a variable she can control. My condition was good when it kept us safe, but I was becoming too volatile, and now I'm de-clawed so I'm better, according to her."

Jon looks at her with a pained expression she somehow doubts has anything to do with whatever he was doing to his hand, and sighs.

"I know you won't believe me, but I care that you feel better. Maybe it's enough to start letting go of the an-"

"Oh, shut up. Please shut up, you don't even know!" Melanie snarls, her fingernails now well and truly sunken into her arm. She takes a moment to pull them out and take a deep breath. "My whole life, Jon. My whole life I've been angry because people look at me and think they know better, think I'm not good enough, not strong enough. This anger you want me to let go of is the reason I've gotten this far, it's what has pushed me to do anything in the first place, it's-"

"M- Melanie," Jon tries, but she whips a hand up to point at him and he shuts up immediately, flinching.

"No, listen to me! Do you have any idea what it's like? Of course you don't! You were picked to run this place even though they could hardly have found anyone less qualified, probably because Elias knew anyone else would see through his bullshit right away, what do you know about being passed over because of who you are?" She snarls. The rage, it feels... not like before. Or maybe that's how it felt before India, every word letting something out instead of drawing more back in for her to stew over. Jon is listening to her every thought, and she can see the hurt on his face but at least someone is listening. "And then this- this ghost shoots me. And suddenly something inside me is telling me that this is right! That this is my power, that I can. The bullet didn't stay because of some spooky bullshit, Jon. The only reason it was able to stay in the first place is because I wanted it."

The office is silent for a moment, the only sound echoing across being Melanie's hard breathing. Jon drops on his chair suddenly, like his legs feel weak. He gives her a slow nod.

"...Shit. I- Of course. I didn't- the Entities choose their own," he says, which Melanie guesses is pretty on line with what Gerry told her. The Slaughter wanted her because she had always craved the power anger gave her, so maybe the Eye chose Jon because the moron ways craved to at least have an inkling of what's going on. "But I never thought about that. I'm- I'm very sorry Melanie."

"Yes."

"Melanie-"

"So-" Melanie interrupts him, because she's not about to have a 'you and I are one' moment with Jon of all people. "Why are you trying to chop off your fingers?"

"Oh- that, I'm-" Jon looks at his right hand like it just grew out of his forearm. "I'm going into the coffin."

Melanie arches an eyebrow. "The chained up coffin with 'do not open' scratched on the top?"

"Yes I know how it sounds like, thank you," Jon huffs and rolls his eyes, and Melanie has a flashback to the first time they met, when he was so skeptical about her show and she tried to rile him up about his Institute's reputation. It feels like an eternity ago. "But Daisy's in there, and I'm the only one that probably won't die if I go in after her. I just need an anchor to come back."

"And you thought a finger would be enough."

"Well... it's a part of me. It doesn't get much closer than that," Jon runs a hand through his hair. His nervousness makes him appear a little more human, at least. "But I keep healing. Hurts plenty, but they won't come off."

"Right... listen, does your boyfriend know about this?"

Jon, who'd been glaring at his hand for not mutilating adequately, snaps back up to look at her like a deer in the headlights.

"My- w- who?" He stammers out, and Melanie wants to sock him on the nose. Less in a 'bash his head in' and more like when she punches Gerry on the ribs because he keeps trying to look at her phone when she's texting Georgie.

She rolls her eyes. "There's hair dye all over your hand." Jon seems to catch on at last, because he blushes enough for it to be noticeable against his dark skin. Back when they were dating Georgie used to say he was cute when he was flustered, but to Melanie he just looks constipated. "Kudos for fixing that by the way. But back to my point, does he know? Because this sounds like the kind of brilliant plan you hatch at three in the morning before going at your hair with the kitchen scissors."

"That's... oddly specific." Jon swallows. "I- Gerry doesn't know, no. Or- he knows I was looking into anchors..."

"But?"

"... But I promised him I wouldn't go in." He admits after a moment's hesitation. "I have to though. If Daisy's alive- I can't leave her there."

Again, Melanie doesn't care about Jon at all. But people around her do for some reason, even Georgie, despite how angry she is at him right now. And still, leaving Daisy in the Buried... she can see where he's coming from.

"But you can't go in anyways, can you?" She asks, stalling for time as she tries to come to a decision. Jon seems awfully sure about the anchors, and he has to know if it'll work, the Eye wouldn't let him go in if it wasn't solid. "Without cutting the finger off, you don't have anything."

Jon sighs. "I guess. Hah, this would be a lot easier if we had the bone turner. Just... reach in and get me a rib."

Oh.

That's exactly the moment Melanie remembers she never told anyone what she did to Jared Hopworth, when stabbing heart after heart wasn't enough to keep him down.

"...Melanie?" Jon asks, suspicion coloring every syllable.

"Follow me. And don't talk," she warns before marching off towards the tunnels.

Jon does keep quiet as they make their way to the bright yellow door, terribly out of place in the tunnel's faded gray walls.

"I didn't know it was living here," he says then, and Helen's echoing laugh seeps from below the door. Melanie rolls her eyes.

"She's helped us a lot," is all she says before she opens the door. She doesn't know the rules too well, because Helen can open it herself just fine at times. Maybe it's only when there's no one else to open it?

"Calling me an it doesn't do you any favors, Archivist. What are you, then?" When Helen walks out of the door her knees are backwards and her lipstick keeps changing colors. "Especially as of late?"

Jon stiffens, before he jerks his head towards Melanie. "Do you trust it? For real?"

Melanie crosses her arms, unimpressed. "Don't call her that."

"Fine," Jon rolls his eyes. "Do you trust her? She's never helped me too much."

"Helen did," Helen says, smiling. "She locked the door, did you know?"

And that seems to take Jon off guard.

"Did- did she know? What would happen to her?"

Helen's smile zigzags across her face. "Helen was sharp."

Jon doesn't seem to know what to say to that, so Melanie steps forward again.

"I do trust her. And if you want the bone turner, you'll have to trust her too," she says seriously. If Jon can't take Melanie's judgement at face value then-

"Ok," Jon mutters almost to himself. Melanie remembers the testament tape, how she and Martin and Basira listened to it together, when it looked like they might be the only ones left. Jon's adamant voice as he declares 'I choose to trust' has a haunting quality in her memory. "Right. Then- then I'll- is he in there?"

Helen nods. She looks very pleased, and Melanie smiles a little. Helen may not be human, but she's still her friend.

"Mmm... he's not something I can really digest. Too meaty, you know?" Helen gestures towards her open door. "I'll make sure you run into him."

Jon takes a deep breath to steel himself. "Ok. I'll- I'll offer to let him out. For the rib. If he tries something-"

"I suggest running," Helen coos, and Melanie gets the feeling that she finds this very amusing. "Try to find a door."

"...Yes thank you," Jon gives her the stink eye before pulling a tape recorder from his pocket. At this point Melanie's starting to believe they give him the same sense of safety the knives gave her when she was still affected by the bullet. He turns to her. "Melanie..."

"I'm not going in with you. Good luck," she says, but he shakes his head.

"No, I just… it was never the bullet. It was you," Jon says and Melanie wants to groan because of course he has to go and make it awkward. "I'm- I'm very sorry you felt that way."

"... Jon please go in before I push you."

The door closes, and Melanie sits down against the wall. Helen quite literally folds herself by her side, and they wait.


"Oh, he's got his bone," says Helen an hour or so later when Melanie's just started dozing off. "He's not looking too good, though".

"Ugh. Of course he had to go and get himself all fucked up. What am I going to tell Gerry?" Melanie huffs, already trying to come up with a decent lie.

Helen tilts her head to the side. Her chin points at the ceiling. "We're keeping the secret?"

Melanie shrugs once, sharply. Jon doesn't deserve her loyalty, much less after everything that's happened lately. But she believes him when he says he's doing it for Daisy, and Melanie's personal grudges probably shouldn't get in the way of people doing what's right. Even if they're very reasonable personal grudges.

"Just this once," she tells Helen after a moment. "He'll owe me."

The door opens, and Jon groans and spills out like a boneless -Melanie can't hold back a snort- mess on the tunnels' floor, holding a startlingly white rib on his hand.

"He'll owe me big time."


"Oh shit, you're back early," Melanie looks up from her phone like a startled deer when he walks into the Archives.

Gerry arches an eyebrow, unimpressed. "I brought ice cream, but if you're going to be like this I'll just eat it all myself," he walks past her towards Jon's office.

"He's not there. He's- taking care of some business." Melanie's voice is painfully casual, and Gerry pinches the bridge of his nose with the hand not holding his half eaten treat. Who taught these people to lie and why did they do such a piss poor job of it?

"Melanie, where's Jon?"

"Doing Archivist things."

"First off, you don't know what that is. Second off, there's not nearly enough screams for that," Gerry rolls his eyes. "Where is he?"

"He-"

"The truth this time please." Gerry throws the plastic bag on top of a desk, and turns to her only to find her with the same dazed expression. "Why are you even lying? It's not like-" his stomach drops suddenly, and Gerry feels his mouth go dry. "Ah fuck. He did it."

He doesn't even want to think about what this means for him, because he's tied to Jon somehow, and now Jon is gone. Trapped. Unable to move, unable to breathe, dirt pressing all around him but never choking him enough to die. All to save another person because that's the only way he thinks he can justify his existence.

"He did what? Gerry, you're not making any-" Melanie tries to talk over him, but he needs to get the words out because they taste rotten in his mouth.

"He went into the damned coffin didn't he? He promised he wouldn't, did-"

"He didn't-" Melanie slaps a hand on the desk to get his attention, and Gerry whips around to look at her. "Jon's fine. He just wasn't feeling well, you're making a mess." Gerry looks down. The half eaten lolly's melting on his hand, and a small red puddle has formed on the desk. "Wow, déja vu," Melanie mutters to herself.

"What's happened to him then?" Gerry frowns. It's not as if a migraine would be able to drop an avatar.

"I don't really like being Seen," comes a new voice, and Gerry whips around again, this time to see the yellow door that's now the entrance to a place that is not Jon's office. "And I didn't make it easy for him."

"So you two had a row?" That would make more sense, Gerry thinks. The Spiral is hard on the Eye. "About what?"

"Keep asking. Ended very well for him," Helen says smugly. Gerry notices however, that the Distortion hasn't even cracked the door open, much less come out, so Jon must've at least gotten a few good metaphorical punches in, whatever it was that they were fighting about. He turns to Melanie.

"What happened?"

Melanie rolls her eyes. "He called her an it. Everything escalated from there," she shrugs, and Gerry guesses from the way she averts her eyes that there's something she's not telling him, but that's ok. Whatever relationship she has with the Distortion is her own business. "He's on Basira's cot, by the tunnels."

Gerry blinks. "By the what?"

"The tunnels?" Melanie arches an eyebrow, like Gerry's playing dumb on purpose. "The ones under the Institute?"

"...Of course." Gerry forces through a suddenly too tight throat. "I'll- I'll go check on him."

"You forgot your loll- ugh," is all Gerry hears as he escapes the room, but he couldn't care less about the melting treat on the desk.

He walks aimlessly, trying to drown the cacophony of his thoughts with the loud sound of his steps, and he's barely aware -and vaguely thankful- that whatever tether his body was rebuilt around is pulling him toward Jon.

He shouldn't be this surprised, honestly. They'd mentioned the tunnels offhandedly before, but Gerry'd thought they were joking and Gertrude... Gertrude lied about worse things. Did worse things. The entire conversation they had that evening is playing in his mind again, and Gerry feels his knees weaken as his pulse begins to race.

"Do you think they can reach us after death?"

Just when did he forget Gertrude was not his mother? How did he forget she could be just as cruel? Gerry's hands are shaking a little.

"Personally, I suspect death puts us beyond their power..."

Did she remember that moment as she mutilated his body in that American morgue? Did she even stop to think before she did it? His head feels like it's filled with crawling ants as he imagines, not for the first time, Gertrude peeling his skin off to make his page.

He lays a hand flat against the wall when the world starts wobbling a little. During the first few months in the book, Gerry had entertained the thought that Gertrude bound him to it out of some twisted version of love. She needed him around, they were a team, she'd burn his page when the job was done, and they'd be free together.

The fantasy only really lasted up until the hunters summoned him for the first time, and let him know they bought the book from a less than trustworthy cop that turned a blind eye to the two of them rifling through evidence for anything supernatural. Why does he feel so light-headed? He's breathing, he's breathing as fast as he can but there's no air in his lungs and they're starting to burn and-

"Gerry?" The voice is like a soothing balm, snuffing out all of Gerry's thoughts at once and leaving him only with blessed silence and the taste of the gentle concern poured into his name. He looks up -he doesn't remember when he slid down the wall- to find Jon crouching before him. "What happened?" He asks, and the words once again taste sweet with worry.

Gerry wonders if this isn't the Eye's cruelest joke yet, handing Gerry over to someone who actually cares, after the fate that befell him at the hands of his predecessor. After he's learned not to trust.

"Why's your hand all red? Your mouth- is it- oh it's sticky-" Jon's touch is clumsy when it lands first on Gerry's cherry-stained hand, then on his face. Yet another confirmation that he's not accustomed to human closeness. "You don't look good."

"You've looked better yourself." Gerry croaks, but it lacks the light teasing tone he usually gives Jon. It's... it probably wouldn't come across too well right now. "Why do you have a Flesh mark now?"

Jon lips twist into a tired version of his usual, lopsided smile, as his hand curls into a fist and lays softly on Gerry's shoulder. Now that the panic attack is subsiding, the exhaustion is kicking in. "Helen has eaten some nasty things."

"You look like someone's fear bingo card," Gerry huffs. One would think Elias would take better care of his Archivist, even Gertrude never had these many close encounters and she practically looked for them.

"What's the prize?" Jon asks, his smile still tired but a bit more alive with amusement.

'You are', Gerry thinks, and at the same time he also Knows. Both certainties are puzzling enough, but he's not in the headspace to think harder about any of them. Besides, it's a bit too heavy to just drop it out there. "Let's not find out. I'd rather keep you out of trouble."

"I- I picked up a statement. To read at home," Jon mumbles. Gerry chuckles a little. He doesn't remember if he ever really had something he could call home, but the little flat with the lavender-smelling couch and Jon on the coffee table feels welcoming enough. "But I think we could use it now. Both of us."

Gerry lays a heavy hand on Jon's shoulder and pulls him down, moving slowly enough that Jon can turn around before he lands, leaning half on the wall, half against Gerry's side.

"Sounds like a plan." Gerry leans his head back against the wall to look up at the old, flickering lightbulbs. He feels Jon's troubled eyes on him. An Archivist's gaze is not to be ignored, but Gerry can't bring himself to look back. It's already bad enough that he likes Jon. That he cares for him, trusts him.

Maybe being tied to Jon is not the price to pay for living again. Maybe the price is learning just all the ways Gertrude played him. Learning again and again that perhaps he did trust her after all, and that it was all for nothing. Living with the constant fear that the second time around will be just the same, and there's something in Gerry that causes people to leave.

Jon's hand lands on Gerry's knee suddenly, gracelessly. Reassuringly.

"Statement of Adam Rodak," Jon reads. His word taste of peace, and his hand squeezes around Gerry's knee. A small comfort, from someone so unused to getting it. Gerry lets his eyes fall shut and his head fall sideways to rest against Jon's. "Regarding a holiday on the countryside..."

Chapter 6

Summary:

Thank you to the peeps at the LonelyEyes discord server that let me use their Vastsonas!
Sylphie belongs to SarcasticSylphie aka TideHopper on Tumblr
Matt belongs to Pancakeofsin

And as always, thank you to my lovely Beta Mx_Carter

Chapter Text

 

 

 

 

VI

Basira's capability to work through bullshit is, it turns out, incredibly high.

It's basically a requirement for all sectioned officers, but Basira's been steadily pushing her threshold back since she started noticing her partner and friend with benefits could track down a suspect better than the K9 units. As it stands now, she looks at Sylphie Fairchild, and ignores the way her ears feel blocked, like every sound is dimmed and muffled before it reaches her. She knows they're standing in a shop on a busy street, and the avatar's acoustic tricks are not going to fool her.

"A diving school?" Basira asks. The shop is all painted a single hue of deep blue, from the door and the floor to the counter, and if Basira loses her focus for a moment it becomes unclear if the walls are even there at all.

"Best one in Malta," Sylphie smiles. It's difficult to believe there's something inhuman about her, when she's not spewing bugs or sprouting limbs. "We specialize in nighttime excursions. Only you and the sea and the stars above yo-"

"Sounds charming," Basira interrupts. The woman leans across the counter slow and flowingly, like she's moving through water. The folds on her flannel continue moving long after she's stopped, as if pushed around by currents Basira can't see. "I thought drowning was a Buried thing."

It's why she'd come here in the first place. Surely a Vast avatar that deals in the Buried's domain will know something about the coffin, or how to crack it open.

"Hmmmmm, it depends on what you get from it." Sylphie, voice turns amused. "Should you be asking questions? I thought that's why you had an Archivist."

Basira sighs. That does explain why this feels so wrong. When Elias gave her the name, it had been easy to find Fairchild, her path illuminating in her mind like a neon trail. But that's it. She's meant to find information, not add it to the Archive, she guesses.

Whatever. This is not about Basira and what she may or may not be turning into. This is about Daisy, and that makes it worth it.

"He's busy. I want to-"

"Ah, pity. I wanted to meet him! Michael always gets all the fun- or he used to." Sylphie chuckles darkly, and it sends Basira's nerves on edge. A good reminder that this is not just a young woman playing dumb, but a predator. She wonders how many people have jumped into the sea in the middle of the night and then never found the boat again. "You Eye folks really like sticking your noses in everybody's businesses don't you?"

Basira's nape prickles. The counter is gone, and she's standing in the middle of a deep blue expanse, much colder than it ought to in the middle of the Maltese summer.

"I'm not scared," says Basira, and she means it. She rationalized her way out of the Unknowing, it takes a lot more than a Fairchild with bad taste in decoration to mess with her mind. "Do you know anything about the coffin?"

Sylphie rolls her eyes. "Tsk. You're no fun at all." She snaps her fingers, and the reassuring presence of walls and floor and ceiling start to fade in again. "It's a pocket dimension, I don't deal with those. Too constricting. Couldn't help you if I wanted to, sorry!"

"Do you know anyone that could?" Basira asks, and Sylphie gives another laugh, delighted this time.

"Sure, don't know if he would though. Go look for Matthew."

The words light up like a beacon in Basira's mind and all of a sudden she has a purpose again. This is what she's supposed to do, and the first steps of the way towards finding the next target are already forming in her head.

"Not even a thank you?" Sylphie's amused smile is audible in her voice as Basira walks towards the door. "Come back when you get whoever it is out of the coffin! We do couples outings!"

Basira slams the door so hard that the glass panes of the windows vibrate furiously, even after she walks away.


The depression on his ribcage is fairly noticeable, when the steam on the mirror clears. Jon is not too used to looking at his own body, especially in the past years when every time he looks there's a new scar to hate.

He presses his hand to the skin, and the beat of his pulse is much easier to find without the protective barrier of the ribs, and much more comforting than it should. It has to mean something, that he still has a beating heart.

"You've been staying the night a lot more lately," Jon observes when he walks into the kitchen to find Gerry brewing a pot of coffee. Gerry looks at him for a second and then immediately back at the pot. Jon goes to push his wet hair away from his face, suddenly self conscious.

"Does it bother you?"

"Wh- no, not at all," Jon shakes his head. Great, just great. Just go ahead and screw it up with the only person who for whatever reason seems to like your presence anymore. "I was just wondering."

"Yeah I just thought with the Dark people coming closer-" Gerry's voice fades gradually, until he's looking at the coffeepot in a sort of contemplative silence. He turns his head to look at Jon again after a moment. "I just like being here."

Jon feels his mouth dry up, and the space where his missing ribs should go aches as if to remind him he's betraying Gerry's trust even as they speak. He'll- he'll probably stop liking it -liking Jon- when he finds out he's been lying to him.

"That's- that's good. I like having you here," Jon mutters. At least he isn't lying about that. Having Gerry around makes him feel a bit more human, and the man is awfully patient in the face of Jon's awkwardness and bad habits. "I- do you need me to read something tonight?"

Gerry rolls his eyes as he pours coffee in two mugs, and Jon feels his stomach do a flip. The gesture doesn't look annoyed at all. It's the kind of eye roll Georgie used to give him before, all fond exasperation he doesn't deserve.

"I don't come here just to get my fix, Jon," Gerry smirks, passing him a mug. "Let's just watch a movie, I could use the distraction. I'll even let you sit on the sofa with me, come on."

He walks out into the sitting room, and Jon watches him go. The warm drink in his hands brings to mind a comparison he doesn't want to make, because it didn't end well for Martin.

Jon follows, and finds that Gerry has indeed left him a spot on the sofa, just wide enough to sit with his legs under him, which Jon miraculously manages without spilling hot coffee on himself. "How considerate."

Gerry winks. "Your own fault. Don't go adopting stray undeads if you don't have enough sofa space."

Despite himself and his earlier thoughts, Jon smiles. He often finds himself relaxing around Gerry.

"Terribly sorry, the Eye didn't mention anything about your furniture hoarding habits when it dropped you off." Jon sips at his coffee as Gerry snorts.

"I do wonder sometimes, you know?" Gerry asks after a while. The remote sits untouched on the coffee table before them. "Why exactly did the Eye choose me. I mean, we know it was putting on a show for you, so why bring back the sad book ghost instead of your actual friends?"

"I don't think it wanted to lose another Archivist so soon, and you were the only option that wouldn't try to kill me as soon as you woke up," Jon shrugs. It's a tough truth, but a truth nonetheless.

"Hm. Well yes, but still, " Gerry's started spreading over more and more of the sofa as he speaks, and Jon gets the feeling he's going to end on the coffee table again after all. "It would've made you happy to have them again, and I think that was the point in-"

"It chose just fine then, I think." Jon looks stubbornly at the dark coffee in his mug. He's aware enough that he's just on the verge of making things awkward- Gerry's already gone suspiciously quiet by his end of the sofa, but he needs to say it. "I'm just- I'm sorry it wouldn't let you rest. Having you around is- but you earned it. You deserved a chance to be free of all this."

Gerry clears his throat. "That means a lot, Jon." His voice is a little strained, and Jon sighs. Another interaction turned uncomfortable, great. "So- how about a comedy? I'd suggest a thriller, but we'll both probably Know the twist before it happens so what's the case?"

Jon's head whips up at the change in tone. Gerry's stopped slipping down the couch, his socked foot just shy of touching Jon's knee, and he's reaching for the remote. Usually these conversations end with the other person storming away from him, not just- moving past to the next thing.

Maybe Jon is right, and the Watcher brought him Gerry because he's the only one that could possibly sit down and watch a movie with a monster.

The gap in his ribcage aches again, and Jon has to remind himself that Daisy's life is more important than his regret.


She hadn't expected to find a Vast avatar in the middle of New York's downtown, where every space is crowded to its maximum capacity. Perhaps this is a more metaphorical empty space? The unbreachable distance people build around themselves, that sort of thing.

"Matt," says the man at the top of the line, handing the barista a crisp hundred dollar note. "Keep the change."

Basira rolls her eyes before approaching him. The duality of these monsters is without a doubt their most vexing aspect, tipping a barista 95% on a mocha before shoving another innocent off a bridge or however this one does his business.

"Matthew Fairchild?" she asks once she's within a few steps' range. "I have some questions."

The man -teen, really, Basira doubts he's a day over twenty, if he even reaches the number- gives her a sideways look, before his eyebrows arch in recognition.

"Oh you're the Eye fella aren't you?" He smiles. Basira blinks. Suspects aren't usually this thrilled to see her. "Sylphie told me you'd be coming, that was quick! Let me just get my coffee and we can move somewhere more comfortable."

"Thats- no. I just want to know-"

"Matt?" Another barista calls from the end of the bar, and Basira has no doubt the extra ninety something dollars helped push Fairchild's order to the top of the queue. Matthew grins and dashes away to pick up the steaming cup, leaving Basira's ears whistling a little.

"There, thanks for waiting," the young man returns to Basira's side with a whipped cream monstrosity, and she can feel her lower lid begin to twitch. "So where's your Archivist? I heard he killed Mike-"

"He didn't," Basira interrupts him immediately. "That was a hunter. The Archivist was just lucky she stepped in at the right moment." It should feel wrong, using that term to describe Daisy, or praise her kills when she's so much more than what the Hunt made of her, but Basira won't let her achievements go uncredited.

"Hm. Yeah, that makes more sense I guess," Matthew shrugs. "Anyways, what do you want?"

"The other- she said you knew about pocket dimensions," Basira says carefully. This one seems a bit more cooperative than the last, but she knows better than to trust avatars.

Matthew laughs. "Well, I got mine. Is that what you mean?"

Basira looks around. The Starbucks is gone, and they're standing at the edge of a sickly yellow grass field ending on a cliff, a mirror copy of it a thousand miles below them. That one too ends in a cliff, and Basira can just about see the same field and the same cliff repeating over and over again as far as her eyes can perceive.

She rips her gaze away from the unending space and focuses on Matthew, who's watching her with an amused smile edged in milk foam and chocolate syrup.

"Yes, this is what I mean." Basira hopes her words and tone can convey just how not impressed she is, but the avatar seems far from offended. "How would one break out of it?"

"Now, it wouldn't be too smart of me to tell people that, don't you think?"

Down by the third cliff -or the fourth? Sixth?- Basira catches the movement of a lonely figure as they fall to their knees and begin tearing at their hair, calling out to the empty expanse of white sky above them.

"I don't care about them," Basira says. She should feel guilty, and in some ways she does. But they aren't Daisy, and she can't save them. "I'm talking about the coffin."

"Ew, don't talk about that thing!" Matthew cringes, and the sounds of the busy coffeeshop around them start again like someone just pressed play on a recording.

"I need something that will work on the Buried," Basira says. Matthew rolls his eyes.

"Don't know, don't care. You really should've brought someone who could get answers, if you really wanted them," he takes another sip of his coffee, "I'm gonna go no-"

Basira's hand shoots forward to clamp down on his wrist. "I will find you again," she warns, "I am not the Archivist, but I am good at finding people. And I will keep finding you and yours again and again, until you. Tell. Me."

Matthew arches an eyebrow at Basira's white-knuckled grip on his forearm, and Basira feels wind whipping up around her again, smells the sickly grass and hears the faint, distant screams. She doesn't look away from him. If this is a pissing contest, she will win it.

It feels like an eternity goes by before Matthew sighs, and Basira's once more assaulted by the scent of overpriced coffee and the sounds of people purchasing it.

"Like a dog with a bone. Are you sure you're not with the Hunt?" he asks. Basira doesn't move an inch, and Matthew rolls his eyes. "Fine. The ones your sort gets statements from are the ones we let out, usually. They have anchors. Don't know if it'll work in the coffin. My thing is a gateway into the Falling Titan, the coffin is the Buried. Can I go now?"

Basira narrows her eyes. "If you lied, I will find you, and I will bring him with me. You won't like how he asks questions."

"Bring him, I have nothing to hide." The man snatches his wrist free, and as he walks towards the crystal doors they slide open with a burst of air and he's gone, Basira suspects back to his own little reality.

There's... A lot to think about.

She takes a seat on an armchair by a corner. An anchor. This should make things easier, but it really doesn't. Basira lets out a low, slightly hysterical cackle. Now she just needs to find an anchor to go save her anchor from the damned box.


This really isn't healthy, Martin thinks.

The scent of brewing tea, the warmth from the mugs and the steam from the kettle -so different from the white fog that's started following him, even outside his flat- serve only to bring him back. To the time when the break room meant life and company; or even worse, to the time when the break room was already either empty or full of tired, wary looks, but it meant a preamble to a small lopsided smile and a single muted thanks after handing out a warm mug, and that brought Martin all the strength he needed.

The hope's still there, however faint, but Martin doesn't want it anymore. Doesn't want to want it, if it makes sense. Peter isn't lying when he insists life alone is much easier, but something in Martin keeps clinging stubbornly to the feeling of belonging. There's a click behind him, and Martin sighs and turns to give the tape recorder another reminder that he needs to be left alone.

Jon's startled eyes meet his from where he's frozen by the door, and Martin wants to scream.

"I- sorry," Jon apologizes immediately, "I thought Melanie-"

"She's out. She left with Gerard this morning." Martin saw them leave through the cameras, but he also felt them leave. He can often tell how many people are still in the Institute lately.

"Uh- yes I- they've been going out, I forgot," Jon mumbles and Martin feels that ugly, useless, misguided hope rear its head up again. "They've been hunting. A Leitner, I think Gerry said."

Oh, there it goes. Dead again.

"Back on his old business, then."

"Yes, he's- I don't think he knows how to give up on helping people," Jon says. There's an undeniable warmth in Jon's dark eyes when he says that, and Martin has the thought that maybe he came here today because the Lonely wanted him here for this very encounter. "You'd know about that, I guess."

Wait, what?

Jon's eyes are still soft, fixed on some point behind Martin, and he realizes with a start that he still hasn't poured the extra mug of tea down the drain.

"I-" Martin starts, but he has no idea how to follow it. 'I love you, please forget about me' is maybe too on the nose.

"You need to go, that's-" Jon's resolve, whatever it was, seems to deflate. Martin winces. "I understand, I need to go out anyways, I- sorry. "

He turns to leave, and Martin is left alone with the bitter thought that the only thing worse than Jon not respecting his wishes is apparently Jon doing just that.

He needs to stop coming here.


"You look distracted," Melanie says when they stop for lunch at midday. She's got some fish and chips, and Gerry is -as usual- picking unenthusiastically at the smallest item in the menu. She often wonders if he doesn't really need to eat and does it only to appease her- in which case his solution does a lot more to feed into her suspicions than to ease them. "What is it?"

"Hm? I mean, we're hunting a book that makes you grow organs until they start coming out of your body cavities, isn't that enough?" He flicks a chip around the plate, glaring down at it like it personally wrote the offending book.

"Yeah, and we know exactly where it is. We just need to wait until tomorrow when the shop's open. That's not what's worrying you." Melanie's not sure where the certainty comes from. She's either been spending too much time with Gerry, or the Eye's mark is starting to affect her more now that the bullet is gone and she spends most of her day out looking for leads on avatars and Leitners. "Gerry?" she asks again, because he clearly stopped listening to her about a word in.

"I don't know. I'm just on edge, for some reason." And his eyes drift away in the direction of the Institute again. Melanie groans, because she thought she was done listening to relationship trouble involving that freak forever, but her life is a joke and she's two Jon-related comments away from inviting the Slaughter back in. "What?"

"Did you two get in a fight? Is that it? You're trying to save who knows how many people from vomiting their organs until they're empty meatsacks, and you're worried about Jon?" she snarls, stabbing at the piece of fish on her plate so hard she hears the fork clink against the plate underneath. Therapy, Georgie, Gerry and bullet removal have done a little to fix her animosity towards Jon, but she seriously doubts she'll ever like him. She never did in the first place, so she figures it's ok.

"I- no? We're alright," Gerry frowns at her like she's the crazy one. "...but maybe? It does feel like there's something back at the Institute. But I don't know what. Maybe the Eye wants me there for some reason."

"Got it. Then we should keep you away, right?" Melanie looks at Gerry. Gerry looks back. The silence stretches. Melanie narrows her eyes. "Right?"

"Melanie..." Gerry's look turns pained, and Melanie groans again.

"I thought we weren't doing what the Entities wanted!"

"We're not, it's just- last time it felt sort of like this, you know?" Gerry shrugs. He looks apologetic, biting at his stupid lip piercing with a thoughtful frown. "When the deliveryman went in. They might be in trouble."

Melanie rolls her eyes. Since Basira's away on whatever lead she's chasing there's only three people at the Institute that would theoretically be in danger, two of them are technically unkillable, and she really only cares about the one that could escape most easily.

"Helen will let him into her door if it's anything too bad," she tries. It's probably true, but Gerry's frown doesn't fade.

"I'm not too sure about that," Gerry says, and Melanie remembers in that moment that they lied to him to cover the ribs thing and he thinks Helen and Jon got into some sort of monster brawl. Funny how lies come back to bite you in the ass. "We can't do anything else about the book today. Let's go back early."

Melanie pinches the bridge of her nose. Gerry probably won't leave her alone and go back by himself. Outside the Institute the only safety they have is their numbers, and he wouldn't just let her get taken, she's sure. She's also very sure he'll be insufferable until they go back. She was enjoying the break, goddammit.

"I hate you." She lifts a hand to call the server over, and pulls her phone out to send a text.

"Your ex continues to ruin literally everything in my life," she texts Georgie while they wait for the food to be packed up. Gerry's not even trying to peek at her phone, so he must be genuinely worried. Georgie sends back some kissy emojis, and Melanie feels a little less murder-prone. "Some insight on this? You hid him in your house during a murder investigation. Is it mind control?"

"I'm very weak to cute short people who make bad decisions. Lucky you." Georgie responds. Melanie smiles. She'll take the compliment and the implication, even if it's lumping her in with Jon.


"I thought you were going to wait for Basira," Helen opens her door on the ceiling this time. It's fun to inconvenience the Archivist, she thinks, as he twists his neck to look up at her. The chains are undone, and the coffin hums a delighted purr, having been promised a willing meal.

"I can't anymore," Jon mutters. There's no animosity in his tone when he looks at Helen, which is both new and pleasing. "We don't know what Daisy's going through in there. Waiting however long until Basira comes back when I've been ready for days... it feels unnecessarily cruel."

"Hmmm... had some snacks for the way, didn't you?" Helen asks. The Archivist's eyes are not usually green, but they're glowing like neon since he walked back into the Institute.

"Don't- don't mention it, please." Jon closes his eyes, but the lovely green glow is visible even through his eyelids. "I'm- if I don't-" he starts again, before cutting himself short with a huff.

Helen arches an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"I... I know you're not her. Helen, I mean," the Archivist starts again. "But- but they're all human," He says it as though he expects her to understand, and Helen nods. They're all so easy to break, thin boned and fragile minded, so fascinating to watch in this world of nightmares they've stumbled into. Helen likes them an awful lot.

"And you trust me to keep them safe?" Helen asks. Truth is, the Archivist is not wrong. She's not Helen Richardson in the way a hand is not a body. She's not even really an avatar either, because the Distortion spawned from the Spiral itself, but sometimes she wonders if there is too much human in her now, polluting the purity of her concept. The Distortion likes humans, but not in the way that Helen does, and the clash is... disconcerting.

Jon gives a soft, humorless laugh. "I don't know that I trust me to keep them safe. But I'm all there is... and if I'm gone, then-"

"I'm not exactly a fighter, Jon."

"You found a way to help Melanie- a way to help me." Jon looks up at her, and Helen averts her gaze. His eyes are too much, this up close; a recently fed Archivist is not something to be taken lightly.

"I thought you said I wasn't Helen," she says. Jon bends down to lay his rib on the floor.

He shrugs. "I still feel like Jon, sometimes." He straightens up, and takes a deep breath, before stepping into the coffin. "Goodbye, Helen."

"Good luck, Jon." Helen waves him goodbye, the tips of her fingers grazing strands of his hair before he descends too far for her to reach.

The coffin closes.


Gerry likes to think he's both fairly smart and intuitive. The Beholding wouldn't have marked him otherwise, tattoos or not. The uncontrollable curiosity was always a part of him, and his mother loved it. As Gerry grew older he realized it was because she thought his Beholding mark would make it easier for her to get information for her ritual; very on brand for Mary Keay, to encourage her six years old into becoming bait for an entity of eldritch horror.

He's no Pupil, no Archivist and no Detective, but Gerry knows things others don't. And as they get closer to the Institute, what he knows is that something is deeply, impossibly wrong.

The Eye is calling him back at full force, the tether born where his heart used to be pulled taut like a harp string, and Gerry realizes with a start that this has something to do with Jon. But it makes no sense, Jon was just fine this morning, and judging on what he did to the Stranger's errand boy a few weeks ago, he's powerful enough to handle whatever comes his way. Jon will be fine, he has to be fi-

"Slow down!" Melanie snaps, and Gerry realizes she's almost running to keep up with his longer, hurried strides.

"Sorry. It just- it's bad," Gerry grunts out as they bend around the corner, and the Institute comes into view. His worry seems to have caught on with Melanie, and she keeps up with him without another complaint. "I don't know what it is, just-"

"I still feel like Jon, sometimes." Jon's voice is as clear as if he was talking by Gerry's ear, even though he's nowhere in sight. This is definitely the furthest he's been able to hear Jon, provided he's all the way down at the Archives, but Gerry doesn't give the realization much thought, focused as he is on the serious, resigned cadence of Jon's voice. He certainly doesn't sound like he's in danger, but Gerry still doesn't like- "Goodbye, Helen."

And it all clicks in Gerry's mind.

"Fuck-" Gerry takes off running towards the building, not knowing or caring if Melanie keeps up. Jon promised he wouldn't do this, Jon knows this is crazy, it-

He hears a sound like a slamming door, and Gerry falls like a puppet whose strings have been snipped in a single cut. It's only his remaining inertia that takes him a few last inches towards the Institute, before he's collapsing on the pavement. He feels his lip and forehead split against the entry steps with awful clarity, but he couldn't care less, because whatever pain his body's experiencing pales in comparison to the agony inside him right now.

It feels as though they have taken all the air from his lungs and replaced it with red hot nails, like someone is digging at his brain with an awl, like his very soul is being ripped out of his chest, and he knows this is a punishment. The Eye tried to warn him, and Gerry ignored it, and now Jon is gone.

"-rry? What's going on?!" Melanie's voice is frantic, like she's looking for something she can kill to fix this, and it's the last thing he hears.


When he comes back to, Melanie's half dragging, half pushing him -he thinks, detachedly, that it must've looked funny as she dragged his semi conscious bulk around the Institute, Gerry's not a small man and Melanie hides a surprising amount of power in her tiny frame- onto the break room sofa. Gerry moves to try and support some of his own weight, and she drops him with a start. Whatever injuries the pavement gave him ache at the sudden movement, but he's got bigger things to worry about.

"-ffin. The coffin," Gerry mumbles. Melanie gasps, and when he parts his eyelids he finds her looking at him in concern. It's not a look he's ever seen on Melanie, and he has enough presence of mind to feel flattered. "He's gone. He-"

"Gerry, it's alright," Melanie tries, as clumsy as Jon in her attempts at softness. "He- he said he'd be, he has his rib-"

"His what?"

Melanie's expression quickly turns to guilt, and she squeezes and pulls at her fingers in what must be nerves. "He wanted- I took him to the Bone Turner. He was trapped inside Helen, and Jon got him to take out a rib. He said it would work as an anchor, and he'd be able to come back with Daisy."

"Oh my god-" Gerry groans. Of course, of course Jon would- "That won't work. That's not- Melanie it has to be something he loves!"

He'd thought Jon understood that much at least, but apparently he misunderstood just how oblivious Jon is. Gerry knows with devastating certainty that a rib -or any other part of his body- just won't cut it, because he's never met anyone who hates himself so stubbornly and undeservingly as Jonathan Sims.

Melanie arches her eyebrows at his outburst. "Well, then you could-"

"Where's Martin?" Gerry cuts her short, pushing heavily off the sofa. His energy's coming back, and he thinks bitterly of how Jon practically insisted on reading to him for hours n end these past days. The Flesh mark, the sad looks… a lot of things make a lot more sense in retrospect. He hears Melanie call out after him, but he's already off the door.

This is a terribly Jon thing to do, he thinks as he stumbles down empty corridors, using a bit of juice to Know the way towards Elias' office. Gerry's fuming. For all her oversights as a person, Gertrude was at least aware of her importance. To the world, and the people around her, regardless of whether she considered the latter nothing but a handy tool. Jon on the other hand thinks his only value lays on the people he saves, and Gerry's going to kill him if he gets back.

When he gets back, Gerry corrects himself fiercely as he bangs on the luxurious oak door. The only signs of life behind it are the thin wisps of fog curling out from below it, and the golden plate with Elias' name reflects his face mockingly.

"Open the door!" Gerry bangs harder. "I know you're in there, I'm not leaving!" 

Once again there's no answer, and Gerry starts backing up to the opposite wall. He's going to get Jon back even if he has to break the door down and hoist Martin over his shoulder to drag him to the Archives.

The door swings open. "What do you want?" Martin asks, still mostly translucent other than his white-knuckled hand around the doorknob. "You're bleeding. Or something."

"Jon went into the Buried." Gerry wipes his hand against the cut on his forehead. It comes back stained in a pitch black fluid with a tangy metallic smell he recognizes quickly enough, and he wipes it clean on his jeans. He'll worry about that later.

"He what?" Gray seeps out of Martin's eyes, leaving behind a nice forest green, and Gerry feels a crashing wave of relief wash over him. His suspicions were right; whatever the hell Martin thinks he's doing with Lukas, he loves Jon, and Gerry's not alone. "Why would he do that?"

"Apparently there's a Daisy in there? Come on, the coffin's at the Archives," Gerry shrugs, and he gestures back the way he came.

"... Daisy the cop? The one who tried to slit his throat?" Martin arches an eyebrow as they walk, and Gerry has to stop and take a grounding breath. Of fucking course.

"I'm guessing that's the one." Gerry pinches at the bridge of his nose. Maybe this is actually how Archivists hunt- maybe they don't need any statements, they just drive you crazy. When he opens his eyes Martin is looking at him with a decidedly amused glint in his eyes.

"It's not an easy job, eh?" Martin asks with a soft smile, and he starts walking again. "What do you want me to do?"

"You're his anchor. Call him. If he's not too far already, he should be able to hear you." It has to be enough, Gerry thinks. It has to, because otherwise he'll have to accept that Jon slipped through his fingers when he should've seen this coming from a mile away. That Jon is gone because he couldn't stop him.

"Oh." Martin stops on his tracks, the determination on his face giving way to something more guarded. "I'm- I don't think I can help, then-"

"Oh my god! Are you kidding me?" Gerry groans. These two are pathetic. Gerry's lost count of how many times he's had to bite back on how he doesn't think Martin deserves the sheer longing and pain that radiates from Jon's face every time he even mentions the man. "This is ridiculous, and I don't have time to discuss with you. For whatever reason, he-"

"You're still bleeding. Why is it black?" Martin interrupts him, and Gerry holds back the urge to scream. Is this why they like each other? Because they're both stubborn and mulish and refuse to accept they might have value for someone else?

"Fuck it. We don't have time for this." He's going in himself, he's tied to Jon, that has to count for something. He goes to sidestep Martin, when a hand clamps down on his wrist. Gerry looks back at him, and Martin's bright green eyes are filled to the brim with intense suspicion. "Martin, Jon doesn't have time for th-"

"How do you know he can still come back?" Martin asks, his voice heavy with mistrust and hope in equal measures.

Gerry wants to say something scathing, or at least something that will get Martin moving, because Jon needs them. And if the truth is what it takes, then so be it.

"I don't know. Nobody knows. But I'm still alive, and that means he still exists," Gerry says. The acrid smell of ink fills the space between them as it drips from the cuts on his face. Martin's eyes are sharp as he starts connecting the dots, and Gerry has no trouble whatsoever believing that this is the man that outsmarted the Eye's Pupil.

"So- so what does that mean? You know how to find him?" Martin asks, and Gerry shakes his head.

"I can't hear him anymore," Gerry sighs. A fat drop of ink runs down the side of his face. "He's no longer here."

"That's- don't say that," Martin says firmly, and there's something steely under his soft, gentle features. "He'll find a way back, Jon always does. We just have to trust him. Now is there anything we can do so you stop bleeding all over the place? Inking? Whatever it is, let's- let's stop it."

Gerry blinks as Martin pulls out a package of paper tissues from his pocket and offers it to him, a man he neither likes nor has ever been even remotely kind to him. Knowing Jon like he does now, this explains a lot.

"I doubt it's going to stop anytime soon," he says, grabbing the offered tissues. "Not without Jon here to talk to me. His voice is what keeps my body working."

Martin seems to mull this over for a bit, as Gerry soaks up tissue after tissue. Is he made up entirely of ink? Should they be like... keeping this in a bucket, if only to use it later? Gerry gives his hands a quick once over, and sighs in relief when he finds his tattoos are still there and he hasn't bled them out. That would be adding insult to injury.

"...Oh." Martin lets out a little surprised exhale. Gerry whips his head up to look at him.

"What? What is it?" Gerry asks. A slow smile is spreading over Martin's lips, and Gerry can't help but to feel hopeful. Martin might be a naïve idiot who thinks he can play the Lonely to his favor, but if anyone has the slightest chance at saving Jon-

"Come with me."

Chapter 7

Notes:

Hey y'all! Check out this cute art from chapter 1 and chapter 5 made by Iamthehelperdog on Tumblr!!

I also wrote a fluffy JonGerryMartin AU about the boyfriends having a *clenches fist* nice day at a cafe based on their art, if you wanna check it out

Chapter Text

 

 

 

 

VII

There's people around him, that much Jon knows. He hears them trying to move, trying to dig not even to escape, but just to carve a pocket of air big enough to pull in a mouthful of air before everything closes down again. They don't know and they don't care, that the pressure around them is not always dirt or water. Sometimes it's sadness. Guilt. The Buried has no qualms against using the memories of those you left behind to drag you in further.

He knows the way to Daisy, but only barely. The only hint he has as to her whereabouts is the dull ache of the scar across his throat, and Jon Knows with a feeling of grim satisfaction that the only reason he's able to even feel that much is because made sure to feed beforehand. Still, a single thought plays through his mind on repeat, the only thing that keeps him moving forward anymore.

He doesn't know the way back.

The rib stopped calling to him as soon as the lid slammed shut above his head, and Jon has the bitter thought that he could've skipped the encounter with Hopworth, for all the good it did to him.

Jon's next step sinks up to his ankle, as his thoughts turn dark. Why did he think he could save anyone? When has that ever worked? This was nothing but his arrogance. Another failure at helping what he broke. Gertrude stopped dozens of rituals on her own, but Jon had to bring an entire team into the Unknowing, and make everyone but him pay for his incompetence. Gerry was right, this was a mistake and-

Gerry.

The name has his stomach constricting with guilt, and the Buried clings to it like a ravenous dog; the thick mud he's wading through swallows him up to his thighs in a single motion. Gerry's going to die, or- or worse. Without Jon's voice to feed him he's going to waste away, trapped forever in his own body because Jon made a stupid choice for them both. Gerry- Jon was supposed to make things right for him. Jon was- Gerry has done nothing but be nice and patient to him, and Jon left him alone.

Was this the Eye's plan? To tie him to someone as intrinsically good as Gerry, so that Jon would think it twice before throwing himself into danger again? Gerry's playful, easy kindness has made Jon feel... wanted. He knows he doesn't deserve it; that the warmth in his stomach when he looks up from his reading to find Gerry's face relaxed in his sleep is dangerous.

Jon's affection is poisonous, and one needs only to look at how it's killing Martin to confirm it.

The pressure is up to his waist now, and the memory of Martin's gray eyes only pulls him deeper. The Eye should've chosen a less selfish Archivist, because these two men tried their hardest to keep him safe, and Jon was still ungrateful enough to throw it all away, just to try and earn back a little bit of worth in his own eyes. To be a savior for once, instead of a monster.

Jon closes his eyes, as the heavy pressure of dirt or water or guilt closes up over his head.


Martin looks away from the bright screen, and slides a hand under his glasses to rub at his closed eyes. It's been three hours, but he's finally finished putting this month's payroll in order. He will definitely not need to lie about his capabilities on his next job interview. Or he wouldn't, if he were actually able to just walk away from this mess.

A single, dormant tape recorder rests next to the keyboard, and Martin gives it a sad look. It appeared on his desk yesterday, about five minutes before Gerard started banging against the door and, if he had to guess, at around the last second before Jon stepped inside the coffin, because the Entities have that kind of humor.

The button clicks when he presses it and the tape begins to move as usual, but it lacks the feeling of life the recorders usually have when they turn up around Martin. This may have been one of Jon's tapes, but whatever part of him that was inside it is long gone.

"Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding... a lost Archivist," Martin sees the fog encroaching the office as he speaks, and he sighs. "What were you thinking, Jon? Actually, scratch that. I think I can guess exactly what you were thinking," Martin feels the pinch of resentment and anger burning in his stomach. The fog around him recedes for a moment. "Some weird combination of 'this was all my fault, and I have to set it right if it kills me', and 'It's not that bad if it kills me, because I'm a monster anyways', wasn't it? Sometimes I don't know if- are you ever going to stop trying to hurt yourself?"

His eyes burn, and Martin yanks his glasses off his face and all but throws them on the desk to bury his face in his hands. This is ridiculous. Jon is- this is how he is, Martin knew it from the start, when he stopped daydreaming about the smooth voice and hypnotic dark eyes and started noticing the many subtle ways Jon neglected himself, and it drew Martin in like a moth to a flame.

The broken ones are the safest, because he can tell himself that they'll love him when he fixes them, all the while being blissfully aware that he can't. The openly relieved, almost adoring look on Jon's face the first time they ran into each other after Jon came back was the most terrifying thing Martin had ever faced. And now here he is, selling himself over to try and protect a man he forgot he can't protect from himself.

"You're coming back, aren't you? You have to. You can't do this to me again Jon, I can't-" Martin doesn't even care that his voice sounds slightly wet. He feels suspiciously like himself, all this emotion is not something he's used to anymore. "End recording."

Martin takes in a deep, strained breath. That's- it's alright. He still has a purpose. Melanie's still here, and Basira. There's people to look after. There's work to do and-

"Are you done with that?" Martin's head whips up, and his hands scramble over the desk to find his glasses and jam them back on his face just in time to see Helen reaching for the tape recorder. The door to Elias' stationary cabinet is no longer obscenely expensive mahogany, but a gaudy yellow material instead.

"What?"

Helen shrugs at an angle that shoulders should never move, and Martin averts his eyes before he can get a headache. "I usually grab them when you leave but you didn't seem like you were going anywhere now."

Martin blinks. "I- that's not- why do you want my tape? Have you been stealing my tapes?"

"Only some of them. The ones that don't go back to Jon immediately. Also it's not stealing if you leave them behind. Finder's keepers."

"Finders- why do you want my tapes?" Martin wishes his face didn't feel so hot. One would think being halfway into the Lonely already would spare him from being embarrassed over this, but there's clearly something still very human in him that's mortified at Helen hearing his sad tea parties with the tapes. This might just be enough to kill it. "What are you doing with them?"

"Not much. You don't take very good care of them, but he can't come into my hallways."

"He- do you mean Peter?"

Helen blinks once, her eyelids moving horizontally. "Can I have it now?"

"I- uhm. That's- that's actually very nice of you," Martin frowns. It's difficult to discern sometimes, if Helen is actually on anyone's side or just enjoys puzzling them. "Thank you?"

"So can I ha-"

"Yes, you can have it." Martin rolls his eyes, and Helen's fingers wrap many times around the tape recorder. "Please don't show them to any-" the yellow door closes, before Martin can finish, and he darts a look around the office.

It would be just his luck if Peter stepped out of the Lonely right now, but there's barely any fog left in the office. Martin sighs. He needs to call it back, or it'll look suspicious.

Martin closes his eyes, and thinks of his mother.


"I'm just really glad you're keeping up with therapy. I know it made you very antsy at first," Georgie smiles behind her coffee cup. Melanie's brain goes blank for a couple seconds. She loves Georgie's smiles, her dark lipstick contrasting starkly with the white of her teeth when her full lips part just the slightest bit.

"It's- I feel better," Melanie says once she's regained her faculties. Then she adds, "but I think my favorite part of going is that I get to be with you," because she's a tiger, not a kitten.

"Are we doing this?" Georgie laughs, and her cheeks darken a little. Melanie doesn't think her heartbeat was this intense during even the worst episodes of the Slaughter.

"I could do this. If you wanted to," Melanie reaches out slowly and rests her hand palm up on the table. It's a hand that has slashed and maimed and killed, but it's trembling somewhat as it waits on the wooden surface.

Georgie's big dark eyes glint with amusement, and the warmth in Melanie's chest is enough that she forgets about everything else for a moment. The Institute, the fears, nothing is as important as the curve of Georgie's smile.

"I'd like to do this. If you're feeling better," and she lays her hand on Melanie's, giving it a little squeeze.

"I do. I feel amazing, I'm cured. It's a miracle," Melanie blurts out, and Georgie laughs animatedly, before leaning over the table to plant a kiss on Melanie's forehead. "Thank you."

The world could end tomorrow, Melanie thinks; all the fears out there can't touch them inside the little restaurant.

"I'm here for you." Georgie nuzzles her nose against Melanie's. "You're... very brave, Melanie."


Melanie's still floating a little by the time Georgie drops her off at the Institute. With all that's happened lately in her life, this feels a little too good to be true. Of course, reality crashes back down on her soon enough.

"How are you holding up?" Melanie pushes open the door to Jon's office, the man's recorded voice reaching her immediately "...oh"

Gerry's asleep on the desk, a hand clenched tight around a playing tape recording, and he looks terrible. The injuries on his face haven't healed at all; listening to the tapes slows the bleeding, but Melanie knows if she were to press stop on the tape, the papery white flesh under Gerry's skin would seep with dark ink again.

Melanie sighs, and walks up to him to see how much longer the recording has left. Jon's talking about worms and fire extinguishers, and the spool is almost empty of tape. She reaches over to the pile of fresh tapes by the desk, and selects one at random. There's an empty recorder on one of the bookshelves, and she crams the tape inside it and presses play before dropping it next to Gerry. This should last until he wakes up at least.

She doesn't want to think of what they'll do when they run out of tapes.

"At least he's alive," Helen observes, coming out of a door that should've led to the break room. "Or not. Existing, I guess."

"That would be a way of putting it," Melanie purses her lips in a tight line. "I- this is sort of my fault I guess. I shouldn't have taken him with Hopworth."

"He would've known eventually. Like with your bullet," Helen says, shrugging. "He might still come back."

"I don't care-" Melanie starts, then stops and sighs. "I do want him to come back. For them. I still haven't told Georgie because I don't want her to be sad, I think Jon pestering him was the only thing still keeping Martin from whatever stupid plan he's attempting, and it's only been two days but Gerry's already dying." She huffs. It was a lot easier when all she could feel was rage.

"I wouldn't worry about Martin," Helen says simply, and Melanie snorts.

"You're lucky I like your cryptic bullshit." Melanie looks towards the closed door of Jon's office, and the weight on her shoulders intensifies. "I should call Basira."

"Good luck with that"


Jon doesn't dream like before, in here. Or rather he does, and he's just not used to the way humans dream anymore, all wishful thinking and nonsensical thoughts strung together.

Tim looks down at him and says he forgives him, before pressing down on the detonator. Sometimes he even climbs out of the rubble cackling like a madman and declaring they're all going for drinks because they stopped the apocalypse and they deserve it, and he throws an arm over Jon's shoulders like he used to do before the Archives.

He walks into his office and Sasha -the real one, he knows, even though he cannot remember her face- is sitting at his desk, merrily going through his emails with a smug grin.

Georgie picks up his calls. She tells him about her life, and she says she doesn't like that he's accepted this, but she knows he didn't choose it.

Martin's eyes are green and bright. They're sitting at a coffee shop and Jon's hand is free of scars -burns or worms- where his fingers slot perfectly between Martin's, and they're joking about how Martin ordered tea despite his unreachable tea standards.

Gerry's napping on his sofa because he wants to, not because he doesn't have anywhere else to go, and Jon sits on the floor next to him just to be able to hear him breathe. He's suddenly enveloped in a warm, tight embrace, and all around him it smells like peroxide and lavender. The mix should be jarring but it's not because it means he's safe, and he's home. Wherever that is.

Jon opens his eyes to darkness, and a single, muted click from somewhere on his body.

"I've been... sleeping, I think," he says, because he remembered he's supposed to speak when the tape recorder turns on. "Or I've been dreaming, at least. When I- I'm deeper in, every time I wake up, as if allowing my mind a momentary escape from the reality I find myself in only serves to condemn me even further. I suppose I could stop sleeping, it's not like I need to anymore, but- I don't think I want to."

Jon heaves a sigh that tastes like moist dirt and desperation, before he starts dragging himself forward. If he's awake, he should be moving at least, because the Buried presses on closer the longer he stays still.

"How long have I been here for? It feels like weeks. Months, maybe. By this point I have already accepted I'm not going to find what I came looking for, so why shouldn't I give myself the respite of my dreamscape? It doesn't really matter how much deeper I get dragged in. I don't Know the way back." The dull ache in his throat remains; a bitter reminder of- of what? "...What did I come here for? I- I had a reason, I'm sure. Was it... did I lose something here?"

He can feel the knowledge dancing just at the edge of his mind, and his throat throbs harder the more he thinks about it. The path before him -if there even is something that could be called a "path", here at this pit that feeds on despair- gets rougher. Jon feels rocks and roots dig against his arms, slicing at the skin in places as he moves.

"I don't- I can't remember what I lost," he mumbles to himself. The pain in his throat intensifies, and so does the pressure around his body. He goes to move again, but- but he can't. "I'm- I'm stuck. I can't-" he pulls and pushes,and he hears his bones creak and the dirt around him shift, but the Buried doesn't want to let him go.

If that weren't enough, the pain in his throat keeps growing more and more intense. Did he cut himself on a rock while he slept? It's- no, he... he had it before coming here and- the Buried presses down harder on him, but he Knows this, the scar on his neck, the sound of a gunshot-

"Daisy?" Jon calls out with his last breath, and the Buried crumbles over him. Sharp rocks dig into him, and the weight is too much to breathe. His open mouth fills with dirt so tightly packed around him he can't even lift his eyelids-

"Jon?!"


"-made the mistake of spending an entire night outside my safehouses. I was almost beaten to death by an angry goth."

"That would be our Gerard."

Gerry pauses the tape again, and rewinds it the past couple seconds before going to rub at his temples. It doesn't help with the throbbing headache -nothing has, and he suspects nothing will unless- until Jon comes back- but it's what one does when one has a headache, and it does make him feel better, somehow.

Did Martin know what was in the tapes he left behind before taking off with the rest? Gerry's heard every recording that mentions him in passing, even the one in which his page gets destroyed. It was... nice, to hear Jon shake off the Beholding's barbed grasp to keep his promise to him. though the pained grunts and gasps as the page burned away in the background were decidedly less so.

Click. "-almost beaten to death by an angry goth-". Click.

Logically, Gerry knows it wouldn't have solved anything or helped anyone. But after listening to Jon's little adventure with the spider book, he wishes harder than ever that he'd finished the job.

Leitner had had all the damned books in his possession once. He could've destroyed them, instead of just writing his name on them and stashing them on a shelf. A Guest For Mister Spider had been clearly meant to emulate a children's book, was Leitner too much of an idiot to figure out how that would end up?

Gerry has seen the result, and it's a man who walks into eternal torture because he lives in a constant state of survivor guilt.

"Are you still listening to that one?" Helen's echo-y voice asks by his elbow. Gerry looks down to find she's turned the bottom of an open desk drawer into her door. Gerry can only see about half of her face, but he has no doubt she'd be able to push herself through and unfold to her full size.

"It's just..." Gerry shrugs. He needs to keep playing tapes, and listening to the same ones again and again renders them less effective each time. But he can't bring himself to push the one with Leitner's questioning away. It's something about the circumstances of the two men involved; one with all his knowledge, hiding like a coward for decades, while the other one, so terribly scared, braves the unknown just to learn. Of course the Beholding wanted him. "It's hard to explain."

Click. The low chuckle sends a jolt of something straight to Gerry's stomach. "That would be our Gerard.". Click.

Click. "Our Gerard."

Click. "Our Gerard."

It really is hard to explain. When did this happen?

"Hm. Melanie's worried about you," Helen says. Her eyes are swirling as she runs them over Gerry's hunched form, and her lips curl with distaste. "You don't look good."

Gerry laughs, or he tries to, before it devolves into a wet cough that leaves droplets of ink sprinkled all over the desk. "That tracks. I have never felt so far from good in my life."

"What about when you were a book?"

"When I was a book I didn't have to worry about a man that seems to be actively trying to run face first into any entity he can find," Gerry sighs. "Did he- do you think you could have stopped him?" He asks. The thought has been plaguing him nonstop over the past two days. Jon knew going into the coffin meant death, Gerry made that very clear that day at the flat. Jon is also extremely depressed and lacks a self preservation instinct at the best of times. "I know you were there when he went in."

"If you couldn't do it, what makes you think I would've had better chances?"

And isn't that another fun little link in the blame chain? Gerry had thought making it about Martin would be enough, that Jon's love for the man would outweigh his hatred for himself. Now he's paying for the mistake.

"What did Martin do in there?" Gerry asks instead of responding. Martin had locked the door behind him after coming out, and handed Helen the key before going back to Elias' office. A smart move, Gerry has to admit. The Distortion is the only one inhuman enough to not be lured in by the unchained coffin.

"He placed the tapes around it," Helen's voice resonates even more oddly than usual inside the small drawer. "They've been playing. They rewind on their own." Which is a good sign, all things considered, but Gerry's mind latches on to one detail only.

"He didn't even try," he spits out. He'd also thought, hoped really, that what Martin felt for Jon would be strong enough to call him back. Martin doesn't think the same, clearly, and Gerry can't help but to feel a little bitter about it. "I told Jon he could do better."

"I'm going to leave now," is all Helen says. Nice, not even the monsters want to hear Gerry mope around over a man in love with someone who doesn't deserve him. He goes to close the drawer after Helen's door disappears, and stops when he notices the tapes at the bottom. Were they there before? He doesn't think so.

Whatever, they're the closest within hand's reach, and Gerry can already feel cut at his forehead welling with inky black blood.

Click. "Hello there." Martin's voice coming out of the tape instead of Jon's feels like a slap to the face. "Not doing anything really interesting right now, but you can stay if you want." Gerry clicks the tape off with a huff.

It clicks back on right away.

"Really?" Gerry glares at the tape, because it's the best substitute he has for Jon. In the background, Martin complains about Peter Lukas being exhausting, which Gerry guesses is true but also probably the least remarkable thing to complain about Peter Lukas. "You're trapped in another dimension and you're still going to defend him?"

Gerry clicks the tape off again just to be contrary, right as Martin mentions something going extinct. He can almost picture the stubborn curve to Jon's lips as the button clicks back on.

"Ugh. Fine, fine." Gerry reaches for a tissue to wipe at the ink on his forehead. "I'm going to listen to it, but just this one, or I'm going to bleed all over your office, and I'm not in the mood to clean that up."


Elias knows the value of waiting.

He's learned through trial and error the importance of good timing, and how moving a piece a second too soon can change the entire board so irreversibly that it leaves you no choice but to start over.

Gertrude, for example, had only been the latest failure in a long line of unrealized Archivists, though she was by far the most remarkable out of them all. Elias is ashamed to admit he ruined her for himself; if he'd been more careful about what he pushed her to discover, perhaps she wouldn't have noticed her transformation until it was too late. A pity, but of course it had been her discoveries that sparked the idea of the Watcher's Crown, so not a total loss.

There's not much to do at jail except for waiting and watching anyways. Waiting for meals, for breaks, for Peter, for Basira, for the time to walk out of this gray, boring confinement.

For now, Elias Watches his Archivist.

There are certain places where even the Pupil is blind, but the Buried does not care that you see how trapped you are, and it leaves itself open to being Known.

Jon has just found Daisy, and they cling to each other like twins in the womb, the only thing they know and love in this world of darkness and pressure that has claimed them for itself. Elias is not above being surprised -his current domicile can attest to that-, but he can't deny his stubborn, raggedy Archivist has once again proved more resilient than he expected.

Elias really hopes he makes it out of the coffin, because it would mean he has a real possibility of escaping the Lonely when the time comes. The Forsaken and the Buried have so many things in common.

Also, because it would be a real shame to lose him so close to the end, and he doubts he could find someone else with the sheer luck -or the blessing of the Web- needed to survive these many marks.

He tries calling him one more time, but while the Buried doesn't seem to care that Elias looks inside it, it's not about to give up two victims. Pity. Jon's on his own it seems.

There's a knock at his door, three single, evenly spaced hits Elias recognizes immediately.

"How unexpected," he calls out as he pushes his hair back and straightens his shirt. A wasted effort on his future visitor, but it's the principle of the thing. "Please do come in, Peter."


In the years since she’s been trapped in the coffin, Daisy has begun to wonder if she actually knows anything about herself. How much of what she considered her personality was actually just the beast boiling just beneath her skin, waiting for the right moment to pounce?

Daisy doesn’t consider herself to be a particularly difficult woman to understand. She’s unpredictable, a creature of emotion; she loves and she hates with the same fierce passion that called the Hunt to her, and her loyalty’s hard to win and harder still to lose, the driving force that calls her back whenever she’s too lost in the sound of her own blood. She’s ran into a few of her kind before, and she knows this is a shared trait between those who serve the Hunt. A bit of a bad joke, really, that all hunters instinctively seek a pack. She mentioned it once to Basira, but she didn’t seem to find it funny -Daisy always did have a weird sense of humor-, and it had made that odd underlying tension in their every interaction even heavier.

She wonders now, which part of her it was that saw Jonathan Sims and disliked him immediately, and she hopes it was the hunter rather than the woman, because she has come to the conclusion that she has never misjudged a person this badly in her life.

“I’m sorry, Daisy.” Jon says again. He apologizes a lot. Daisy thinks she had noticed this before, but she just didn’t care back then. “I thought- I’m sorry I can’t pull us out.”

“It’s not- you still- you found me,” Daisy says. It’s difficult to form thoughts in here, but her words have been coming back slowly ever since Jon’s hand found hers in the dark. Whether it’s whatever remains of his powers, or just Daisy remembering how to be a person again is really anyone’s guess. “We’re together.”

“Yes, we- is that better?” Jon’s left hand tightens in the fabric of her shirt, and his right twitches as it tries to do the same. It’s burned, Daisy remembers suddenly, and she has the briefest flash of rage, the urge to find Jude Perry and kill. The Buried presses harder around her, quelling the sound of her blood. “Daisy?” Jon’s voice pulls her back, something to focus on other than the feeling of dust in her throat.

“I think- y- yes,” she says after a moment, the thought sudden but hard to get out. “Yes. I- it’s much better. Th- Jon, thank you.” She clings to him a bit tighter, when the dirt around them shifts and tries to get between them. The Buried can try all it wants, but Jon is hers now, and it won’t take him from her, the same way it couldn’t take away the memory of Basira’s firm, grounding voice.

“Good, I- that’s good.” Jon’s head rests on her shoulder, and Daisy’s chest tightens impossibly, the feeling completely different to the pressure of the entity around her.
Whatever happens now, she’s not alone.


Airports are odd places to be at. There's something strange about a space that was designed to be just comfortable enough that you can stand to wait until you're finally allowed to leave it. A tired man with a crying baby in his arms pulls his suitcase out of the luggage belt and turns to leave. Basira feels something in her rear up like a snake in the grass; this man has some kind of information for Jon, and as he walks towards the automated doors he seems to leave behind a trail of fluorescent footsteps, visible only to her but so easy to follow, if she needed to find him.

Her phone rings in her pocket, and Basira shakes her head. The trail goes cold and fades from her mind as she pulls the device out and brings it to her ear.

"It's me. What now?" Basira says into the speaker as soon as the call connects. It's been a while since she's had friends who call only to catch up, and she doubts Melanie's one of those.

Melanie's voice sounds odd through the line. Nervous, somehow.

"I did, some things." Basira sighs. "Melanie did you kill Jon?"

An elderly woman waiting next to her shoots her an alarmed stare, and Basira gives her a little wave and a shake of her head. The woman sighs and seems to relax a little as Melanie speaks some more.

"What do you mean 'not just me'? Melanie did someone kill Jon?"

The woman moves further away to keep waiting for her suitcase.

"I'm- what? Why did you- Melanie I told you to be nicer to him, not help him kill himself." Basira can feel a migraine starting to bloom behind her eyes. "Yes of course Keay's dying he- yes I knew, Elias told- I forgot to tell you okay? I had more important things to do."

She spots her suitcase a few pieces away on the belt and shoves her way to it, yanking it to the floor with a sharp tug and walking off in the gap the other travelers have opened for her.

"I'm on my way. Don't do anything."

Chapter 8

Notes:

Nothing to link today, just letting y'all know I really appreciate all of you and your comments, thank you!!

Chapter Text

 

VIII

"Jon?" Daisy's voice is slightly panicked, and it sends a pang through Jon's chest. He's learned what it means, by now.

"I'm here-" he says, giving her hand a squeeze. Daisy squeezes back so hard it hurts; that's good, down here. It helps remind you there's feelings other than fear. "Is it-?"

"It's coming agai-" is all Daisy manages to say before it is there. Dirt presses in all around them, and though Jon shuts his mouth tight it somehow finds a way in, like it always does. It cram up his nose, down his throat, into his eyes and somehow that last one is the most terrible of them all, and Jon has to remind himself not to let go of Daisy's hands to try and scrub at them. He opens his mouth to scream, but all that slides into his lungs is heavy mud, the kind you can step on and not sink, and definitely not the kind you can breathe through, and his lungs burn-

And it's gone.

Everything recedes at once -it doesn't go away, it never does-, just far back enough that Jon can take in a gasp of air that is only mostly dust.

"D-daisy?" his voice is slightly panicked.

"I'm here," it feels like an eternity goes by before Daisy squeezes at his hand, and he squeezes back as hard as he can, enough that it hurts his joints."Talk to me," Daisy asks, begs. "T- tell me... tell me about home."

There's a certain quality to her voice on the last word, a longing Jon has heard and felt and mourned before, and Jon knows without a shadow of a doubt that she means Basira. Dirt shifts around and away from them, and Jon wonders once again if their tether isn't strong enough that, in a few years, Daisy might have found the way out by herself. The thought shouldn't bring him relief after he climbed in himself like an imbecile, but it somehow does still. It means, at least, that Daisy hasn't given up.

"Basira had just left when I- she has been seeing Elias at jail. Martin's- the plan worked, by the way. He's- Elias is gone from the Institute." An empty victory. Elias might not be there anymore, but his presence still weighs down on them all, and in leaving Peter Lukas in charge he both took a revengeful swipe at Martin, and exchanged a known evil with a dangerous new threat. "Nothing else really went according to plan."

"But something did," Daisy's arms tighten around him when the Buried tries to push them apart; it hates it when they say anything positive. Jon rests his head on Daisy's shoulder; the last person to really touch Jon before this idiotic excuse of a plan was Gerry, and he -mortifyingly- finds himself comparing the two. Daisy's frame is thinner after almost seven months in the coffin and her limbs are weak with disuse, but her grip is firm and though it should be suffocating here in the depths of the Buried Jon finds it grounding instead.

And well, it's not like he has any margin of reference for- Gerry has never held him like this. The closest thing was when Melanie stabbed him and Gerry practically carried him into a cab and then up the stairs to his flat. He- Gerry's... solid, is the first adjective Jon's brain can conjure, with his broad shoulders and wide chest, and the big, heavy arms he drapes around Jon's shoulders sometimes when they walk. Not as tall as Martin maybe, but still a good head taller than Jon, and-

"Jon?" Daisy asks, curiosity in her voice instead of fear this time.

"Hm?"

"You we- you were telling me about outside." Oh.

"Ah- I- yes. Outside, I- sorry." Jon clears his throat, face burning so hot he's sure Daisy can feel it. This is ridiculous, they're- he needs to focus. What he wouldn't give for the clarity of mind that reading a statement- oh. Oh.. "Daisy."

Click.

"What is it?" Daisy tenses, and her voice has a slight growl to it. Their patrons can't reach them here, but they're still avatars, they-

"I think- I need a statement," Jon should feel guilty about asking this of Daisy when she's already suffered so much, but the Buried is pulling at him. Jon clenches to Daisy's shirt as tightly as he can; it knows what he's planning, it knows he's right. "I know it sounds- please, please trust me on this, I-"

"I do," Daisy's shaky voice cuts into his hysterical rambling. "I trust- I'll do it," she says, and Jon feels like sobbing.

"Alright," he clears his throat instead, "then... statement of Alice... of Daisy Tonner, regarding?"

Anything will do, and he Knows Daisy has stories to tell, stories he needs.

"The man that visits my dreams."


"How are you doing?" Melanie asks, sitting cross-legged next to him on the floor. Gerry looks up at her, the tape recorder whirring away on top of his chest. "Okay. Yes, stupid question."

Gerry sighs. It's- the fact that Melanie even cares shows amazing progress from the little monster of rage she was not a month ago. Under different circumstances, he'd feel happy about it.

"I'm better. The tapes help."

Melanie nods. "Martin has some good ideas."

"At times," Gerry mutters, feeling the familiar prickle of irritation at his stomach. He has some words to tell Martin, after what he heard yesterday in the tapes. "I still think he should have at least tried to call Jon back."

"I don't understand any of that." Melanie nudges at his side with the tip of her sneaker. "If Martin could have called him, why couldn't you?"

Gerry sighs. "I told you. It's got to be something he loves. Someone he loves, not-" he huffs, when Melanie arches an eyebrow. "You know it's not like that. You know it was never like that at all."

"I know it's not like that, but..." Melanie trails off, as if trying to find a way to say what she's thinking in a way that doesn't require mentioning feelings at all. "Is it not like that?"

"Eloquent," Gerry says dryly, but Melanie's stare doesn't waver, and he knows by now she's like a dog with a bone. "It's complicated. You'd know."

"It's why I asked," Melanie shrugs. "Turns out things usually aren't as much as one might think."

Gerry rolls his eyes. He saw her just yesterday, hanging off the arm of the tall, dark skinned woman with curly hair and black lipstick -very different from Martin, Gerry had thought detachedly, Jon has varied tastes- who looked down at her like Melanie could disappear at any moment.

"Did one of you get resurrected as some sort of bargaining chip for the other?" Gerry asks, because at least that part is easy to put into words. Much easier at least, than explaining how Jon somehow became a lot more than just the guy he needs to survive. "No? Thought so."

"Ass." Melanie's sneaker digs into his side a bit more viciously now. "He'll come back. He's- don't take it the wrong way, but he's like a cockroach."

"...I want to take that the wrong way."

Melanie rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean."

Gerry bites at the ring on his lip, an old habit he stops immediately when he remembers how much it used to distract Jon every time he did it, and the gesture turns bitter instead of soothing.

"Not much I can do about it anyways." And isn't that the worst part? Gerry has spent his whole life fighting the entities to save as many as he could, no matter how lost they looked. Now they took someone from him, and Gerry's hands are pretty much tied behind his back. The fact that Jon lied to him to do this only adds insult to injury, because Gerry can't even be angry at him because he's gone. "How's Georgie, anyways?" A door opens with a creak; Gerry guesses Helen will be joining them soon.

"Welcome back," Melanie says in a voice that could probably suck moisture out of the air, and Gerry turns to look at the door.

Basira stands at the threshold, and 'unimpressed' doesn't even begin to describe the look on her eyes. "We're going to have a talk," she says, and it somehow sounds like a threat.

"Cheers," Gerry grunts. Just what he needs right now.


"I didn't really take it too seriously, when I started learning about this world. When you have things that steal faces, or trap people in nightmare dimensions, or- somehow things that watch don't seem that dangerous. Then I went to the Institute.

I had been at Basira's neck about him for weeks. Sure, Basira and I were not at risk of being fired, sectioned officers are almost immune to that, but I did not like the thought of her getting any closer to this place, and handing evidence to a suspect under the table just felt like another line we would not be able to cross back from. But truth is... her intuition had never failed us, and I was thinking clear enough to realize I was far more worried about her interest in this man than suspicious of him. I hadn't seen him yet, but every time Basira came back from their meetings with the stench of the Eye around her- I thought it had to be the place, and I started to fear she was becoming the kind of thing I had to deal with, because I wasn't sure I could do it with her.

That's when he was finally cleared of our investigation, and when she asked me to be the one to give him the updates, I knew two things immediately. First, she did like him, and didn't want to be the one to drop it on him that she'd only been using him. And second, there was definitely something off about him, because Basira didn't set me on people if she didn't have a reason to suspect.

I thought I was prepared, but- I had never met anyone with the Eye, and I had no clue of the kind of thing they do to your brain. He just asked, and I was telling him about it all of a sudden; the rain that felt like it would drown us at every second, the truck covered in grime that seemed to drink in the water to turn into mud, rather than let itself be washed away as it should. The two men that were not men, the one that was, and... that.

I think what makes monsters of the Eye so dangerous is that they're sneaky. Of course I had nightmares about that night, I had been having them for years; now they were just... More frequent. Almost nightly, and when I saw him standing by the edge of the road just staring, I thought it was only my subconscious adding him in because I didn't like him.

Basira is really the only reason I didn't kill him when I found him again; I could feel he was less human and that was enough for me, but she managed to talk me out of it. She wanted more information, and I wanted whatever she wanted, that's all it took for him to survive.

The changes were easy to miss at first. Sometimes there was an extra eye on his cheek or on his neck, but they'd always be gone when I focused on him, and how much of a dream can you really take at face value? I thought it was just my unflattering thoughts about him filtering through to my sleeping mind. Then one time he opened his mouth like was about to tell me something, and there was another eyeball there, the pinprick pupil focused on Isaac as he walked into the damned thing like taking a stroll. It's fitting, I think, that he's not allowed to talk. Just to watch, and watch, and watch.

Maybe killing him back then would have been better. Maybe I let Basira talk me out of the first and only act of mercy I have ever tried to do, because I am no longer convinced the man in my dreams is not as much of a victim as I."

"State- statement ends."

Click.

"Was it- did it help?"

"...I know the way."


"Do you think you can find Jon if you go in after him?" Basira asks. It's not a solid lead, but it's been buzzing in her head ever since she climbed into the cab to come back from the airport.

"Wow," Melanie whistles. "And here I was thinking Daisy and I were the murderous ones."

"I know you're tied to him, somehow." Basira ignores her. She knows Melanie has grown fond of the man, for whatever reason."Think it will be enough to find him?"

"And how do you know that?" Keay arches a pierced eyebrow. He's far too calm, for someone who hasn't let go of the running tape recorder.

"Elias told me some things. Can we turn that off?" She asks. Jon's voice is starting to make her antsy, and a part of her that sounds suspiciously like an angry Daisy sardonically asks her if she's worried about the sad little monster. Sometimes Basira wonders if keeping her partner human wasn't doing the same for her.

"Yeah, that's not a great idea," Mel purses her lips by her side, and Basira frowns.

"No no, let's do it. She wants to know anyways, doesn't she?" Keay's smirk is defiant and dry, and he punches the stop button on the tape recorder. Basira watches his expression for any change... and soon enough the cuts on his face start oozing a pitch black fluid that runs down the side of his face. He doesn't bother to wipe it away, staring her down as if challenging her to comment on it.

Basira reaches across the table, and presses play on the recorder again. "Okay, so no."

"I'm tied to Jon. It doesn't mean Jon is tied to me," the man shrugs. It almost passes as casual, if it weren't for the slight furrowing of his brow. "I can't feel him anymore."

"...I could try." Basira mutters, and stiffens when both their glances fall on her. She- it's a bad idea and it probably won't work but this feels too much like the months after the Unknowing, with everything falling apart because Basira couldn't keep things under control. "I'm- I can find things. People. At least out here I can, maybe I could-"

"Well maybe you could. Apparently I know a lot less than I thought," Keay snaps suddenly, standing up so fast Basira flinches back. "Why don't we all go throw ourselves into the Buried, huh? Make a day trip out of it." He walks out the office, slamming the door behind him.

"He's having a hard time," Melanie says, and the apology in her tone has Basira huffing angrily. He's not the only one who lost someone to the coffin, if anyone's allowed to 'have a hard time' it's her, but instead she's here, trying to fix everyone's mess as usual. "Basira?"

"What?" Her voice is angry and strained. She won't snap, she won't give them the satisfaction. She's in control.

"Don't go into the coffin." Melanie's voice is as soft as Basira has ever heard it, which is not too much, but still incredibly noticeable. "Jon and Daisy might survive it. You're just going to kill yourself."

"And?" When she turns to look at her, Melanie looks uncharacteristically troubled, until she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

"And I wouldn't like that," Melanie says, like every word is a battle hard won before she speaks it. "Don't go in. It's only been three days... let's give them some time."

Basira doesn't respond, and eventually Melanie climbs to her feet and leaves the room much more quietly than Keay, leaving behind only the running tape recorder.

This is too much.

Martin working with Lukas, Jon and whatever Keay is, even this new Melanie, it's all too much, and Basira doesn't have an ounce of control over any of it. How is she supposed to make this right when nothing makes sense? When she doesn't have all the information? Basira's supposed to be the tower, steady, firm and unbreachable, the last one standing when everything else has fallen. She'd always thought Daisy needed her far more than she needed Daisy, but now Basira feels her foundations crumble, with no one she can trust to share the load with.

Her hands are shaking, and Basira clenches them into tight fists until they stop. It's alright. She'll make it work; the board has changed, all she has to do is rearrange her pieces. Plan her next move. She's worked through worse, she'll fix this one too. She just... she needs a break, a little one.

Basira buries her face in her hands, and waits until the urge to scream passes.


The Distortion is confused.

This is a tough problem to have, because the Distortion is usually confusing instead, condition rather than victim. Not to say the Distortion has never experienced the feeling; Michael had been plenty confused, when the Archivist accepted to walk through and instead found the door locked. But that's just the thing. Michael had been confused, whatever little scrap of twisted humanity left in him -in them, in it- was unsure of what to do next, or why he was doing this at this exact time.

Helen is not confused, but Helen doesn't have a plan either. She makes decisions in the spur of the moment, following an instinct like a figure in a fractal, pointless and non important as all her other actions, until viewed from afar. Truly, the Distortion could hardly have chosen a better host, if it had ever had the chance to choose, instead of having Michael Shelley forced into its very being. Thinking about it, the Distortion should have learned to steer clear of Archivists by now.

What was the point of keeping the tapes? Of giving them away? The Distortion doesn't know; Helen doesn't either. All they -it, she?- know is that it felt like the right moment, and that's all it comes down to, really.

It's not the right moment to reveal what they found at the center of the 'maze' -a child's game really, Robert Smirke could never begin to create something as beautiful and perfect as what Helen is by design- yet, and it won't be for a while still.

The coffin is banging, and it is the right time to open her door on the ceiling of the Archives, and drop a key next to Basira, whose shoulders are shaking with effort.


Martin watches as the steam from the extra mug -Jon's mug, his mind supplies, and the room around him goes a bit grayer- raises in little hypnotic swirls that pass right through his hand, the warmth of it barely registering against his skin. He's not quite in the Lonely yet, but these three days of knowing Jon is gone -that he wanted to leave, this time- has done a fairly good job of pushing him further towards-

"Oh, you're here. Great. Amazing."

Okay, tangible again. That was... that was a bit dizzying, the speed at which he was pulled back. Martin freezes at the annoyed voice behind him, and he swears once more that this is the last time he comes to the Archives break room. When he turns around, Gerard is blocking the exit, leaning on the threshold with his arms crossed over his chest and ink running down his face.

"Ehm- yes." Martin clears his throat. "Yes I am. Do you need something?" He probably doesn't need to point out that Gerard is bleeding again, right? He has to know, and it would be rude.

"I do, actually." Martin's eyes widen as Gerard pushes off from the door, closes it and locks it behind him. This is- there are only a few ways this can end and he's not looking forward to any of them. Gerard steps heavily towards him, and Martin has a split second of panic because he never learned to throw a punch, and he knows for a fact this man can- "I heard your tapes."

Oh. Oh great, this is even worse. He should've known better than trusting Helen, but this is- "...Okay, so what?"

"Cut it. I know you think you're playing Lukas, what I don't understand is what for." Gerard walks all the way up to him, forcing Martin to back up against the counter and look down at him. "What is the Extinction?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business."

"Jon cares." Gerard's blue-green eyes harden, and Martin's lips tighten into a line. "I thought it was just another way to hurt himself and you were just an arrogant fool, but after that-"

"After that what?" Martin says then, much more ferociously than he'd expected, but he feels himself grow bolder after the snap. He will not be made ashamed of loving Jon, not when it's the only thing he has left. Peter can't take it from him, and neither can this man. Martin has never had a good tolerance for hypocrites anyways.

"After that I just believe you're a fool. But a fool with a good reason, at least." Gerard's eyebrows draw together, as if he somehow still doesn't approve of this revelation. "And Jon wanted to keep you safe, more than anything."

"Well, Jon's not here, is he?" Martin says as firmly as he can, hoping it hurts the man before him as much as it hurts him.

"No he's not, but if he wanted you safe then that's exactly what I'm going to do, whether you like it or not." Gerard huffs, rolling his eyes as he jabs his pointer finger in Martin's chest. "And believe me, Martin Blackwood, when I say I will make sure I ruin any and all plans you have made if you don't work with me."

"What- you can't force me to tell you?" Martin sort of asks. As far as he knows that's an Archivist thing, but who knows what Gerard actually is-

"No, but if I heard your tapes right, we're both doing this for him." Right. Asides from someone very much taken with Jon, of course.

"You don't even know what 'this' is," Martin crosses his arms over his chest, batting Gerard's hands away. "Will you go away if I tell you?"

"Go find out."

Martin bites his bottom lip. Arguing with Gerard has brought him back completely, at least for the time being, and he's thinking fairly clearly for the first time in three days. He would know, wouldn't he? Peter is certain it was Adelard Dekker who discovered the Extinction, he keeps insisting there must be some letters addressed to Gertrude about it somewhere in the Archives. If Gertrude knew, then Gerard has to know as well, right?

"...Alright. But you can't-" you can't tell Jon about it, he wants to add, when he remembers that's... not a possibility at the moment. "Peter thinks there's a fifteenth entity. Something called the Extinction. He thinks Dekker told Gertrude about it."

Gerard's lips curl in what looks like distaste. "Might as well have. What does that have to do with you aligning with the Lonely?"

"Honestly? I have no idea. He's very cryptic about it," Martin shrugs, averting his eyes until they land on the tea mugs. He likes the Lonely. It's... easier. "But it was the deal we made when he first came to the Institute. People are... safer, this way. As long as I keep my end of the deal."

His words are followed by a silence that stretches for so long that Martin ends up looking back. He finds Gerard staring up at him with a thoughtful -if slightly unimpressed- frown.

"Keep doing that, then. Or, keep making him believe you're doing it," Gerard says after a pause. "I'll get to looking into the Extinction. With some luck I'll find something before you're too far gone."

Martin arches and eyebrow. "Peter says I'm halfway there already, and to be honest I feel that way too."

"It's alright. We'll slow it down."

"I- what? We?" The thought is sickening, as if the Forsaken itself is protesting the idea and sinking its tendrils deeper into him in response.

Gerard shrugs. "You might have enough pull on Jon that he's willing to step back and let you do this because you ask. That's not going to fly with me."

"You- you said you'd leave me alone if I told you!" Martin says, frowning.

"I said you'd find out, and you just did." The man gives him an absurdly irritating smirk.

Martin sputters angrily as his face grows hot with indignation. "Listen, I don't know how you got the idea that I want your help, but-" he stops abruptly, because Gerard before him might as well have been carved from marble, with how still and pale he's gone. His eyes are wide, his head tilted a little to the side, his only movement a sharp inhale of breath. "Uh... are you alright?"

"I hear him," Gerard says barely loud enough to hear.

Martin feels the blood leave his face as he pales to match the man. It's only been three days, it's- "are you sure?"

"What are you doing?" Gerard is already busy unlocking the door. "Move!"

But he can't, can he? He... it's too risky. And the thought of- the others will be there. Melanie, Basira, Helen. Daisy, if Jon was lucky, all of them together cramped in the small storage room, with nowhere to hide from-

"No. That's not- it's not a great idea," Martin looks down at his hands; the tips of his fingers are starting to fade again. "Go."

He doesn't look up at the angry scoff, or the door opening and closing violently, too focused on the news and the way they swirl and weigh in his chest. Jon's back, he's alive. Safe.


For one brief, terrifying moment, Jon is afraid they won't be able to lift the lid of the coffin. It's heavier than any wood ought to be, and they're both weakened and shaky after months inside the damned thing. They're so close, Jon thinks desperately, he can feel his rib out there, can feel the Archives calling him back, can feel Gerry out there, getting closer every second, and he pushes with a might that's not entirely his own, until the lid gives.

What hits him first is the light, and he's blinded as his pupils try to contract as fast as they can in response. Jon flinches against Daisy as there's a clattering of plastic all around them, and that's when he registers the sound of his own voice, statement after statement overlapping as each tape recorder runs at its own time.

"We're out-" Daisy mutters by his side, one hand white knuckled around Jon's dirty shirt and the other around the coffin's edge. "We're alive, we- I can't believe- what's all this?" She frowns, looking all around them at the recorders that seem to pick up in volume when they're noticed. The two of them climb out clumsily, unaccustomed to having this much space, and collapse in a tangle of limbs and leftover dirt. Behind them, the lid slams shut again, and the chains fasten themselves around the coffin. The Buried won't hunt in the same place twice, not now that two victims have crawled their way out.

"I, the- tapes? Must be dozens of-" Jon flinches again, and Daisy wraps an arm around his shoulders to draw him against her chest, when the door flies open.

"Jon you stupid-" Basira starts, and Jon can see the exact moment she notices Daisy. Her dark skin goes ashen, and her mouth falls slack. "Oh my god."

Jon is yanked forward roughly, when Basira launches forward to pull Daisy into a hug. He manages to wedge his hands in before he slams face first on the floor, but pushing himself back up is honestly a lot more effort than what he has to spare right now, so instead he allows himself to slide down until he's lying on his side. It's a good place to rest, at least, surrounded by his tapes like a bunch of lazy cats.

Basira's squeezing Daisy against her chest like she wants to meld with her, only breaking far enough to lay a long kiss on Daisy's forehead. Jon has the thought that they've both forgotten he's here, because he's fairly sure at least one of them is crying.

He did this, he thinks with a start. He got them back together, he really did save Daisy. The feeling of accomplishment, of hope that maybe he's not meant to just destroy, is almost enough to soothe the ache of loneliness as he lays there, waiting to get enough strength back to walk out and leave Daisy and Basira to their reunion.

"Fuck- Jesus, Jon." Gerry's voice is surprisingly gentle by his side, and Jon has a second to wonder how on Earth he didn't notice the man trampling towards him, before he's being positively enveloped, a broad, warm chest at his back and strong arms keeping him upright. It's- Jon doesn't even remember the last time he was hugged like this, because it feels different from Daisy's grip, and it's definitely different from what he imagined in the coffin; the scent of lavender has faded almost completely, replaced by an acrid, metallic smell.

"Not quite," Jon mutters, his throat tight. "But I'm getting fairly good at resurrections myself."

"You're crazy," Gerry says against Jon's hair, an almost breathless snort of laughter as he gathers Jon a bit tighter in his arms before climbing to his feet as though Jon weighs nothing. "Let's get you out of here."

They don't go back to the flat of course. Jon knows he could take the trip, but he's very aware that nothing will restore him quite like being at the Archives. So they end up at the storage room with the cot behind Jon's office, where Martin used to live and where Gerry first woke up, with its patched up wall and its door that won't keep anything out but that still provides a little bit of privacy at least. Gerry drops him carefully on the cot, and Jon finally gets a chance to get a good look at him.

"You're- what happened to your face?" Jon asks immediately, because Gerry looks terrible. His skin is grey and dry, and there are dark bags under his eyes, one of which sports a nasty purple bruise; there's a large gash on his forehead, his upper lip is split at the corner, and Jon finally recognizes the smell from before as ink, as he sees it bleeding out from Gerry's injuries. He reaches to touch at the wound on his lip with a shaky hand, but Gerry -whose face is starting to look more and more tired with every minute that goes by- grips it in his. "Was it-"

"Just a fall. From when you went in." Gerry lets out a long exhale, shaking his head. "Jon, what the hell?"

Oh dear. Jon sighs, steeling himself for a round. "Listen, I- Daisy was alive. I had to-"

"I don't care." Gerry leans forward, squeezing harshly at Jon's hand. "I don't- you're out now. You made it. That doesn't matter anymore-"

"Then why are you so angry?" Jon cuts in, frowning. He just saved Daisy's life, he's not about to apologize for the first good thing he's done since-

"Because you lied to me!" Gerry snaps. "You promised you wouldn't do this, but you already knew you would, didn't you? All you needed was some information, aren't you just lucky I was there to provide?"

Jon feels all the fight drain out of him as he catches the implication in Gerry's words.

"No," he shakes his head, softly at first, growing more adamant by the second. "No that's not- that was never my intention. I didn't mean to use you, I-" his words grow fainter and fainter, until his voice extinguishes altogether. How is he any different from the hunters? "Gerry I'm-"

"This is your one free pass, Jon." Gerry's hand squeezes at his again, almost too tight, as much of a warning as the serious, hurt look in his eyes. "Don't- you don't get to lie to me again. I'm done with that. I can- I will forgive your lack of self-preservation, I don't even-" he jerks his head to the side, breathing heavily and pursing his lips into a tight line.

Good. Great, yet another person Jon never wanted to hurt, broken.

After a moment that stretches for so long it becomes clear that the man before him won't speak another word, Jon shifts his hand a little to squeeze back. "...Gerry?"

And Gerry seems to deflate, a tired exhale leaving his parted lips as he looks at Jon just out the corner of his eyes. "Please don't be like her."

Jon doesn't need to ask who he's talking about, because he Knows, suddenly and painfully, with the unshakeable certainty of the Eye. Jon is- he knows Gertrude Robinson was a hero, the Archivist he'll never be. Stopping rituals, killing avatars, so dangerous Elias himself had to put her down. He also knows it doesn't mean she was a good person. Now he knows more than ever, here in the face of Gerry's broken trust, that he does not want to follow in her footsteps.

"I won't." He says, as firmly as he can when his mouth still tastes like dirt and fear. "I- Gerry, I'm sorry. I know it doesn't, uh, magically fix anything, that would be a much gentler power to have just-" he stops and clears his throat, when Gerry's sad eyes take on a hue of amusement at his rambling, feeling his face grow hot under the scrutiny. "I will not lie to you again. Ever. I'm... I've been told I'm quite bad at it anyways."

Gerry's eyes crinkle at the corners, and Jon is the one to avert his gaze now. "Terrible. I forgot you could have accomplices, though. Melanie's just as hopeless as you, but enlisting the Distortion was a good move on her part."

"Yes, uh, I can imagine Helen must be a very... accomplished liar." Jon takes a deep breath to try and get his heartbeat under control. He only succeeds in coughing out a small cloud of dust.

"Ah, shit." Gerry shifts by his side, beginning to climb to his feet. "Let me get you a statement, I'll be right-"

"N- don't," Jon says. He tightens his grip on Gerry's hand, and while it's not enough to pull him back down, it does get him to stop moving. "Don't leave." The thought of being alone in this small, closed room sends a pang of panic through his stomach, and he can almost see the walls closing in on him. Here they're safe, as long as they're together.

"Jon-"

"I'll just- I can take a nap. I'll be better in the morning." Of course he will, feeding on the trauma of those who have confided in him, but the alternative is the corridor that feels impossibly long, and selfish as it is Jon can't bring himself to choose to let Gerry go. It's a step away from begging, and Gerry seems to hear it, because he sits back down. His eyes are heavy on Jon, loaded with an emotion he can't identify. "Sorry, it's just-"

"It's alright. I know- you just came back from the Buried, Jon. It's alright to ask for things," Gerry says, and Jon thinks fleetingly that it would be a lot easier if he actually knew what he wants. The ink on his face is dry by now, their conversation enough to at least make his wounds stop bleeding. "I could use a nap, too. Mind if I turn off the lights?"

"...I would rather you didn't."

"Fair." Silence. An arm draping around Jon's shoulders to bring him into another hug, and Jon melts into it, embarrassingly enough. It's been too long, and Gerry... Gerry feels like home. "I still can't believe you came back."

Jon wants to apologize again. For taking too long to come back, for going in the first place, for lying. For how much comfort he finds in Gerry's touch. For not being enough, when he and Martin and everyone around him deserve so much better than a man that can't help a person without hurting another.

Exhaustion crashes down on Jon, digging bone deep into him until he can't fight his eyes closing. Tonight he will feast on dreams. Tomorrow, he will be better.

Chapter 9

Notes:

Hi y'all!

I'm letting you all know that I will be changing Illicio's posting schedule from weekly to once every two weeks. I'm really sorry about this, but I don't want to burn out trying to keep up with my current pace.

Thank you all for your kudos and comments, they really keep me going!

Chapter Text

 

 

IX

On the days after the Buried, Daisy gets to know the world again. Or more accurately, the Institute, and the people in it. The difference is mind-blowing, now that the Hunt is only a background presence in her mind instead of the driving force behind her thoughts.

"You look... better," she tells Melanie one evening. It's not really a visible change, but she remembers Melanie from before the Unknowing, always bristling with a rage so barely restrained it used to set Daisy on edge too. Back then her thoughts had been mostly focused on how to take Melanie down if it came to a fight, and she has the feeling the same can be said of Melanie. Just two rabid dogs sizing the other up and waiting for the tension to crack.

"I guess I am," Melanie frowns down at the computer screen, and when Daisy leans over she can see she's taking a quiz of some sort. Probably not the approved use of Institute equipment, but she doesn't seem to care. "Did Jon tell you about the bullet?"

"He mentioned it," Daisy shrugs. A lot of things were said in the depths of the coffin, trying to bring the other some measure of comfort.

"Gerry says they got it off me just in time. Apparently I was a bad accident away from becoming a full avatar." Melanie gives her a careful look out the corner of her eye. "I'm guessing that's why you look..."

"Like shit?" Daisy asks with a dry smile, and after a moment Melanie smiles back.

"I was trying to look for a better term."

"Sugar-coating doesn't suit you."

"Can't say I have much practice." Melanie goes back to her quiz, and Daisy goes back to thinking.

Her condition is hardly surprising, considering everything; the Hunt has been pulling at her from the moment she climbed out the coffin after Jon, but she's done her best to ignore the call of the blood. Daisy's very aware that this is abstinence without recovery, and that her reticence to join in with the Hunt's other hounds is her choosing a slow but certain death.

But she's herself again, and finding out who that is feels like a goal worth dying for.

"Why are you an onion?" Daisy frowns at the computer screen showing the results of Melanie's quiz.

"I was always going to be an onion," Melanie shrugs, "I just wanted to know what kind."

Daisy's thinking about the right way to answer to that statement, when Melanie's phone pings in her pocket. She watches her pull it out, and her face softens at whatever it is she just received.

"I have to go. You should- I think he's recording, but you can probably go in if you're quiet." Melanie points at Jon's door. Even the way she refers to him is different, vaguely distasteful apathy instead of the tense hostility Daisy remembers from before the Unknowing, which is a relief.

The irony of the situation doesn't escape Daisy, how she walked into the coffin with half a mind to kill Jonathan Sims, and walked out ready to kill for Jonathan Sims.

"I can be alone for a while. It's alright." The call of the blood is easier to ignore when she's in someone else's company, but Daisy's not- she's noticed how Basira looks at her, the tired tension of her lips when Daisy follows her around the Institute and she has to pretend it doesn't bother her. Daisy's broken, but she will not be a burden. Not to anyone, but most of all not to Basira.

"Okay, then. Want anything from outside?" Melanie asks as she shoves an arm through her jacket's sleeve.

"I- some chips, if you could get them. Or any food that doesn't come packaged, really."

Melanie briefly nods an acknowledgment as she leaves, and she closes the door behind her before Daisy can ask her to leave it open.

It's okay. It's just a room, just a door. There's plenty of space to breathe and to move. If she focuses, she can feel Jon's presence in his office; he's okay too. They're- they made it out.

Daisy opens her eyes, unsure when she closed them, and finds that the walls have started closing in. She tries to ignore them by clicking back on Melanie's onion quiz, surely that will distract her right? The room is unchanged, she's- it's safe out here, safer than outside for sure, where she'd no doubt find a trail and be compelled to chase it, to run until her legs hurt and she can smell the panicked exhaustion her victim's perspiration, until they cannot keep from her any longer and she's forced to claim the prize and move on to the next-

"You alright there?" When the man's voice pulls her away from her mind, Daisy realizes she's closed her eyes again. Her fists are clenched tightly on the desk, and when she forces them open she finds a matching set of angry red crescent moons on her palms. "You're growling."

She looks up; the man is standing before the desk, looking warily down at her and he smells of lavender and Jon, which helps her push away the last traces of the blood.

"I'm okay." She mumbles, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to release her hunch over the desk, leaning back against her chair. She's heard a lot about this man lately; Basira calls him by his surname, like the ones she doesn't trust, but Melanie calls him Gerry with a sort of relaxed companionship, and when Jon does the same there's an undeniable undercurrent of fondness in the tone he gives the name. She has yet to meet him herself, but this seems as good a time as any, now that the room has stopped trying to suffocate her. "You're Gerry Keay?"

The man holds his silent contemplation for another minute, before he shrugs and grabs the chair across the desk. "That would be me. I've never seen an avatar of the Hunt look so famished," he observes. "Your kind doesn't usually deprive themselves."

"Well, I do," Daisy grumbles.

"Yeah. I can see that."

Silence. It's not exactly comfortable, but it's not uncomfortable either, and the company keeps both the Buried and the Hunt at bay.

"Are you here for Jon?" Daisy asks, and Gerry nods.

"Always. But right now I have to see Martin first."

That's... unexpected, to say the least. "Why do you have to see Martin?"

The man gives her an amused, resigned smile and a shrug. "Jon," he says like it's all the reason he needs, and Daisy decides on the spot that she likes Gerry Keay.

"I guess that tracks," she nods. "Why don't you go then?"

"You looked like you needed someone to talk to for a bit."

"That helps." Daisy nods. While she would've sneered at it before, she's now terribly aware that kindness is a virtue sorely lacking in the world they move in. "I'm alright now."

"You sure?" Gerry's eyeing her strangely, and only then does Daisy remember he's aligned with the Beholding as well.

"Yes. I'm- I'll just keep myself busy." Daisy looks at the computer. "I can... figure out what kind of onion I am."

The man blinks rapidly a couple times, probably trying to process what she just said, and Daisy wonders if Melanie felt the same perverse satisfaction when she said it.

"Sounds- yeah. I'll go now," Gerry says, climbing to his feet again. He turns at the door, and gives Daisy another evaluating look. "You're… very strong. Thank you. For helping him back." And he's gone before Daisy can ask what that even means.


"You should be careful with that. Could be dangerous." Peter half-turns before he leaves, a hand on the edge of the ajar door and ice-cold eyes heavy on Martin's nape.

"Not any more dangerous than anything else in my life, really." Martin shrugs, eyes fixed on the bright computer screen. Interacting with Peter is only tolerable because it feels only marginally like talking to another human being, but even that is enough to upset his stomach.

"Well, if you look at it like that. But I think you'll find that doing something dangerous out of your own free will is always better than being controlled to do it, even if that will is motivated by your frankly worrying infatuation with a man that does not care about you."

"Hm," is all Martin says. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Peter's lips curl into a satisfied smile, but he can't bring himself to care. It's not like he's telling any lies either way.

"Okay! Now I really am running late, so if you don't mind?" Peter says in that cheerful, jovial tone Martin is quickly growing tired of, before he closes the office door behind him.

Martin sighs. This is- it's been harder, lately.

He still remembers why he's doing this, and he still cares, he really does. And everything is going according to plan, Peter really does think Martin believed his 'only you can save the world' spiel, Jon is out of the coffin, Daisy's alive, the Institute is -mostly- safe... but he just got the first actually feasible proof that the Extinction might be a real thing, and all he can think is that he's glad Peter left quickly.

The door flies open, and Martin jumps to his feet so abruptly that the chair he was sitting on tumbles to the floor.

"What- Gerard? What are you doing here?" Martin asks angrily, his heart beating madly in his throat. "Peter could've seen you!"

"I waited until he left, Martin, I'm not an idiot." The man rolls his eyes as he closes and locks the door behind him. Martin isn't sure it would be enough to stop Peter from coming in through the Lonely, but it's something.

"So what, were you eavesdropping?" Now that the shock is starting to pass, Martin is steadily moving towards annoyance in the spectrum of emotion. He told Gerard he didn't want him messing with his business, and yet here he is, just-

"You still look a bit gray," Gerard comments, coming to sit across Martin's desk like they had a freaking appointment. "You know what he said was bullshit, don't you?"

"He said a lot of things," Martin mumbles as he picks his chair back up and sits under Gerard's heavy gaze.

"There we go again." Gerard rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes are a beautiful color, Martin notices -if he still felt anything when writing his poetry, he'd be inclined to find a suitable comparison- and they couldn't be more different from Peter's. Gerard is actually looking at him, instead of through him, like Peter does. "Are you always this stubborn?"

"Excuse me? I'm not- you're the one who broke in here!" Martin sputters indignantly. "After I told you very clearly that I didn't want your help. If anyone is stubborn, that's-"

"The door was unlocked. Next time you want to be alone, check that first." Gerard shrugs, leaning backwards on his chair until the front legs lift off the floor.

Martin rolls his eyes. "Would it have stopped you?"

"For about five minutes." The man gives him a smug smile that fits his face like a glove, a handsome, mischievous troublemaker that takes far too much pride on the admission. "You look better now."

Martin grumbles, shoving the tape towards him across the desk's polished surface. "Here. Dekker's statement."

"What did you make of it?" The chair's legs land heavily against the floor, and Gerard reaches to take the tape and shove it in his jacket's pocket.

"It's... very odd. It feels like the Spiral, the Lonely and the End all rolled into one, with a side of the Stranger to boot." Martin worries at his bottom lip, frowning. His thoughts as he puts them into words are slow like dripping treacle, like waking up on a cold morning, but he can feel with no room for uncertainty that they're his thoughts, not the Lonely's. "I'm- I don't know if it is a new power, but I- the fears don't usually interact like that, do they?"

"Not really. They're more likely to fight over territory than to share it." Gerard's face is thoughtful when Martin lifts his gaze to look for answers there. "Sometimes they get along if their domains overlap. I've seen the Forsaken mix with the Vast and the Buried, but never at the same time because those two are opposites. The more entities that try to get in the mix, the more likely it is to fail."

"Hm. So? New kid in town?"

"I'll have to listen to it. I'm not exactly thrilled by the idea, though." Gerard sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck in a slow, deliberate movement that belies his exhaustion. "But it's not out of the question."

"H-how's Jon?" Martin blurts out. Gerard's mouth twitches, and Martin clears his throat, looking pointedly away.

"He's... better. I don't think anyone's left the coffin before, so it's not like we have much to compare his progress to. Got a nice new mark out of it, of course. We're this close to completing the card."

"The what?"

"It's just something I- " Gerard blinks, a confused frown coming to rest at his face all of a sudden. "...Something I thought of."

"...Yes?" Martin arches an eyebrow, but Gerard's frown only grows more pronounced when he shuts his eyes tight, as if trying to focus on a though- "Oh. Oh, you're bleeding again!"

Martin goes rustling frantically around in his desk, until he finds a box of paper tissues. The black ink dripping down steadily from Gerard's nose still hasn't slowed down by the time he looks back up, offering the box.

"Her- grab one. Jesus, what happened?"

"I-" Gerard opens his eyes again, and one of them has popped a blood vessel, it seems, the black startling against the white and blue as he reaches to pull a tissue free. "The Eye didn't like that too much."

"It didn't like what specifically?"

Gerard gives him a dubious look. "I don't-"

"Oh, no. You have to tell me now." Martin scowls as fiercely as he can, ignoring the heat on his face when Gerard raises an eyebrow.

"Excuse me? I have to?"

"Of course you do! You can't just barge in here and- and expect me to give you all I know and then not tell me anything!"

"You continue to not be what I expected, Martin," Gerard says in a flat, annoyed tone. Good. "It's got something to do with the marks. He's- he has twelve of them already."

"That's- wow. That's a lot of them." Martin blinks. He's aware -oh, he is so aware- of Jon's brushes with the entities, but it never occurred to him to actually sit down and figure which he hasn't encountered yet. It never felt important, for some reason. Peter's voice echoes in his mind. You should be careful with that. Could be dangerous.

"And he's getting them in the weirdest ways too, like-"

"Is there a normal way to be marked by a fear god?" Martin interrupts, only to be pinned down by Gerard's unimpressed stare. He snorts. "Sorry, sorry. You were saying?"

"Well, yes. I was there when he Knew about the bullet in Melanie's leg. It was a tidbit from the Eye. And then- why did that Stranger bloke bring the coffin here?" Gerard frowns, and ink starts running down from his other nostril as well. "Ah, fuck."

"Yes, maybe- we should stop for now." Martin gives the box of tissues another push. "I really don't want to go looking for Jon because you bled out in my office."

"Would be hard to explain, huh?" Gerard tears a handful of tissues out, before climbing to his feet. "We'll listen to the tape. I'll-"

"Wait- we?"

"I'm not going to lie to him," Gerard shrugs. "Besides, it will make him... not happy, but at least he'll have news of you."

"Very considerate," Martin says dryly. It's an abrupt reminder that they might be doing this out of love for the same man, but they're not friends. Still, Jon deserves nice things, even if Martin can't be the one to give them to him. "What?" He asks, when he zones back in and finds Gerard still looking at him thoughtfully.

"He really does care. Lukas knows how to come at you; don't let him." Gerard opens the door, halfway out already before he pokes his head back in. "Don't call the Lonely back in yet, give yourself a break, will you?"

He's gone before Martin can answer, and he sighs. This is getting so much more difficult than he thought it would be.


"-statement ends." Jon clicks the recorder off and places it on his improvised desk, before turning to look at Daisy. "The Flesh continues to be... puzzling, to say the least."

"Nasty," Daisy agrees without looking away from her phone. The tape recorder slides a little on her stomach when she shifts to make her head more comfortable on Jon's thigh. "Are vampires from the Flesh?"

Jon leans back, resting his head against the wall as the Knowledge starts pressing against his mind. "Yes. Bit of the Hunt too. And a little Stranger. They're quite a mess." He shifts too, the hardwood floor of his office punishing on his tailbone.

"Want to switch?" Daisy asks, already halfway through sitting up.

"I'm alright." Jon slides down instead. "It's almost time to leave anyways, Gerry will be here soon."

"I met him the other day. He seems nice." Daisy lays back next to him. Jon slides his hand under her forearm, just to have an additional point of contact, and she tangles their fingers together.

"He is," Jon says quietly. Daisy, who is not aligned with the Beholding but whose stare can still make you squirm, looks at him out of the corner of her eye.

"What's up with that?" She asks after so long has gone by that Jon is starting to think he's safe. He lets out an exhalation that hopefully doesn't sound as exhausted as he is with this whole matter.

Jon is, regardless of what Tim -or Georgie, or even Gerry himself- used to say, not completely hopeless at reading people. Only mostly. He's not entirely blind as to how the mood has shifted in his interactions with the man in question.

Gerry has ways been generous with his touch, a heavy hand on Jon's shoulder, around his wrist, on top of his head, but recently there's been the slightest moment of hesitation just before making contact, and Jon finds himself dreading it every time, without really knowing what outcome he fears more.

It definitely doesn't help that Jon is far too aware that no matter what Gerry may or may not feel, he did not choose to be here willingly, that even if he for some reason enjoys Jon's company, he's as much a prisoner to him as Jon himself is to the Eye.

"Nothing." Jon says, then adds sullenly. "I don't know."

Daisy squeezes his hand. "Martin?"

"I don't know." Jon turns his head away to avoid Daisy's gaze. "I- Daisy, I think there's bigger things to worry about."

"It's good to- I'm trying to think of the little things too." Daisy shrugs. "It feels like having a purpose."

Jon purses his lips. Sure, having a purpose is good and all until said purposes are self-sacrificing to a fear entity to keep you safe or behaving in an entirely too confusing manner.

"How's Basira?" He hasn't spoken much to her since that day after the statement. Jon gets the feeling she doesn't want to give him another chance to voice those thoughts she doesn't pride herself on.

Daisy sighs. "She's- it's okay. We're together, so it's fine. I just-" her voice falters a little, and Jon turns back to face her, squeezes her hand in reassurance. "I know I'm not what she needed."

Jon doesn't do her the disservice of trying to offer advice; the nuances of their relationship are something he doesn't want to intrude on. Instead, he tugs softly on her hand.

"I think we have time for an episode or two, if you're up for it."

Daisy's chapped lips twitch with humor. "I thought you didn't like it."

Jon snorts; no need for an Eye membership to see that, then. "It's- charmingly simple, I suppose."

"You don't get to back out," she says, lifting Jon's hand in hers to tap at her phone.

"Fine. But I will comment on it." Jon mock-scowls as the opening notes of The Archers' intro start playing.


"Want some coffee?" Gerry asks as he locks the door to the flat behind him.

"That sounds nice," Jon mutters. His voice is distracted and somewhat annoyed, and Gerry turns to see him struggling with the very last button of his coat. The burned hand must be aching more than usual, because he's not even trying to use it. "Uh- could you-"

"On it," Gerry nudges Jon's hand away gently, before easily sliding the button through the hole. "You're... good." Jon's large, dark eyes are glued to him when he looks up, awfully closer than he expected.

"Yes, I- thank you." After a moment's hesitation Jon's hands slide under his again to grab at the coat's lapels, and he steps away as he shrugs it off.

Gerry sighs, taking his own jacket off. This tension is ridiculous, he thinks as he watches Jon make a beeline for his bedroom and he moves towards the kitchen. It's not- Gerry's far too aware of the situation with Martin. The tape he's carried around in his jacket for the past two days can attest to that, so no, he's not planning on making a move on Jon without at least a conversation. But he can't- it's not like he can just pretend he doesn't want Jon. Not after the Buried, not after thinking he lost him, and all the revelations that stemmed from that.

And speaking of the tape...

He hasn't brought himself around to listen to it, the hard corners digging at his ribs where his heart should be. Gerry's not so blind as to not realize this is selfishness on his part, a futile attempt to keep up this false normalcy they have found for themselves.

It's not fair for Jon, after Gerry made him promise to not keep secrets, but most of all it's not fair to Martin, who Gerry has very much decided he misjudged.

"We should- there's something I have for us. That we should listen to," he says once he goes back to the living room. He hands Jon -who has already changed into night clothes and is balled up at one end of the sofa- the two steaming mugs. "Here. I'll be right back."

Jon's eyes narrow in suspicion when Gerry comes back with the tape recorder. "What is that?" Gerry sits next to him on the sofa, stalling for time. "Gerry..."

With the kind of relationship he has with Jon, there's probably not a good way or time of saying 'I really like the way you say my name', but considering the news he's about to give, Gerry's willing to bet this would be one of the worst.

"I spoke to Martin." He says hurriedly, instead.

"You what?" Jon's eyes go wide, and Gerry lifts a hand in an appeasing motion.

"Yes, when- I went to look for him when you went into the Buried."

"I- why would you do that?!" Jon asks, his voice strained.

"Let me see, because I found out you'd fatally misunderstood the concept of anchors, and I thought he might have a better chance at getting you back than a rib." Gerry finds himself growing more agitated as he speaks, the light compulsion bringing forth more than just words. "A rib. Jon what were you think-"

"You said you'd stop bringing that up," Jon cuts him sullenly, his brow furrowed as he straightens up to shove a finger into Gerry's chest. "You said a man used quiche as his anchor!"

"It was not about the quiche, I thought you'd understood that!" Gerry clamps a hand down on Jon's to yank it away from his torso as he leans forward. "How was I supposed to know- a rib!"

"Well-" Jon snaps angrily, inches from Gerry's face. "Next time-"

"Next- there is not going to be a next time, Jon! You're not going into any more entities without me," Gerry blurts out. Jon's face goes carefully blank, and they stay there for a moment, breathing heavily in agitation. "Jon-"

"What- the tape." Jon sits back, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping an arm around them. "What's in it?"

Gerry groans, sitting back as well. Stupid.

"It's... let's just listen to it," he says before pressing the play button.

"Right. Martin Blackwood, archi- assistant to Peter Lukas, head of the Magnus Institute."

Jon grows more and more stiff with each passing second, and Gerry purses his lips in thought. This is probably the most Jon has heard of Martin in months, and the content could hardly be worse.

"Hey, I..." Gerry sighs. Jon doesn't look at him, and Gerry notices with a start that his eyes are starting to glow a faint green. More information to the Archive, then, whether Jon wants the knowledge or not.

He reaches over to lay a comforting arm across Jon's shoulders, pulling him lightly towards him, and Jon -surprisingly, terrifyingly- comes. It doesn't make Martin's words any less dreadful, but it does make it easier to listen to, knowing they're not alone.

"What- what happened after?" Jon asks after the tape clicks to an end. Gerry didn't miss how his posture against him grew stiff again at the subtle abuse Lukas flung to Martin after the statement. He'd known that was a possibility, but he'd also known Jon wouldn't let him stop the tape before it was over.

"I waited until Lukas left, locked us into his office and pissed him off until he was more human." Gerry shrugs. "Then we talked."

"Please don't antagonize Martin," Jon mutters softly, running his pointer finger over the edge of the tape in a gesture that seems almost intimate, and that Gerry very much doubts is meant for the device.

"All interaction helps, when he's like this. Especially if it turns out he wants to engage back, and trust me, he wanted to argue with me."

"That's because you are irritating," Jon huffs, and Gerry snorts a little.

"Beholding hasn't told you where it hid the return receipt?"

Jon's hand slaps softly against Gerry's chest. "What else?"

"Not much. After- I reminded him that you care about him. When he was more himself," Gerry adds, giving Jon's shoulders a light squeeze. "He even listened, I think." Jon frowns, quiet and contemplative for a moment that stretches for entirely too long. "Does it help? To know he's doing this for a reason?" Gerry asks

'Does it help to know you're loved?' he doesn't add.

Jon sighs.

"Somewhat. I just- leaving my personal- what are we going to do about this?" Jon asks. "This new- we have our hands full with the regular ones already, but a new one?"

"Is the Eye telling you something about it?" Gerry watches his face carefully, but his eyes are already back to their usual, comforting dark hue, and Jon shakes his head.

"Suspiciously quiet, if you ask me." Jon looks up at him, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Does it ever tell you anything?"

Gerry thinks of the marks all over Jon's soul, and the screeching static that came from trying to Know about them.

"Sometimes. I try to pay more attention to what it doesn't want to tell me."

"And what is that?"

"There's something about your marks," Gerry says slowly, trying to pinpoint the exact piece of information that the Watcher doesn't want him to focus on. "I think there's a reason you're getting- oh, there we go."

"Wh- Gerry!" Jon springs from the sofa, leaving Gerry's side uncomfortably empty as he darts into the bathroom. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back to keep the ink flowing from his nose from making a bigger mess. Done with Eye business for the night, it seems.

"It doesn't hurt," Gerry shrugs after Jon comes back with a handful of bunched up toilet paper. "You're a cheapskate, Martin had tissues."

"You're ridiculous," Jon huffs, pressing the paper carefully against Gerry's face. "Should I- I'll get something to read, that'll fix it. Hold this."

"Nah." Gerry makes no move to take over holding the toilet paper under his nose, cracking an eye open instead to find Jon hovering over him with concern clear on his face. "Just talk to me. I like it better."

"I-" Jon's cheeks go a few shades darker, and Gerry feels his mouth twitch into a smile. "Uh- alright. What- Gerry, I'm really bad at small talk."

"Then don't do small talk," Gerry shrugs. "Tell me... oh, tell me about when you broke into Getrude's flat."

"W- how did you know about that?!" Jon gapes, his face red with embarrassment. He could get used to this, Gerry thinks.

"Had a lot to listen to when you went to pick up Daisy. Supplemental Jon sounds like a fun fella," Gerry adds with a wink, and Jon sputters like an angry kettle.

He could definitely get used to this.

Chapter 10

Notes:

Bit of a content warning for the first section because Martin's Lonely thoughts are starting to feel a little like suicidal ideation, just in case.

Chapter Text

 

 

X

Martin bundles himself a little tighter in his coat, as he waits for the kettle to boil. The worst thing about the Lonely is definitely the bone-deep chill that follows wherever you go, no matter how many layers you wear, or how high you crank up the heater. The cold is inside you, and Martin is starting to run out of ways to chase it out.

The kitchenette attached to Peter's office is smaller than the one at the Archives' break room, but also much better equipped; it has a high end coffeemaker and all sorts of coffee and tea sorted in delicately crafted tins. Martin has the thought that he would've been excited to try them all before, but now he just cracks the tin open and pulls out a bag at random. This is just... something else he's supposed to do, like eating, like breathing. It doesn't matter that they don't bring any satisfaction, because nothing really does anymore, when he's like this.

He goes to pour the hot water into a single mug, and drops the bag inside, watching it sink and bob with a curious sense of detachment. It smells like nothing, and it tastes like nothing when he takes a sip. His hands barely even register the warmth of the cup, and Martin places it back at the countertop. He'd expected it would make him feel something, but there goes that hope.

The only spark of emotion comes when he finally listens to the prickle of unease in his chest, and goes to close the small room's exit where it connects with Peter's office. Standing alone behind two locked doors, he almost feels at ease. Nobody can find him here- or they wouldn't, if anyone was looking for him of course. Jon hasn't come to him since the last time they met before the coffin, and Gerard seems to have a supernatural sense to know when Martin just finished an Extinction statement to come pester it out of him.

It's a bit pathetic, that Jon's- that Gerard is the only one who seeks him out, and even then it's only out of necessity. The Lonely likes it, and it likes even more that Martin doesn't feel any special way about it.

Outside, someone walks past the door to Peter's office, and Martin's stomach clenches. The room around him loses a little more color. Maybe… maybe he'll go home early today. Peter won't care; he would probably encourage it, now that Martin thinks about it. Just... it'll be easier there. More quiet. Calmer.

Martin leans his head back, and the room around him begins to dissolve.


"Feels good, doesn't it?" Gerry asks with a smile, and Melanie nods, entranced.

"We should find another," she declares. The Flesh book -aptly titled just 'Guts'- burns nicely in a metallic garbage bin between the two of them.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you." Gerry snorts. "I've been hearing some rumours about the Desolation. Some weird fires around the city; might be worth taking a look at."

Melanie squirts some more lighter fluid onto the book, delighting when the fire roars and flares up.

"How is it different?" she asks, the question popping suddenly into her mind.

"Sorry?" Gerry arches an eyebrow.

"I know the Desolation is destruction, and Slaughter is violence." It's odd, to talk so freely about the entity that would've claimed her soul; like mentioning someone you knew in passing, one of those who were impossibly important once, but now are just a memory you're not sure how you feel about. "But I wanted to destroy too, when I was- you know."

"I know." Gerry lets out a careful huff, running a hand through his hair. "They tend to bleed into each other, some more than others. Some care about the end result only, like the Desolation, some care about the process, like the Slaughter or the Hunt. Smirke had a good idea with the list, but sometimes I think he oversimplified."

"So what's your take on it?"

"Colors," Gerry shrugs, then adds with a small smile, "if colors hated you."

Melanie has no idea what that's supposed to mean, but his tone makes it fairly clear that it's got something to do with Jon, and she rolls her eyes. Ridiculous, but apparently something she'll have to get used to, considering the sneak peeks she's gotten through the Institute's windows in the past week.

"How's Georgie?" Gerry asks after a moment, once the flames have started dying down. "You've been going out more lately, right?"

"Yes. I'm-" Melanie feels her body tense, and takes a deep breath, until it relaxes again. This- she can tell Gerry this. It's not a big deal. They're- they might be friends, now. "She takes me to therapy. I've been feeling- I added an extra day. I feel like it's working."

Gerry gives her a quick look and a quicker smile, before focusing on the remnants of the burning book again. "That's good. I tried therapy once, but it turns out there is just no way to work 'my mother accidentally framed me for her gruesome murder and then came back to life and continued to stalk me until I handed her over to an old woman to be destroyed' into a credible lie. Not that you would know the difference, of course," he adds with a wink over his shoulder.

"I'll have you know my therapist doesn't suspect a thing, so I'm clearly not as bad of a liar as you think." Melanie rolls her eyes, smiling. There's a certain giddiness to her chest, a kind of light-heartedness she'd almost forgotten.

"Mmmm nah, you're very bad." Gerry reaches a hand towards her, and she passes him the bottle of lighter fluid. He squirts the rest of it in the trash can, unflinching when the flames roar up again, before he turns back to look at Melanie. "But I'm glad it's helping. I'm guessing the after-session dates with your girlfriend are nothing to scoff at either, are they?"

"They help," Melanie's smile turns a little smug. It may be sappy, but she's allowed a bit of happiness, thank you very much.

"I can imagine," Gerry rests his closed fist against her shoulder and gives her a little shove. Melanie kicks at his boot, rolling her eyes.

This is... comfortable. Life is far from perfect, and the number of things that make Melanie happy are still in the single digits but this- this might be one of them.

"Actually, I wanted to ask you something..." Melanie starts after the fire has died down again and the relaxed silence has stretched for a few minutes, making her voice as casual as possible. "Remember when you told us that you fed on Jon's voice? Recharging a battery, kind of?"

"I... do?" Gerry looks down at her with an arched eyebrow.

"Okay. And remember that other time you told me there was nothing going on with Jon, but you let me believe that so I didn't find out you were leeching on him to survive?"

"Ah." Gerry averts his eyes, and the line of his shoulders stiffens. Melanie frowns, puzzled; it's been a while since she's had any friends to joke with, but this is most definitely not the mood she was trying to set up. "I didn't want any trouble, Melanie. You and Basira were very on board with killing me that first day because you thought I wasn't human, and I was just- well, I knew if you got actual confirmation of that, then-"

"Oh- oh no, that's not what I'm talking about," Melanie shakes her head, rolling her eyes. "I get why you did that. You were right, too, I would've killed you," she shrugs.

Gerry turns to look at her again, amused and confused in equal measure. "Okay? So what's this about then?"

"I just wanted to ask," Melanie struggles a little to keep her face blank now that she's put them back on track. "Do you also feed on holding hands with Jon, or is that just so he doesn't get lost into another entity when you're on your way from the bus stop?"

Gerry freezes when her words register in his mind, his face a carefully blank mask whose only emotion lies in the slight panic brewing behind his eyes.

"I-"

"Yes?" Melanie lifts her eyebrows, nodding along with pursed lips. The flush starting to darken his cheekbones is fascinating to watch, a much deeper hue than would correspond to his skin tone, probably on account of the ink that runs through his veins.

"Have you been- listen, we have- the fires." Gerry turns abruptly to start walking away from the smoldering can, and Melanie smirks. "We should look into it, could be a new avatar."

"Mhm. Alright. Just a little question I had, don't let it keep you up at night." Melanie follows, not even angry that she has to trot to keep up with him.

"I won't."

"Good, good."


"You're far too early. Nothing to find today?" Jon looks up when the door to his office is pushed open, a smile already on his lips. Gerry shrugs, taking his jacket off. Jon's gaze trails over the burn-smooth skin of Gerry's arms, the tattooed eyes at his elbows seeming to almost look at him when Gerry's muscles contract and stretch as he moves to hang the jacket by Jon's coat.

"Hello there?" Gerry asks, and Jon's eyes snap up his face. He's got an amused smile and a raised eyebrow, and Jon whips his burning face back down to his statement. "Melanie's busy today, so I did some recon by myself, but there's nothing tangible asides from Rayner's freaks."

"This is- yes, alright." He's not terribly worried about the Church of the Divine Host, he thinks, his fist clenching tightly around the pen he's using to make annotations on the statement; they cannot come into his Archives, because they won't risk being Seen. It still irks him that they dare come this close to the Institute, like a taunt to-

"What are you working on?" Gerry's long, black hair curtains down by the side of Jon's face, and all thoughts of Seeing the Darkness into oblivion evaporate from his mind.

"I just- I'm going over old statements," Jon clears his throat. "I'm trying to find anything that feels like the Extinction."

"I see... Found anything yet?" Gerry leans closer to look at the paper on the desk, and Jon freezes at the warmth at his back.

"I don't-" this is where Jon admits he hasn't been able to focus for the past three hours, isn't it? "Martin left early yesterday. And he didn't come to work today."

"Ah," Gerry sighs, before retreating to go sit across the desk. His eyes are soft and sympathetic, because it's just Jon's luck to be surrounded by good, caring people that he doesn't deserve. "How did you-"

"I just Knew it. I think- I think it was too much today." Jon averts his gaze again; Gerry's gentle concern is too much to deal with, what with everything that's been tumbling around in his head. "Which is why I'm looking into this, but the Watcher doesn't seem to be too interested in the new competitor." Jon scowls down at his desk. No helpful tidbits from the Eye either when picking out statements to revisit, or when going over things he already knew.

"Hey." Gerry slides a warm, heavy hand on top of Jon's, and Jon, because he's a selfish coward, doesn't move away. "You're doing what you can. We all are, Martin too."

Jon nods slowly, after a moment. Martin is- Martin knows what he's doing. He's far from stupid or weak, Jon knows that now. Even though he's still human, Martin moves through this world of fears with a sense of cunning and determination that Jon couldn't even begin to emulate, despite being a key player himself.

"I must admit, I... it's nice that you have changed your mind about him." Gerry hasn't told him what brought on the change, but Jon finds that he doesn't care. It's just one less thing to be worried about.

Gerry shrugs, giving his hand a squeeze. "Turns out we have a few things in common."

"You do." Jon nods; that much has been clear to him for a while. A fatal flaw that bears his name and his face.

Gerry's gaze is heavy on him, far from the usual playfulness in their interactions, and Jon feels his heartbeat start racing.

"Jon, we-"

"Jon?" the door opens again, and Daisy pokes her head through. "Oh. Sorry."

"No, it's- do you need anything, Daisy?" Jon asks, extricating his hand from Gerry's in the softest movement he can manage.

"I can come back later," Daisy shrugs.

"Actually, let's trade." Gerry pushes off his chair, and onto his feet. "You stay here. I'll see you when it's time to go home." He doesn't seek Jon's eyes when he says this, moving instead to grab his jacket and shove his arms through the sleeves.

"Careful," Jon mutters quietly.

Gerry stops at the door, his shoulders dropping in what might be a sigh, and he turns to look at him over his shoulder, his eyes softening just the slightest amount. "...Yeah. Yeah, you too."

And he's gone.

Daisy comes in once the sound of Gerry's boots stomping against the Institute's polished floors fades from earshot. "That was very dramatic."

Jon crosses his arms over his chest. "No, it wasn't."

Daisy rolls her eyes. "You're making this too big of a deal, just like the monster thing."

"I- excuse me?" Jon's face goes slack in disbelief, but Daisy merely leans a hip against his desk, looking down at him with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Poor, poor Jon, with these two men who lo-"

"Daisy! We don't- there's no-" Jon sputters, as it becomes increasingly clear he doesn't have anything to say, and just wanted to stop her from finishing the thought. "What did you need?"

Daisy shrugs. "Basira went to see Elias, and Melanie's out too."

"I see..." Jon sighs; the only reasons he's able to brave being alone are both the fact that recording statements keeps the walls from closing in, and the terrifying knowledge that Gerry would stay in the office just to keep him company if he asked. "Well I- it's good that you came. I need your opinion on something."

As soon as it becomes clear that she's wanted here, Daisy's entire body relaxes; Jon smiles to himself as she goes to take the seat Gerry left. Daisy deserves some kindness, she's just... another victim. He's the only one who chose this.

"Sure, what is it?"

"Did yo- have you seen Martin lately?" Jon reaches into a desk drawer for a tape recorder that wasn't there a minute ago. This one, he Knows, will contain Martin's recording on the Extinction.

"Not really. Where is he?" Daisy frowns.

Jon's eyes fall to the recorder in his hand. He doesn't know if he feels guiltier for Knowing about Martin, or for not going to him after what he found out.

"Taking a break from all of this, hopefully."


"-tin Blackwood? Yes, he lives here. We haven't seen him in a few weeks, though." The woman's eyes narrow in suspicion. "Did he die?"

Gerry snorts. God forbid landlords have any tact. He thinks back at one of the many things he learned about Martin while trying to Know the address to his flat.

"No, he's fine. But he had to go out of town for a while, because his mother passed away." He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to look solemn. "I'm going to go stay with him for a few days, but he wanted me to pick up his phone and some other things for him."

"I see... and who are you again?" The woman asks; the mistrust is a fair response, honestly, considering what Gerry's here to do.

"Well, you know..." he gives her a little smile and a non-committal gesture, pointing at himself and an imaginary Martin by his side. Whatever, it worked with Melanie and Basira, it'll fool a random landlady.

"Ah. Huh." The woman runs her eyes over him, evaluating him under the light of the new revelation; Gerry probably -hopefully- doesn't look anything like a self deprecating mop that specializes in giving off mixed signals and avoiding necessary conversations, but this woman clearly doesn't know Martin enough to know his tastes, because she just shrugs. "Then don't you have a key already?"

"Oh yes, I have one,' Gerry hurries to say. "He just wanted me to tell you that he's, you know, coming back and-" and here he crosses a leg over the other, bringing a knee up against the desk with enough force that the landlady's mug topples over the edge and spills its contents on her lap. "Oh shit, I'm sorry! Did you-"

"I'm alright," the woman says through gritted teeth, her skirt dripping lukewarm coffee on the carpeted floor when she climbs to her feet.

"I'm really sorry," Gerry apologizes again, but the woman is already heading towards the door without sparing him a glance. Good.

He Knows she keeps the spare keys in the bottom left drawer of the desk, and it only takes him a couple seconds lto find the one labeled with the number to Martin's flat, before unhooking it from the ring and pushing the drawer closed again.

By the time the woman comes back, patting at her damp lap with a towel, Gerry's already sitting back on his chair, sporting his best apprehensive look. "Did you need anything else?" she snaps.

"No, I'm just-"

"Sorry, yes. Thank you, could you leave?" the landlady's lips are pursed into a tense line. "I need to change."

"Yes! Sorry, I'll just-" he hops to his feet, crossing the office hurriedly. "Sorry!" Gerry apologises again before she closes the office door in his face, and he smiles. That's one less thing to worry about.

Martin's door opens easily enough with the key, and fog spills out like some sort of cheap haunted house trick. Not great, Gerry decides. The interior is freezing cold, and he bundles a bit tighter in his jacket, before closing the door behind him. There's a picture of a woman on a small table by the door, right behind the key bowl, and Gerry remembers the tape he listened to, with Elias' cruel, mocking voice and Martin's pained, choked back sobs.

It's a little selfish, but it's nice to know that Gerry's not the only one who can't bring himself to get rid of the memory of a mother who never loved him.

"Martin?" he calls out, bundling himself tighter in his clothes. "Are you-"

"What are you doing in my flat?!" Martin says by his side, where Gerry's pretty sure he wasn't a second ago. "How did you get in here?"

"It was open," Gerry shrugs. Martin looks... gray. His eyes, his hair, even his skin seems desaturated, blending in against the muted hues of his lightless flat.

"No it wasn't." Martin says firmly, and a bit of green starts seeping back into his eyes. Gerry lets out a relieved exhale. He's not too far gone, yet. "In fact, I made sure it was locked, because I've been being stalked lately."

"That sounds terrible," Gerry says, and because it seems like Martin is gaining more and more color the more exasperated he grows, he walks past him into what turns out to be the kitchen. "Want me to beat them up for you? I'll do it, just point me at 'em. Do you have coffee here? I'm not much for tea."

"I don't- why are you here?!" Martin sputters angrily, closing the cupboard doors Gerry purposefully leaves open as he moves down the room. "I'm not exactly going to record Extinction statements at home!"

"Well, I'm not here for that." Gerry gives him another look. He looks mostly solid now, enough that it might be a good time to let him know. "Jon was worried about you, so I came to check how you were."

"...Oh." Martin's flustered face goes slack at the news, and Gerry snorts. These two are the freaking same. "I- does he know?"

"That you're trying to save the world?" Gerry arches an eyebrow. "Or that you're doing it for him?" that has Martin's face regaining the color it was lacking.

"Both, I guess," Martin mutters, bringing a hand to rub at his arm nervously. "...I think I do have coffee, but it's- I don't drink it, I just had it for when Sasha- for when friends came over. I don't know if it's any good."

"I've probably had worse." Gerry knows what it's like to be alone. He's been that way for most of his life, but it's... he chose to live like that, it was never a burden for him. Here, as Martin talks of friends ripped from him by a world that feeds on despair, he feels a pang of sadness for this man who clearly didn't. "I have an hour before I have to go get Jon."

"Alright," Martin lets out a noise between a sigh and a groa, before he finally moves towards the cupboards again, and starts pulling out mugs and tins and spoons. "But you have to tell me how you got in."

"I'll let you guess," Gerry smirks as he sits at the breakfast table.

"How is he?" comes Martin's voice amidst the clinking of metal and porcelain. There's a careful quality to it, like he thinks he's not allowed to ask, and Gerry sighs.

"He's alright. Very defensive when we talk about his rib-related choices."

The sound of a mug dropped on the countertop, and Martin spins around. "Excuse me, his what?"

Gerry arches an eyebrow. "I hadn't told you? Could've sworn I mentioned it when we spoke about the marks." He wipes a hand under his nose, but it comes away ink-free. Edging around the topic is okay then, good to know.

"I don't- you didn't mention any ribs," Martin's voice is this close to a groan, Gerry notes with a smile. "What did he do now?"

"You better finish making that tea, you're going to need it."


The door to the cell slams shut, and Elias rolls his eyes. Frankly... he'd known Peter wasn't in the best of moods, but this is childish.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to either calm down or leave."

"How are you doing it?" Peter lands heavily on the chair across the table, blue eyes stormy with badly concealed rage and a muscle twitching on his jaw. Elias tries, he really does, but he can't hold back a snort. "Elias!"

"I'm sorry, sorry," Elias chuckles. "It's just amusing, really, that you seem to think I have the power to stop your puppeteering from in here. You mistake me for the Web's own, Peter."

He gives him the smile he knows Peter despises, just the slightest curve to his lips, and a single arched eyebrow.

"Don't play coy with me, Elias. Martin was progressing incredibly well, and all of a sudden he's stuck? Don't pretend you had nothing to do with it."

"Oh, but I didn't!" Elias reaches over to pull out the scotch bottle and the two tumblers, and Peter's hand closes around his wrist with bruising strength. "I'm afraid I did warn you the Watcher wouldn't let its own go so easily."

"How?" Peter's eyes narrow as his grip tightens even more. "I will not ask again, Elias."

Elias laughs, amused. Peter is awfully easy to rile up- if you know how to play him, and Elias has had decades to learn.

"Tell me something Peter... what do you know of Gertrude's last ill-fated assistant?"


There's a person standing across the street from the Institute. They're wearing dark clothes, and over their chest rests a pendant fashioned to look like a closed eye. It's a ridiculous notion, to come to the tower of the Ceaseless Watcher, and believe their god will protect them here.

Jon comes to a stop before the Institute's doors, the taste of Markus Burnett's encounter with the End still fresh in his mind, and considers crossing the street towards them. It would certainly send a message to the rest of-

"Jon?" the voice is puzzled and soft, and it feels like a curtain is lifted from Jon's mind, as he sees the person scurry away; he turns to find Martin looking down at him in concern. "Are you alright? Oh- your... your eyes."

"Ah- yes I just- it's-" Jon gestures vaguely towards the spot where his would-be victim was just standing.

"Oh. That's- that's not good, is it?" Martin frowns. "It's probably good you didn't-"

"I wasn't going to. Or- I hope I wasn't," Jon scowls as well. He definitely wanted to. He can still feel Martin's eyes on him, but for all that he's fantasized about this encounter, he can't think of anything to say. "You look better."

"I guess." Martin's frown melts into a mask of dry resignation. "Gerard broke into my flat two days ago. He won't tell me how he did it."

Of course, the Eye chooses that moment to let him Know exactly how Gerry got a key to Martin's flat, and Jon feels his face grow warm. It's a bit of a whiplash mood, to go from preparing to Behold a person to thinking about- yes, okay.

"I- yes. He does that," Jon clears his throat, "keep him away from your sofa."

"I'll keep that in mind. Just-" Martin gives a nervous look around, and Jon frowns.

"He's not around." Jon says, the static rising in his ears as he Sees both what Martin wants, and the answer to it. It still feels odd to use his powers willingly, but he'll do it for Martin anytime. "He's on his way back from meeting Elias."

"Oh- okay?" Martin blinks. "Thanks. I- he can't do that, Jon."

"Peter-?"

"Gerard." Martin's face grows pained, serious. "Peter is- he's happy I'm going along with his plan. If Gerard keeps trying to meddle in... I made a deal, and I have to keep it. Please tell him to leave me alone."

"Martin, you don't have to-"

"But I am," Martin sighs. "You said you'd respect that."

And he does, he really does respect the sacrifice Martin is making, but- but watching him hurt himself is just too much. This is the first time Martin has looked like himself in months, and Jon is suddenly confronted with just how much he's missed him.

"I'll talk to him." Jon says, before anything else can get out. "I'm- I'm sorry, Martin."

Martin nods wordlessly, before turning back to walk into the Institute. Jon watches him go, a million things he should've said running across his mind now that they're utterly, completely useless.

I dreamt of you in the Buried. Thank you for the tapes. You don't have to be strong all the time, please let me help you. I miss you so much it scares me, but it's a kind of fear I want to feel, the kind of fear I'd dedicate my life to.

None of it matters, because by the time Jon walks in after him, all that's left of Martin are a couple wisps of fog.


"What part of 'don't antagonize Martin' translated into 'go and lie to his landlady to break into his house' to you?" Jon asks that evening. The bus is nearly empty, and Gerry's arm is a comforting weight across his shoulders, a nice contrast against the hard plastic seat.

"I knew he'd tattle," Gerry rolls his eyes. "Go figure, pull a guy out of the Lonely with a nice cup of tea and some good conversation, and the first thing he does is go tell on you with his crush. You didn't tell him I had the key, did you? I don't want him to change the locks."

"I did not." Jon rolls his eyes. "But you can't- Gerry, I promised I'd leave him alone."

"And you did. Very respectful of his boundaries."

"And you should do so too. We're- we agreed we'd investigate about the Extinction so he didn't have to do everything on his own, not that we'd intrude on his plan."

"It's not a great plan, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask." Jon slaps lightly at Gerry's thigh with the back of his hand. "Listen, I trust Martin-"

"And I trust him too, sure. But I'm not going to- I can't just leave it alone, Jon." Gerry turns to look at him, and Jon -as he often does- finds himself distracted by the lights of the street outside gleaming off the metallic rings and beads on his face. "I'm not going to let them win. Not if I can help it, especially with someone they seem as hell-bent on getting as Martin."

Jon sighs. Of course he won't; Gerry's far too stubborn, far too-

"Just- Martin knows what he's doing."

"And I know what I'm doing too." Gerry shrugs, his shoulders set and his brow furrowed. "I'm not- I can't exactly stop him from aligning with the Lonely if that's what he wants. I'm just slowing it down. Getting us more time."

"And what happens when Peter Lukas finds out you're breaking into his flat to sit him down for tea?"

"Well, he doesn't have to find out," Gerry says, smirking. The gesture leaves the ring on his lower lip just the slightest bit off-center, Jon realizes. He runs his tongue over his own bottom lip, that feels too dry all of a sudde. "As far as anyone knows, it was just a very considerate man looking out for his partner."

"You can't possibly believe that was anywhere close to a good lie," Jon hisses, trying his best to ignore the fact that he doesn't know if he's annoyed or just embarrassed by the ruse.

"It's not unbelievable. Anyone could be my boyfriend," Gerry shrugs. "Martin could have good taste."

"I very much think he doesn't." Jon grumbles.

"I think he does, actually," Gerry's arm gives his shoulders a squeeze that has Jon's face burning, "besides, the position is open."

Jon coughs. "This is our stop," he says, ignoring the way Gerry rolls his eyes before climbing to his feet.

The conversation is pretty much over after that, but Jon finds -as he usually does, lately- that he has to let go of Gerry's hand to pull the keys out of his pocket.


"Did you do your exercises today?"

Daisy exhales slowly, her hands on her stomach and her gaze nailed to the ceiling. The cot she shares with Basira feels small at the best of times, but now under her too-heavy stare, it's like laying on a coffin, waiting for the lid to be slammed down again.

"They won't work."

"What?" Basira doesn't come closer, doesn't sit by the edge of the cot, and Daisy feels more and more like a disgusting, wasted carcass of her old self.

"The exercises. I- it's not going to work." The truth of her words weighs on her, the call of her blood begging her to follow, to lose herself again. "The only way I'm going to get better is if I hunt again, and I don't- I'm not doing that."

In the long silence that follows, Daisy darts a quick look at Basira. She's standing by the door, her white-knuckled hand shaking around the crumpled edge of a bag of Daisy's favorite takeout.

"There has to be another way," she says in the end. "What are we supposed to do, just wait for you to die?"

"I don't know. Why don't you ask Elias?" Daisy shrugs. There's a dark pang of delight in her stomach when Basira stiffens, and she sighs. Not exactly a chase, but the Hunt will feed wherever it can. "I'm sorry."

"Do you think I haven't?" Basira's voice is tense and hurt. "Do you think I haven't spent every waking moment since you came out trying to find a way to make you-"

"Back to how I was?" Daisy says quietly, and the way it's enough to stop Basira's rising tirade really says a lot.

"That is not what I want," Basira forces through gritted teeth.

"But it's what you need, isn't it?" After a moment's hesitation, Daisy pushes up into a sitting position, and turns to face Basira. "You were there when I needed you, and now I can't do that for you."

"This is not- I don't keep a tally, Daisy." Basira finally takes a firm step forward and then another and another, until she's standing so close Daisy could reach her if she stretched her arm. She doesn't. "I don't have- I'm just trying to keep everyone from dying, or-"

Basira's voice breaks, and Daisy flinches, eyes wide. In their years working together, she can count on one hand the times she's seen her lose control.

"You were gone," she snaps, "you were dead, I mourned you. I had to- there was no one else. Everyone was dead, Melanie was more and more unstable, and Martin was doing his secretive bullshit. What was I supposed to do? I was the only one. If I gave up, then it was like letting Elias win, and I was not going to let that happen."

"Basira-"

"Of course I wanted you back. As soon as that lying worm told me there might be a way to pull you out, I-"

"I heard your voice in the Buried."

Basira freezes. She looks- Daisy has been her partner for years, and the thing with her is, Basira always knows what to do. Even when she doesn't, she knows what should be done next. Never a second guess or a moment of doubt, or anything less than cold, hard certainty. Now Basira looks lost, and Daisy can only wonder what that means for her, who's always depended on Basira's solidity to ground herself.

"I'm- I want to be here for you. I want to help, Basira, but I can't- I don't want to go back to the Hunt. Or rather, I want it too much, and I know I won't-" Daisy groans. She's never been good with words, one would think spending an eternity with the Archivist would've helped, but apparently it's too much to wish for. "I just want to be myself, for however long I can. I'm- sorry it's not what you-"

Basira crashes against her, and Daisy feels her breath leave her all at once, as they topple over onto the cot, the crumpled falafel bag landing on the floor to be forgotten.

"I'll figure something out," Basira's breath is hot against her shoulder. Daisy can smell her coconut shampoo through her headscarf, and it's all she can do to hold her tighter, because they live in a world in which these moments are fleeting and fragile, and all the more precious for it. "For this. For you."

Daisy nods furiously, her eyes shut tight and her blood singing an entirely different song.

"Basira," she says, the only word she knows, the only word that matters.

Basira nods like she understands, and Daisy can't bring herself to care about anything else.

Chapter 11

Notes:

Hi y'all! Sorry it's taken me this long to respond to comments, quarantine time really do be like "I'll do it in an hour" and then it's been two weeks huh?

I'll try to keep up this time! 💪

Chapter Text

 

XI

The fact that the Institute building is so beautiful when it holds so much horror is both very fitting and very jarring, Georgie thinks.

Once you know what you're looking for, you can see the subtle eyes carved amongst the leafy motifs wrapping around the exterior pillars, and the unnerving gaze of the rounded window above the double oak doors.

She doesn't go too close despite the pouring rain, preferring instead to lean against a lamppost across the street and text Melanie that she's already there. This is how she gets a first row seat, partly hidden behind her large umbrella, when Jonathan Sims comes down the street towards this terrible place.

With him is a man she's heard plenty about, tall and broad-shouldered, with long black hair and blue-green eyes. The hand he's not using to hold an umbrella above their heads is deep inside the pocket of Jon's coat, along with his own; Jon is leaning against his arm in that way Georgie knows means he wants you to hold him closer.

That last thought draws a sigh out of her, as the two men draw closer to the Institute. Jon has always been a complicated subject, but he's so much more so lately. Georgie loves him, but she's also terribly aware that every time she allows herself to care, she comes out burned. Just earlier this year she had to sit by his bedside wondering if he would ever wake up again, and if it would really be better if he did.

They seem to be saying goodbye now, and Georgie can feel the tension from here. Jon is tilting his chin up and slightly to the side, but also leaning slightly away from the man, who's leaning towards Jon, but retreats after a moment, taking a deep breath. Jon lets their hands fall apart as he climbs the steps towards the Institute. The man watches him disappear behind the door, and Georgie starts crossing the street.

"Hey." The man doesn't flinch at her voice, and Georgie wonders if he knew she was watching. "You're Jon's Gerry, right?"

The man snorts with a hint of resigned humor. "Yeah. I guess that's the only of putting it. You're Georgie?"

"The very one." Georgie nods. "Melanie has told me about you."

"Has she? I'm almost afraid to ask." Gerry smiles at the name, and Georgie finds herself mirroring it. "You look well. Jon will be happy to know."

Georgie sighs. "Actually... please don't tell him you saw me."

"Oh?" Gerry arches an eyebrow.

"I don't- we're not really talking anymore." Georgie shrugs. It's painful to say aloud, because Jon grows on you, with his rare smiles and his quiet gestures of love. Every time she lets him back in, it's a battle to rip him out.

"Huh. I thought he'd stayed with you last year while-"

"While the police looked for him, yes." Georgie crosses her free arm over her chest.

"That's... you do know he didn't do it, don't you?" Gerry frowns.

"Wouldn't have let him into my house if I didn't believe him. I just-" Georgie's gaze drifts towards the Institute. While it -like anything else, really- doesn't inspire any fear in her, she can hardly ignore what she knows about it. "I don't really approve of his decision to stay involved in all of this."

Before her, Gerry stiffens. "Excuse me, his what?" His eyes harden.

Georgie scoffs. "I'm not sure how long you've been here for, but Jon is very self destructive."

"Oh no, trust me, I know." The man shakes his head, and Georgie knows there's a story there. "But calling it his 'decision' is-"

"Listen, I'm not interested in discussing it," Georgie says, shaking her head. "I saw Jon recording his creepy stories even when he didn't have to, when I asked him to stop, and now Melanie's trapped here because-"

"Because you brought her here," the man snarls, and Georgie freezes.

"Excuse me?" she asks, her voice low and dangerous.

"Wasn't it you who told her where to give her statement? You're flinging a lot of bullshit accusations around for someone who doesn't even know-"

"Georgie?" Melanie's voice drips down on them colder than any rain could be. "Gerry? What's going on?"

Gerry's face does soften when he looks at Melanie, who descends the stairs and slips her hand into Georgie's like a reverse of the scene she just witnessed from across the street.

"Nothing. You should talk to her." He turns around then, and starts the walk back up the street, without a single look back.

"...What happened?" Melanie asks, squeezing her hand and looking up at her with a frown.

Georgie forces her body to relax, the man's last accusation still echoing in her mind. She looks back at Melanie, taking in the worried curve of her brows, the raindrops shimmering in her hair, the bags under her eyes from the nightmares. She loves her, Georgie thinks, she has for a while. Was this really all her fault?

"Melanie?"

"Yes?"

Georgie knows, really, that it is her ignorance as well as her lack of fear that has kept her somewhat safe from this world her loved ones move in; it's becoming increasingly difficult though, to stay that way. "I need you to tell me everything."


"What are you thinking?" Melanie asks, reaching a hand to intertwine their fingers together. "It's a lot to take in."

"It's true." Georgie looks down at her cold, untouched meal, replaying Melanie's story in her mind. "If I hadn't suggested you give Jon your statement-"

"Elias would have found me some other way," Melanie says immediately. "I- it's not even like I was marked already when I first came to the Institute. I think what really matters is that I came back, once I was. It's- really, nobody forced me to go around looking for more ghosts, Georgie. I just had to know. The Eye... it really is subtle."

Georgie runs a hand through her hair. This is- all of this, it's too much. "Is there really no way to stop it?"

Melanie pokes at her own half-eaten panini. "Not- I mean, I'm not controlled by the Slaughter anymore. But I signed the contract. That's- as far as we know, we're trapped in there. Jon says he and Daisy sort of were human again when they were in the coffin, but that's another dimension. I don't think there's a way to break it, not while we're alive."

She mulls this over for a moment. So... so Jon wasn't just being difficult when he said he couldn't stop recording the statements, or when he got his hand burnt. He- it's like all the frustration she's been harboring towards him the past year has congealed into a viscous, disgusting knot at the bottom of her stomach.

'You don't even have the credentials to be the head archivist', Georgie had said. It's terrible to know that that's probably the reason why Jon was offered the job in the first place. Jon, who's always doubted himself, and overcompensates by throwing himself head-first into things. Almost too easy, like throwing a stray dog a sausage stuffed with crushed glass, and watching it die painfully because it gave in to the need to eat.

"You don't have to just... like him again, you know?" Melanie reaches out to lay her hand on Georgie's. "I don't. I just- this is Elias' game."

And yet the only thought in Georgie's mind is that she left the hospital room without saying goodbye, and the dozens of unread texts and ignored calls in her phone. The fact that they stopped coming, when it became clear they weren't well-received.

"I- let's talk of something else, please," Georgie mutters, nearly begs. Were the nights on her sofa the last peaceful rest Jon had? "Did- did I show you this picture of-"

"Georgie, you're shaking-" Melanie mutters, and Georgie's voice cracks. "I- tell me what's wrong. Please."

But she can't, can she? Distancing from Jon was the right decision, even he probably agrees with that. Still, Georgie can't get rid of the feeling that Jon was reaching out a hand while he drowned, and she just watched him go under.

"I just- I need a moment. Please."

She doesn't look up when Melanie moves her chair beside her, but Georgie does lean into her embrace. This at least she's sure of.

"All the time you need." Melanie says, patient in a way Georgie knows is non-existent with anyone else. "I'm here."


Everything feels different about statements, lately.

The ones at the Institute never feel like the ones he gets fresh off the source, of course, but even reading those old stale ones, or listening to Gertrude's recordings, bring forth a barrage of information that leaves Jon feeling as though he just finished a well-seasoned meal.

Exactly ninety-eight prisoners were 'freed' from the Japanese encampment by the Nemesis. A hundred and twenty two Japanese soldiers killed each other to the beat of the drums, and some of their hearts were still beating as their recently liberated prisoners stepped over their bodies to go meet the boats at the shore.

Leonard Holden's last thought, as he twisted Milton Gallagher's neck, was that the commander officer was right, and this was really just like killing chickens back at the farm. When the bayonet first stabbed into his back, he let out not a scream of fear, but the bestial bray of a pig after you slit its throat. He never stopped tapping his feet to the Piper's music.

He barely registers the sound of his door opening and closing, his eyes focused -but unseeing- on the tape recorder on the desk.

As Gertrude moves on with her suppositions, Jon can See the Spider's webs all over the Nemesis, obscuring it from those who could have fed more violence into its fire.

"Doesn't help with the Unknowing, though," Gertrude says, and Jon gives a bitter smile, leaning back against the wide, warm hand that comes to rest at his nape.

"I don't suppose it would." Jon brings a hand of his own to cup the back of his neck, and Gerry intertwines their fingers together.

"Dekker always did have fun ideas," Gerry chuckles.

"Gerard may have a connection to the Eye, but I'm not sure it's enough... besides, I must admit I've grown fond of the boy."

Oh shit.

Jon scrambles to stop the tape, but Gerry reaches it first, and puts his weight on Jon's shoulder to keep him from getting up.

"Gerry, don't-"

"I do wonder sometimes, if I should tell him about Eric. He might decide to follow in his father's footsteps, but it's not like it did Eric any good in the end... Anyway, point is..." Gertrude continues to ramble on, but Jon couldn't care less about what else she has to say as he pushes his chair back. Gerry's grip on his shoulder has grown lax, as he stares at the tape recorder in his hand with a raised eyebrow.

"Gerry-"

"What does she mean, my father's footsteps?" Gerry's eyes, confused and hurt, fix on his when Jon climbs to his feet. "Jon?"

"I- I don't know." Jon closes his eyes, but the Watcher won't volunteer any information. He digs harder, but is only shoved back with the same ferocity with which knowledge is forced into his head. "Gerry I- oh!"

When he parts his eyelids again, twin streams of ink are flowing down from Gerry's nostrils, and Jon wipes at them with his sleeve.

"Your shirt-"

"Stop it," Jon snaps. "What makes you think it will let you Know, if it won't let me? Sit- just stay still already!" he bats away at Gerry's hand, pulling and pushing at him until Gerry's sitting on his chair and Jon stands between his legs, dabbing at the still flowing ink. "Stop trying to-"

"Jon, I can't!" Gerry snaps, wrapping a hand around each of Jon's wrists to pull them away from his face. "Do you even- what does she mean?!"

"Gerry, I don't know." Slowly, very slowly, Jon moves his hands to cup Gerry's face; his eyes are still unfocused, his breathing wild, and the ink is starting to run down his neck. "Please stop. You're hurting yourself." Jon's voice is very nearly begging, but he couldn't care less because Gerry's eyes finally focus on him.

Gerry lets go of his wrists, and Jon's heart skips a beat when his hands come to rest at Jon's hips almost tentatively.

"Doesn't-" Gerry starts, then clears his throat when his voice comes out hoarse and rough. "It's not fun when it's someone else, huh?" he asks, his breathing still coming in long, shaky pulls.

"I- I suppose it's not." Jon slides his thumb over Gerry's cheekbone in an awkward gesture that he hopes transmits comfort. "Are you alright?"

Gerry gives a dry, humorless snort as he sits up on the chair, and Jon lets go of his face to give him more movement. "It's- she was fond of me, she says." Jon stiffens, when Gerry's forehead lands softy on his stomach. "Where was that when she was making my page?"

"...I don't know." Jon whispers, bringing his arms to rest across Gerry's shoulders. "I- there are a lot of things I don't understand about her."

Gerry's arms tighten around his waist. "Of course. Night and day." His voice is muffled against Jon's sweater, his breath filtering through the fabric, searing hot against Jon's skin.

"You loved her." Jon says, not really asking what he already knows.

"It didn't matter, in the end." Gerry snorts again. It sounds like it did. Like it does.

Jon digs a hand in Gerry's hair at the base of his neck, a mirror of the gesture Gerry uses on him all the time.

"I think it matters. I- I don't think Gertrude could afford to care, Gerry, but these recordings- they were for her." She couldn't have expected anyone would find them in her mess of an Archive, for sure. "She cared for you."

Gerry flinches like the words are yet another blow, and Jon tightens his grip on him, this man who only ever wanted to do good with his life, and who was hurt in return every time.

This man who is his now, something dark and slithery whispers at the back of Jon's mind, to correct the damage, to protect and comfort, if only he was powerful enough.

It's really hard to ignore the Beholding, when it speaks Jon's thoughts aloud.


Martin waits until the woman leaves, before he heaves a long, tired sigh.

This is... Less than ideal. He gives the whirring tape recorder an accusing glare and a shake of his head.

"Don't just 'brrrrr' at me. What are you doing, Jon?" he snaps. "Are you just- preying on people now? What am I supposed to do with this?!" He can't give it to Basira or Melanie, they'll kill him before they give him a chance to explain. Martin runs a hand through his hair.

There is someone else isn't it?

It's a dreadful thought, but after talking to the- to Jon's victim, he feels human enough to realize it's the Lonely feeling it, not him. Gerard is... whatever he is, he's helping. With Jon.

Martin pockets the tape recorder, and locks the door to Peter's office before starting down the corridor. It's relatively easy to follow in the specific direction the Lonely doesn't want him to go, but Martin feels another, lighter pull against his destination that he suspects might be the Eye.

"Of course you'd prefer him to keep doing it, wouldn't you?" Martin grumbles, glaring at one of the carved eyes in the masonry. "Well-"

"Are you talking to yourself?"

"Jesus!" Martin flinches, turning in time to see a smug smirk spread over Gerard's lips. "Could you stop doing that?!"

Gerard lifts both hands in surrender, his smirk still there and not apologetic in the least. "Sorry, sorry. It works just fine to get a bit of color back into you, though."

Martin huffs. "Well, don't. Anyways, I was looking for you."

"You were?" Gerard raises an eyebrow. "Got another Extinction statement?"

"No, actually..." and now that Martin has him before him, he's not really sure of how to put this into words. "Its- Jon has been taking statements," he says, shoving the tape in his direction. That's probably easy enough to understand right?

"O...kay? That's his job, isn't it?" Gerard does take the tape, but he's still giving Martin a quizzical look.

"No, I- he's- Gerard, he's been looking for statements. From people who don't come to the Institute to give them." And that's when he seems to catch on, because he grimaces, and lets out a low whistle. Martin nods. "A woman came to my office today, he- I think he compelled her."

Gerard looks down at the tape in his hand, the slightest curl of distaste at his lips. "How did she look? Was she...?"

Martin sighs again. "Said she's been having nightmares."

"Yeah..." Gerard shakes his head slowly. "That tracks."

"I just thought... he'll listen to you," Martin says, every word a little sting in his chest.

"He'd listen to you too," Gerard frowns, "I know you don't want to talk to him because of your isolation thing, but I think it would be better-"

"He loves you," Martin says simply. Like ripping a bandaid, if ripping a bandaid felt like tearing your skin off. He misses the numbness of the Lonely a little, but it's very unlikely he'd be able to call on it right now, not with Gerard right here.

"Whoa!" Gerard's eyebrows shoot up again, and a nervous chuckle escapes his lips as if it's been punched out of him. Martin doesn't miss the color rising on his face, and his lips twitch. "That's- you don't know that."

Martin rolls his eyes. "Gerard-"

"Actually, can you not... call me that?" Gerard interrupts. "It gets on my nerves. Just... Gerry's fine, alright?"

"Oh." Martin blinks. "Okay? What does that have to do with this?"

"Nothing. I just- listen, I've spent every single moment since I was brought back to life hearing about how bad Jon has it for you." Gerry pockets the tape recorder, and Martin wonders if it's really alright, that they went from talking about Jon's victims straight to discussing which one he's in love with. Maybe Peter wasn't that far off when he called the Archives a soap opera. "And it's very frustrating when you keep being as obtuse as possible about it."

"I can't exactly do anything about that, can I?" Martin rolls his eyes. "I'm supposed to be isolating myself to- to save humanity or something, and like we established before, he has you, so-"

"There's more than one way to do these things, you know?" Gerry speaks over him, and Martin has to stop on his tirade due to choking on absolutely nothing. Gerry pats him on the back, and Martin bats his hand away, face burning.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Martin asks.

Gerry groans. "You're impossible. I'll talk to him."

He stomps down the stairs to the Archives, and Martin stays there, mortified, confused and a bit exasperated, which is apparently becoming his usual state after any interaction with Gerry.


"I know you've been feeding." Gerry says once they've sat down at the café, because there is probably not a good way to tell the man you're in love with that the man he is in love with had to come to you so you'd ask him to stop feeding on the fear of innocents.

Across the table, Jon pales immediately. "I- how?" he stutters out, and Gerry wants more than anything to reach over and lay a hand on his to reassure him, but there are things that must be said first. "Who told you?"

"Martin did. He... there was a tape. Apparently someone came in to complain." Gerry reaches inside his jacket, only to find that the pocket is... empty. "Huh. Wait."

He pats the other pockets, as well as the ones on his jeans just in case, but the tape is just gone. Gerry frowns, confused, until the very clear memory of a yellow door at the bottom of a drawer pops up in his mind, and he groans.

"Why- what would Helen want that tape for?" Jon asks, and Gerry frowns at him when his eyes start to give off the faintest green glow.

"Don't do that. That's exactly why we're here, Jon."

"I- yes. Sorry." Jon sheepishly lowers his gaze to the table. "I... know. I know I shouldn't have done it," Jon sighs. "I just..." his elbows come to rest on the table, and he buries his face in his hands. He looks... small.

There are places of power, for people aligned with the Entities. Mooreland Manor for the Lukases, Ny-Alesünd for the Dark's freaks, and Gerry can't even think about Hilltop Road without getting a headache.

The Archives are like that for Beholders; Elias is never as powerful as he is when sitting behind his desk, but Martin put him in jail and that means Jon is the biggest dog at the Archives now. Here at the little coffeeshop, however, apologizing for his very existence, Jon has never looked more frail. It's a relief, really. He doesn't know what he'd have done if Jon had reacted differently.

It means he's still Jon, even after all that's happened.

When Gerry reaches out to lay a hand on his shoulder, he's half afraid Jon will crumble to pieces under his fingers. Instead, the man's desperate gaze is aimed straight at him, and Gerry's relieved to notice it's not the bright green of the Archivist's eyes, but the sweet dark brown that looks at him over the edges of books at home.

"I don't know how to stop it. I don't even know why I'm doing it. It's- I don't want to hurt people." Jon says in the strained tone of a confession. "I- before the coffin, I knew I would need the strength, it was for Daisy. But after that I've just- it even made the statements a bit better, because I can Know more things about them-"

"Makes sense. Feeding regularly would make you more powerful." Gerry observes. Jon flinches back like the words had been a strike, and Gerry gives him a sympathetic shrug. "It's what you're doing; it's what Avatars do. At least people survive when you feed from them."

"That's... not helping." Jon's face looks pinched.

"No. I don't suppose it is." Gerry squeezes at his shoulder.

"I just- maybe I can live off of statements alone from now on. It's- they don't really.... but it's better, isn't it?" Jon asks, with the same fervor of a child insisting they can fix the toy they just broke.

"You don't have to stop." Jon's eyes widen at his words, narrowing in suspicion just a moment later. Gerry rolls his eyes. "Yes, yes. You do have to stop feeding off of innocent people, that's not debatable. I wouldn't let you, either. It will only make you change faster, and I'd like to think that's not what you want."

"Of course not!" Jon snaps, shrugging Gerry's hand off his shoulder with an indignant huff. "I don't- that's the opposite of what I want!"

"Mhm. Thought so." Gerry nods. "Feed from willing people, then. People who won't be afraid of you." Jon's face is still fairly flushed after his little outburst, and Gerry has the sudden, very distracting thought that he would very much like to kiss him. But he's got a purpose, at least for now, and most importantly, he doubts it's the purpose the Eye had for him. "Feed yourself, not the Watcher."

"I don't- is that how it works?" Jon frowns.

"Maybe? It can't hurt."

"That's- I don't think people like that exist, Gerry. Should I only take statements from Institute employees now? Basira won't hear of it, and I won't ask Daisy or Melanie. I'm not going to-"

"Well no, not them." Gerry feels a smile tugging at his lips. Jon is ridiculously blind sometimes, for someone on the cusp of becoming quasi-omniscient. "Start me off, come on"

"...What?" Jon asks, and Gerry doesn't bother holding his grin back. "Gerry, what on Earth are you-"

"Yeah. You know...." Gerry schools his face into stern determination and forces his voice into a deep, affected accent. "Statement of Gerry Keay, regarding-"

"Are you crazy?!" Jon snaps. Gerry doesn't miss the new hungry, predatory gleam in his eyes. Maybe if Gertrude had reached this stage of becoming the Archivist, Gerry would've had an easier time mistrusting her; but then again he's literally just offered himself up as a meal for Jon, so maybe his self-preservation instinct is just not great. "I'm not going to take a statement from you!"

"Why not? I've got them in spades." Gerry shrugs.

"Haven't you heard what happens to my statement givers?!" Jon insists, but Gerry can see his hands shaking, white-knuckled around the edge of the table. A dog before a steak that he knows he's not allowed to have.

Gerry chuckles. "I have nightmares all the time, Jon. This would just be choosing which episode I get to watch. And honestly? Having you there will add a bit of novelty, if you ask me."

"Novel- are you mad?" Jon is shaking. Gerry wants to hold him close and whisper in his ear about the time he set a Vast avatar on fire. "Gerry, you don't want me in your dreams, trust me."

Gerry leans an elbow on the table, resting his chin on his hand with a smile. "Maybe I do, you don't know that."

"Gerry!" The result is just as he expected, Jon goes red from neck to hairline, and Gerry gives him a wink. "I- that's-"

"Oh my God, he's flirting with you, you absolute moron," comes a new voice from somewhere next to their table. "No wonder you never noticed Martin wanted your sorry ass."

Gerry turns to face the newcomer, and his mind flares with alarms when his eyes land on the man's and the only thing he can see is fire. He was marked by the Stranger once, and the Eye as well; both marks have been burned away though, and they remain in his soul only as a reminder, with no real pull over him.

"Coffeeshop date and everything, statement included? You're getting lucky, Boss." The man speaks again, fixing Jon with an amused smirk, like this is a shared joke between them. Gerry can feel the temperature rise around them however, and see the barely concealed anger in his eyes.

It's not a look Gerry specially likes on a Desolation avatar looking at his Archivist.

Jon's face that was so flushed with color just a minute ago has gone pale, and Gerry tenses in preparation for a fight.

"... Tim?" Jon's voice is soft, almost... hopeful. After a moment though, his brow furrows, and his next words are grave and laced with a compulsion so heavy Gerry can taste the resentment as the words flow into his core. "Are you the real Timothy Stoker?"

The man's face contracts into a bitter mask as the compulsion washes over him. His body stiffens and his shoulders tense as he tries to resist the pull, but he fails, of course.

"Thought I'd hate it less now, but it's still the fucking worst." The man rolls his eyes, letting out a huff of steam. "I am. At least as much as you're, you know... you."

"The Desolation claimed you-" Jon doesn't really ask now. "At the Unknowing?"

"Big fan of my work, it looks like." Tim shrugs. "They buried my remains you know? The Desolation turned the whole grave into a cremation chamber for me to wake up. Climbed out just like that; I think I'm made of ash now."

And… yeah, that would explain the random fires they've been hearing about.

"So- so you're..." Jon starts, stops and clears his throat. "You're what, an avatar now? You're lik-"

"Boss, if you say 'like me' I'm going to punch you," the man interrupts him, and Jon's face tightens in pained recognition, like the threat of violence is much more credible as a confirmation of this man's identity than a compelled confession.

Maybe it is, and Gerry feels a burst of unreasonable irritation at the way Jon looks at his former assistant like he's both a ghost and a miracle, when Tim looks at Jon like he's a bug he'd like to step on.

"Tim... why are you here?" Jon asks. The compulsion is subtler this time, but still there.

"Honestly?" Tim asks, like he has any other choice. "I'm not sure. When I woke up, I wanted to see how the others were. Martin at least. Melanie, maybe. And..." he purses his lips, but doesn't manage to keep the rest of the words in. "I wanted to hurt you, if you were still alive."

Gerry stiffens in his chair, ready to hop up as soon as the man moves too abruptly. Across him, Jon looks... resigned. Like he'd known the answer before he even asked the question.

"Ah. Yes I- I can believe that." Jon sighs. "Are you going to?"

"He can certainly try," Gerry responds before Tim can even open his mouth, because he's getting sick of seeing Jon grovel for this guy's abuse.

"Gerry-"

"I'm not a hunter, but I've put out some fires before." Gerry speaks over Jon this time, his eyes fixed on Tim. He makes sure to lean back on his chair, and leave his chest open. Show this man that whatever fear he came looking for, he's not going to find here. "Molina died just fine with a scalpel."

Tim frowns, and much to Gerry's displeasure, looks much more confused than he does concerned. Something seems to click in his mind, because his eyes go the size of saucers, and he whips around to face Jon again.

"Gerard Keay?! The Gerard Keay?" he asks, and now it's Gerry who's confused. How does- "You're getting your freak on with the angry goth that shows up in every other statement? Isn't he supposed to be dead?"

Oh.

"I don't think either of us have any right to criticize anyone for not staying dead." Jon frowns. Gerry feels his mouth dry up; that's not the part he expected Jon to take issue with. "Now answer the question, please."

"Oh? Why don't you try your thing again? Don't really want to know?" Tim arches an eyebrow in challenge.

Jon rolls his eyes. "I know what you think of me, Tim. I'm not going to-"

"You literally just did it."

"Because I didn't know if you were... something else!" Jon snaps "I wanted to know if you meant harm to anyone in the Arch-"

"Oh, so you're the watchdog now?" Tim takes another step towards the table, and Gerry's napkin begins to smoke. "You keep everyone safe, you protect them?" He asks. His words are laced with mockery, striking like a cracking whip.

"I try-" Jon stutters angrily, only to be interrupted once more.

"Well isn't that great? You're definitely good at that, Boss, it's not like you've gotten what? Four people killed already?" Tim snarls. Gerry puts his napkin out with a couple pats, but he finds himself realizing he's not too worried. Desolation avatars know how to destroy. Tim could probably send the entire shop up in flames so hot only he would survive it, but he clearly doesn't want to. "They must be so reassured that you're taking care of them, Martin must be over the-"

"Shut up!" Jon's voice cuts cleanly through Tim's, and Tim's mouth clicks closed as static builds up around them. "I'm- I tried Tim. I did- I am doing my best to fix what I did wrong. I'll be the first to admit I- I made mistakes. And I know you won't forgive me, but- but I'm done. I- I'm done with begging you. What was it that you told Elias while I was gone? Either kill me, or-"

"Or fuck off" Tim nods. His eyebrows are arched, and when he speaks again his voice carries a hint of reluctant admiration. "Grew a pair while I was away, huh? Bit too late. If you ask me."

"Tim-"

"Yeah. Yeah, whatever. I'm not... I should hurt you." Tim shrugs. It's stilted, too tense when he's trying to look casual. "But I don't want to. I think that part died too. The real me, you know?"

Jon's face goes from closed off to hopeful so quickly Gerry cringes a little. Whoever this man was -is-, he's... important, for Jon. Whether he likes it or not.

"So you-"

"I don't want anything." Tim rolls his eyes. "Well that's a lie. I want to destroy things. See the world burn and all, you know the drill. But I don't- Just stay away from me, Jon."

Jon flinches at his name, almost as if 'Boss' had been a quirky nickname and not some sort of mockery. Gerry guesses it could have been, and the thought makes him like it even less.

"Those are some bold words, when you were the one that came in here." Gerry arches an eyebrow, his hand balled over the smoldering napkin.

Tim rolls his eyes. "I figured I'd decide whether or not I wanted to melt his face off when I saw him," he says. "Wouldn't get too close if I were you. People who care for him don't end well."

He walks away without waiting for a response, and the air around them begins to cool down immediately. Gerry watches his back until the coffeeshop's door closes behind him.

"Do you want me to go after him? I can- Jon?" whatever he was going to add fades from his mind when he looks back.

If Jon had looked sad when apologizing for feeding, now he looks... miserable.

Gerry knows all too well he's not built for comforting people. He can protect them alright, but there's a lack of action inherent to comfort that always manages to make him feel like he's doing everything wrong, like he should be doing something to fix the problem instead of just being there.

Maybe it should've been Martin who brought Jon here, Gerry thinks bitterly, because he would fight the world for Jon, but what good is it if he cannot make things right?

"... Do you want to talk?" he asks. That's how this is done right? Communication, catharsis, comfort. He can't fuck up a simple formula.

Jon looks up at him, a hand buried in his tangled mess of hair. His eyes are still shiny, but less with the thrill of a potential statement, and more with something Gerry doesn't want to even think about.

"Tim was my friend," Jon says, and he seems to grow even smaller as he talks. "He moved to the Archives for me."

"Jon..."

"Guess this is the best outcome there could've been. At least he's free now."


Martin notices the melted doorknob as soon as he walks up to his flat door. It's not a great sign, probably, but also not something he's really in the mood for dealing with after the day he's had.

The Lonely kept coming and going at random today, and the complete numbness of it coupled with the bursts of intense emotion when he found his mind clear of it was exhausting.

"Whoever's in there-" Martin calls as he pushes the door open, careful to not touch the still warm metal "-I'm really tired. Please just say what you want, and go?"

The flat is completely dark, and Martin's eyes latch on to the two burning embers that he guesses belong to whoever came to kill-

"Dear, sweet Martin, telling the Entities to behave. Things really have changed, haven't they?"

The voice crashes against him like a wave, terrifyingly familiar and entirely too disorienting; Martin leans heavily on the table by the door, knocking his mother's picture back. The warmth and the slight hint of humor contrasting with the raw bite of the words.

"T- Tim?" Martin gathers himself enough to flick the lights on, and sure enough there's Timothy Stoker, leaning by the door to his kitchen.

He looks exactly like he did the day he left for the wax museum with Jon; the scars from the worms littering his skin, the artfully messed hair, the confident curve to his lips. The only difference is his eyes, two burning coals in the middle of the much beloved face.

"Surprise," Tim says, elongating the word so much Martin can practically see the sarcasm bleeding off of it. "Turns out my old flat is not mine anymore, who knew? I'm going to need a place to crash for a while."

"I don't- how are you here?" Martin asks, still holding to the table for the stability that seems to have fled his world so suddenly. "You were- we buried you! Is- is it really you?"

"I had my doubts." Tim shrugs, making no move to get closer. "But I said I was when Jon asked, and it's not like I can lie to him, so I-"

"Jo- you went looking for Jon?" Martin's heart skips a beat. That can't be a good thing, that- "did you hurt him?"

Tim laughs at that, long and loud and bitter in rivulets of steam that raise from his parted lips.

"I should've known. No, Martin, I didn't hurt Jon." He says, his voice curling venomously at the name. "I wanted to. I really did. But when I was there, I-" his mouth moves around half formed words that he can't seem to give voice to, and his eyes flare up bright enough that Martin sees the glow even with the lights on.

"You couldn't." Martin blurts out when the revelation strikes, and Tim flinches. "I- that's- not that that's a bad thing, but Tim-"

"He compelled me, you know?" Tim spits out. "At the Unknowing. I was going to give her the detonator, but then he asked me to look, and I was so angry at him that everything was clear for a moment. And I killed us."

Martin takes a small, careful step towards him.

"You saved the world, Tim."

And Tim looks up at him, with a humorless smile.

"All I wanted at that moment was to kill him, her, and me, Martin. And I couldn't even do that." He pushes sharply off the wall then, and Martin restrains the urge to move back. "And I had him there today, he was practically begging me to do it, and I couldn't- why couldn't I kill him, Martin?"

He looks... devastated. Like the only certainty he had was just ripped from him and shattered before his eyes, and Martin has a moment to consider just how sad it is, that Tim depended so much on his hatred for the man  he treasured once. This new world has made strangers out of them all, empty husks that feed on resentment while yearning for a past that won't come back.

Martin takes a step forward, and then another, and another, and he only remembers Jack Barnabas' statement by the time his arms are closing around Tim, but it doesn't do much to stop him. Tim is in need of a friend, and Martin -or whatever is left of him that Gerry has managed to wrestle out of the Lonely- is the only one left.

Tim's arms come to wrap around Martin's back roughly, almost violently- Martin guesses that's now just as much a part of Tim as anything else.

"You melted my doorknob," Martin mumbles into the hug.

Tim snorts, and just for a moment, everything is right.


"Ouch," Basira grunts, and Daisy flinches back like she's been burned.

"Did I bite you? I'm sorry, I-"

"No, stop." Basirs lays a hand down on her head to still her, and Daisy looks up. Basira's rubbing at her forehead with a pained frown on her face. "Something just fell on me."

Daisy scowls, but a look around the room reveals they're alone. "What-" she catches the corner of something black and shiny poking from between the sheets. "Is that a tape recorder?"

Basira groans, and Daisy pats her thigh with a sympathetic smile.

"I'll ask Melanie to talk to Helen about timing."

Chapter Text

 

 

XII

Jon doesn't want to talk about Tim, it turns out. Gerry doesn't press the subject, but he realizes as they go back to the flat that Jon's burrowing closer to him than usual. It may be a bit selfish to enjoy holding Jon close when he's only looking for comfort, but he can't bring himself to feel guilty at the spark of pride in his chest that comes from knowing Jon feels safe when pressed against his side.

"The offer still stands," Gerry says quietly as he sits on the sofa. "I could feed you, anytime you need it."

"That's not-" Jon drops on the seat next to him with a huff. "I don't want to use you. You- it's already bad enough that- that you can't leave this place if you want to."

"You know? I don't think I would." Gerry shrugs. "Not anymore."

The silence that falls over them after his words is heavy and tense, like a net about to break under the tension of their unsaid words.

"Was Tim right?" Jon asks after a moment. His voice has the bitter taste of nerves when it pours into him, and Gerry has a sinking feeling that he knows where this is heading, but that's miles away from knowing how he feels about it. He supposes he did want to have this conversation, but the timing is not... ideal. "Was that flir- is that what you were doing?"

Honesty has never failed him when it comes to Jon, Gerry decides, taking a deep breath to still whatever is stirring in his stomach. "I was. Thank you for noticing," he says. Then, after Jon's face goes carefully blank, "we should talk about it, shouldn't we?"

Jon grimaces. "I would rather we didn't."

"Huh. Okay, we don't have to. Can I- is there a reason why?" Gerry asks, ignoring the pang of pain at the refusal. It's not like he didn't know what he was getting into with this man that has been treated so unfairly by this world that he's wary to feel anything that is not fear and pain.

"Because-" Jon starts, stops, then starts again after a deep breath and a slow exhalation. "Because it took me three and a half years to figure out how I felt about Martin, and this- Gerry, how do we know this is not the Beholding making you think you feel-"

"Oh no," Gerry cuts in as irritation sparks in his stomach. "No. Jon, I'm a grown man. And a fairly smart one, if I do say so myself. Believe me when I say I know when the Beholding wants me to feel a certain way, and this is not one of those things."

Jon sputters a little, and Gerry shifts away on the sofa when he starts looking a little like a cornered animal. "But that- it makes no sense, why-"

"For God's sake- Jon, the stubbornness is part of the charm, but you make this very difficult." Gerry runs a hand down his face. Of course, of course this is Jon's thing, his need to believe everyone deserves better, except himself. "Listen. I'm not going to give you an itemized list, so go ahead and compel me if you don't believe me. I'm- I have feelings. For you."

And they say romance is dead.

Jon's mouth is hanging open, his breathing is shallow, and Gerry worries for a moment that he's going to have an actual panic attack over this. That would make this one of his most awkward love declarations, for sure.

"Gerry I- this is-"

"Look, it's alright." Gerry lifts a hand to stop him "I know how you feel about Martin, Jon. This is not- I'm not demanding anything from you."

"I know you're not," Jon mutters, his gaze dropping. "I know you wouldn't."

"Except... I guess I am demanding that you take my feelings seriously, because they're real." Gerry hunches over a little to look at Jon in the eye. "It doesn't matter what you do with them. Just- I don't regret this. I don't regret you."

"Yet," Jon says so lightly it might as well have been Gerry's imagination, if not for the fact that he knows perfectly well it's something Jon would think. "I need a moment."

Gerry nods slowly. "All the time you need."

He's expecting Jon to retreat into his bedroom, so he's understandably surprised when the man just... stays there, looking ahead at the blank screen of the TV as the seconds stretch on and on. Fine, this is... not awkward or uncomfortable at all. It occurs to Gerry at around the four minute mark that maybe he should leave instead, this is Jon's space after all. He wants to ask, but he did just say 'all the time you need', like an idiot and-

Slowly, clumsily, Jon's burn-smooth fingers tangle with Gerry's on the cushions. Oh.

"I- you said you know how I feel about Martin." Jon doesn't turn to face him, but Gerry figures it's alright.

"I do. If you ask me, it's a bit rude that no one's thought to ask me how I feel about Martin," Gerry says casually. Jon's face whips around like he's been slapped, and Gerry struggles to keep his face straight at Jon's puzzled frown.

"I thought..." Jon lets the thought trail off into a questioning silence, and Gerry shrugs again.

"Martin is... he loves you." That much is true, however you look at it. "That's enough for me to give him a chance. And you know? He's not half bad, when he's not being overly dramatic about me being at his flat uninvited."

Jon doesn't even seem to register the joke. His face is a study in changes so minimal Gerry probably wouldn't notice if he wasn't looking for them; as it is, he can see the confusion in Jon's eyes, read the slightest hint of fear in the way his lips purse tightly against each other.

"I'm saying you don't have to choose, Jon." Gerry says as calmly as he can. He's quite lucky he doesn't have a heart anymore, he decides. "I'm here, if you want me. Any way you want me."

Jon's face is looking steadily more and more flushed, but he doesn't seem to be panicking anymore, which is... good. "Is- I don't know if- is that really fair to you?"

"What? Sharing you?" Gerry asks, and Jon coughs nervously. "Talk to me?"

"I'm just- I don't often-" Jon runs his good hand through his hair with a sheepish, awkwardly pleased chuckle, and Gerry has the thought that if he wasn't completely gone for Jon already, this would be enough to do him in. "I don't think I've ever had anyone talk of it like-"

"Like you're something good that I would want to keep for myself?" Gerry's lips twitch into a smile when Jon's face flushes even more, and it's both endearing and sad, how even the delight at the confession is guarded and the slightest bit disbelieving. "Because you are. But who knows? You love Martin; we'll work something out, because Mister Sims, I am in love with you."

It's a thrill to say it, to see Jon's eyes widen the slightest bit, his lips twitching almost nervously into his usual lopsided smile. Gerry feels his stomach flip at the sight, and has the fleeting thought that he'd gladly spend the rest of his life saying those words again, if it elicits that reaction. Who knows? Perhaps the two of them will be enough to convince him they mean it, once they get Martin back.

"We should-" Jon clears his throat. "Should we be focusing on this? With everything else that's happening?" he asks, but he doesn't take his hand back and as far as Gerry's concerned, that's an invitation to continue the talk.

"I don't know. I think we should." Gerry runs his thumb over Jon's knuckles. He's learned a few things in his years of fighting entities, about the things that make you keep going when there is no light around you. "It's the small things, the... the normal things-"

"They give you a purpose," Jon breathes out slowly. He turns to look at Gerry then, his face veiled in a soft awe that almost looks like hope.

"They really do." Gerry whispers back. It's foreign, to be seen as a motive instead of a tool. Exciting. "I-"

"Can I kiss you?" Jon blurts out, and Gerry half chokes, half snorts on whatever he was going to say next. Jon's face is equal parts embarrassment and determination. "It's okay if-"

"No, I-" try as he may, Gerry can't hold back a delighted laugh. "I would like that very much, Jon."

Slowly, Jon's hands come to cup his face like they did some days ago at his office, when Gertrude mentioned- Gerry pushes the thought away, focusing instead on Jon's nervous face as he rises up in his knees, and he lets his eyes fall closed when Jon tilts his head to the side.

Jon's lips are warm and tentative in their advance, and if his voice was intoxicating, his touch is simply addictive. Gerry finds himself trailing after him when Jon pulls back, and his stomach does a flip at the pleased chuckle that comes from deep in Jon's throat as he concedes into a second kiss.

Gerry's tongue pokes out almost on reflex to wet at the chapped lips pressed against him, and Jon's mouth parts like the light caress had been a command, catching Gerry's lower lip between his.

When they part again, Jon's teeth catch and pull softly at the ring on Gerry's lip, and Gerry's eyes fly open as Jon retreats. They sit there in tense silence, until Gerry's eyebrows raise and he tilts his head, giving him an amused, questioning smile as he jangles the piercing with his tongue.

Jon's blush is almost luminous, and Gerry cackles as he goes to pull this ridiculous, perfect man into a hug, and perhaps -if he's lucky- a couple more kisses.


"...Huh." Melanie rips a few more strands of grass. "So he's back?"

"Seems like it. Just thought you should know, maybe tell Basira." Gerry shrugs beside her. It's nice to just lay down on the grass at the park and relax, now that their mysterious fires turned out to be a -somewhat- false alarm. "Jon compelled him, so I believe him when he says he's not here to hurt anyone, but I'm still going to keep an eye on him."

Melanie turns to look at him, and sure enough he's got an award-winning frown on his face. "Why? It's not like he can lie to Jon."

"Don't like him."

It takes a second, before the dots connect in Melanie's mind, and she sprinkles her handful of grass over him. "Was he mean to your boyfriend?" she asks with a teasing smile.

Gerry turns to her, unimpressed, and blows a strand of grass off his nose. "Actually, yes. But it's alright, we kissed a lot afterwards, and it was fine."

Melanie groans. "Say one more thing about that, and I'm going to go back to my stabbing days."

Gerry laughs, and Melanie feels her lips twitch into a smile. It's a nice day to not be afraid.


Jon's office is large enough, but it still feels uncomfortably cramped when Basira pulls Daisy and Melanie in, and Jon has the gall of looking questioningly up at them.

"I- what's this about?" Jon frowns, climbing to his feet.

"Sit. Down." Basira orders. Jon arches an eyebrow, but he complies with the order.

"Daisy?" he asks, and Basira feels her blood boil when Daisy just shrugs by her side.

"We found something, Jon." Daisy says almost softly. Basira punctuates it by slamming the tape recorder on the desk, and Jon flinches back.

"Ah," he says almost sadly, looking at the tape like a note left behind by someone long gone. "We'd been wondering where that would end up. Should've known."

"So you know what it is." Melanie comes closer to the desk with cautious steps, and Basira doesn't warn her to stand down because she can't for the life of her decide on what outcome she wants for this, not when something inside her pushes back against the indignation, against the knowledge that this is wrong, like a snake whispering that she too could reach for the offered fruit.

"That would be Jessica Tyrell's tape. Or rather... her statement," Jon mutters quietly. "About her meeting with the Archivist."

"Nice to know you at least remember her name." Basira crosses her arms, as the name flares up like a searchlight in her mind.

"I remember all of them." Jon sighs.

"What?" Basira slams her hands on the desk, and shakes off the hand Daisy lays on her shoulder.

Flanking Jon's side, Melanie rolls her eyes. "You're really not helping your case."

"I suppose I'm not," Jon says, nodding. "I'm not going to deny I hurt these people."

"So what? Are we supposed to just think it's alright because you're sorry?" Basira feels Daisy's hand come to rest at her shoulder again, firmer this time. "Just forget about it?"

"That is not what I'm saying." Jon gives her an impatient eyeroll, and Basira wants to strangle him. She's been working herself to the bone to keep everyone alive and human, and this idiot-

"How many?"

It takes him a moment, before he dares bringing up his eyes to meet hers. "Seven, counting Miss Tyrell."

"Jon..." Daisy whispers by Basira's side, sad and hurt, and Jon averts his eyes, before he starts again.

The first one, he says, was an accident. He was out for a smoke a few days before he had his revelation about Melanie, when he realized he'd forgotten his lighter. That rings a bell in Basira's mind; she knows he always carries the shiny silver zippo with the spiderweb design. He walked into a shop to purchase another, he says, and Basira forgets about it. That's what you do when you lose your lighter, it makes perfect sense. The man, he says, wasn't even scheduled to work that day; his coworker woke up with terrible cramps, and he offered to cover their shift. Jon asked him where the lighters were, and then he asked about the warehouse.

The second was a woman he found when he went to take a walk by the riverside, because he wasn't healing well after Melanie stabbed him.

"I thought you hated walking by the river, because of the smell." Daisy mutters, and another bell rings in Basira's mind.

"This is not my fault. Don't put the blame on me," Melanie says firmly, and the bell -if there ever was one- falls silent again as Jon nods in agreement.

The next three he sought on purpose, but they came to him almost like it was them who were hunting him instead. A woman whose phone slipped from her hands and split to pieces on the ground, when she desperately needed to make a call. A man whose son, who was supposed to meet him there, was delayed due to heavy traffic caused by an accident. The last of them, ironically enough, needed a lighter. If there are any alarms in Basira's mind, she doesn't hear them, because Jon says without the strength he got from these three, he would never have found Daisy in the coffin.

Jess Tyrell he found in a coffeeshop that he heard Martin mention years ago. She saw an ad for it on Facebook before going to bed, and decided on a whim to treat herself to lunch there the next day, even if it was out of the way for her. Basira stops to think it over for a moment, but she decides in the end that it makes sense Jon would seek solace in a place that reminds him of Martin.

The last one was a man asking for change at a corner, when Jon went out to purchase coffee because they were running out at his flat. He usually sat at a different corner, but that particular morning someone called the police about a pickpocket in the area, and he decided to move for the day, just to avoid talking to them. Jon had dropped a ten pound note in his cup, and handed him a store-bought sandwich before he asked about the scars on his face.

All through Jon's tale, Basira feels something prickling at her nape. It itches and tickles as it crawls just along the edge of her consciousness, where she can't swat at it, and she can't put her finger on just what it is, because she keeps getting distracted by the thought that Jon has been feeding on innocents right under her nose.

"I- turns out I won't have to do it anymore," Jon says, and Basira realizes he hasn't stopped talking.

Melanie arches an eyebrow. "Do you think that's why the Eye brought him? So you could feed from him?"

"As an emergency resource only, if I had to guess." Jon sighs. "The Eye would much rather I keep hunting."

"Well, you won't. It can't keep changing you if you don't let it." Basira says dryly. Jon's eyes, when they land on hers, are a bright, uncanny green. "Don't say-"

"I think you Know better now, Basira." It's not the words themselves, but the sadness in Jon's voice, what makes her recoil from the desk.

"Basir-"

Daisy's question goes unanswered, as Basira rushes out the door while her heart tries to beat a hole through her chest.


The door to Martin's office is not uncannily cold when Gerry pushes it open. That's a good sign, at least.

"Hey. I talked to-" Gerry's eyes catch a flare of movement and light, and he crouches to the ground almost on instinct.

"Tim!" Martin's horrified voice comes from somewhere to his right, along with his heavy steps and a sound like cloth slapping against wood.

Gerry looks up to find Martin patting off a smouldering patch on the wall, and he grunts. Of fucking course.

"What are you doing here?" Gerry asks as he rises to his feet again. Tim's hand is still stretched towards him, his eyes burning like an unattended fire.

"You're a bit confused." Tim climbs from his chair, and the temperature in the office rises even more. "What are you-"

"Could you two stop that?" Martin snaps. "Tim, sit down."

Gerry watches in amazement, as the man obeys with nothing more than a sullen, wary look.

"Why is he here?" the man asks, frowning.

"Because I asked him to be here." Martin rolls his eyes, and Gerry Knows with sudden, delighted certainty that Tim has no idea, that Martin hasn't told him about the Extinction or why he's isolating himself. "Gerry, what happened?"

"I talked to him," Gerry says, making sure to be as vague as possible. "We figured something out."

Martin nods. "About..."

"About a couple things." Gerry feels his lips curl into a smirk, as Tim is practically boiling on his chair. "I'll tell you more next time. But that's settled."

"That's... that's really good." Martin gives a relieved sigh, and he seems to regain a bit more color, before fixing him with a warm, relieved smile. "Thank you, Gerry."

"Anytime," Gerry smiles back. It has the added benefit of riding the room's temperature a few more degrees. "I'll see you later for the tapes. Alone, hopefully."

"Fuck off." Tim snarls, but Gerry's already closing the door behind him.

His smile fades almost immediately, and he leans back against the door. Watching out for Martin's humanity is already hard enough without the beacon of destruction and rage that is Timothy Stoker. What is he even doing at the Institute, wasn't he so desperate to leave and be free? It's-

"You must be Gerard Keay." It's not until the man speaks that Gerry even notices he's there, and that says more about who he is than the name the Eye whispers into his mind as he looks up into the face of the tall, grey-haired stranger. Fuck.

"Peter Lukas, I suppose." Gerry squares up, arching an eyebrow and reaching behind himself as discreetly as he can, until he can turn the doorknob and crack the door open. For all his girth and bulk, Lukas looks almost ethereal, like a faraway form you can barely make out through the fog before dawn, like the silhouettes sailors made into sea monsters and legend.

"Temporary Head of the Institute, yes." Lukas gives him a jovial smile. If he noticed the opening door, he makes no mention of it. Gerry hopes the fact that Lukas is practically looking through him means he's not paying attention to what he does. "It has come to my attention that you've been... intervening, in my assistant's training."

Well, there go his hopes of helping Martin unnoticed.

"I think Martin is plenty qualified already," Gerry says with a smirk. "No need to train him anymore," he adds loudly to cover the muffled scurrying inside the office.

"The Watcher gave you a second chance as a chewtoy for the Archivist, and I, unlike Elias, am under no obligation to tolerate your meddling." Lukas' smile remains, though it doesn't reach his eyes. "If you keep messing with my affairs-"

Gerry can't help it. He snorts. "What? You'll throw me into the Lonely?"

Lukas' eyes narrow in anger. "Well, aren't you cheeky."

"I am, thank you for noticing." Gerry snorts. "Believe me, Lukas, even if I had the slightest trace of respect left for you after working under Gertrude for years, your threats wouldn't work on me."

"If you think-"

"Actually, I Know. Try it if you want to waste your time, but you can't touch me." Gerry interrupts, his face growing serious. "I know exactly where my anchor is."

"I guess we'll see, won't we?" Lukas gives him a look of distaste. Gerry really hopes he managed to buy enough time for Martin to push his friend through a window or something, because he really would be risking a holiday in the Lonely, if Lukas gets any more riled up.

"I guess we will." Gerry pats the man on the shoulder as he passes, delighting in the way he almost seems to recoil from his touch. "Get fucked."


"So you finally talked?" Daisy asks. They're sitting against the corner of his office again, their backs to the wall and down on the floor to make the room look bigger than it is.

Jon leans his head on her shoulder, and she leans her head on his. "We did. Mostly about my feeding, but... other things too."

"That's good. He cares about you."

"Is Basira- how is she?" Jon asks. It had been a stupid thing to say, and now she hasn't talked to him in two days.

"She's- it's difficult, Jon," Daisy says with a sigh. "She doesn't want to admit she's- Basira's constant. She doesn't change and-"

"Well that's just boring, isn't it?" Helen says by Jon's other side. He feels Daisy flinch, but he Saw the moment the door appeared on the floor beside them, and so he's not surprised when it opens, and Helen leans her crossed arms over the edge, the tips of her fingers reaching far past the edges of the door. "To always be the same? Predictable."

"Some people like stability, Helen." Jon rolls his eyes, leaning over to take a peak at Helen's corridors. From this angle it's like looking into a well-furnished pitfall, and he sees Helen's body hanging into it, much longer than it ought to be. He also sees a shadow, bending a corner at a full run many, many miles inside Helen. "Did you eat someone?"

"Not someone." Helen smiles to the tips of her ears. "Not all of us can have a sweetheart that doubles as a snack cabinet, Jon."

He has the fleeting thought that he likes that she uses his name, when she called him Archivist before.

"Why did- hm." He stops himself before completing the question. It's about choice, he remembers. Or it should be. "I'd like to know why you gave them the tape."

Above him, Daisy nods approvingly. Jon snorts. Three monsters learning how to be civil to each other.

"Backup plan." Helen's shoulders shrug way over her head. "In case he wasn't enough to stop you."

"Very determined to save my humanity, I see."

"It seemed like the kind of thing you'd care about."

Jon sighs. "It is. You probably could've dropped it to Melanie instead, however. Basira has a lot on her plate, like Daisy said, with her changes. Not to mention she's still trying to find leads on the ritual for the Dark and-" Jon stops, when Daisy's breathing stops.

"She's what?" she asks, and only then does Jon catch on to the fading static, and the soft pressure of the Eye in his mind. Daisy straightens, and he closes his eyes to take a breath and let some more Knowledge come. Helen is looking curiously up at him, when he parts his eyelids again.

"At Ny-Alesünd. The cult of Mr. Pitch has their Dark Sun there, and- and she knew this," Jon lets out an irate laugh. "Of course she did."

He climbs to his feet, vaguely registering the sound of Helen's door closing and Daisy standing up to match him.

"Jon-" she calls, but he's already crossing the office and out the door.

Helen's door has reappeared by the side of Basira's cot, but she doesn't seem to have noticed, lost in her book as she is.

"I thought we were done with secrets." Jon comes to a halt a few feet before the cot, and Daisy advances some more, standing almost between them.

Basira turns the last page of her book, and turns up to look at them. "That's a conversation starter."

Daisy sighs, and Jon rolls his eyes. "Ny-Alesünd, Basira. The ritual. When were you going to tell us?" he asks. Something in his chest begins to loosen up, and he wonders if it's just the promise of more knowledge helping to calm his irritation.

Basira's face clears of confusion then, though it does close off a little more. "I was gathering intel," she says, and Jon has to restrain himself from asking if it was tasty, because he doesn't want a broken nose, not even for a few minutes. "How do you know about it?" Jon arches an eyebrow. "Ah."

"Elias told you?" Jon asks. The Eye didn't volunteer that, and without the freedom to feed -a freedom he doesn't want, he reminds himself- Jon didn't think it wise to force it.

"He mentioned it." Basirs gives a sharp, annoyed shrug. "I had to make sure he was-"

"Are we having another intervention?" a third voice asks.

"Welcome back, Melanie," Helen pokes out of her door to greet the newcomers, and Jon turns. The feeling of calm that blanketed over his annoyance makes a lot more sense now, even if Gerry -and Melanie by extension- is caked head to toe in dirt. "Found another one of your books?"

"Had to unbury it before we could burn it." Melanie shrugs. "What's this about?" she sounds calm, if slightly puzzled, and Jon feels a pang of relief run through him.

Violence still lurks under Melanie's skin like a bull confined to a pen, but she's controlled it, redirected it, and none of it is aimed at the people in this room, not even him.

Gerry comes to stand behind him, and his hand lands on Jon's shoulder as easily as breathing. "What's going on?"

Jon gives Basira a pointed look. "What's going on, Basira?"

"You know what, Jon?" Basira climbs to her feet and goes to take a step forward, when Daisy lays a hand on her arm to still her. "You're acting very self righteous about sincerity in your little 'team', for someone who felt like he had the right to hide that you were feeding on innocent people for months."

"It's not-" Jon sputters, only to be interrupted.

"Yeah, okay, but why didn't you tell me about whatever this is about?" Melanie asks, frowning. "Was that another one of your 'I'm the only one qualified enough' bullcrap, or are you only telling Daisy things now?"

Daisy's hand tenses, when Basira flinches at the accusation. "Who was she supposed to tell? She-"

"Daisy-" Jon goes to take a step forward, but Gerry's grip on his shoulder tightens and pulls at him, and he too can See the blood rising inside the woman. "Daisy. The quiet."

Daisy turns to him with a snarl, but her gaze does begin to soften, and the growl that was mixing with his own static starts fading back into her throat-

"Aw, it was just about to get interesting." Helen's breathy, echoing laughter washes over them all, and the Distortion doesn't even have the decency to flinch when they turn to glare at her.

"Helen-" Melanie starts, but Gerry lays his free hand on top of her head, and she huffs, crossing her arms.

"You're all really bad at this," Gerry observes.

"Oh, sure. Am I supposed to believe you and Gertrude had a healthy communication, and you ended in a book on accident?" Basira snaps. Gerry's hand flinches on his shoulder and Jon bristles, suddenly furious.

She can lob any and all accusations at Jon, he's earned her mistrust; but Gerry's just trying to help, and he won't allow-

"Jon." Daisy says simply. "The quiet."

It's only then that Jon realizes the static around them is almost deafening, and Gerry's grip has become bruising. Jon's body's pulled taut like a violin string, and his head aches like it will split, as he tries to focus on Daisy's words. Right. The- fighting won't fix anything, especially when Jon has the sneaking suspicion that he has the upper hand in here.

"Right." Jon says.

"Right." Gerry repeats, squeezing his shoulder once before softening his grip. "Yes, Gertrude lied to me. Look at how she ended. Look at how I ended. This is exactly what Elias wants, for you to be at each other's throat so he can go ahead with whatever it is he's planning."

"Don't think too much about it." Melanie mutters, and Jon feels a sudden wave of warmth for her, when she gives Gerry a worried frown.

"I'm not. Just... you don't have to like each other, or trust each other." Gerry trudges on. "But you have to work together, and you have to stop keeping secrets from each other. It's the only way."

It's... quiet, after his words.

Of course this would come from the man that gave so much for the cause that he ended up a shadow of himself

Eventually, Melanie scoffs, looking up at Gerry. "Some secrets, please?"

Gerry snorts. "Okay. Some secrets, if you're weak." He takes Melanie's punch to the ribs without flinching. "What is this about?"

"A ritual, apparently," Daisy mutters, giving Basira another, subtler worried look.

Gerry nods. "And where is it happening?"

"Ny-Alesünd," Basira and Jon say at the same time, and the static comes back for the briefest of moments.

"...Well count me out of that particular road trip, I have things to do here." Melanie cracks her neck, shaking Gerry's hand off her head. "But I'll, you know, keep the fort safe. Keep an eye on Martin. Which reminds me, shouldn't someone tell Martin?"

Gerry lets out something between a groan and a sigh. "I'll do that. You need someone with good reflexes, with his new guard dog."

Jon closes his eyes, tapping lightly at the pool of Knowledge behind the cracked door in his mind, until he finds the particular thoughts he's looking for. "Tim is actually going to go get them some food in about ten minutes, so if you'd like to wait, you're welcome at my office."

"I'd like that." He can hear Gerry's smile in his voice, but even that doesn't prepare him for the sight of it aimed down at him when he opens his eyes again, and warmth coils at the bottom of his stomach like a pleased cat under the sun.

"I'm out." Melanie groans somewhere behind Gerry, and gives his side another punch before stomping away.

Jon darts a look at Basira and Daisy, who seem to be having a whispered conversation of their own, before he reaches to grab Gerry's hand and pull at him. He comes along easily enough, and Jon leads them back to his office where something primal and monstrous whispers 'safe' at the back of his mind.

"You can take a seat, if you want." Jon gestures to the chair before his desk.

"I don't think I do, actually." Gerry leans a forearm on the wall above Jon's head, and bends to rest his forehead against Jon's.

"Are you coming with us? Up north," Jon asks, trying to ignore how everything in him is yearning for Gerry's mouth like a sinner longs for absolution.

This is still new and unknown, but Jon's learned pretty fast that Gerry enjoys teasing him, leaning in just enough that they could kiss if Jon pulled him down. Jon for his part, enjoys not giving into that. It works about fifty percent of the time, but they always do end up kissing.

"I told you." Gerry whispers against him, close enough that Jon feels the silvery ring graze against his lower lip. "You're not going into any more entities without me. Should've thought about your vacation plans before adopting a revenant."

Jon snorts, and leans up to plant a kiss on the corner of Gerry's lips. That's one lost battle, but he doesn't feel too bad. "I knew feeding you that one time was a bad idea."

Gerry kisses him back slowly, like he doesn't want to be done anytime soon, and Jon hooks an arm over the back of his neck to bring them closer together. Stopping a second apocalypse doesn't sound too bad or scary right now, not with Gerry in his arms and the promise of Martin in his mind.

"It's been ten minutes," Jon whispers, parting from the kiss slow and unwillingly, like waking up early in the morning. "Tim's gone now."

"Hm... I should go talk to Martin."

"You should." Jon exhales slowly, as Gerry pulls back from him. He's smiling, and Jon feels like he will burst, because this man that's suffered so much is happy to be here with him and he feels like he doesn't deserve how relieved that makes him.

"I'll go tell your crush you all decided to play nice, then." A spark of something mischievous gleams in Gerry's eyes, almost as thrilling as the kiss itself, and Jon prepares a long-suffering sigh- "Should I give him one of these from you? Just in case he misses you." -which promptly catches in his throat and comes out in a flustered cough.

"Get out of here!" Jon pushes at his shoulder, and Gerry cackles in delight as he closes the office door behind him, leaving Jon alone, red-faced and juggling an armload of embarrassing and confusing thoughts.

Chapter 13

Notes:

Hi all! First off, thank you for all the comments on the last chapter!

Before I go on, I wanted to link some awesome art by amazing artists inspired by this fic, thank you!!
Melanie and Gerry out for ice cream, by Flashhwing

 

Some sweet smooches from last chapter, a very tired Gerry and a pair of dirt-caked best friends, by Littlerobinsart

 

Just Jon and Gerry being dumb and in love, by Elisajgolden

Chapter Text

 

XIII

"Do you want another one?" Gerry asks, running a hand over Jon's side and smiling when the man shivers lightly at the touch, but doesn't move from where he's laying with his head on Gerry's chest, his fingers playing with a fold in his shirt.

"I'm good, I think." Jon's voice is silky with contentment and it tastes of bliss and peace when Gerry leans up to press a kiss against the crown of his head. The bed is soft below them, and the only light in the semi-penumbra of the bedroom is the green glow of Jon's eyes. "How are you feeling?"

'At home,' Gerry thinks with a smile. It's a thrilling, dangerous thought to have, especially the night before they're supposed to go stop another ritual, but he gets the feeling that there's also no better time to have it.

It's taken a week for Basira to arrange the trip north, and Gerry's elated to see his theory appears to have been correct. Jon has been feeding regularly, but his powers have not grown -or diminished- in the slightest. The Watcher cannot feed where there's no fear to be had, Gerry knows, can't take away from what is essentially an act of love.

"Bit excited," he says in the end, after he remembers Jon is waiting for an answer. "It's never a boring time, stopping rituals."

"Didn't work out too good for us, last time," Jon mutters, and his voice leaves an aftertaste of regret when it pours into Gerry's chest.

"Are you sure?" Gerry holds him a bit tighter. "Everyone made it out alive, in the end."

"Depends on your definition of 'alive', I suppose."

"Alive enough. Besides, you didn't have me last time," Gerry says smugly, and Jon snorts, just like he expected.

"Someone has a high opinion of himself." The suggestion of laughter remains in his voice when Jon speaks; Gerry's almost embarrassed at the feeling of satisfaction it brings him. Almost.

"What can I say, I'm a professional." He almost freezes, when Jon's lips come to rest at the curve of his jaw. His amused smile softens as the lightest trail of kisses is placed along his jawline. "We'll be fine. All of us."

And really, his optimism has bit him in the ass on more occasions than he can count, but Gerry still can't help but to listen to it. It's gotta stick, one of these times.


The door to Martin's office is ajar next morning, when Gerry walks up to it, which probably -hopefully- means Tim just left.

It's- fine, so yes, Martin has been looking much better since he came back, even when Tim seldom visits the institute; Gerry can hardly deny that. It definitely doesn't mean he has to like it.

Tim is an unknown variant if he's ever seen one, and every time Gerry tries to Know about him all he can see is a storm of turbulent thoughts that range anywhere between guilt and rage. This is worrying for many reasons, the biggest of which is that Martin is still human, and any slip on Tim's part while he has his little identity crisis could be catastrophic.

Martin won't hear of it, though, and Gerry knows enough about him by now to recognize a lost battle, so... just one more thing he has to keep Martin safe from.

"I still don't know what Peter's planning." And speaking of Martin, Gerry can see him through the cracked-open door, a round cheek resting on his hand as he absentmindedly runs a finger over the buttons of the tape recorder on his desk like one would pet a dog's belly. "My best guess is it has something to do with whatever it is that's under the Institute, but- who knows?"

The recorder clicks in agreement, and Gerry's mouth twitches in amusement at the soft smile that comes to Martin's plump lips as his gaze softens.

"Okay, yes. Maybe you two could know, but try not to force it? I can't imagine the Eye is too happy with us after we put Jon on a diet, and the last thing we need is Gerry bleeding out like a scared squid."

Oh.

Huh. It's a bit unexpected to hear Martin talk about them like a team. Jon will like that, Gerry thinks as the man taps at the recorder with a worried, thoughtful frown. Unexpected, but- but good.

Martin looks overwhelmingly human, and though Gerry can See the tendrils of the Lonely wrapping around him, what catches his attention the most is the burning thought of Jon at Martin's core, and he feels a fierce rush of protectiveness for this man whose biggest concern is for the well-being of the man they love.

"Hopefully by the time you get back I'll have something more, just... be careful, alright? Both of you, and take care of Basira and-" the door creaks a little when Gerry shifts on his feet, and Martin's face shoots up in alarm. "Oh. Hi, Gerry." His face relaxes into a smile of resigned exasperation, when his bright, thankfully green gaze lands on him, and Gerry feels his stomach flip over itself.

"You look well," Gerry says, leaning against the threshold.

"I'm feeling well. It's-" Martin's brow furrows. "I miss it."

Gerry sighs. It really would be a lot easier to watch Martin waste away if Gerry still disliked him, like an idiot. "Please don't say that."

"It's better this way." Martin gives him a shrug and another smile, softer this time. Sadder somehow, because this is what Martin thinks of himself, even momentarily free of the Lonely's influence.

Guilt churns heavier in Gerry's stomach; he should be pulling Martin out, he should, but if the Extinction is real, then whatever Lukas is planning might be their only shot at stopping it from manifesting, if it's even possible.

What a very Getrude thing to do, Gerry thinks bitterly, making bait out of a brave, good man that only ever wanted to protect his loved ones. Perhaps he did learn a couple things from his old mentor, and the betrayal feels even worse in light of the promise he made Jon.

"Is that for me?" Gerry blurts out, jerking his chin towards the tape recorder, because he can't think of another thing to say that's not an apology at how their lives have turned out.

"It is, actually. I was going to send it with Tim, but you were faster."

Gerry feels a satisfied smirk take over his lips, before the rest of Martin's sentence catches up with him. "Wait. 'Send it' with Tim?"

"Huh... I was-" Martin bites at his bottom lip, clearly uncomfortable, and Gerry, who isn't stupid by any means, feels a void opening at the bottom of his stomach. "I was hoping you could take Tim up north with you. Strength in numbers and all that."

"Martin, that only works when your numbers don't want to kill each other," Gerry tries. Maybe it's a bit selfish, he knows himself enough to know that stopping the ritual will be the last thing in his mind if he has to focus on keeping Jon safe from-

"Tim's not going to hurt Jon." Martin's smile has no business being as knowing as it is. "It would make me feel a lot better to have him there with you all."

"Martin, it really isn't smart to- I don't like Tim, but he can protect you if-"

"Protect me from what?" Martin rolls his eyes. "You're going to be fighting the apocalypse. Again. We'll be fine. In fact, Peter will probably be happy that I'm alone and let me work for a change."

"Martin-" Gerry tries again, then stops, sighing. Martin's mouth twitches, not quite a smile, but almost there. "Fine. But Jon won't like it. And for the record, I don't care much for it, either."

And Martin does smile then, both amused and satisfied. "Duly noted."

Gerry's enough of a man to acknowledge he's been had, but it doesn't mean he has to like it.


It's a fourteen day travel to Ny-alesund, and Tim wants to throw himself overboard by the second morning.

He keeps reminding himself that he's doing this for Martin, because Martin is the only one that really matters anymore, the only friend he has left, the only connection to a time when they were happy, even if none of them is anymore.

Jon, as usual, makes everything worse.

They run into each other a few times, before Tim begins actively avoiding him.

It's just too much, how whenever their gazes meet, whoever- whatever Tim is now roars like a delighted beast, sinking its fangs in the raw loss in Jon's eyes. The burning pain of grieving is a banquet to him, especially when something angry and hot at the back of his mind whispers Jon will drag this delicious pain with him forever, because the Tim that exists now will never be the Tim he grieves for.

It's a troubling thought, almost enough to distract Tim from the mirroring pain that comes from inside his own chest, and that his entity feeds on just as eagerly, or the fact that he does not know if he too is mourning for the man he was before he lost his brother, or for the man he hasn't been able to call a friend in years.

"You watch them a lot," Basira comments somewhere around the four days mark, and Tim lets out a huff of steam before stomping away.

Of course he fucking does. Tim boils with indignation on Martin's behalf every time he sees the git leaning against Keay's side, holding his hand and peacefully watching the water rush by below them like they are on a fucking honeymoon cruise. It's just not fair, not when Martin -when Tim gets him to speak- still talks about Jon like he's some sort of... of reason. Not when he talks about Keay -and he calls him Gerry, but Tim staunchly refuses to do so- with this sort of... resigned exasperation, like he knows the man will be there whether he wants it or not.

It's infuriating, to see that some things don't change, that Martin is still letting Jon -and apparently this new asshole as well- walk all over him, that Jon still doesn't realize how undeserving he is of this devotion.

That Tim is once more going along with this bullshit, and that he can lie to himself all he wants about doing it for someone he loves, but it doesn't erase the fact that Tim was thrusted back into a world he had every intention of leaving, and now he has no place in.


"He says another two days," Jon says consolingly, and Basira refuses the urge to shake him as another, stronger wave of nausea has her bending over the railing to dry heave again. First off, he's trying to be helpful, and second, getting into a fistfight with Gerard will definitely not help her condition. Fucking boats.

Still, she looks up to give Jon a dry glare. "I heard- Jon?" she arches an eyebrow, when she recognizes the look on his face.

He's still like a hound sniffing prey, and his unblinking eyes are fixed on the sailor he just talked to. Behind him, Gerard leans over to give him a questioning look. "Jon? What is-"

And then Basira Sees it.

Every step the sailor takes away from them lighting up with a glowing trail, as well as every single step he's taken in the past twelve days. Basira knows she could follow them back to his cabin, to his preferred seat on the mess hall, to wherever the man tries to hide, and she Knows what that means.

"The- he has a statement," she breathes out, and the nausea is gone so quickly that she wonders if she ever felt it in the first place.

"Jon don't-" out the corner of her eye she sees Gerard call out and reach a hand for Jon as soon as he takes a step forward, but the man's arm cramps and stills before he can touch him, and twin streams of black ink start a slow run down from his nostrils.

Basira knows she should call out herself, try and stop Jon, since Gerard can't.

Would that really be the best idea, though? Jon feels called to this man, and she can hear the whirring of the tape recorder that just clicked on in her satchel, that surely means whatever this man has to say is relevant to stopping the Dark's ritual. It's... still not ideal, but if it keeps the world from ending...

"Excuse me?" Jon asks, and the man turns to him again. There's a slight scowl on his face, confusion shining through in his eyes, and Basira notices the exact moment he realizes Jon is not just a persistent traveler wanting to inquire if they can go any faster.

"I- do you need anything else?" the man asks, his sun-tanned face losing every scrap of color and his entire posture growing tense with anticipation. Across from him, Jon suddenly stiffens too.

There's a long moment of silence, and Basira frowns as she sees Jon's frame begin to tremble like a leaf in the wind.

"Nothing-" Jon says, his voice sounding like it's been punched out of him, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. "I would- you may want to consider staying away." Every word sounds like a battle, and Basira can read the struggle in each pained flinch of Jon's back and shoulders.

The man doesn't respond, turning around instead to fly down the deck and downstairs as soon as he can, without a single look back. It doesn't matter; she can find him, she'll find him for the Archive, for-

"What's going on here?" Tim's voice burns away at the Eye's poisonous whispers, and Basira shakes her head to clear it.

"We- I- there was a man with a statement," she says, her thoughts coming in slowly as though having to wrestle their way to her lips.Tim's face hardens, and he takes a step towards Jon, grabbing him roughly by the shoulder to turn him around.

"What did you- shit!" Tim lets go of his shoulder with a yelp, and Basira gasps when she gets a good look at him.

His eyes are their usual dark brown, but Jon's face is pale and pained, and his lower lip bleeds profusely where he bit himself, if one is to judge on the smear of red on his teeth when he lets out a low, tired whistle.

"The Eye didn't particularly like that I said no," he says conversationally.

Basira closes her eyes with a relieved sigh, when she hears Gerard give a weak snort by her side. She's thinking more clearly now that the man is gone, and though her nausea is back on full force, she feels a sudden, unexpected rush of pride for Jon. "That's- good." It really is. If even he can say no, then maybe she can too, no matter how taken she is. "You should- you both should go get cleaned up."

"That's probably a good idea," Jon agrees. He looks exhausted and ridiculously pleased with himself, and Basira remembers, quite abruptly, that Jon didn't choose this. She remembers the secretive meetings with the desperate man who needed to know because he feared for his life, and the sincere gratitude in his tired eyes whenever she showed up with a new tape. "We'll see you at supper. Feel better, Basira."

He walks away on unsteady feet, leaning on Gerard as soon as he comes up to him, and Basira watches them go in silence.

'Despite my best efforts, you never did bond.' Elias' stupid, infuriating voice echoes in her mind, and she grits her teeth together. They would have, Basira decides, and that is the worst part.

Without the fear, without the lies, without Elias pulling their strings to move them across his little chess board, they would have found at least companionship in each other. Now they're all just too broken and tired, only fit to struggle enough to keep their heads above the water in this storm with no end in sight.

"...You doing alright?" Tim asks, his voice tentative, the gentleness awkward in his tone. Basira wonders if he's as defined by his violence now as he was in the months before his death.

"Seasickness," she says curtly, without looking at him. She still remembers the handsome, roguish smile when he thought she and Jon were having an affair, and she has the sudden thought that she doesn't know which of the two Tims was the real one. "...Did Martin really ask you to come, or did you come just to keep an eye on him and kill him if he slipped?"

She doesn't know if she'd stop him if that were the case, just as she couldn't stop Jon just a few minutes ago. Tim shrugs, and when Basira darts a quick look up at him, he's averted his eyes, clearly uncomfortable.

"You know. Two birds, one stone kinda thing," he responds, but Basira was trained to smell lies even before the Beholding came into her life, and she sees uncertainty in the unhappy curve of his lips, anxiety in the stiff line of his spine. It's comforting to know she's not the only one conflicted by her feelings about Jon. "Want me to get you some Ginger Ale?"

"Sure. And a plastic bag, for when I puke it out." Basira's voice is dry, and Tim snorts as he walks away.

Just two more days.


Martin clicks the file shut, and pushes away from the computer with a satisfied sigh.

Across the desk, Melanie lifts her gaze from her phone's screen. "All done?"

"Won't be running out of pens and notepads anytime soon." Martin nods, rolling his shoulders to get rid of the tension in them. "Thanks for staying."

He means it. Even though Melanie barely spoke a word the whole evening, her sporadic snorts and the subsequent memes shown to him on her phone kept Martin remembering he wasn't alone in the office. He appreciates the quiet company, most of all because a part of him -the part that wants to wither and disappear back into the comfortable numbness- resents it.

Melanie shrugs. "Sure. They sent a text, by the way, did you get it? They'll be on land tomorrow."

"I saw," Martin lies. He received the text last night at his flat, that's gone back to grey and foggy without Tim or Gerry's presence. The thought of opening it had been repulsive. "I wonder why they chose to go by boat?"

"Beats me. I'll ask Helen to pop over and ask if they want to come back through her. It really doesn't make much sense to go the long way when we have her."

Martin smiles. "Not everyone has the Distortion guiding them through her corridors when they want to go for Starbucks."

"Maybe they would, if they were nice to her." Melanie rolls her eyes, a slight smirk on her lips. "Going home for the weekend now?"

"Yes, I think. I'll buy some groceries on the way. Is there anything you or Daisy need? I could bring it on Monday."

"We're good. Come on the weekend if you feel- you know. We'll leave the back door open." She stands up and waves at him before leaving, closing the door behind her.

The whistling, nerve-wracking static begins to rise as soon as her footsteps fade. "Isn't that charming. She's looking particularly calm, for someone picked by the Slaughter."

Martin clenches a fist over his lap, as Peter steps out of the Lonely. "She's doing well. It's nice to know you can push them out if you're not too far gone."

"But you already knew that, didn't you?" Peter's ice-blue eyes are hard and cold when Martin looks up to meet them. "This was not our deal, Martin."

"The situation has changed." Martin doesn't climb to his feet, trying instead to project a calm he doesn't feel.

Peter sneers. "You think because you have Daisy, Tim and that ridiculous reanimated corpse, your little ragtag band doesn't need my protection anymore?"

"I-"

"Because if that's the case then Martin, I beg you to wake up," Peter goes on, steamrolling over Martin's attempt to interject. "Daisy's in no state to keep anyone safe, even with her little stunt with the contract. Tim? That man is a time bomb if I've ever seen one. And let's not fool ourselves, please. Gerard Keay is here for the Archivist only, he couldn't care less about anyone else."

"You don't-"

"But of course, as I said, this must be your own choice. I will be happy to stand back, if you think your little team can take on the flood I've been keeping back." Peter crosses his arms behind his back with a jovial smile, and Martin watches him carefully.

It's difficult to really know how much Peter is guarding them from. But they haven't had another break in since Breekon, so he must be doing something. Besides, Gerry and Jon need him to keep digging into the Extinction, and Peter won't give him any more information unless he has him on his side.

Martin takes a deep sigh that tastes of suffocating, damp loneliness, and nods. "I- fine. I'll keep my end of the deal."

Peter's smile turns pleased, though no less dangerous for it. "Fantastic! I was thinking, since your 'friends' left on their little trip… you look like you could use a holiday too."

"What-" Martin frowns, only to turn around in alarm, when the office around them starts to dissolve into cool, empty fog. "Peter?!"

"Have a nice weekend, Martin." The smile is still audible in Peter's voice, echoing and distorted around Martin as the Lonely closes in on him.


They really don't need the instructions the research team gave them, in the end. With three Eye-aligned people, the warehouse is ridiculously easy to find. It pulls at them like a darkness you can't peer through, like a smudge in your vision that you just can't get rid of.

"So it's empty?" Basira asks when they step inside. Gerry quietly moves to stand before Jon, and her by extension.

"I didn't say that. Just that I couldn't see anyone." Jon's eyes are glowing the bright green of the Archivist, as the Eye tries -and fails, Gerry notes with bitter satisfaction- to fight the darkness back.

"Oh. I thought you meant See see, not just... we need proper terminology." Basira does a sweep of the warehouse, her hands crossed at the wrist, gun on her right, light on her left as she pivots on her heel. The beam from the flashlight only illuminates about a foot and a half ahead of them, pitiful in this all-encompassing darkness that swallows it like quicksand.

"Sure, let's just work a secret code like in primary school. I'll write the key on the back of my notebook," Tim says dryly, his eyes glowing as brightly as Jon's. Gerry has started to understand that a lot of Tim's attempts at being irritating are genuinely just that; the boat would've burned to a crisp a week ago if he was actually as angry as he pretends to be. Gerry's also pretty sure Tim himself doesn't know this, but it's not like he cares enough to tell him.

"Shut up," Basira rolls her eyes, and Gerry cheers for her silently. "I'm going to kill that lying son of a-"

"Elias wasn't lying," Jon interrupts. "It's- the Dark Sun, it's here. I can- it's like a hole in my mind."

"...Huh." Basira frowns, her features almost eerie in the shadows cast by the combined glow of Tim and Jon's eyes. "I... I feel it too."

Jon nods. "I think we just- BEHIND YOU!!

Gerry sees the shadow move just as Jon screams, and has barely enough time to throw himself against the woman coming at Basira's back.

"Get off!" the woman screams, scratching at his face as Gerry tries to wrestle the weapon out of her hands. One of Tim's forearms tries to wrap itself around her neck, and she sinks her teeth down on it.

Tim's screaming then, his entire forearm enveloped in flames, and the woman still won't let go of the wooden bat with the hammered in nails. A gunshot rings out, leaving behind a silence so loud it's deafening, and the woman collapses in a heap at their feet, gasping and grunting in pain.

"Who are you?!" Basira points at the woman with both weapon and flashlight, and she seems to recoil away from the light far more than she does from the muzzle of the gun, which is fairly indicative of what she is, at least.

"Fuck you!" she spits back at Basira's feet. She tries to climb to her feet, but Basira shot her clean through the knee; avatar or not, she's not going anywhere in the next hour or so, at the very least.

Gerry throws the bat away as Jon steps forward, the shadows dancing hypnotically across his face. Out the corner of his eye he sees Tim smoothing the wax of his forearm to get rid of her bite mark.

"Who are you?" he asks in the voice of the Archivist, and the woman flinches.

"M- Manuela," the woman says as if every word is being ripped out of her like an infected tooth. "Manuela Domínguez."

"Are you alone here?" Jon asks again. "Why are your people staking out the Institute?"

"Fu- how are you doing that?!" Manuela groans and spits, clawing at her throat like trying to stop the words from leaving her. Gerry has the brief, worryingly uninterested thought that he has no idea what happens when someone refuses to succumb to compulsion. Maybe he'll find out now. "I am alone. The ones at your precious Institute are the deserters, the traitors whose faith flaked after your Archivist ruined our dark rapture."

"I think you're a bit outdated with news," Basira remarks. "Gertrude is gone."

It really is something to hear people talk about it so dispassionately, Gerry thinks. Jon's eyes hone in on him, but he ignores them, focusing on Manuela instead.

Manuela, for her part, is cackling with delight. "Stopping us took everything she had, then. Is this your new Archivist? He doesn't look like much."

"Did you ever see Gertrude?" Gerry asks then, incredulous. Tim snorts, and both Basira and Jon shoot them unimpressed stares. Gerry shrugs, feeling his mouth twitch at Jon's pursed lips. This is definitely not what he expected when coming here, but he's not complaining. Much easier -and safer- to take down a lone avatar than an entire cult.

"What happened during your ritual?" Basira asks, and Manuela turns to her with a hateful glare.

"Don't play coy. It was her who-"

"Gertrude didn't do anything to stop your ritual. I don't even think she was preparing for it." Jon interrupts, giving Gerry another look to confirm. He shakes his head. The last months with Gertrude were focused on the Unknowing, he can't remember her even mentioning the Dark.

"But- that doesn't make any sense!" Manuela's voice is faint now, an almost hysterical quality to it, like the rug's been pulled under her feet. "She- why did we fail, then?!"

"I don't know," Jon shrugs, and his eyes flare up like searchlights, almost enough to push the darkness away. "But you're going to tell us your story."

Gerry doesn't get to find out what happens when someone refuses the compulsion, which is probably good, in hindsight. However, the tale Manuela tells is perplexing, and Gerry finds himself repeating her question to himself.

Why did they fail?

If Gertrude didn't plan or attempt anything, if they sacrificed their beast, if the eclipse came... why did it not succeed? Jon and Basira's furrowed brows let him know he's not the only one thinking along those lines, but Gerry feels the pressure of the Eye pushing him back from the thought, so he files it for later. Maybe Martin will be able to make heads or tails of it.

"And it's still here?" It's Tim who asks this time, but Manuela doesn't even wait for Jon to repeat the question. Defeat has settled over her shoulders like a cloak, and she nods softly.

"It's my only remaining mission, to guard it. But if you've come to destroy it... then I guess my patron has really abandoned me."

"Sad." Basira turns to Jon. "Ask her how we can destroy it."

"No need. I know how to." Jon looks at the fallen woman, his gaze troubled. "You- go. Just- go away."

Basira frowns. "Jon?"

"She's done," Jon shrugs, but he seems to gain more confidence with each word. "Just leave, and tell your congregation to stay away from us; or we will destroy you, like we did with the Stranger."

Gerry feels his eyebrows climb up his forehead, impressed -and delighted- at the firm, steady threat. Jon is not one to brag about his power, but... confidence is a good look on him, Gerry decides.

Manuela doesn't respond, merely climbing to her feet with a pained groan. Being forced to feed the Eye can't have been good for her healing process, but the knee seems to be solid enough to do its work, as she steps out of the circle of light without a look to any of them.

"How are we going to destroy it then?" Basira gives Jon a questioning look.

"I have to See it," Jon says, and Gerry's mind floods with alarms. Knowing the Dark Sun sounds like a great way to leave a mark.

"No you don't-" Gerry shoots forward, grabbing onto Jon's hand with bruising strength as soon as he takes a step towards the end of the warehouse. "You don't have to."

Jon's tired, sad eyes are apologetic when they focus on him. "Gerry-"

"Fear bingo card," Gerry blurts out the only thing in his mind, and Jon stiffens under his grasp.

"...Oh. That would- yes." Jon's hand shifts until he's squeezing back on Gerry's, the green in his eyes starting to fade. "It's okay. I won't do it, if you don't want me to."

Something hurts in Gerry's chest. It feels like the Beholding, so he can't help but suspect he just ruined something big. Which is great. The feeling also pales in comparison to the fluttering in his stomach.

Jon's lopsided smiles were enthralling to watch before, when they were muted and he tried to hide them. Now he's smiling directly at Gerry, warm and reassuring and soft, and it's doing all sorts of funny things to-

"Safewords and all? Very healthy, kudos to you two." Tim's sardonic voice pours over them like a pail of cold water, and Jon's little smile evaporates like mist under harsh sunlight.

"Wow, you really do have to be an asshole about everything, huh?" Gerry whips around to face Tim where he's standing at the edge of their little island of light. His eyes are glowing like the banked embers of a forgotten campfire, just waiting for a stray breeze to set everything ablaze.

"What can I say, I just like to be part of important moments."

"Not everyone is going to be as tolerant to your bullshit as Jon, St-"

"I'm going to shoot both of you if you don't shut up," Basira interrupts. "Probably won't kill you, but it'll hurt. Test me."

"Don't test her, she'll do it," Jon mumbles somewhere behind Gerry, who has known Basira would have no problem putting a bullet in him since the first day he opened his eyes in the land of the living again. "Gerry," Jon adds, a slightly pleading hint to his voice, and Gerry knows he's lost.

He narrows his eyes at Tim's infuriating smirk, before turning his back to him and returning to Jon's side. The asshole makes a couple kissy noises, but Gerry finds that rearranging Tim's face is much less interesting than the flush on Jon's face as he shakes his head in exasperation.

Gerry grazes a knuckle against Jon's cheekbone, and Jon goes red to the roots of his hair. "We'll just find another way to destroy it."


Tim rolls his eyes at the display.

It's very irritating, to see Jon comply with the request so easily, when Tim remembers with nauseating clarity how stubborn the man can be.

Anything for a pretty face and a cup of good tea, he guesses.

Keay turns to face the back of the warehouse then, and Tim catches the flurry of movement as soon as he takes a couple steps away from Jon.

It's all a bit of a blur.

He can barely see the outline of Manuela's silhouette, the darkness hugging tightly around her, and the wretched-looking bat they wrestled away from her earlier.

The sound of wood against flesh is disturbingly clear in the empty silence of the warehouse, startling in contrast with how Jon collapses without a noise.

He hears Basira's gun go off again, but Tim -or rather, his fire- reaches the woman faster.

She screeches in pain as flames engulf her, and every step she takes leaves behind a flaming trail, but Tim is not looking at her.

Key's screaming at Basira to get out; he's got Jon gathered up in his arms, and Jon's head lolls back like a broken doll, his eyes -or what remains of them- bleeding down his forehead. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck- each and every one of Tim's hurried gasps for breath is like feeding oxygen into a dying fire-

The warehouse burns.


To say Jon wakes up in a dark place would be a bit like saying the sky is big and far away, like trying to describe something that is merely in terms of how humans perceive it, when its existence has little -if anything- to do with the human experience.

This place is dark not in the sense that it lacks light, but rather in the sense that the concept of light has never existed here in the first place.

In any case, even the memory of light is of little use to Jon, because he knows without the slightest shadow of a doubt, that he cannot See.

It's similar to how he felt in the Buried, his senses all heightened at the loss of his Sight, and the thought that in this place at least, he is human. Or at least as much human as there is left of him, after the Beholding sank its teeth so deep into his being.

Jon gets the feeling it's not too much.

He tries to wave his hand before his face, but only succeeds in feeling the slight disturbance of air before his nose. The black around him is almost suffocating and with it comes the knowledge that, without his eyes, Jon will never find the way out. There's no Daisy with him this time, to feed him a statement in equal parts barbed and sweet that will grant him just enough power to climb out.

"Is there anyone there?" Jon calls out, and the Dark seems to swallow his voice as voraciously as everything else. Stupid question, he thinks as he feels the first pangs of dear prickle down the back of his neck.

There is no one there, but there is something there.

He knows it without needing to Know it, the same way humans through their entire existence have always known the night is dangerous, and that the creatures that lurk in the corners where the light cannot reach are waiting, always waiting for the moment they lower their guard just a little too much.

There's a shuffle to his left, and what sounds like claws, like a hiss, like too many skittering feet.

"Stay back!" Jon turns to face the sound, or he thinks he does. It's difficult to know if he moved at all, in this place of absence. The noise repeats, from behind him this time, and Jon whips around again.

He was- he's not alone. He's lost, yes, but he wasn't abandoned, he just has to find the way back.

'Back where?' he thinks, and he flinches with a scream as the thing in the dark brushes against his side.

"C- calm down, Jon," he tries to tell himself. He just needs to go back home, where it's safe, where there's light. Is light only something he imagined? Is home?

No.

Home is... home is a place that exists.

The creature in the Dark snarls angrily, and Jon fights to control his breathing, as he desperately clings to that one thought.

Home smells of lavender. Home is a bed that's just barely big enough, and a sofa that isn't at all. Home is a place to talk of the future, and feel fear that is not fear, because you want to face it. Home is a pair of strong arms, and the scent of freshly brewed coff-

"-aid he remembered what- what his wife told him before he turned off the lights at the living room. She- she reminded him to set the alarm, because they would be having breakfast with-"

The voice echoes all around him like a desperate prayer, and Jon hears the creature growl again. Something prickles at Jon's eyes, like the itch below a scab that'll drive you mad until you tear it out. He rubs at them, and spots of color explode behind his closed eyelids.

"-rents next morning, and- and he said he remembered the way then, Jon, because he wanted- you were right, alright? It was the fucking quiche, he just-" Gerry's voice grows more and more desperate as Jon keeps blinking and rubbing, and the colors get brighter, and his eyes hurt, but the pressure on them releases. "He walked out, just like that. And he was at the top floor, with- with his wife, and he could see the light of his clock, and he knew she'd already set the alarm for him because she knew he'd forget- Jon, open your eyes please-"

And Jon does.

Everything is blurry at first, as his healing continues to fix the damage Manuela caused. It's still dark, but not Dark, and off to his side Jon can see the sky is tinted an angry orange hue. His nose registers not the scent of lavender, but the smell of burnt wood, and he realizes Gerry's silhouette is backlit by a roaring fire enveloping the last home of the Dark Sun.

"What-" Jon goes to ask. "Where's Manuela?"

"Tim dealt with her," Basira says, sitting on Jon's other side. "And the Sun as well."

The wounds on his face itch as they heal, the remaining scars just slightly raised dots that will flatten out soon enough, but that he Knows will leave a mark. Jon takes a hand up to his face, to feel at the bumps fanning from his eyes like stars.

"Is Tim-"

"In there," Gerry responds before he can even ask the question. "He'll be alright, it's- fire can't hurt him."

"I heard your voice," Jon says, because it feels important, to let Gerry know. He stiffens, and Jon lifts a hand to push a long lock of hair behind a pierced ear. "I followed it out. Like quiche." He smirks.

Gerry's face crumbles, and he gives an aborted, hysterical laugh of relief, before roughly pulling Jon into a sitting position, and wrapping his arms around him.

"I- I'm back. I came back." Jon mumbles awkwardly. This is not at all what he expected, but... but it's not bad, he decides as Gerry gives a weak nod, his face buried in Jon's neck and his hands clenched tight in the back of Jon's shirt. "I'm home."

"You really are." With the roaring of the fire behind them, Gerry's strained voice is barely audible against Jon's skin, but there's no mistaking the way his arms tighten around him. "You are, Jon."

It's a strange thought, but home can be a lot of things, he guesses.

Even him, apparently.

Chapter 14

Notes:

Hi y'all! Before we go on with the chapter, check out this amazing art inspired by last chapter made by Ivehadanapophany

 

I wrote a little piece to go with it, a reversal of the last scene in last chapter from Gerry's POV

 

Oh, before I forget it, there's naked people in this chapter. No porn, but def some naked boyfriends. If that makes you uncomfortable, you can skip from the part where Jon suggests a bath to the next POV.

Chapter Text

 

XIV

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

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

If Martin is not alone again.

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

The fog wraps tighter around him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's better, but not enough.

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

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

Objectively, Martin knows he shouldn't.

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

Because Martin wasn't worth fighting for.

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Oh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"This is not about Jon-"

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

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

"Leave."

"I-"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


'Jonathan Sims. Head Archivist.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Me," Jon repeats; tired, disbelieving.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I- what?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The body of a man life has mistreated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's not what?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But you'll do it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I don't think I'm the one who should be deciding who lives or dies, Tim. Helen has... she's helped us."

"Go team Archives," Tim says sarcastically.

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

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

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

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

"Shut it."

"Of course." Tim nods.

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

The door flies open.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It clicks, then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"NO!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 15

Notes:

LMAO sorry for the late update hahaha

Chapter Text

 

XV

"So... where did you find her?" Tim asks, as he walks around a corner. It opens to a long corridor, with tasteful hardwood floors and sensible faded ochre walls. There's a little table by the wall anywhere between five and a hundred steps in, right below a mirror that's usually round, but sometimes is triangular or square. Right now it's eight-sided, and Tim looks into it to fix his hair- and his face. The latter melts a little if he's not paying attention, but is easy enough to mold back into shape.

"Roaming the tunnels. She was a bit lost. Everyone is, down there." Helen's voice echoes all around him, and his headache gets the slightest bit worse. There's no telling how long he's been here for, but at least in her corridors he can pretend the confusion is only a side effect of Helen around him.

"So you thought it would be a good idea to make her into dinner." There's a single cobweb stretched between the little table's legs, and Tim presses a finger to it like he's done to the others, watching it curl and shrivel as it chars to nothing. "Or were you actually trying to get her out and throw her at us?"

"Burn a couple more of those, and I might be able to tell you." Helen's voice is clearer now. Bitter. Tim nods grimly.

"I'm going to need you to let me out somewhere else."

"Better if you don't say the name, I think." Helen sighs. "Keep walking."

So Tim does. There's still plenty to be confused about. The Desolation rages inside him, feeding from the raw loss burning a hole through his chest

Sasha's dead.

No, he corrects himself. She's been dead for a while now, years. The thing Jon killed was just that; a monster, no matter how many times Tim called it Sasha's name. No matter how many times Tim found himself loving it.

The fire at his core burns a bit hotter.

He keeps trying to tell himself he was loving the memory of Sasha and not the beast, but is there really any memory left of her? Logically speaking -ugh, he sounds like Jon-, he knows there have to be. He knew Sasha -loved Sasha- long before the table came, but when he tries to conjure them, all he sees is the long-limbed thing, the ghost of its touch on Tim's skin sending shocks of nausea through his stomach.

"If you're going to puke, please wait until I let you out."

"Feeling vindictive, aren't we?" Tim composes a smirk even as he takes a deep breath to fend the nausea off, leaning heavily against the little table. His reflection on the half moon-shaped mirror looks decrepit with exhaustion.

"Aren't you?" Helen asks, and Tim's knuckles whiten around the table's edges.

There was a spiderweb on that table, and there's another on Jon's lighter.

"You have no idea."


Calling the fog is easier now.

Tim hasn't been home in a while, and Gerry hasn't sought him out either after he lashed out at him. Which is... what he wanted, he supposes.

It's much better to work like this, now that even Peter has opted for leaving him alone. Without interruptions, without the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. Lately, he has started to suspect even the Eye's gaze slips off of him at times.

It makes him wonder if Jon can still See him. If he even tries anymore.

There's probably no answer to that question that could make him feel... something, not anymore. Martin shakes his head, hoping to dislodge the thought and go back to his work. There's things to do, including a new statement to record that Peter must've slipped in before he arrived. He's getting close to being done with this, at least.

Will there be anything left of him once he doesn't need to be lonely?

Will there be anyone left who cares?

All he can see when he tries to look into his future is the comforting, cool embrace of the fog. It's not a surprise, not really. Fear has ever been a constant in Martin's life.

A tape recorder clicks to life by his elbow, and Martin sighs. "Yes, alright. I'll just... Martin Blackwood, assistant to Peter Lukas, Head of the Magnus Institute. Recording statement... what is it? 0131305..."

The feeling is... odd, he decides after he goes through Judith O'Neill's statement barely giving the words a thought, as fast as he can without mangling it, because the sound of his own voice is grating to his ears.

"It's... I know I should feel guilty, you know?" he asks the tape recorder, resting his chin on his hand. "I mean, this is this person's worst moment, that she trusted us with, to preserve and protect. And- and I'm just trying to get it over with."

Click. Martin feels his lips curl into a small smile. Who knew he could still do that?

"Yes, I guess so. But it still doesn't feel like I'm doing enough. Not that it ever has, but still..." He sighs.

It doesn't really matter, does it? All Jon and Gerry need is the information, not his thoughts on it, not his- just the facts. That's what they want, and- and since he finished this quickly enough, he should be able to sneak down into the Archives and drop the tape at his old desk before Gerry can try to come get it.

He doesn't have to see the hurt on his face when he sends him away again.

The door to the office closes silently behind him as he steps into the corridor to start the way down to the Archives, and he's immediately assaulted with the pressing sensation of other people's existence. Martin doesn't quite Know about every person in the Institute, but he can feel their presence like one would feel the heat from standing too close to a fire; a warning to get away, before you end up burned. Luckily for everyone, life in the Institute seems to be contained at the upper levels, the building completely silent once he reaches the bottom floor.

The old break room calls to him like a siren at sea, but Martin ignores it. There's nothing for him there anymore, other than a brightly painted mug pushed to the back of the cupboard to be forgotten, like the painful memory of the times when there were no fears of monsters, and the biggest worry in Martin's mind was a fake resume.

This is why he hates coming down here, he thinks with a sigh. It's just... logically, he knows they were never going to stay that way, planning birthday parties and getting to know each other, the little Archive team. He knows they were doomed the moment they signed their transfer to their new department. But still... Better times, less complicated, and- there's a woman there.

More importantly, a woman he doesn't recognize. She's tall and dark skinned, with tightly curled hair pulled into a bun at the top of her head, her sharp, deep brown eyes examining what Martin recognizes with a muted sense of alarm as a scorch mark shaped like footsteps on the polished hardwood floor.

"Excuse me? You can't be here." Martin says after a deep breath. The tape recorder in his hand clicks on again; great, now Jon is going to hear him chasing away his meal. "Did you come to give a statement? I'm afraid we're not taking new ones at the moment."

There's a pang of nausea at the lie, but Martin ignores it. If he can keep one more person from tangling in with this-

"I gave it a while ago. Haven't been too afraid ever since." The woman shrugs after turning to face him. She's wearing a black tank top with a stylized ghost on it, that Martin would once have smiled at. "I'm only waiting for Melanie. You're Martin?"

He blinks. "You... know me?"

The woman's lips twitch. "Jon talked a lot about you while he was staying at my house."

Martin frowns in confusion, until it all clicks in his mind. The ghost, the statement, Melanie, Jon. The fact that he couldn't feel her at all before practically running into her.

"Huh. I- I didn't know Melanie-Georgie and Jon-Georgie were the same person." Martin feels the air around him cool a little more when he gives her a second, evaluating look. She's beautiful, and she looks confident and calm even in this place of terror. Jon... Jon really has a type, Martin thinks as his mind conjures the image of a pair of blue-green eyes glaring up at Peter in defiance.

"Small world and all that." Georgie shrugs. She frowns then, after she gives him a once-over of her own and apparently finds him lacking. Which is... not ideal, probably, but Martin can't bring himself to care. "Are you alright?"

"I am. Thank you." Martin looks away, because her eyes are nothing like Jon's asides from being a similar dark brown in color, but Martin finds himself thinking of them anyways. "Could I ask you to let Jon know I left this here? Or- or Gerry. He'll do too."

He can feel Georgie's eyes on him for another, unbearably long minute, before she speaks again. "Why don't you tell them yourself?"

"I'm- we're not really... talking. Not anymore." He's aware he doesn't owe her an explanation, but it's... why lie to a stranger, specially one that doesn't care?

"Ah." Georgie's gaze falls for a moment, before she lifts it back to Martin's face. "Could I ask why? Jon speaks very well of you. And from what Melanie tells me-"

"Actually, I'd rather you didn't." Martin cuts in. There's a pang of irritation at his stomach, and he feels the Lonely receding just the slightest bit. Not good, not- "With all due respect, it's none of your business, or Melanie's. Or anyone's, really."

Georgie's eyebrows climb up her forehead. "Wow. Okay. I'm sorry, I suppose. I just thought-"

"You don't know me." Martin says it more for himself than for her. She doesn't know him, and she'll forget him the moment he walks away. The so-called "concern" in her voice is just that, a misguided attempt motivated by-

"Well no, but Jon cares for you." She shrugs.

"Jon cares too much, that's the problem." Didn't he hear Tim complain about that years ago, angry and drunk against Jon's desk with Melanie slumped on his side in a similar state? Jon doesn't care until he does, and then you can't tell which one is worse.

Georgie's eyes are still digging into him, so intense Martin has to remind himself she has nothing to do with the Watcher.

"I think it usually ends worse for the ones that care for Jon, actually." And she arches an eyebrow in a gesture Martin has seen Jon made countless times. It's funny, how people pick up traits from the ones they love. He wonders which one of them had the gesture originally, and which one took it in and made it their own.

Has he picked up anything from Jon? The way he pushes his glasses up his nose, or holds his cup of tea? It's... that would be nice, he thinks. That even when he goes into the Lonely, when he's no longer capable of loving Jon -if he still is-, there will be a part of him that remains.

He also wonders if Jon has picked up anything from him, but the thought is cold and faded. Martin has always been on the sidelines, easy enough to forget once you get him out of your way. What would Jon even take?

"-tin?" Georgie's voice reaches him faintly, distorted.

"Maybe." There's a strange echo to his own words, and he can see the wisps of fog curling around him. "But it's good that people care for him anyways."

"What-"

"It's nice to know he won't be alone."

Georgie takes a step towards him, but stops short a second after, as her eyes glaze over for a beat. Her brow furrows in confusion, and she looks around the bullpen, her gaze sliding off of Martin.

"Okay, I'm ready, sorry I- Georgie?" Melanie asks as she comes into the room, frowning when Georgie continues to look around the office. "What's wrong?"

"I... nothing, I guess." Georgie's eyes are still confused. "I just- I could swear I was talking to someone."

Melanie gives the room a once-over of her own and Martin holds his breath, but she doesn't notice him either. Good.

"Huh." Melanie hums in thought for a moment, before her eyes turn mischievous and her lips curl into a grin. "Maybe it was a g-g-g-ghost? I know a pretty girl that does a podcast about that, you should tell her the story."

Georgie huffs a chuckle then, her encounter with Martin already forgotten. "I think I know the one. With the cute girlfriend, right?"

"That's her. Bad taste in food and men, amazing taste in women." Melanie hooks her arm through Georgie's, a pleased, slightly flushed smile on her face as she pulls Georgie towards the door. "Let's go?"

"I- hm. I think I was supposed to tell Jon something." Georgie hesitates a little at the threshold, and Martin's heart skips a bit.

"Ugh, just text him. You'll make his day."

"Don't be mean." Georgie smiles.

"I can live with you on his side or with Gerry on his side, please don't ask me to do both, I'm not strong enough."

Georgie laughs, the sound growing fainter as the door closes and they walk away, leaving Martin behind.


Tim stumbles out the door, his head protesting as his body tries to adjust to the change in perspective, which is most definitely not aided by him immediately rolling down half a flight of stairs.

"Would it have killed you to find a something at floor level instead?" Tim grumbles, rubbing at his bruised shin.

"If you find one that's not sealed, feel free to let me know." Helen says dryly, pulling her door closed as Tim glares up at her. "Good luck, dear!"

Tim rolls his eyes, and when he's focused them on the door again it's back to being an old, dusty window through which he can just barely see the street below.

Fine. This is amazing.

A single thread of spider silk pulls at his elbow, and Tim huffs a dry, humorless cackle.

"Done with subtlety, aren't you?" The thread is trying to tug him upstairs, so Tim burns it off before starting in the opposite way.

He can feel the Web trying to wrap itself around him, to obscure his mind and concern him with matters that will take him out of here. Where is Martin? Is he alright? What if he was in Helen's corridors for so long that everyone's gone?

Tim chuckles at the thought as he comes to a stop before a door sealed shut with cobwebs.

Who else could he lose? Sasha's dead, and so is the thing that tricked him into loving it. Danny's gone, his death successfully -but so unsatisfactorily- avenged. Martin continues to slip through his fingers no matter how much he tries, and-

"Just spit it out." Tim freezes when he recognizes his voice, static-y and grainy with the whirr of a tape recorder as background.

"You're not planning on coming back." Jon's voice has the finality of a goodbye, and Tim realizes abruptly that he remembers this conversation. He didn't realize it was being recorded at the time, or he wouldn't sound nearly as put together.

Tim-on-tape laughs, so ugly, so angry that Tim-in-the-flesh flinches.

"That's rich. Do you care now? That's called guilt, Boss"

"Tim-"

"Don't. Stew on it, for all I care. You deserve it."

A sigh, long and tired, before a weak, broken voice.

"I'm so sorry, Tim..."

Tim lets out a sigh of his own, mouthing his next word.

"Good."

Steps crunching on gravel, as Tim walks back into the cheap motel and leaves Jon alone with his thoughts.

It's no wonder the Desolation chose him, all that burning anger boiling just under his skin, the taste of ash on his tongue, the finger pressed down on the trigger to call on destruction like a well-trained dog. So convinced that Jon, who he'd loved so much and who cast him aside without so much as an explanation, was the cause of all his anger. So eager to make him suffer just the same.

"Is that really all you got?!" he shouts out, and his breath comes out in puffs of steam that leave Tim's nostrils burning with the scent of guilt. "Mistress of manipulation, and all you have for me is 'you were angry and a douche'? Because guess what? I still am!"

His hand burns its imprint all the way down to the wood, as the cobwebs shrivel away.


I suppose it was clever of you, to send this one specifically. I have never been too fond of his kind. Too... volatile, if you'll excuse the little joke.

But I'll move on. I'm a grown woman, and I know perfectly well when I've lost a battle. It isn't even that big of a tangle in the grand scheme of things, now that I think about it.

And see, that's exactly what I wanted to talk about, Jon. How would you say it?

Statement of Anabelle Cane, regarding inevitability.

Was that good? Did it do something for you?

See, I'm ever so good to you, dear. I know you're on a little 'diet', but one fresh statement can't be too much, can it? Just a single taste, you've been behaving so properly for your team...

But I've strayed from my point again. I do that sometimes, you know? It's a bit hard to focus on a single thing, when everything is so intricately connected! Try following a thread in the weave of a tapestry, see how long it takes you to lose track of it in the big, beautiful picture.

No, what I wanted to talk about, how did I put it? Inevitability?

You're familiar with that, aren't you, Jon? How running and running away only ever brings you back to where you're supposed to be.

I learned of it the first time I ran away from my family home. I had all these grandiose dreams, coming back artfully smeared in dirt, perhaps with a nasty-looking, but perfectly applied gash to my arm or leg, and I would never have to ask for anything again. I would be Anabelle, lost and returned, the greatest treasure my family could ask for.

The house already danced to the beat I drummed, but I wanted more. I wanted things to go my way before I even had to orchestrate them. I wanted things to land on my web, and strangle themselves to death trying to pull themselves out.

It was a good plan, for a nine years old.

I could tell you about the woman, I suppose. Young, and emaciated and lost, weaving herself into a tapestry she could not see, so desperate to feel something that she didn't notice when the syringes began overflowing with many-legged things that scurried and ran through her veins much more effective in soothing her pain and fear than the heroin ever was.

I could tell you how I ran. How I climbed back up my window before my older sister even noticed I was ever missing. How I shook that sleepless night, seeing crawling shadows everywhere, feeling the pinprick of their legs on my skin. I thought the woman was a demon that was sent to scare me into being a nice little girl, to correct me from the nasty schemes I orchestrated to get others in trouble.

You would know, wouldn't you, Jon? The incredible lengths to which a child's mind can go to try and rationalize an encounter like ours.

And it worked, I suppose. For years, I stopped manipulating, I stopped weaving. The urge was still there, and the ability of course. It was almost as though I could see the threads connecting every occurrence with the outcome I wanted, just waiting for me to pull on it the right way. But I didn't. I had seen my punishment, and I would be good, I told myself.

Didn't you do something similar, when you found my little book? You were adorable.

But you see, even though we both tried to run, to break free of the path we were meant to take, we both ended up exactly where we were needed. Don't hate me too much for pulling your strings, dear, just remember there's a bigger puppeteer out there.

And please, don't take this as some sort of grim reminder -everything is always grim with you, isn't it Jon?- that free will is a lie, and we are all just chess pieces moving across a board. That is not what I mean at all!

Free will is a beautiful thing, and so satisfying to have. You specifically have a will of iron, Jon, and that is a high compliment, coming from me. The twists and turns I've had to send you in just make sure you had what you needed to survive! And all just because you were too stubborn to take the path the Eye set for you.

But that is exactly what the beauty of an ineluctable plan is, just to come back to the original subject of my statement. Knowing that your every movement, your every choice is already factored in the grand scheme of things. I find it soothing, don't you? Knowing that no matter how far you stray from the path, you cannot truly ruin anything.

Look at your dear friend. An unwanted variable in my plan for sure, but apparently not to the Mother's one, since I ended up talking to you after all. Perhaps a little earlier or later than I originally should have, but things worked out in the end. They always do.

Perhaps all the players must, at some point, take a look around, and see if they're not standing on a checkered board themselves. I can think of some people specifically, but it wouldn't do to ruin the surprise.

Now, how do you close these things? Your charming little catchphrase… ah, of course.

Statement ends.

"I- you found this?" Jon's voice is a bit shaky as he finally looks up from the paper, and the tape recorder clicks to a stop on its own. "Were you looking for it?"

Tim shrugs. "Not really."

"But then- Tim, why were you at Hill-"

"It's none of your business, alright?" Tim rolls his eyes. "Maybe I just decided I really fucking hate spiders."

After listening to that, he definitely does.

Jon's arachnophobia has never been a secret, but he guesses it makes a lot more sense now. A lot of things do.

He doesn't like any of them.

"Tim-"

"I'm going to leave now."


"Tim said you were full of spiderwebs." Jon's voice is calm, quiet.

Helen tilts her head. "Aren't we all?" She asks. It's not in her nature to give straight answers.

"I'm starting to think so." Jon gives a sigh.

It's a fun little tableau they make, each on one side of the desk, between them a tape recorder with a bit of tape still left, a sheet of paper next to it.

"This is how we met," Helen hums thoughtfully. There is no map on the paper, and the statement in the recorder is not hers -about her-, but it still feels painfully, exquisitely familiar. "Back when we were both human."

Jon lets out a little huff of air, like her words are somehow a surprise for him, who could Know it all. "Do you remember how that felt like?"

Helen smiles, feeling her lips curl in on themselves dozens of times. "Do you?"

"A little, at times." Jon lays a hand on the desk, and Helen sees the recorder practically click on and vibrate with the need to go to him. Funny little things. "More, lately. I... having everyone helps."

"That doesn't bode too well for Martin."

"I- it doesn't. But I'm- I wonder if you'd be this far gone, if I hadn't turned you away when you first came to me."

Helen tilts her head, when Jon's eyes fix on her. They don't have the lovely green glow they take when he uses his powers, and they look... sad.

It's not an emotion the Distortion knows how to deal with, because the Distortion shouldn't be dealing with feelings anyways. It's even more puzzling to have it aimed at her.

The part of her that is still Helen -is that all of her? Is that any of her?- feels a pang of grim satisfaction. "Is that what this is, then? Making amends?"

Jon shakes his head slowly, sadly. How can a man exude so much melancholy? Is that what happens, when you care so much?

"Not really. I- we were always going to change, I think. Our only choice is how we do it." He pushes the tape recorder towards her, with a tired smile. "I hear you collect them?"

"Only until it's time." Still, Helen cradles the recorder in her hands. Such a curious thing.

"Time for what?"

"I don't know." Helen shrugs at an angle that should not be quite possible for shoulder joints to give. "Doesn't it frustrate you, Jon?"

He gives a little, choked up laugh. "You'll have to be a bit more specific."

"All these rules about what should and shouldn't be done. We are power. Why should we be contained?"

Why should they?

Why should they strive to stay human, when that's the very thing that was ripped from them? Why-

"I think... Because I want to be contained." Jon gives his desk a little thoughtful frown, before looking up at her again. "If I'm going to be a monster, I'm going to be one in my own terms."

"How noble of you." Helen arches an eyebrow, and Jon's lips twitch into the ghost of a smile.

"Selfish, really. It's the only thing I have left."

"Didn't she say it wouldn't matter, in the end?" Helen lifts the tape recorder to tuck it in the pocket of her blazer. "The grand scheme of things, and all that?"

"It matters to me."

"So you'll spend the entire journey there being miserable, just for the sake of some moral high ground?"

Jon shakes his head, his lips moving around words he can't quite put together. It's almost a bad joke, the Archivist, tongue-tied.

"If I weren't miserable in this situation, I wouldn't be Jon." He says in the end. "I- maybe the Spider dropped me gift-wrapped at the Eye's front door, yes. But it can't take that from me. It can't take who I am."

"Bit boring, isn't it? Not changing at all, ever?"

"...Yes, I suppose you of all people might find it so."

"Can I still keep the tape?" she asks, clicking the stop button to make the funny little thing sleep again.

Jon sighs. "It's yours."

Helen smiles. "Just until it's time. Cheers, Jon, good luck on your moral crusade."


Corruption statements always leave behind a stale, sickly aftertaste. It's not too surprising really, but lately Jon has started to dislike them even more.

It's the way this entity tries to disguise itself as love, as the natural progression of devotion into indiscriminate consumption, parasitism, destruction.

Everything that love isn't supposed to be, everything that-

The Eye pulls urgently at his mind, and Jon is dragged out of his reverie by the sudden Knowledge of sharp blades and singing blood.

Jon sighs, before diving into his desk drawer to pull out his mobile.

"Yeah, I think, um-" the door to his office opens and closes behind him, and Jon's heart races as he tries to force the next words out. "I think you should probably get down h-"

The phone is yanked from his hand, and Jon vaguely registers the sound of the call clicking to an end, far more focused on the edge of the knife that comes to rest against his throat. Right over Daisy's scar, like it's one of those 'cut here' lines, and the thought is much funnier than it should be.

"Hello, lad." Trevor Herbert's breath is musty and bitter, and Jon sighs. This is fine, this is- all he needs is for one of them to get distracted. He broke Breekon before, and Not Sasha too. This is his home terrain, he can-

"Miss us?" Julia's long-nailed, almost clawed hand grips his shoulder tightly and forces him back on his chair. "We have some things to discuss, it looks like," she says, and though her voice is pleasant enough, Jon can hear the underlying growl under it.

"If you give us the right answers, maybe we won't have to check if you're still human enough to bleed." Trevor smirks. Jon looks up at the old man, but everything in him is telling him to keep quiet, to wait for an opening. Hunters are not to be taken lightly, much less as a pack.

"You've got something of ours." Julia stabs a knife of her own right through Barbara Mullen-Jones' statement. "Took it right from under our noses."

"After we saved you from that Stranger puppet and gave you all the information you needed. Very rude to steal our biggest resource." Trevor presses the blade a bit tighter to his neck, but Jon couldn't care less about it anymore.

How could he have been so stupid? He'd thought they were here for him, why come to the Archives if not to kill the Archivist? Something hot and dark and angry starts brewing in his stomach.

"Gerry wasn't yours," he snarls. "You had no right to-" the knife presses deeper, and Jon's mouth snaps shut more out of the Eye's self preservation sense than his own, his mind still reeling with the memory of the pained ghost that asked him for a smoke, just a shadow of the man he-

"You heard that, Julia?" Trevor cackles." 'Gerry'!"

"Seems like you've gotten pretty chummy." Julia leans over, her mouth curled in a sardonic smile. "Pull dear Gerry out every now and then for a tasty statement, don't you?"

Jon's eyes narrow as he tries to ignore the pang of guilt in his stomach. Of course he feeds from Gerry, but it's- he's not like them.

"Where is it?" Trevor snaps at his silence, giving him a shake. The knife breaks skin, not enough to bleed but enough so that Jon feels the sting.

"I set him free." And Gerry came back to him, he's Jon's now, and they are not taking him again.

"You what?" Julia grabs him by the shirt, pulling him up to his feet. Jon comes gladly, his chin held high and holding Julia's gaze. He can see the Hunt in her eyes, but Jon finds that he's not too intimidated, not after Daisy, and definitely not when Gerry's life is on the line.

"You wasted your time coming here." Jon says simply.

"Aren't you feeling ballsy today?" Julia gives him a hard shove, and Jon topples back on his chair. "But we didn't. We can at least get rid of another mouthy monster before we go. You want the honors, old man?"

Trevor shifts his grip on the handle of the knife, a wide, lupine grin spreading over his face. "Don't mind if I do." Jon's lips twitch into a smile, and the two hunters scowl.

"Get away from him." Daisy snarls from the open door to Jon's office, and Trevor and Julia snap around to face her.

"Who- ah. Got yourself a guard dog, didn't you?" Trevor laughs. "Smart bastard."

"More of a lapdog. She's scrawny, isn't she?" Julia goes for a mocking, dismissive tone, but Jon sees the stiffness in her limbs, and the nervous twitch of a muscle on her jaw.

Jon looks at Daisy, and he realizes for the first time just how sickly she looks. The lean frame that wrapped around him in the Buried now appears emaciated, and though Jon can See the boiling presence with too many teeth trying to burst out of her skin, there's no denying what abstaining from the Hunt has done to her.

"Malnourished, more like. Haven't tasted blood in a while, have you?" Trevor asks. "This one will die nicely; you could come with your kind instead."

"Or I could hunt you instead." Daisy takes a step forward, and Jon Sees the hunter boiling even closer to the surface.

"Don't." Julia say simply, when Daisy makes to take another step. Her hand digs into Jon's hair, pulling back to expose his neck. "Or I'll kill your library rat."

"You can try. You better hope you're faster than me, though." Daisy's voice devolves into a low growl, and Julia responds in kind. Trevor says nothing, merely watching the two women face off.

"Do you really think you can take us both?" She asks, tightening her grip in Jon's hair. "You're weak."

"Are you willing to bet your daddy's life on it?" Daisy bares her teeth.

"I'm not her father," Trevor says sullenly, and Jon snorts.

"Are you sure?" Jon asks, and Julia yanks roughly on his head.

"Shut up, I'll-"

"Let's go." Trevor interrupts. Jon gives him a quick glance, an old wolf that has learned to pick his battles.

"Old man-"

"There's no rush. Plenty of monsters to go around, too." Trevor gives Daisy a grin that she responds to with another growl. "Good luck guarding them all."

Julia gives another snarl, letting go of Jon's hair with a harsh shove that has Daisy flinching forward, before she and Trevor make for the door. Daisy stands there like a statue, and Jon feels the tension in the air rising with every passing second, until Trevor and Julia seem to decide to just go around her.

Their stomping footsteps grow fainter and fainter in the distance, Daisy crouches to the floor, her entire frame shaking.

Jon shoots from his chair. "Daisy? Are you-"

"Don't touch me," Daisy snarls, startling Jon. He pulls back the hand he was about to lay on her shoulder.

"Daisy. Listen to me." Jon kneels before her. "Just-"

"They're not gone yet. They're- I could find them. I could take them down." Daisy's shoulders shake even harder, and Jon forces himself to not flinch back.

"The- remember what you said, Daisy. Don't listen to the blood..."

"...Listen to the quiet," Daisy responds after what feels like an eternity. Jon carefully lays his hand on her arm, right above the spot where her nails are digging into her skin. She leans into it, and Jon wraps his other arm around her.

"It's- you're wasting away." Jon squeezes her shoulders, muttering into her hair. "You need to-"

"I'm not going back to that." Very slowly, one of Daisy's arms comes to return the hug.

"Daisy-"

"I hurt people, Jon. You know I did. I almost killed you-"

Jon squeezes harder, as the Eye drops flash after flash into his mind. The last moment of all the people -all beings- whose last view was the Hunt-distorted face of Daisy Tonner. "That was not you. That was the Hunt."

"We're the same."

"No, you're not!" Jon snaps. "You're- it's different, Daisy. You are different. What you were before-"

"I was a monster." Daisy's voice holds a special sort of fragility, and Jon tightens his grip as much as he can.

"There are worse things to be."

They stay there for what feels like hours, until both their breathings slow down, until Daisy's shoulders stop shaking with the urge to chase, and her nails are no longer digging into Jon's shoulder.

"So... did something happen here, or is this just something you two do for fun?" Tim's voice comes from the still open door, and Daisy whips up so abruptly that Jon is just thrown back in a tangle of limbs. "Whoa, tense."

"Tim-" Jon clears his throat as he climbs to his feet. "This is not a good time."

"When is it anymore?" Tim arches an eyebrow. "So?"

"It's noth-" Jon stops himself, sighing at Tim's unimpressed, guarded look. He chooses to trust. It doesn't matter that Tim doesn't trust him back, he- there's a reason for that, and Jon has to live with it. Maybe forever, now. "The hunters came by. Daisy scared them off."

"Top dog, I like it." Tim smirks at Daisy's answering scoff, before turning to face Jon again. "Did they come for you?"

"No, they-" Jon freezes, Trevor's last sardonic remark ringing in his head like a bell.

They're gone. They're gone, and they- Daisy was able to track him down to Michael Crew's house before she even knew the Hunt was in her. Trevor and Julia are both experienced hunters, and they came here for-

Jon shoots out the door, shoving his way past Tim and ignoring Daisy's concerned call, and hers and Tim's footsteps behind him as he rushes up the stairs and out of the institute.

He knows the way to follow like a bird flying South for Winter, a thread of steel pulling at his very core as buildings and street signs rush past the edge of his vision. He doesn't know how long he's ran for, his lungs burn and his legs are tired, -Jon has never been an athlete- but he's getting closer and-

Jon turns a corner and slams against something solid and soft and warm, bouncing back with a huff before his mind registers the concerned blue-green eyes looking down at him, and the shouting in his head comes to a halt.

"You're alright," are the first words Jon can form coherently.

"I- am?" Gerry arches an eyebrow, and Jon laughs with relief before throwing his arms around him. "Jon?" Gerry asks, an arm coming to rest over his shoulders, a hand behind his head.

"Huh, you were right. I owe you a drink I guess." Melanie says, her voice both dry and unimpressed, and Jon flinches back from Gerry's embrace like he's been burned. She rolls her eyes. "What are you doing here?"

Of course they were together, they're hunting, how could he have forgotten?

"I- the- at the Institute-" Jon sputters. Melanie's not with the Slaughter anymore, but she wouldn't have let Gerry face the hunters alone. His face starts heating up as the uselessness of his mad dash through the city rains down on him.

"Jon, what happened?" Gerry asks, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Is anyone- shit!" Gerry yanks him and Melanie out of the way, throwing the three of them against the wall just as Tim and Daisy turn the corner at full speed.

"We're here!" Melanie calls out calmly, and the two of them skid a few feet before turning back to face them.

"What the fuck, Jon?!" Tim exclaims, steam shooting from his lips as he pants. Daisy eyes him in a way that makes it fairly clear she's thinking something along the same lines, and Jon wishes for nothing more than the earth to open up and swallow him whole. Again.

"Uh- yes, I can-"

"Explain why you made us run all the way to Chelsea?!" Tim shouts again.

"Stop yelling at him!" Daisy snarls. She looks considerably better than she did at the Institute, and Jon wonders if chasing after him did something for her. "Jon?"

Jon darts a look around, trying to gauge the general mood. Tim is, of course, furious. Both Gerry and Daisy are giving him mixed looks of worry and confusion, and Melanie seems to be enjoying his predicament.

"I- they were looking for him," Jon mutters, growing more and more embarrassed as Daisy and Tim start to connect the dots.

Daisy sighs. "You though of calling me on the phone, but not him?"

Oh. That's- Gerry does have a phone that he usually has with him.

"I... wasn't really thinking."

"You're kidding me." Tim groans, and immediately turns to the street to start hailing a cab down. "You're paying for my ride back, you asshole."

"Uh... can I ask what this is about?" Gerry leans down to whisper in his ear. Jon exhales, the relief at finding Gerry alive and well still swelling in his chest.

"At home. Please?"

Gerry's brow furrows, but he eventually nods. "At home, then." And he presses a kiss to Jon's temple.

Jon, who is most definitely not used to public displays of affection, freezes on his spot. His face burns even more when he hears Melanie groan as well, before she begins to walk away.

"Tim, can I ride with you? I don't want to stay any more."

"Be my guest. Maybe we can convince the driver to charge him by the passenger. Daisy, you coming?"

Jon sighs and steps away from Gerry, pulling his wallet out when a cab rolls to a stop before Melanie and Tim.


The idea of four walls and a door as a sanctuary is laughable in the world they move in, but home is home, and it's more about a feeling than it is about a space.

"Please don't go after them." Jon's voice is almost too quiet in the thick darkness of the room, but Gerry can taste the desperate intensity in the words just as clearly as if they'd been pressed to his lips.

"Why would I?" he asks, like the thought wasn't the first thing on his mind as soon as Jon ended his tale. It's not like he can pay them back for what they did to him, keeping him from his rest just to use him, but fuck it would be satisfying.

"Gerry."

It's the emotions poured in it rather than the name, what makes Gerry feel like the breath has been punched out of him.

It's heavy with a sort of devotion Gerry's never been on the receiving end of, but that he's tasted in Jon's words before, sweetening Martin's name like a breathless prayer.

It's new.

It's terrifying.

It's intoxicating.

"Say my name again."


"Won't you look at that." The voice that reaches Gerry's ears when he climbs the last step out of the Archives makes Gerry freeze on his spot.

He's heard it a thousand times before, reading his last, most intimate moments like they were a particularly boring instruction manual, tearing him from the painful, burning dormancy of the book for another round of questioning.

"That sneaky bastard." Julia shakes her head with a disbelieving cackle. "Dear Gerard, long time no see. Sorry, it's 'Gerry' now, isn't it?" She was always the one asking the questions, impatient and snappy whenever Gerry took too long to answer.

Gerry snorts, his mouth twitching into a smile. These two are opportunistic hunters if he's ever seen any, a pair of hyenas looking for lonely prey.

"This is very convenient, you know?" Gerry cracks his neck. He's never killed hunters before; Gertrude always thought they were better left alone, since they usually went after other avatars. It's just fitting that Gerry's always been good at learning on the fly. "I promised Jon I wouldn't go looking for you. Didn't say anything about what would happen if you found me."

"Oh, you promised him? How sweet." Julia smirks as she moves, her eyes glued to him as she flanks him. "How did he get you like this, huh? You were much more useful when you were pocket-sized, let's go back to that."

"I hate to disappoint." Gerry focuses on her. She's younger, faster than Trevor. Her neck is also very thin, and he Knows she favors her right side, and forgets to watch her legs. It's just a matter of getting a good kick in-

"Let's just kill him. He's no good to us like this, and who knows what he is now." Trevor is at his other side, no doubt giving him the same evaluation he just gave Julia. "One less monster."

"Oh yes, that's your whole thing, isn't it?" Gerry arches an eyebrow. "Pretending you're doing this to save people, and not because you're just another pair of hungry dogs."

"Better than just playing house with the monsters, if you ask me. How's dear sweet Jon?"

"Doesn't it worry you?" Gerry ignores Julia's taunts, looking at Trevor instead. That always did irk her when she interrogated him. "She doesn't have the best track record with parents, if I were you, I'd be concerned about ending like Robert Montauk."

That does it.

Julia launches at him with a roar, and Gerry has barely enough time to plant his feet to catch her- before a burst of fog shoots out of nowhere between them and Julia skids to a stop inches from touching it.

"I'm going to have to ask you two to leave the premises, please." The three of them freeze as the fog dissipates, leaving behind only Martin's grey, cold-eyed form. Gerry feels his mind kicking into overdrive because this is bad in so many levels. First and foremost, Martin and the hunters are in the same place at the same time, and that's less than ideal. Then there is the fact that Martin just came out of the Lonely, and-

"Who the hell are you?" Julia goes to push Martin aside, pulling her hand back as if burned when it goes right through him. "What-"

"Out." Martin says, his eyes hard behind his glasses. "Unless you want to wait for the others, in which case feel free to stay, they should be here soon."

Gerry smirks at the nervous look that passes between the two. Of course they wouldn't like to be the outnumbered ones.

"Remember how you used to ask me about the monsters? I'll give you a freebie, for old time's sake," he says, stepping forward to stand next to Martin. "You don't want to wait."

"Real cute." Julia bares her teeth at him, and Trevor narrows his eyes. She then whips around on her heel and walks towards the door, only stopping for long enough for Trevor to reach her, and Gerry watches them go with a bitter smile.

The doors closing after them is almost deafening in the silence left behind. Out the corner of his eye Gerry can see Martin start fidgeting, and he takes a deep, calming breath before turning to face him. It's alright. Martin is- he's here, he just has to pull him back.

"Did you really call anyone else?" Gerry asks.

Martin rolls his eyes, and Gerry notices with a pang of guilt that they're a cool, muted gray, despite the interaction. "Of course not. But I had to get them out, and I heard Tim say that Daisy alone was enough to send them running. Figured the idea of more people would only be more effective."

"I could've taken them," Gerry shrugs. Then, and his voice has grown a bit weaker, "I didn't know you could go into the Lonely now."

Martin looks down at the fog rolling around him like he's seeing it for the first time. "Hm. I didn't notice I was in, actually."

"That's- Martin, that's worse." Gerry grimaces. Martin is still human -as far as he can See- but only barely so.

"Is it?" Martin asks, and his contour is starting to blur and fade again, like a mirror fogging up. "Stay here today, will you? I'm sure Jon will be happy to have you."

"Martin, please-"

But he's gone.

Gerry stares for a moment at the spot he disappeared on, but eventually he gives a long, defeated sigh as he starts the way back down the stairs to the Archives.

Sending the hunters running no longer feels like a victory.

Chapter Text

 

XVI

Gerry closes the door to Jon's office with a pleased smile, pushing his hair back into place.

"I must admit-" Tim says, immediately souring Gerry's mood. He's sitting behind a desk with his feet up on it, looking at him with a thoughtful frown. "I've known him for seven years, and I never thought I'd see the day he'd have a make out session in his office."

"Well, you never finish getting to know people. Did you need anything?" Gerry arches an eyebrow.

"Is Melanie going out with you today?" Tim asks, and Gerry scowls.

"How is that any of your business?"

Tim rolls his eyes, swinging his legs off the desk and climbing to his feet. "Apparently it's my business because Martin had to save your sorry ass from the hunters the other day, and now we have to have a buddy system, so thank you for that."

Oh. Oh, no.

It suddenly makes a lot of sense, why Jon pulled him back for a last, heavier kiss. Gerry feels like he's been had, and he somehow knows if he were to march back into the office to ask for an explanation, he would find an empty room.

"I don't need a babysitter, Stoker, and I definitely don't want you around meddling in my investigations." Gerry turns to head for the door, gritting his teeth when Tim comes to stand before him again. "Did Jon put you up to this? Because-"

"Don't be stupid," Tim snorts. "I couldn't care less about him-"

Gerry rolls his eyes. "Why don't you try selling that one to someone who didn't see you vaporize Manuela Domínguez?"

"-but Martin cares that you don't get killed, for some reason," Tim speaks louder to cover Gerry's words. "So you're going to have to suck it up, because I'm coming with you whether you like it or not."

Gerry crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back against Melanie's desk. "You have no idea how close I am to killing you every time you speak, Stoker."

"Why don't you try selling that to someone who doesn't know how whipped you are, Keay?" Tim's grin turns smug and he leans forward. "You can't touch me."

Gerry has to remind himself really quickly that decking him in the face wouldn't even bring the satisfaction of breaking something, and worse: it would make both Martin and Jon angry at him. It should be a relief, really, that Martin has a friend as dedicated to him as Tim.

It probably would be, if said friend wasn't this much of an asshole.

"Oh, they know you. They'll forgive me." Gerry narrows his eyes. "I just need to find a good excuse."

"So! Where are we going today, pal?"


The door to the office opens silently, and Jon has a spare moment to be impressed at Daisy’s handiwork again.

The room is both empty and silent, and Jon feels a pang of pain when he realizes Martin isn't... Gerry has been by the flat a couple times -much to Tim’s annoyance-, but there’s no sign of him other than the thick fog that seems to linger in any space Martin has claimed as his own.

“Martin?” he calls out softly; the fog swirls in tantalizing spirals, disturbed both by the open door and his passage through it and gathered more thickly around the imposing mahogany desk. “A- are you here?”

There is no answer; the dense fog drifts away from the desk like pushed by an unseen wind. Jon sighs. He could- he could call on the Eye. Nothing should be hidden from him, here at his place of power. He could See Martin, no matter how tight a grasp the Lonely has on him.

“But you don’t want me to See you, do you?” he mutters, more to himself than to the flaky idea of Martin’s presence. “This is- It wouldn’t be fair to intervene just because I miss you. I- I trust you’ll let me know if you need me.”

He turns away then, because Martin’s memory bites at his core like a rabid dog.

It feels like he last saw him was an eternity ago, instead of just two months or so. It has occurred to Jon before that they don’t work on the same time as the rest of the world anymore. Theirs is a time measured not in minutes, but in losses.

“Enough. I- that’s enough.” A tape recorder clicks to life somewhere in the office, and Jon smiles, grateful. “Yes, thank you. Just… just a slip.”

He feels like a magnet that is facing the wrong pole, as he begins moving across the office.

Something in his chest pulls at him when he takes a step in a direction it doesn’t like; the desk calls at him, no doubt full of statements and tapes the Eye considers inoffensive. When he moves towards the stationary cabinet by the corner of the room, it feels like his feet weigh a ton each, like the floor has become sticky and viscous and unwilling to let him go. Jon closes his eyes; maybe it’ll help if he doesn’t see where he’s going?

When he opens them again he’s standing at the threshold, facing the corridor.

“Harder than I thought…” Jon mutters under his breath, before turning to the office. At least he knows he’s on the right track now.

‘What are you looking for?’

“What am I looking for?” Jon mutters to himself, before he turns towards the cabinet again. “It’s there, isn’t it? The thing you don’t want me to see.”

‘There’s nothing in there. Just old papers, and some tapes.’

Jon nods. “Yes. Yes, that’s what I need.” Or that’s what the Eye doesn’t want him to have, and if Gerry’s right, that’s exactly what he should be trying to get.

It feels like a year before Jon takes the last of the ten steps that separate the door from the cabinet, and he pulls the doors open like they weigh a ton each. They slide noiselessly on their hinges, revealing the filing boxes full of yellowed paper, and a single cardboard box bull of shiny black tapes.

Jon’s hand hovers over them for an eternity before he shoves it in with a clatter of plastic against plastic. It comes back out with a tape held tightly in its grip, and for a moment Jon thinks of fishing birds, diving in from hundreds of feet in the air to catch unsuspecting prey.

’Is that what you wanted?’

“Yes. This- this is the one I wanted. The one I need.” Jon feels a surge of dark triumph looking at the unassuming tape. Whatever could be so important that the Watcher is so desperate to keep from-

The tape slips from Jon’s left hand, but his right comes to catch it awkwardly; his burned fingers twitching and spasming as his whole hand cramps in pain, and for a moment Jon is afraid he’s going to drop it in the pile again and lose it forever.

The doors to the cabinet swing closed with a slam.

Jon jumps back a little, giving the room another once-over. It looks just as empty as before, swirling fog and unfinished paperwork on the desk.

“...Martin?” he asks again, a little more hopeful this time. Maybe the office was never empty, maybe… He takes a step towards the desk. Is he imagining the scent of tea, the sound of rustling footsteps echoing his own? “Martin, are you here?”

’You need to leave, Jon.’

He does, doesn’t he? His hands want to let go of the tape, to chuck it out the window and hope a car runs over it and turns it into a million pieces. Whatever it contains, it’s dangerous, and he needs to hear it. The faster he does it, the better.

Before he closes the door behind himself, he gives the desk another look. He could swear there’s a figure profiled in the fog, but then again his wistful thinking has gotten the best of him before.


"You must be Martin then," says a clearly amused voice as he closes the door to the office, without locking it, because apparently that's as unnecessary as it is useless. "I must say, Peter definitely wasn't exaggerating."

Martin heaves a long-suffering sigh. He shouldn't have come today. The thought that Tim or Gerry would look for him at the flat was really the only thing that kept him from staying there.

Jon's visit last morning left him shaken, and he's been trying to call the Lonely back ever since without great results to speak of. It's a bit impressive how loving can complicate things so much, even when Martin is only faintly aware of what loving means anymore. A little like watching trees shake under a stiff breeze, but not feeling anything against his skin.

"Well, there's no need for that," The man chuckles when Martin finally lifts his gaze to him. He's old, is the first thing Martin thinks. Wrinkled and either extremely short or hunched over by age, the only thing suggestive of life is the glint of mischief in his sky-blue eyes. "I'm merely visiting, I'll let you go back to trying to drown in your own misery in just a minute, see?"

"Who are you again?" Martin arches an eyebrow. Manners are an effort he's not willing to make right now.

"Ah, of course. I forgot, my apologies." The man extends a small, wrinkly hand that Martin looks at pointedly for a few moments, before it's retracted. "Should've known, I suppose. Simon Fairchild, I trust you've heard of me?"

Martin has, a lot. Perhaps in the past the name would've been enough to scare him. Now he just stares at him warily, and feels the fog curl around him almost protectively.

"What are you doing here?" Martin asks. "I told Peter I didn't need any more convincing. I believe him."

"Do you?" Simon's eyes spark with something that reminds Martin of years ago, when Sasha -not Sasha, never Sasha, probably- teased him about a crush over the rim of a cup of coffee.

"Does it matter?"

"I rather think that's up to you, don't you?" Simon leans against the wall across from him, tapping his cane against his thigh. His entire posture is like a tightly coiled spring, ready to bounce into action at any moment with an energy disproportionate to his age. "But no. I was brought in as an impartial judge, so to speak. Wagers can get messy, between those two."

Martin sighs again, feeling the start of a migraine blossoming behind his eyes and yearning for the cool, soft embrace of the fog. "Listen, I have no idea what you're talking about. Please just say your piece and go."

"Hmmm I suppose that was it, if you look at it purely in terms of what Peter asked. You're well and truly taken, aren't you?" The man's fingers tap impatiently against the length of the polished cane. "Humor an old man, if you will. Since you're apparently convinced of Peter's little theory, what do you make of it?"

"I didn't take you for someone who'd care." Martin thinks back at the paperwork he's been completely useless at finishing ever since Jon stumbled in yesterday, and he's suddenly struck by the futility of it. Will anyone even mind if he doesn't finish it? If he fades away and leaves behind only the slight scent of humidity and salt on the half filled forms?

"Oh, I don't. Not really." Simon grins when Martin looks up at him again. "But it makes for good conversation, and I find that corralling you lonely folk into idle chat is very amusing."

"Hm. What do you want to hear, then?" Martin shrugs. "There is another fear, and it's apparently bigger and meaner than the ones we already have, because that's just what we need it seems."

"That just about covers it."

"I guess my only question is... why is Peter the only one that seems interested in stopping it?" Martin scowls. The question has been fluttering around in his mind for a while now, a remnant of his connection to the Eye probably. "I get that Elias doesn't believe him, but you apparently do. Why don't you care?"

"I'm afraid I don't really care for anything at all, lad, not really." Simon shrugs with an unapologetic smile. "Nothing, no one really matters in the end, does it? We're merely... pieces. Insignificant in the face of the great, grand everything."

"That's a very lonely way of thinking."

"The overlap again, I suppose. Our patrons aren't really that different, don't you think Martin?"

"My question stands. If the Lonely wants to stop this new fear-"

"You're presuming an awful lot there." Simon gives him a knowing grin."I hardly think the Lonely wants to stop anything. This is all Peter's endeavor. And yours, of course."

"Mine." Martin sighs.

"Don't think the irony's lost on me, by the way. Two followers of the Forsaken, trying to save the world? You can't write a joke like that."

Martin arches an eyebrow. "What's the punchline?"

"Why, that no matter how much your entire existence is based around not caring, you very much do, it seems."

Martin rolls his eyes, shaking his head. "I used to." And he did, didn't he? Simon is not entirely wrong, it's a dark, bitter joke that Martin chose to sacrifice his humanity out of love. Is he still doing this for that reason, or is he just going along with it now because there's really nothing else to do anymore? With the fog wrapped so tightly around him that he can't see further than a step ahead, is there even a path to deviate from anymore?

"Martin?" Gerry's voice washes over him like a pail of cold water, and Martin flinches. The man is frozen at the end of the corridor, no doubt on his way to the office to try and drag him out of the Forsaken again. His eyes are narrowed in suspicion as they jump from him to Simon, and Martin tenses a bit more. "Everything alright?"

"And you must be Peter's little headache." Simon's face lights up in delight.

"Simon Fairchild," Gerry doesn't really ask, stepping up to the two of them with steady, confident footsteps. Martin remembers quite abruptly that he too is a creature of the Eye, and this is very much his home turf. "What are you here for?"

"You're not the slightest bit intimidated, are you?" Simon chuckles. Martin's ears pop, and he focuses on Gerry's hand squeezing his arm to ignore the sudden nausea. "I can see why Peter is so annoyed with you."

"I'm flattered," Gerry says dryly. "Need me to show you the way out? I'm sure Martin needs to get back to work."

"Hm… I was planning on just leaving, but I suppose it's always good to stockpile on favors." Simon's eyes glint mischievously again as he pushes off the wall. It's sudden reminder that he's not merely a kooky old man having fun at Martin's expense.

"I'm sure Simon can find the exit by himself actually," Martin says firmly, taking a step forward. Whatever is Gerry thinking anyways, squaring up to Simon Fairchild himself? He has to have heard of him, he has to know how insanely dangerous he is. "And I think we're done with our chat, too."

Simon being on Peter's side probably means he will not hurt Martin, but he somehow doubts Gerry will be granted the same courtesy.

"See what I mean?" Simon chuckles. "Can't write a joke like that."

Martin rolls his eyes, but at least the man is focused on him. He takes another step to position himself firmly between the two of them. "You've seen whatever it was Peter wanted you to see, haven't you?"

"And a bit more too. Just a delightful conversation, if I do say so myself." The tip of the cane taps against the polished hardwood floors, one, two, three. "Hope to have another one soon. Have a nice evening, Martin."

He walks away then without sparing them another look, with the familiarity of one who's traversed these corridors countless times.

"Don't forget to close the window," Gerry says in a low grunt, and Martin rounds on him.

"Shut up," Martin snaps. "What were you thinking?"

Gerry arches a pierced eyebrow, his eyes unimpressed. "Unbelievably stupid, huh? Just up and having a chat with an avatar of the Vast. Can't think why anyone would-"

"Oh, cut it." Martin rolls his eyes. "What do you want?"

It takes a moment, but Gerry seems to deflate. "I wanted to check on you. Maybe ask you to call Tim off."

"Yes, because this really convinced me you don't need someone to keep you out of trouble."

"Implying Tim is not trouble." Gerry snorts. His lips remain curled in something that can't quite be called a smile, but almost the suggestion of one. "You're looking a bit more like yourself."

"...I guess I am," Martin sighs; his hands look a bit less blurred, and he guesses the rest of him does too. "That's not necessarily a good thing."

"It is in my books." Gerry shrugs. "Do you- should I leave?"

Martin arches an eyebrow. "Are you really asking for my opinion on the matter?"

Gerry's smile comes in full now, and it's blinding. It's easy to see why Jon fell in love with him; they deserve each other.

"I had to at least pretend, didn't I?"


"Is that the same tape you've been staring at since yesterday?" Helen asks, her voice echoing curiously from somewhere in Jon's desk.

His mouth twitches into a smile, and he pulls the drawer open to see Helen's face peeking out from the bottom-turned-door. "Have you been watching me?"

Helen gives him a sharp smile, all fractured, amused angles. "Isn't that what one does here?"

"I suppose." Jon nods simply. There is not much that can be done to stop Helen from popping in wherever she wants to, really. One just has to deal with her; at least she's noticeably less prone to stabbing than her predecessor.

"Well, why haven't you listened to it?"

"Someone doesn't want me to, I think."

"Which one?" Helen asks, and Jon gives it a moment's thought.

He doesn't not want to listen to the tape, which probably takes the Mother of Puppets off the equation. Instead, it feels like every particle in his body -a body that he's very aware was kept from death by the Beholding- is recoiling at the idea of pressing that button. Perhaps it would be easier, Jon thinks, if he hadn't allowed himself to change this far.

"The Eye, I think. Whatever's in there, it doesn't particularly want me to know."

"I thought the tapes were yours," Helen hums thoughtfully; it's several frequencies and rhythms at the same time, and Jon feels the beginnings of a headache start to pound at his temples.

"They are," Jon says. 'But I am the Eye's,' he doesn't add. It's not something he wants to declare. Not something he wants to call. His patron already has much too tight a grip on him without him declaring allegiance.

"Hm. Well, you only had to ask, dear." Helen grins.

A long fingered hand climbs its way out of the drawer like a flesh-colored spider, and Jon can't help but to snort in amusement. This is probably the only thing the entities could never plan ahead for.

"Thank you, Helen," he says as a too-sharp finger presses down on the play button, before the hand retreats back into the drawer.

"My pleasure." Helen's laughter echoes around the inside of the drawer as it slides shut on its own.

'Right. No use putting it off further.' Gertrude's voice is dry and businesslike as usual, and something in Jon immediately screams for him to throw himself against the tape, stop it.

This is the traitor, who never called herself the Archivist but used their powers to her own gain. The one that sought knowledge not to add to the Archives but to destroy the delicate balance of the entities, to sow war and destruction under the banner of the Eye in hopes of painting a target at its core. This is the one that hurt his Gerry, left him behind like a broken toy, bound into painful non-existence. This is the Enemy, turn it off!

Jon doesn't. Instead, he focuses on his predecessor's words to fend off the Eye's insidious whispers.

'And so Eric Delano ended.'

Oh.


Click.

"Oh. Hi." Martin lifts the stack of papers to reveal the tape recorder waiting underneath. "You know? I've always wanted to catch one of you on the move. I put those papers there ten minutes ago and you weren't under them." He taps the tape recorder like one would boop a cat's nose, and the device clicks contentedly.

It's been... an odd week. Between Jon's visit, having to actually speak to Tim to convince him of keeping an eye on Gerry, and then Gerry himself coming to try and pick a fight with Simon, he's feeling like he's standing with a foot on each side of the line.

The Lonely still has its hooks in him, enough so that Martin wants it back, but not enough that he can actually walk in and out of it like he did when the Hunters were threatening Gerry.

"Is that what you're here for? Do you want me to talk about my state?" he asks the recorder. "That's really the only thing I've got now. No new statements, no-"

A suspicion starts taking shape in his mind, and he narrows his eyes. "Peter? Are you-" The door to the office flies open, and Martin jumps back and to his feet, heart hammering in his chest. "Who-?!"

"Martin?" Jon all but trips his way to the desk, and Martin takes him in with a concerned look. His face looks ashen, his lips almost white; his hair is a mess, like he's been running his hands through it, and his hands themselves are shaking. His eyes are wide and frantic, halfway through going back to his natural color and swimming with something as he looks up at Martin. "I- it's great you're here, I-"

"If you're going to break into my office on the regular, I preferred the other way," Martin snaps; his heart's still racing, and he can feel the Lonely trying to pull him back.

"The other- oh. So you were here. I- I thought I heard your voice, I- I followed it instead of the Eye."

"Jon-"

"Right. Right, I- sorry for startling you. It wasn't my intention." He looks a bit lost now, like the wind has been taken from under his sails, like he hadn't planned as far as finding him here. His gaze has always held weight, but as his eyes run over his face Martin feels like he's standing under a spotlight. "I- I've missed you."

Martin winces, the three words imbued with a meaning he doesn't know how to process.

"Jon-"

His eyes burn on Martin's skin. Is this how his victims feel, or is the fear of being wanted different from the fear of being known?

Jon reaches a still shaky hand towards him. "I'm- I know what you said, I- I trust you. I know you know what you're doing and Martin, you-"

"Jon, what do you want?" This way is easier. It hurts, but he has to send him away. For his own good; for everyone's.

His hand drops, but Jon's eyes are still glued to his face like Jon's afraid if he stops looking for a single second, Martin will fade away.

"I think I found a way for us to leave the Institute."

"...What?" is all Martin can force out, his brain screeching to a halt. "Jon, what-"

"Gerry's father, he- he quit the Institute Martin. We could do it too." Jon sidesteps the desk, unsteady on his feet, just unsteady in general. Martin's mind is still trying to process the words.

"I- Gerry's father used to work here?"

"Martin, you're not listening!" Jon's hands clamp around his wrists, and Martin's mouth clips shut so fast he nearly bites his tongue off. "We could- we could leave."

"But- Jon, how?" The Beholding is not like the Lonely, you can't keep it at bay by being around other people, if anything that makes it worse. There will always be fear and suffering around, and as long as you can see it-

Oh.

Oh, shit.

"...You're joking," Martin breathes out. It's the only thing that makes sense, because otherwise Jon would be suggesting-

"It's... I realize it's pretty drastic, but-"

"It is! Have you- did you tell the others or-"

"Uhm... n- not really." Jon's grip falters, like the breath has been punched out of him. "You're the first."

"I'm- why?" Martin asks. Perhaps the fact that he thinks he knows the answer is the scariest thing of them all.

"I thought-" just like that, Jon's hands drop from his wrists. "We could leave here, Martin."

"I- this is too much, where- Gerry, where is he?" Martin stutters out. He'll know if this is real, if it would work. He's been in this world for far longer than any of them and-

"He's by St. Paul's, with Melanie," Jon responds almost immediately, and even just the thought of Gerry seems to be enough to ground him a little. "They haven't found the Corruption book yet. They're- they're coming back now, but they're thinking of stopping for food."

"Stopping for- he doesn't know?!" Martin runs a hand through his hair. All the fog is gone from the room, and dear lord, how he misses it. "Jon, what were you thinking?! Gouge your eyes out and just leave him to find you?"

"I haven't- he wasn't here," Jon mutters, averting his gaze. "Martin, it doesn't- Gerry's not tied to the Institute, he's tied to me-"

"Yes, by the Eye!" Martin snaps. "What, you think it's going to let you keep him after you do this?!"

"I-"

"A-and then what? Is he just- what is he going to do? Just... take care of two blind men for the rest of his life? That isn't fair, not without asking him!"

"What is the alternative, then?" Jon cuts in, and when Martin finally looks down at him, he looks positively devastated, the eyes of a drowning man that sees a ship take the wrong turn. "What are we going to do, Martin?"

"... Don't do this, Jon," Martin sighs, and Jon flinches back like he's been slapped. "I can't- don't make it my choice. I can't choose for- for you, for him."

"Martin-"

"Could you even survive at this point? Because- because if you die, he dies too. Have you thought about it?"

And what if he did? What if Jon did think about it, and he decided he'd rather be free, even if it meant not living? If everything Martin has done is for nothing, because saving the world has absolutely no meaning if Jon's not in it? If-

"Martin?" Jon's voice has a broken quality to it when it reaches him, and Martin opens his eyes -when did he close them?- to find that oh, the fog is back. "Martin, don't- please don't go."

"Please leave, Jon."

"I- What?"

Yes. This... this feels better. Even the heartbreak is numbed. What does it matter if Jon leaves him behind, if he's always been alone? If he wants to be?

"Peter is bound to come back soon, Jon. I'd much rather he doesn't find you here," Martin exhales, and mist breezes past his lips.

"I don't care. Martin, please- come and talk to Gerry with me. We can- we'll figure something out, we will."

"You made me a promise, Jon." Martin looks towards the door. "You said you trusted me."

"A- and I do! You know that, but Martin, I- we could go. Together, please-"

"I don't think it's something I want anymore." Martin shrugs. "And you need to respect that. I thought you'd moved on with him, I thought you'd leave me alone."

"Is- I don't believe it. I can't believe that's what you want." Jon's voice is soft like the caress of the fog on Martin's skin. This is it. This is- he could make him leave. Maybe forever, and if this crazy self-mutilation plan of his is right, maybe, just maybe, he will be safe.

"Compel me, then. Ask." Martin looks at him in the eye, and Jon averts his gaze almost immediately.

"I wouldn't. Not to you," he mumbles.

"Then you'll have to take me at my word, I suppose." Martin gestures to the door. "Please."

"...Martin, I'm so sorry."

Stab the knife in. Twist it. Anything it takes.

"I'm not." Martin's heart aches, but it feels cold and far away, like everything else.


Jon is antsy.

It would be obvious even if Gerry couldn’t taste the anxiety in the quiet 'Thank you' that Jon gives after he helps him out of his coat. They usually talk on the way home, but this evening went by with Gerry narrating his and Melanie's hunt for the Corruption book to a mostly silent Jon.

It's... it's alright, he decides as he goes into the bathroom for a shower. Jon promised not to lie to him; if it's something he needs to know, then he trusts he will tell him. He's pretty much forgotten about it by the time he comes out in a cloud of steam, his hair still pinned up on a loose bun to keep it out of the way and wearing a loose t-shirt comfortable enough to sleep in.

Still, his stomach falls to the ground when a pair of arms come to wrap around his middle as he stands before the kitchen counter, brewing himself a cup of coffee.

"I'm here," Gerry says before Jon can even voice a question, because that's what matters. Anything else, they can fix it together. "What's bothering you? Did- is everything alright with Martin?"

Jon's forehead comes to rest between his shoulder blades, and Gerry lays a hand over Jon's tangled fingers on his stomach.

"Nothing is alright with Martin. But this- I- this is not about him."

"Then?" Gerry asks, even though he's got a pretty clear feeling of who it is about. Jon shifts behind him to reach up and press a kiss on the back of his neck. "Jon-"

"I stole a tape from the Institute."

Gerry scowls. "I hardly think you can steal something that's yours, Jon."

"I'm- this one is not mine." Jon's arms tighten around him, and Gerry runs soothing circles with his thumb over the burn-smooth knuckles. "I- I think you should listen to it."

"Is it about me?" Is it about someone he couldn't save?

Jon steps back, and waits until Gerry's turned to face him to tentatively brush a hand against his.

"It's- it's a Gertrude tape." Oh. Well, those are never easy. Gertrude is still a can of worms Gerry doesn't dare look too deeply into, she- "She's calling your father from the book."

Gerry freezes.

The words echo around in his mind as he tries to connect them in a way he can process, in a way that he can deal with. How come his chest feels so heavy when there's not a heart in there?

"I'm- uh- so he was in there after all," he says. His voice sounds strained, and he clears his throat, his gaze stubbornly fixed on Jon's collarbone. "I always wondered."

Jon says nothing, simply looks over to the little breakfast table tucked in against a corner. A single tape recorder waits there, like a miniature coffin containing the only remains of a man he never knew.

"How did you find it?" Gerry asks, and fuck, his voice is hoarse again. "I- did it come to you?"

"The- I went into Martin's office yesterday after you left. It- I was looking for things the Eye didn't want me to see." Jon's free hand comes to rest at Gerry's hip, and Gerry can feel his gaze on him, trying to catch his eye. "You don't have to listen to it if you don't- I can tell you what he-"

"No," Gerry blurts out so suddenly it startles even himself. "I'm- I'll do it. "

"Would- I can leave if you want me to. I'll wait at the living room, or- please look at me?" Jon's voice sounds thin, almost begging, and Gerry shuts his eyes for a second just to get his bearings, before opening them again.

"I'll- stay. Please."

Jon nods once, firmly. Gerry can't help but to marvel at the thought that all he needed to do was ask for what he wanted for Jon to do it. That Jon won't think he's weak for it.

The tape recorder still looks deceptively harmless when they come to sit at the table. Gerry lifts a hand to it, and is quietly surprised at how steady it is; is all the chaos confined only to his head?

"I'm here," Jon whispers by his side when he hesitates over the button. Gerry nods. It's- that's all that matters.

Click, goes the tape, and they fall silent.

His father sounds like him, is all Gerry can think for the first few minutes.

Not- not exactly like him of course, but enough that if you heard them talk closely after the one another, you'd know they were related. There's a similar cadence to their words, a rhythm in the way they start their sentences, and- Jon's hand wraps around his again, and Gerry abruptly remembers to pay attention to the actual words being said.

'You should've seen what she did to my body afterwards.'

Ah.

It's... he's known she killed him for a long time, but the confirmation still hurts a little. Would his life have been any different if he'd found the page himself? Maybe a little less lonely.

'So why did she give me to you?'

'I- I don't know. She seemed to think it was a gift.'

Gerry doesn't think he ever heard Gertrude sound so dubious, so lost. Not the woman that strolled into Pinhole Books and single-handedly got rid of his mother, the one who took him around the globe with her, hunting avatars, stoping rituals.

He misses her, he thinks with a full sort of ache in his chest. What is it that Eric -his father- just said? Aware of the heartbreak, but not really feeling it.

'So? What did they not want me to know?' Gertrude asks in the tape, and Gerry's lips curl into a bitter smirk. Of course she wouldn't like to be kept in the dark. It's poetic, really.

'I quit.'

Everything in Gerry's mind comes to a screeching halt at those words. It's- you can't quit the Institute, he Knows that. The Beholding has its chosen tied to its place of power more tightly than any other entity.

But... but then why was the Eye so determined to not let Jon find this tape? If- if there's a way to get him out, to get Melanie and Martin out-

'I want you to find my son. If Mary is- if she's gone, or worse, I want you to make sure he's alright.'

...Oh.

"Turn it- turn it off," he blurts just as Gertrude concedes that he might be useful. "Jon-"

"Ger- are you alright?" The tape clicks to a sudden stop, and Gerry realizes he's closed his eyes only when he has to open them again to look at Jon. "I'm-"

"Gertrude knew." The words weigh like two lead blocks placed over his chest. He takes as deep a breath as he can, though it comes in shaky as he pushes his chair away from the table and leans on his knees, burying his face in his hands. "All that time- she knew what happened to him. And she never told me."

What else is new? She moved him across a board she never allowed him to see. You're not supposed to ask questions, Gerard, you don't want to lean more into the Beholding than you already are, do you?

"Gerry, I'm-" Jon chair screeches against the floor when he stands from it to crouch before him, his face framed by the long black curtains of Gerry's hair. His hands stop a few inches short of reaching him; Jon hasn't hesitated to touch him for a while now, but teetering on the edge of a breakdown would do it, Gerry guesses. "Gertrude-"

"Don't. Please don't talk about her," Gerry interrupts, because he's not sure if Jon's words will be attacking or excusing Gertrude, and he can't for the life of him work out which he'd rather hear less.

"I won't, I'm- sorry." Jon's hands finally come to rest at his knees and he stays there immobile, just staring up at him like Gerry's all that's ever existed. He gets the odd, dispassionate thought that not many beings have been looked at this intensely by an Archivist and felt reassured instead of terrified. "I'm- I'm here."

"She never- I knew she'd known my father. I found a photograph of her old team, with Michael and Emma and h- but she never-" Gerry tries for another deep breath, but it feels like no air is actually going into his lungs, and he shoots to his feet so abruptly Jon almost topples back. "She was the last person to see him. She- she went to find me because he asked her to."

It's infuriating, to feel gratitude towards a man he never knew. To grieve a voice in a tape without the slightest hint of what Eric- what his father was really like.

He's aware he's been pacing the room only when he stops, his back thumping harshly against the wall because at least physical pain is something he knows how to deal with. Jon comes to sit by his side when he slides down to the floor, like that day at the Institute so long ago when Jon got marked by the Flesh.

"He loved her." Gerry's voice is heavy and slow, like a drunk man trying to sort out through the hazy memories of past nights. "Even- she did all those things to him, and he still loved my mother."

"Did- did you notice?" Jon's voice is just a weak murmur, no Archivist here, just a man that cares for him, hard as it may be to believe.

"What?" Gerry darts a sideways look at him, tired. Jon's hands are stretched the slightest bit towards him, like he wants to touch him but doesn't dare to; his face is a mask of empathy, as sad for him as Gerry has never seen him look for himself.

"He- Eric... your father called you Gerry." Jon's lips curl into a small, careful smile, and Gerry breaks.

Surely he's too old an adult to crumble down in tears for the ghost of a man he never knew, but Jon clumsily reaches to wrap his arms around him, and Gerry thinks that maybe, just maybe he can be weak for once, in this hug that feels like home.

Jon holds him through it all, his grip tightening around him as Gerry's body shakes with the strength of his sobbing, until the pain grows dull and heavy and the tears run dry, and Gerry knows he will not move away unless he asks him to, no matter how long it takes.

"We don't- you don't have to listen to the rest of it, if you don't want to." Jon's voice is almost too quiet, like he's afraid to break the silence they've fallen into after moving away from the table.

Gerry looks up at him from where he's resting his head on Jon's lap; the kitchen floor is unforgiving on his back and shoulders, but the slight discomfort helps in keeping him grounded. "Is it true?"

"Hm?" Jon pushes a lock of hair away from his face, and Gerry leans his cheek into his palm.

"Is there a way to quit?" Gerry asks. The shock of piercing, migraine-like pain that strikes his mind is enough of an answer.

"I- apparently. It's not- I don't know if- I might be too far gone."

"What do you have to do?" It's on the tape, he knows, but he can't- maybe one day he'll be able to listen to the whole thing, but for now all he can think of is this pained ghost that only wanted to make sure his son was alright.

Jon exhales slowly through his teeth, before bringing his free hand up to his face and making a plucking motion with index and thumb just an inch from his eye.

"Oh." It makes sense, Gerry guesses. No eyes to behold with, problem solved. "Will you do it?"

"I'm- I can't leave Martin there." Jon sighs again, a bit more defeated this time. "I'm sorry, just-'

"I get it." Gerry shrugs, tangling his fingers with Jon's over his cheek. It's no good. Either all three get out, or no one does. "is that what happened then? He said no?"

Jon nods once, slowly. "I think it was too much for him, in his state. He- he was worried about you, though."

Huh. That's- logically, Gerry knows Martin has worried about him before. It's been twice now that Martin steps between him and an avatar with bad intentions. Still, it comes as a pleasant surprise that Martin cares not only when in the heat of the moment.

"About me?" he asks, because it's a bit easier than to make heads or tails of everything he's feeling right now. "I'm not an Institute empl- oh. Huh. I guess it is very likely that I'd die if you quit."

Jon scoffs. "I didn't- it's stupid, but I forgot all about that in the moment. I just- you're mine, you're not tied to the Institute. I forgot the Eye-"

Gerry snorts when Jon cuts himself abruptly. "What was that?"

"I'm- I didn't-" Jon sputters, his face growing red. "I didn't mean it that way, I'm-"

Gerry laughs, delighted.

It still hurts, the not-quite memory of the father that was ripped from him. The chain around all of them, and the terrible condition to break it off. The fact that Martin is keeping them at arm's length to try and save the world, when they'd much rather save him.

But it all looks a lot less grim when watching Jon try to regain his composure after the slip. When he remembers that for once, he's fighting not just to harm the entities, but to keep the ones he cares for from them. When he thinks about how for the first time in his life, other people are interested in protecting him for a change.

"Stop laughing!" Jon snaps, smacking softly at Gerry's shoulder. "I didn't mean-"

"It's alright. You could've." Gerry catches his struggling wrist, and brings it up to his lips to lay a kiss on the palm of his hand. "I kind of am yours."

"I- what?" Jon freezes.

The problem with these things, Gerry decides, is that they're often painted as the culmination of a whole journey. The last thing you say before the credits roll, the last words on a final page.

He doesn't want that, a tale of hardship with the suggestion of happiness at the very end. He wants his story to be a promise, a challenge to a world that, no matter how hard it tries, can't take this from him.

"I love you."

Chapter 17

Notes:

Hi y'all!

Thanks a lot for being patient with me during my little unannounced hiatus (originally I was going to post this chapter and then announce it, but I thought it would be a bit cruel to leave you with this mood for a whole month), my Bang fic is done and you'll be seeing it (along with the amazing art made by some amazing peeps) at some point after November 30th. It is also JonGerryMartin, in case you need another fix lol.

 

-----

 

CW for:
-self harm
-mentions (implications) of police brutality
-whatever the hell kind of self hatred Tim has going on

Detailed explanations at the end notes.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

XVII

"That was a nasty one," Gerry says, running a hand through his hair a couple times. An understandable reaction, given that the floorboards of the attic they were trying to bust open to reach the Corruption book ended up collapsing on him in a shower of termites.

Still, Melanie rolls her eyes, and her lips curl into a smirk as she comes to bump his arm with her shoulder. "No creepy crawlies, you're still pretty."

"Well, obviously." Gerry flips his hair back into place, and Melanie tugs on it, when a couple locks whip -on purpose, she's sure- against her face. "Whose turn is it to pick dinner?"

"You don't even need to eat!" Melanie groans, which is a pretty solid response to his question.

"It's about the bonding, firecracker." Gerry's voice is a slow, conciliatory tone carefully designed to rile her up, she knows from his teasing grin. "The human experience."

Melanie blinks. He blinks back.

"You're not hum-"

"What's that food your girlfriend loves and you hate?" He speaks over her, and she laughs. Definitely not her standard response to men interrupting her, but she'll let this one slip, she decides. "Hungarian? Yes. That's what I'm craving."

"You're an asshole, did you know that?"

They don't get Hungarian, in the end.

Instead, they stop by an ice-cream shop, which Melanie thinks is oddly fitting. It's what they got the first time they went out together; it only makes sense it's what they get on their last.

"You're quiet." Gerry sits next to her as she digs into her pint of caramel. She barely even gives him a glance, scrolling through pictures of herself and Georgie in her phone. "Are you okay?"

"I talked to Georgie," Melanie blurts out, because tact has never been her strong suit.

"...Oh." Gerry's heavy hand comes to rest at her shoulder, and Melanie reflects for a second on how casually he touches her, and how comfortable she is with it. "Uh- everything alright?"

She scoops another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. It's- as alright as it's ever going to get, she supposes. Georgie didn't like it, but she understood. She even offered to do it, but Melanie didn't want that to be something she associated with her.

Gerry's hand squeezes her shoulder, and she turns to look at him. He looks... incredibly dumb, looking at her with concern in his eyes and his mouth stained red, his cheek still stained with soot from the book they just burned.

This is- it's the face of a friend. One she made herself, all her own.

"You look like an extra in a cheap vampire movie." She smiles. It feels a bit weaker than she meant it, but... but she's maybe feeling a bit smaller than she planned. And maybe that's not a bad thing, to ask for help. To let herself be helped. "It'll be alright."


Basira's not blind to how Hunt-like her connection to the Eye is. She doesn't like it, but it's fitting, she thinks grimly as the trail before her lights up in a warm yellow hue that reminds her of her favorite hijab, of the smell of freshly baked bread, of the soft sandy hue of Daisy's hair.

Daisy's been hiding a lot lately, but it's of no use; Basira could find her at the end of the world if needed, even without- she hesitates calling them 'powers', because that feels like giving in, like accepting this metamorphosis that has been thrust upon her without so much as a by your leave. Still, they are there and they are hers, and she can follow the trail down into the tunnels, and around a couple bends.

It leads straight into a dead end, where Daisy sits balled up against a corner, like a sickly dog that crawled down here to die. She looks... small. Emaciated even, Basira's old t-shirt hanging loosely off of shoulders that used to be tight with well-marked muscle.

Basira stiffens when the Knowledge slams into her, clenching her fists by her sides. She won't be scared, she won't give it the satisfaction.

"You're dying." The truth slips easily past her lips, and Basira hates it, hates it like the world that gave her Daisy only to tear them apart again and again.

It takes a moment, but Daisy stirs and sits up to look at her with bloodshot eyes. "I have been for a while already. It's alright."

"It's not." Basira steps forward, coming to crouch before her. "I thought signing the contract had helped?"

"It slowed it down." Daisy leans back on the wall, her head dropping against her shoulder like her neck isn't strong enough to hold it. "But it would never have stopped it, I'm- I'm not you, or Jon. Beholding was never for me."

Basira crouches before her, and her shoulders feel even thinner than they looked, when she lays her hands on them. "Then you have to hunt."

Daisy's warm brown eyes fix on her, and Basira can read her next words in the slight furrow of her brow.

"I don't want to."

"Daisy, you're dying."

"I know. I've known for a while." Daisy's too-bony hand comes to rest against Basira's cheek, and she almost flinches at how cold it feels. "I thought you knew too."

"I'm- I was looking for a way to stop it. I thought you wanted to stop it!" It takes everything in her to not shake Daisy up, because this sounds like- "I didn't know you'd just given up."

"I haven't. I win, like this. I die as myself." Daisy gives her a weak smile. -everything in her looks weak, and Basira wants to scream.

Getting Daisy back was already not a part of the plan, but losing her again is- "Dying is not winning, Daisy."

"Isn't it what I deserve, though?"

"What?"

"You know," Daisy says, and Basira isn't sure whether or not she means it as Capital 'K' know, but she knows perfectly well what she's referring to.

"That wasn't yo-"

"Don't say that. Don't- don't try to make me a victim, Basira I- I hurt people. I wanted to. The Hunt only gave me the tools, but-"

"Well, I knew." Basira snaps. "I knew all that time, and I didn't do anything. Doesn't that mean I'm just as bad?!"

Daisy's warm, brown eyes pin her in place, full of love and resignation in equal measure. "Well... yes."

And maybe she's right, Basira thinks. Maybe this is penance, for all the bad they've done. Maybe they're just lucky it took so long to catch up to them.

"I'm- no. Fuck that." She grits her teeth. "You- you can spend the rest of your life paying for it, but you can't die. How is this justice? How-"

"It's not meant to be fair, I think." Daisy grunts a little as she sits up straighter. "But I get to die as myself. Not- not the thing I chose to be, the thing I let hurt so many people. I get to die choosing not to hurt anyon-"

"Well- hunt monsters then! Pay it back stopping them, don't-" Basira stops abruptly, when she feels her throat tighten. If she keeps talking, her voice will break, and she doesn't want-

She'd been so angry at Jon for feeding, but here she is begging Daisy to do the same like a hypocrite. Isn't that what has always boiled down to? Her morals unshakeable, until they come to this woman?

"Basira." Daisy pulls her down delicately, and Basira comes. "I want it this way."

"Don't hide from me," Basira whispers into her hair, holding her close to her chest.

"I didn't want you to see me like this."

"I will find you. Always."

"I know." Daisy chuckles. Basira is aware this is the slightest bit selfish. Daisy won't die in her arms, so maybe as long as she never lets go... "I'm sorry."

"Don't." Basira squeezes her harder. "I'm- I get it. But I don't have to like it."


"Are you sure you want this?" Gerry asks for what feels like the umpteenth time, and he's more than aware that he's doing it only to buy himself more time.

The entire scene is almost too relaxed; the two of them sitting on the floor next to Melanie's cot -a monstrosity of pillows and quilt that Gerry's willing to bet hosts at least one or two knives-, a tub of half-demolished caramel ice cream between them. Just two friends having a chat.

Gerry's life has never been that simple, sadly. The awl sits deceptively light on his hand, belying the weight of the request.

"I do. It's- I want out. Of the Institute, at least." Melanie's knuckles whiten as her fists clench over the dark fabric of her jeans. "If I'm going to keep helping, then I want it to be my choice."

"If you do this, I'd much rather you stay out of this for good." Gerry's voice is dry, because if he lets any emotion in it, it will probably be despair.

"That's nice, but you don't tell me what to do." Melanie shakes her head with a roll of her eyes. "Besides, you're going to need someone who's free of all this, if the Eye won't let us look into your boyfriend's marks."

"Melanie-"

Her grim smile is determined, and Gerry feels a fierce rush of protectiveness burn in his chest. For a moment he misses the dull pain of his existence in the skin book, because at least back then that was all he could feel.

It was a stupid oversight on his part, to think he would ever get to have something normal. Something for him, untainted by the world he was born in.

"Well... alright, then."

There's disbelief and gratefulness in Melanie's eyes, like she recognizes the hesitation was for himself, and not a way to try and change her mind.

"You'll do it?"

"What are friends for?" Gerry's smile feels stiff and foreign in his face. "Gouge your eyes out, call you an ambulance right after."

"Your typical sleepover." The edges of Melanie's grin are strained. For the briefest of moments, he thinks she might hug him. She doesn't, and he's both relieved and disappointed. Is their friendship even theirs, if it was born out of hatred for these things that took their will away? "Should I lay down?"

"...I guess so, yes." He sighs. "Don't you want to finish the ice cream?"

"Not really." Determination or not, Melanie's starting to look a bit green. "I'm... okay, let's do it."

She turns around so her back is facing him, before laying down so her head rests on his crossed calves. It's... Gerry had never considered her eyes, but now it's all he can pay attention to. Almond-shaped and perfectly contoured with eyeliner, her irises a darker brown than Jon's, so deep it's almost black.

They're good eyes; they've kept watch for him during their hunts, caught sight of monsters just on the nick of time. They watched over him while Jon was in the Buried. The eyes of a friend.

She deserves this, the choice, the freedom; he won't keep them from her, not even for his own peace of mind.

How does one go about destroying someone's eyes permanently? Just jam it in and swirl it around, try to cause as much damage as possible? The Beholding is of course not volunteering any tips; instead showing him in excruciating clarity the agony it will provoke.

He sees it like a movie, like a nightmare; Melanie screaming, her blood dripping down his hands. Is this how his father felt, did he try to fight the Watcher with thoughts of his infant son?

'No,' the Eye whispers in his mind. 'This is what your mother saw, when your father laid to sleep for the last time. Trusting, loving. Like her.'

The awl drops from his shaky hands, missing her face by mere inches as Gerry throws himself back.

"Melanie, I can't."


"Been a while since I've been here" Tim mumbles, giving a look around the office.

It becomes clear to Jon then that he's not the only one that's nervous, although he can't for the life of him figure out why Tim would be.

Why is he nervous, even? Does he fear Tim's barbed jabs or the dull ache of guilt? Or is it just that Tim is a loose cannon, an open flame in the Archives that- oh. Of course.

"The Eye doesn't want you here." Jon smiles tiredly as he says it, and to both his surprise and relief, Tim mirrors the gesture.

"That's just mean. It was so adamant on not letting me go before..." Tim taps his fingers in the desk, leaving little scorched marks on the wood after every touch. "Well, it's going to have to suck it up."

Jon nods. "A pity. I suppose there is a reason you're here, though."

"You know? It used to make me mad, when you did that." Tim shrugs. "Well, everything you did made me mad, but that most of all."

"The..." Jon lets the word hang in the air, arching an eyebrow.

Tim scoffs. A puff of white vapor erupts from his lips and dissipates towards the ceiling.

"The whole 'not asking questions' thing." He doesn't look at Jon as he says it, and Jon tries to focus on something that is not him, because if Tim wants to tell him this, he deserves not having it revealed beforehand. He ends up Knowing the names of every single carpenter that worked on making his desk, but at least it takes long enough for Tim to gather his thoughts. "It felt- it was a reminder of what you had become. What we were all becoming."

Jon frowns, confused. "You weren't an avatar of the Desolation back-"

"Are we sure of that? I'm- I had been- I wanted destruction since long before the Unknowing. Elias', the Archives'-" Tim's eyes meet his, and it's only then that Jon realizes how long it's been since that has happened. They're their usual dark brown, no dangerous orange glow, thankfully. Jon has- he's missed them. "Yours."

"Ah." Jon sighs. This is how it is now, isn't it? How it's always going to be.

"Yeah."

Silence falls over them again, heavy like a wet towel. Jon doesn't ask why Tim is here again; he's aware enough to recognize the diverting from before, and where it brought them.

"I'm- thank you for-" Jon starts, stops, clears his throat. "You know. Gerry. The hunters. Watching out for him when Melanie's not around."

Tim looks about as uncomfortable as Jon feels, so at least they're on equal -if uneven- footing.

"It's- Martin wanted me to." Tim crosses his arms over his chest, averting his gaze. "What- is that a thing? Those two?"

Jon sighs. "Martin is this close to becoming a Lonely avatar, Tim." Who said Tim was the only one who knew how to divert from uncomfortable lines of questioning?

Tim's face whips back to him at that, scowling fiercely. "He is, isn't he? Why is that? Why the fuck didn't you stop that when it started happening, Jon?"

"I tried my best, but I was in a comma," Jon says dryly, his words followed by a tense, thick silence.

The snort that escapes Tim's lips surprises Jon as much as it does Tim himself, apparently. "Nice to know I did fuck you up."

"For a while, yes." Jon shakes his head a little, the corner of his lips curling up in a resigned smile. "I'm- I suppose Martin hasn't told you, then."

"I suppose not," Tim repeats in an affected mockery of his voice. It's something he used to do before, Jon realizes with a start. "About what?"

And really, it feels like a pity to weigh down the first civil conversation they've had in two years by bringing it up, but it's- Tim has a right to know. He deserves it.

"About the Extinction."

"Hm. Was that meant to sound as ominous as it did?" Tim arches an eyebrow, and Jon shrugs.

"I mean, it is called the Extinction; I doubt there's any way to give that title any levity." Jon sighs. This too feels like before, and it hurts just as much as the hostility. Maybe more. "Peter Lukas believes it's a fifteenth entity in the process of forming. The fear of humanity towards eradication at our own hands, towards dying out as a species, rather than individuals. The realization that we have brought on our own demise, and it's too late to change it now."

"And is it?"

"...Excuse me?" Jon frowns.

"Well, yes. If anyone could know, wouldn't that be you?" Tim asks again.

Oh. Right, of course.

Jon sighs. "It has been brought to my attention recently that there are some things the Beholder won't tell me about."

"Like your marks?"

"I'm- how do you know about that?" Jon frowns. Just how many people know about this thing the Eye is so adamant on not letting him see?

"I asked Martin about your safeword when he asked me to stick with your boyfriend." Tim shrugs. "Then I just did a quick head count. You're just missing one, aren't you?"

"The Lonely, yes."

"How convenient isn't it? Martin's sudden promotion." Tim mutters to himself, and Jon purses his lips.

"I'm well aware it's my fault, Tim, thank you."

Tim neither confirms nor denies it. He fidgets with his hands a little, squeezing his pinky finger flat between the pointer and thumb of his free hand, then rolling it back into shape.

"So he's trying to get information?" He asks quietly after a couple minutes.

"I- at first." Jon sighs. Isn't this the truth he's been trying to ignore for the past months, even though he Knows it's irrefutable? "It has him now, though. He- he just needs to choose."

"I hope you're right."

"Hm?" Jon looks up, but Tim's still not looking at him, instead focused on the scorch marks on the desk.

"If he can choose, he will choose you." When Tim's eyes raise to him, there's the slightest spark of orange in their depths.

"I'm- Tim, I don't know if that's an option anymore." The thought has been on his mind for weeks now, since Martin turned him away.

"He always finds a way to choose you, anyways."


"That's- that's something." Melanie exhales softly through her parted lips. They're back to leaning on her cot, and she's pressed tight to Gerry's side; not holding him by any means, but close enough that she can feel it when his breathing finally starts slowing down. "I didn't know."

It rains on her then just how painfully little she knows about him. They know each other like penitent ghosts, no past and no future, just a present, and a sum of festering wounds far too painful to look at.

Gerry's startled cackle is dry and pained, and it draws Melanie out of her contemplations. "I think that's the point."

"I-"

"I'm sorry I couldn't do it." He lets his head fall back against the cot, groaning. "I'm not being very useful lately."

It's a very stupid thought, but it does sound like something Gerry would believe of himself. Lives his entire life trying to save people from the entities, gets right back into it as soon as he's raised from the dead. Melanie sort of knew already that he measured his value on how much he could help others, but this is a very clear indicator.

Melanie sighs. "Don't. It's- I just wanted it to be you because- I trust you, I guess." She turns her head, even though Gerry's not looking at her.

"I- thank you, firecracker." It's such a dumb nickname, but it feels so different from stupid, stupid Mel. "Should- I can call Helen, if you want?"

"It's alright. I don't think she liked that I'm quitting; she seemed a bit sad when I told her. I'll- I'll do it myself." The awl feels foreign in her shaky hand, but she grips it firmly. "You should get out, probably."

He lets out a long exhale, almost sagging against her side. "I'm- I'll stay," he says in the end.

"Are you sure? I'll- you can just go outside and call the ambulance after."

"No." Gerry brings a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. "No, I- I prefer to stay. In case you need help."

"Yeah, that's- I might." Melanie takes a deep, wet breath to calm her speeding heart. He doesn't respond. When she looks at him out the corner of her eye, he's staring straight ahead, his lips pressed white in a thin line and a muscle twitching at his jaw. "Thank you."

A large, warm hand comes to wrap itself around her free one, and Melanie squeezes back as hard as she can. She's as afraid of the pain as she is of the prospect of freedom, but this at least is her choice, not Elias' trickery, not something feeding on her to turn her into something else. She won't be anyone's pawn anymore.

She thinks of the Admiral's orange fur. The bright yellow of Helen's door. Gerry's stupid lovesick faces. The curve of Georgie's lips when she smiles, and the dimple on her right cheek.

Melanie strikes.


Truth is, Tim should've left a while ago, after he got the confirmation he was looking for. That Martin isn't just another victim, that his efforts to bring him back haven't worked not because Tim himself isn't enough, but because Martin has a reason and a purpose to stay Lonely.

That said purpose isn't just the undeserving idiot before him.

It's- the familiarity's the worst part, in his opinion. Tim's stomach still burns whenever he looks at Jon and he's able to tell what he's thinking of just by the furrowing of his brow.

It reminds him of stolen glances and hugs that lingered for just a second too long. Of dragging his new boss out of the Archives for a drink, just like he dragged him out of Research every Friday. Of reluctant smiles and bitten off chuckles after Tim's jokes. Of being asked to check on a statement and knowing immediately that Jon was nervous, and that he would do whatever it took to assuage it.

"Jon?" He asks, and the way the name rolls out of his mouth leaves behind an aftertastes of bitter ashes. "Could I have found Oliver Banks?"

The green glow starts slowly, just a spark of neon in the depths of Jon's dark eyes, burning brighter and brighter until it's taken over his gaze completely.

"I- no. There- there were a lot of threads pulling you away from any real information about him." Jon sighs. He closes his eyes and rests his elbows on the desk, rubbing at his temples. "It makes sense, I suppose."

It does. Tim doesn't hold any love in his heart for the Desolation, but the fact that it has loosened the Spider's grip on him is most definitely something to be thankful for. It's ridiculous, that they live the kind of lives in which they have to be thankful for an entity at least being upfront about consuming their very being.

He... he often wonders if it might have been different, had he managed to find him. If they would've at least had a chance with some more information before everything went to shit. If maybe he's not as much to blame as-

"You aren't." Jon's voice pours over him like cold water over a fire, so abrupt that Tim flinches before looking back at him, and finding the green eyes fixed to his face with almost eerie focus.

It takes him a moment to figure out just what the hell he's walking about, and when he finally does Tim knows he should be enraged at the violation, but all he can bring himself to feel is exhaustion.

"I didn't know you could do that," he says, and every word bears the weight of the past four years.

"I'm sorry," Jon responds. Tim believes him. It doesn't matter. It hasn't mattered for a while.

The Desolation feeds on sorrow and loss as much as it does on rage, and there's plenty of both to go around in this office.

"I- Jon?" Tim frowns. Jon's warm brown skin has gone ashen, the scars in stark contrast to it. His eyes are still green and focused on something Tim can't see, and his entire frame shakes, his knuckles white around the edge of the desk. "Jon what-"

"Melanie, it's- she's-" Jon flinches and curls into himself, his face contorted into a rictus of pain that has Tim's stomach churning. "You have to go-" Jon's voice is strained now, like every word is being ripped out of him.

"Jon-" Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The lights in the office are flickering and Tim feels watched by a hundred thousand eyes, here in this place that despises him for coming back after he served his purpose. Static sings in the air around them, and Tim may not have the Sight for these things, but he can recognize an avatar about to lose control. What's- what's that shit he and Daisy tell each other? What- "Jon, the- listen to the quiet, listen to-"

A lightning-sharp pain pierces into his brain-

Danny's on the armchair- no, not him- was there ever really a Danny? And if so, isn't this him? Why are you so scared, Tim? It's just your little brother, aren't you just thrilled to see him?! Look at how well his skin fits him!

Look at how wide he's smiling -don't try to count his teeth-, he's just so happy to have you back! Why didn't you go see his performance at the theater? He was so excited to introduce you to all of his new friends, to show you just how it felt when his skin burst open at the seams-

Jon's eyes are lit up like searchlights now, no pupil and no sclera, just green fire at their depths, and the depths of all the other eyes boiling open like blisters along his arms, his neck, his cheeks.

"What are you doing? Cut it out!"

Jon opens his mouth, but it's the Archivist's voice that comes out.

"Isn't she beautiful? You've thought so from the time you first laid eyes on her. Her smiling lips, her knowing eyes, her face that fits just well on her skull. Her long, long, long fingers on your scalp as you tell her of all that makes you afraid, all that makes you Tim.

You love her in any and all ways she'll let you, what does she look like? What does she sound like? It surely doesn't matter as much as the fact that she loves you back, doesn't it? She lets you stay by her side, she listens to your woes, your suspicions. You mention the circus and she nods in understanding, but in her mind she's laughing, laughing, laughing. Do you hear it? Do you feel the caress of too long fingers as you lay your head on her chest? She was thinking of taking your skin nex-"

The door flies open, and Tim throws himself over the desk to keep Jon's eyes -all of them- on him when Basira appears at the threshold.

"What the hell is going on?! I- he's in my hea-"

"Get out!" Tim shouts "Find Melanie! Make sure she's done!" Basira whips around immediately, disappearing down the corridor. "Jon, calm down!"

He orders you to look- you're so angry, you hate him with the same fierce devotion you had for him. His face is an anchor amongst the chaos around you, you recognize those eyes, that nose, those furrowed brows and that mouth twisting around a plea.

This is his fault. He brought you here, he pushed you away when you needed him, when your fear burned like a furnace in your chest and you didn't know what you were becoming. Now he's here, and he has the gall to demand even more from you. What else could he take? Is there anything left of you? The worst part, you think, is that his face is his in a way hers and Danny's weren't. This is him -you can count the teeth if you want- and you were doomed to die here surrounded in boiling wax, from the moment you first laid eyes on this calamity of a man.

"Stop it!" he screams. His whole skin hurts, every inch alight in a flare of pain As it's torn from his body, and he can't- he can't remember his name, he- what does he look like? It hurts, everything- there's fire licking at his skin -his skin is not there- and he knows that shouldn't hurt anymore but it does and he can't remember his name. "Jon, snap out of it!"

Manuela Dominguez burns, and you were the one to set her aflame. You feel her pain, you revel on it, the taste of her terror finer than a five course meal. This is what you are now. You're destruction, you're pain, you're nothing but the fear you can cause. She would be disgusted at what you have become, and Danny would too. How could you ever think you could save Martin, when all you can do is hurt? Look at yourself -whoever that is, without your skin, without your name-, what have you got to offer? What-

"Jon!" he clings tightly to the monster -the man- thrashing so wildly in his grip that they both topple to the floor. The Beholding still spears at his mind, and he doesn't- what should he do?! Will they be able to get him back, if Jon loses control?

You do not care about that. All you are is pain, all you are is hatred, all-

"Come back, you idiot!" Tim shakes him. His hands are smoking, and so is the wooden floor around them, and Jon's skin boils with eyes and blisters in equal measure. "I will burn the place down! I will kill us both again!"

He can't- he can't let him go, he- Sasha's gone, and Martin's leaving, and- Tim can't be the last one standing, he just can't.

"Don't-" Tim From Before could've reached Jon, he has no doubt. The Tim that wasn't just pain, that loved, that laughed, that wanted to comfort rather than hurt; but that Tim is gone forever, and he can't reach him. "Jon please-"

"...Tim?" The quiet voice is barely audible over the roaring of the flames, and Tim flinches back like his name had been a blow. Jon's irises are dark again, and the dozens of eyes that opened along every inch of exposed skin are slowly, reluctantly closing. "Tim, what-"

He doesn't hear much more, as he rushes out if the office and slams the door shut behind him.


Melanie looks almost impossibly tiny as the paramedics wheel her away from Gerry and Basira, and up into the ambulance. Even from this far up, watching from the safety of his- of Peter's- of Elias' office, Martin can see two things.

The first is the carnage that's all that's left of her eyes, the blood strikingly bright where it's splashed across her face like a mask.

The second is the pained smile in her face, and Martin feels a stir of envy at his chest. She's free. There was still enough human left in her to walk away from this nightmare, from all of them.

Martin feels the Lonely before he hears the static of Peter stepping out of it. The fog curls around his ankles like a cat looking for attention, and isn't that funny, the Lonely wanting to be noticed?

It probably isn't.

"Looking a bit grim there, aren't you?" Peter asks. Martin merely inclines his head in acknowledgement, because he knows the man will only become more insistent if he doesn't answer. "Did you feel any of that?"

"Her leaving?" Martin asks

"And the Archivist losing control. He was trying to reign her back in, to heal her eyes before she could destroy them enough." Peter's gaze is heavy on his face, and he seems pleased that he can't find what he's looking for. "Your friend Timothy got quite reckless at the Archives, but in the end he managed to calm him down."

"Hm." What else is he supposed to say? Of course Tim was able to anchor Jon. They've always been close, even when they don't trust each other. Tim can pretend to despise Jon all he wants, but Martin knows him far too well. Both of them, actually. "Did you need anything?"

He feels Peter's smile more than he sees it, the man's smugness coming off of him in waves. "I was only curious as to whether or not you'd been affected, I suppose."

Martin shrugs. "I wasn't. I was recording a statement, the one with the mirror house." The tape recorder is still on his desk, the tape whirring softly inside.

"That's wonderful news, actually. It means we're ready."

He does turn to Peter at that. "Already?"

"Correct. We just need- I'm getting a map made for us right as we speak." Again, Peter's smug smile is palpable in his voice. "The tunnels are a bit of a mess, aren't they?"

"There's nothing in the tunnels. Jon searched them all." Martin arches an eyebrow, but Peter merely smiles wider.

"He didn't know much back then, did he?" He asks. "The device we need is at the center of the maze. You can't reach it unless you know where you're going."

"And you do?"

"I will. And you will too."

"...Will I be coming back?" Martin asks, almost as an afterthought. Down at the street Gerry has taken a seat on the Institute's front steps, and he too looks almost tiny in his exhaustion, his head hanging low and his shoulders hunched.

"Does it matter?"

Basira hesitates by his side for a moment, before she too sits down, and Gerry's head tilts a little towards her.

"I guess it doesn't."

"Excellent."

Martin waits until Peter has stepped back into the Lonely, until he can no longer feel his presence even when he reaches in with a tendril of fog.

The last statement of Adelard Dekker -a part of him aches in sympathy at the fact that Gertrude never got to say goodbye properly- looks almost innocuous when he pulls it out of the locked drawer and folds it carefully under the tape recorder.

He stares at the device for a couple seconds, trying to figure out what would be a good end to a story. To his story.

"Goodbye."

Click.

Notes:

-Melanie escapes the institute by the same means she used in canon, that being self-mutilation

-Daisy is pretty much willingly letting herself die at this point. Mentions of her past are made in Basira's section

-Tim is repeatedly attacked by the Beholding while he tries to call Jon back, getting memories of Not!Sasha and Danny implanted into his head to hurt him, as well as the pain they experienced when being taken by the Stranger. He also hates on himself a whole lot for becoming an avatar

 

If you need a little palate cleanser, I got prompted to write a POV reversal of last chapter's final scene, which you can find here.

Have a good weekend!

Chapter 18

Notes:

This is a long one!

CW for canon-typical violence, body horror and gore. Also, some characters talk about the not so great mental state they were in, including suicide ideation.

Chapter Text

 

XVIII

"Nah. I convinced them I'm not suicidal, mostly because, you know, I'm not? Anyways, they're letting me go this weekend. I'll call you when I'm settled, we'll have a sleepover that doesn't involve eye gouging, how about that?" Melanie smirks in his direction, and Gerry rolls his eyes.

"That's my preferred kind of sleepover."

"You have very low standards," Tim mutters in the background.

"I mean yeah." Melanie shrugs. "He's dating Jon."

"I'll take offense to that," Georgie laughs, closing the door to the room behind her after coming in.

Gerry lets his head fall back against the glass, closing his eyes to feel the rattle of the car as the tube makes its way through London's entrails. Melanie's looking well enough, her injuries healing at a slow, human pace that Gerry can't help but to be hopeful about.

"So you don't feel the need to go back?" Tim asks, leaning against the corner of the room with his arms crossed over his chest. It may be a bit risky to bring an avatar whose powers manifest as fire into a place with so much oxygen and defenseless people, but Tim looks calm for once, no hint of orange in the depths of his dark eyes. "When I left, I started feeling the withdrawal right away. Not like... at first it wasn't pain, I just 'wanted' to come back."

"Nope!" Melanie grins, popping the 'p' with such satisfaction that Gerry can't help but to chuckle along with Georgie. "The only place I want to go to is home."

"Aren't you lucky," Tim says a bit sullenly, but when Gerry looks over he's got the slightest hint of a smile on his face, albeit a sad one.

Tim is sitting two seats away, but Gerry can still feel both the heat -the burns on his skin throbbing in ghost pain- and the conflict emanating from him. Maybe this is why Jon used to feel so comfortable around him, Tim wears his heart on his sleeve and there's no guessing at what he's feeling, regardless of if that feeling holds something good in store for you or not.

"What is it?" Gerry asks after a few more seconds. He doesn't turn to look at Tim, but they both know his words are aimed at him.

Tim's voice, when it comes, holds all the fragility of diamond, hard and sharp and waiting for something to hit at just the right angle to crumble to dust. "Do you- I wonder if this would work on Martin."

Gerry snorts, his tentative good mood wiped away like so much dust under the rain. "Are you asking me?"

"You care," Tim says. It's not a question, and Gerry doesn't bother denying it. Thinking about Martin feels eerily like waiting outside of a locked room, kept barely alive by a voice not done justice by the magnetic tape in a recorder, hoping, praying that the coffin will open, that he will come back, for someone else if not for him.

He keeps hoping the story will end the same, but he knows better than to dare think he'll be lucky twice.

"I don't know that breaking Martin from the Eye is our biggest concern anymore." Gerry sighs. "He told Jon no when he offered."

"...So? Are you just going to leave it like that?" Out the corner of his eye, he sees Tim scowl something fierce. "Jon said the fucking same, are you two just going to sit there and make eyes at each other while he turns?"

"We're trying, alright?! Jon's running himself ragged trying to Know enough that Martin doesn't have to depend on Lukas anymore, and I can keep telling Martin he's more important than the Extinction, but he's too damn stubborn-"

"He said you broke into his flat just to make him talk-"

"Well, you live with him. If you can't bring him back, why-"

"Oh, shut up!" Tim groans, crossing his arms over his chest and throwing his head back to look at the roof "Shut up, for real. You're pissing me off, and we're underground, you're going to make me blow up half the city."

Gerry rolls his eyes, a resigned huff escaping his lips. "Sometimes I wish I'd convinced you to stay behind when we went to get the Dark Sun. I don't know what Lukas did to him, but I doubt he would've done it I'd you'd been here."

"You know what? I do, too." Tim remains focused on the roof of the car, his fingers tapping against his arm in an incessant rhythm that leaves melted indentations on his skin. "I should've stayed where it mattered."

They don't say much after that. What else could they add? He can deny it until he's blue in the face, but they both know Manuela Dominguez burned because Tim still holds Jon dear, whether he likes it or not.

Still, Tim's words weigh heavy in his mind as they climb up the steps to the street and start the short trek to the Institute. It's- he's right. Whatever they promised Martin, this has gone too far. Martin might be ready to sacrifice it out of some misplaced lack of self worth, but nothing is worth his life, not even saving the world. And if he has to break into Martin's office and convince him of it, well... it won't be the first time, at least.

He starts on the stairs up towards the Institute's upper floors, only to stop when he notices Tim is no longer following. When he turns around, Gerry finds him standing at the bottom of the stairs, his face turned towards the door and his eyes overtaken by the bright orange of the Desolation.

"...Are you okay?" Gerry asks, arching an eyebrow.

Tim scowls at whatever it is he's looking at, but lifts a hand to stop him when Gerry makes to walk back down. "You going to see Jon?"

"Martin, actually," Gerry admits. Tim nods.

"Fine. You do that. I'll be down at the Archives." He gestures to the stairs going down instead.

It is a bit odd, but there's something else tugging at his mind right now. Something feels off today crawling under his skin like a many legged being. He wonders for a moment if this is the Spider pulling at him, before he resolves that one way or another it won't do to dwell on it. He feeds the Mother of Puppets either by fearing the manipulation or by fighting against it; the best he can do is be prepared for whatever it is he's being pushed into.

"-ou are. I was starting to fear you'd gotten cold feet." Gerry freezes before turning the corner to enter the corridor that takes to Martin's office. Lukas' voice is light and amused enough that Gerry wants to rearrange his face, mostly because he knows there's only one person in the Institute Lukas really talks to.

"I haven't," Martin says, and he sounds like a gray afternoon given a voice.

"Wonderful! I'd hate for you to give up after so much hard work, when we're already at the finish line. We can go down, then."

Martin doesn't answer, not even when Lukas lets out a satisfied chuckle. Gerry leans around the corner as soon as the familiar static of the Lonely starts ringing in his ears, and he's just in time to see the last of Martin's back disappear into a wall of fog.

The finish line.

Gerry frowns; the Eye won't volunteer any information about what Lukas is talking about, not even when he tries to Look, but if this means that he's done with whatever he was pushing Martin into, then this can't be good. Should he go look for Jon? Would the Eye let him know where they-

"You're looking real unhappy there, dear." Helen's voice doesn't really make him jump as much as merely draws him out of his reverie. "Did you lose something?"

"Someone." Gerry huffs.

"The pessimism... you've been hanging with Jon too much, I'd say."

"If you happen to know where they're going-"

"They're real funny," Helen chuckles. It makes Gerry a bit dizzy, but he merely lays a hand on the wall to steady himself. "They kept saying they needed a map, like there aren't better ways to get to places."

Gerry freezes, the implications of the Distortion's words deafening in his mind.

"Helen?" he asks almost shakily. If he can reach Martin and ask Helen to get the others- "Is it a door that they needed?"

Helen merely stands there before him, her smile curling into itself and her door partly opened behind her.

Gertrude would eat him alive for being so stupid, so selfish, Gerry thinks with a bitter sort of amusement. What gives him the right to stop Martin from saving the world, just because of anything he or Jon may or may not feel?

Probably nothing, but maybe it's high time he tries being self-centered for once, he decides before he walks into the Distortion's corridors.


It had taken him a few blocks to place the feeling, but when he finally did Tim found it laughably easy to put a name to it.

At first it feels like a prickle at his nape, the feeling of being watched, and he ignores it because it's far from an uncommon occurrence at the Institute. It's only when he feels the urge to hasten his pace that it clicks in his mind, even when it doesn't feel quite the same as when he first caught sight of Jon ducking behind a corner on his way home.

The Hunt is insidious, playing at your most basic instincts as it chases you to where you'll be easier to strike down. Now that he's recognized it, Tim finds it all too easy to shake it off. Instead the Desolation sparks to life inside his chest, aching for a good fight, for destruction, for the delicious sorrow that lays promised by the bond between the two hunters.

It's a bit funny how they don't notice when he flips the tables, coming back through the Institute's front doors just in time to see the back of the old man disappearing into the alley behind the institute; how very Hunt-like, to underestimate the 'prey'.

They head straight for the door that leads down to the Archives, and Tim feels the burning in his chest grow hotter.

Daisy wasn't lying when she said they were opportunistic, but she failed to mention just how fatally uninformed they were. He still feels the sequels from yesterday, and Jon was trying not to hurt him. Even if they reached him, what chance do they hope to have against the Archivist on his home turf?

He waits until their steps have faded down the stairs, before pushing the door open again and slipping in himself, and he wonders if maybe in another life he wouldn't have shared a patron with them, with how fervently he tracked the Stranger, and how easily he falls into the role of the hunter now.

Jon did kill the thing that took Sasha, and he's not too fond of owing favors.


Dying is not so terrible, Daisy thinks. Or maybe it's Basira -as always- that makes it tolerable.

It's cold by the entrance to the tunnel, but the cot itself is warm enough that Daisy doesn't shiver -she doesn't think she has the strength for it- in Basira's arms.

She doesn't smell the scent of tears or despair, and it only hurts a little. She wasn't expecting Basira to cry, or be devastated. In fact, she was counting on it. One of the things she fell in love with was Basira's stability, always a safe port to come home to in the middle of the storm that is Daisy's rage.

She's looking down at her on her lap, lightly brushing Daisy's hair off her face. All the hair was brushed away long ago but still Basira runs her fingers softly over her cheekbones, her forehead, her closed eyelids, and it feels like drifting off to sleep on a sunny windowsill.

It's far too peaceful an end, for all the pain she's caused.

"Basira-" she starts, only to stop a second after, her eyes shooting open at the sound of running feet and hurried breathing, the cloying scent of fear like a shot of adrenaline straight into her expiring heart.

"Jon?" Basira asks, her body tensing under Daisy's in preparation for- for what? "What's going on?"

Daisy chokes back a strained laugh. Of course something else would happen now that Basira has finally run out of excuses to let her die.

"I'm- I- Daisy?" Jon's voice is shaky, and the scent of fear intensifies. It makes her want to howl that she's not only unable to assuage his distress, but that she's a part of it now. "What is- the Hunt-"

"Jon, what do you want?!" Basira snaps.

Jon flinches. "Martin, I- he left me- I don't think he's coming back." There's a tape recorder in his hand, and what makes Daisy sit up on the cot is that he looks like he sounded in the Buried, lost and trapped and all devoid of hope.

"Where's Gerry?" she asks. "He's good at finding Martin. Bringing him back."

"That's- I don't know," Jon says shakily. "I'm- I tried to See him, but- I think he's inside Helen? I don't know- he doesn't feel like he's in danger, but-"

"And can't you See Martin?" Basira arches an eyebrow. "If you can See inside the Distortion-"

"I'm- I can't usually do that." Jon huffs almost angrily. "I can sort of See inside Helen because Gerry's in there, like-"

"Like you're looking through him?" Daisy supplies, when he seems to be out of words. Much to her despair, she feels reenergized already, like the mere idea of a goal is enough to fuel the embers of the Hunt inside her. She can feel Basira's eyes on the side of her face, and she knows she's already plotting, scheming some way to keep her around longer.

"Exactly, yes." Jon nods. "And only barely enough to feel that he doesn't think he's in danger. But when I try to See Martin, it's- it's like- like two mirrors in front of each other. I know it doesn't make any sense, but-"

"Nevermind that." Basira climbs to her feet in a smooth move "We can find him."

Daisy doesn't miss the use of the plural, nor the way her glowing green eyes fix on her with that look she knows all too well. It's a look that beckons her to follow, a siren call she has little to no hope of refusing. She heaves a sigh before she stands from the cot as well, smacking Jon on the shoulder.

"Couldn't wait until I was buried to drag me out again, could you?" she asks.

Jon gives her a small, sad smile. "I'm sorry."

Daisy shrugs. She'll stick around just for a few more hours, just for them.

"Let's find those two."


There's a body below the institute.

This is, of course, not the first time this has happened, Martin thinks, and the thought almost feels amusing. The handle of the knife Peter placed in his hand after the whole explanation about the Panopticon feels almost vulgar in its suggestion that violence is the only way to save the world.

"I must admit, he's not at all as surprised as I expected he'd be." says a voice that Martin still hears in his nightmares from time to time. When he turns around, Elias is standing across Peter, the two of them framing the door like guardian statues. He looks immaculate, his suit clean and freshly pressed, his tie perfectly knotted at his throat. Martin arches an eyebrow, wondering if he factored in enough time for grooming when breaking out from jail, and Elias chuckles. "Speaks wonders of your job I suppose."

"A natural, I told you. Now Martin, if you'd move along please?" Peter says without taking his eyes off Elias. The smirk on his face speaks of familiarity, the kind of look you give someone that you know will be incensed by it. "I didn't count on us having an audience, but I guess I should've known."

"Can't a man watch his own death?" Elias' lips curve upwards like the edge of the blade in Martin's hand. "Also, you must admit it's much more.... poetic, this way, Peter."

"I'll concede on that." Peter turns towards Martin again. "What's keeping you?"

"This is you, isn't it?" It's not that big of a leap, the Panopticon, Jonah Magnus, and the Eye's biggest servant. Elias' widening grin is answer enough. "Will the others survive?"

"I'm surprised you care." Peter says, and Martin rolls his eyes.

"I-"

"He doesn't. But he knows he should. Again, impressive." Elias shrugs, and for all that Martin stands over his body with a knife, he couldn't look less bothered. "But in the interest of truth-"

"Oh, you care about that now?" Peter cackles in the background.

"The answer is, I'm not sure." Elias raises his voice a little. "But making an educated guess, most of the ones you used to care about should fare just fine. Tim and Melanie are well out of my reach. Your new allegiance should protect you from the worst of it, like the Hunt should miss Tonner, if she wasn't so keen on starving herself. I'm not sure about the Detective, ever the rogue variant, but thanks to our patron's little present, Jon is powerful enough that he should survive as well-"

"Don't call him that," Martin mutters quietly to himself. He doubts Elias is listening, anyways; he's much too fond of his own voice.

"-egular workers of the Institute will be affected of course, though there is no telling just how grave the damage will be. But I know you don't care about that, and you know that too, don't you Martin?"

He's... really irritating, Martin decides.

"I do." Whether he means he does care or he merely knows he doesn't, Martin isn't too sure himself.

"Always very self-aware, yes." Elias has the gall to nod like a proud mentor, and Martin rolls his eyes. "I would say then that the only variable to factor in is whether or not you want to kill me."

"I really do." And for so many reasons, too.

"Then go ahead, Martin." Peter steps forward, and Martin sees Elias watching him from the back like a snake about to strike. It's actually pretty funny, that they're both so sure they've cornered the other. "Kill him, and help me save the world."

"I don't think I will, actually." Martin shrugs, tossing the knife aside with a careless flick. The delight he feels at Peter's confused frown is muted, but it's definitely there.

"I- what?" Peter stutters. Elias' grin grows even sharper behind him. "Martin, this is not the time for games, the world is at stake here, and-"

"See, that's where you messed up. All those details that didn't add up, the insistence that I was some sort of- of world savior? Far too grand for me." Elias breaks down in cackles, and Martin covers his flinching by crossing his arms over his chest. "It really wasn't that hard to see through all the bull you were trying to serve me."

"Serve- Martin, I never lied to you. The Extinction is coming and-"

"I don't doubt it." He waves the matter away. "But this is not about the Extinction, is it? It's just whatever pases for a game between you two, using people as your betting chips, and I don't want any part in it. I'm out."

"But you said-"

"What you wanted to hear, mostly." Martin shrugs again; the feeling of perverse delight growing more and more alive in his chest. Who knew that pettiness was an emotion just as effective against the Lonely?

"You projected too hard on dear Martin, it seems," Elias says after his laughter has subsided. Peter looks fit to boil, his pale face sporting ugly red blotches as he rounds up on Elias.

"This is your doing," he says. Elias' carefully knotted tie crumples in Peter's clenched fist. "How-"

"It wasn't him." Martin interrupts again, feeling more tangible by the second out of sheer indignation. "It was me, always me. I came to you because Jon was dead and it seemed like the most useful thing I could do for the others was letting you do your thing. I thought it would even be a good way to get killed, but you lost any hold you might've had the moment Jon woke up." It's almost cathartic to let everything out after so much lying. It certainly is rewarding to watch Peter's face lose more and more color with each word. "Suddenly I had a reason again, and it was very easy to pretend I was going along with your schemes, if it meant keeping him safe. You had me for a while when you started dropping hints about the Extinction, but it was just too much, you know? I'm not exactly a- a 'chosen one', or a hero, but it was the best way to figure out what your end game was."

"But- I can feel the Lonely around you, it's-"

"Sure, it's there. Always has been, maybe. But if this is the final test, then- then I guess failed." The silence that blankets over the Panopticon after his words is so dense Martin can almost taste it. He wonders if the other two can hear the frantic beating of his heart.

"You- no." Peter shakes his head. "This- you have no idea what you've done, you've doomed-"

"I did warn you, Peter." Elias speaks, sweet and cloying like festering rot. "Now, sore loser is a terrible look on you, so get on with it."

"Get on with what?" Martin scowls, trying to ignore the shiver that bleeds down his spine when Elias' amused smile turns towards him. "I thought he couldn't use the Panopticon."

"That ship has sailed, I'm afraid." Elias shakes his head, tutting under his breath. "Really, one way or another you shouldn't have anything to fear, Martin. If your allegiance to the Lonely's strong enough, you should be able to walk right back out. If it's not... then you just have to hope Jon's allegiance to you is strong enough."

"I'm- what?" Martin frowns. Why would Elias want Jon to go get him from- oh. Oh, crap, how could he have been so stupid?! He steps back, when a tendril of fog begins to wrap itself around his ankle. "Wait, I-"

"I'll do it." Martin feels his blood freeze in his veins, when he whips around and finds Gerry standing by the entrance to the Panopticon, his hand wrapped around the knife Martin discarded just a few minutes ago.

"What on earth are you doing here?" Peter asks, his hand still extended towards Martin, but the fog momentarily at ease. Martin takes a few more steps back, trying to get his thoughts into some semblance of order because this is not good. Gerry shouldn't be here, he can handle the Lonely, but he can't leave Gerry alone with these two-

"If you want him dead so badly, I'll kill him, and use the damned thing for you." Gerry steps towards the body with knife in hand, and Martin has a split second to appreciate that Elias no longer seems so amused, even getting closer to the body himself. "Let Martin go."

"You don't have any bonds with the Lonely." Peter arches an eyebrow, but he's starting to lower his hand. Fuck, this- this isn't good.

"Does that really matter? I could hardly be more marked by the Eye. I'll use it for you, just let Martin-"

"Are you crazy?" Martin snaps, whipping around to face him again. "Get out of here, I-"

"Peter." Elias hisses in the background, and Peter grunts.

"As much as it'd please me to use the Eye's own gifts against it-" Peter starts, every word sounding like a forced pleasantry. The edges of Martin's vision blur with thick, white fog that pulls at his core almost as much as his mind reels from it. "-I am a man of my word."

"What- wait-" Gerry takes a step towards him, reaching a hand to grab at Martin's shoulder.

"Say, Gerard," Elias' voice cuts in, loud and laced with static as he steps between Gerry and his body. "Have you ever wondered how your father died?"

Gerry's face goes contorts in pain as the memories are forced in, and Martin flinches in sympathy.

"Go away!" Martin snaps, before whipping around to face Elias. "Cut it out, I'll go in-"

"The marks, Martin-" Gerry grunts. "Stay-"

"You were sleeping while she butchered his body. A spirited woman, your mother, but not the finest planner-"

Gerry shakes his head like trying to shake the foreign thoughts loose, a thin stream of ink running down his philtrum, staining his lips black.

"Like you'd fucking know- Martin? Martin, look at me!" He orders, like Martin isn't already doing so, like he isn't actively trying to give in to the pull of the Lonely -if he goes, they'll leave him alone, they have no other reason to keep him-

"She did love him, you know? Or she loved his devotion for her at least. It's quite funny, actually. Good old Eric fought so hard to break free of our patron, and he never once stopped to wonder if he wasn't running into something worse. His end was quite gruesome, even for one of Gertrude's assistants." Elias' eyes gleam with dark amusement when they meet Martin's, and the threat in them is clear. "He thought her steps sounded different that afternoon, but he was only starting to get used to getting by on his remaining senses, and she'd been so gentle and caring to him lately-"

"Stop..." Gerry snarls "I don't care, I never knew him, you can't-"

"Oh, but you could have. If he hadn't been so arrogant, if he hadn't tried to plan so much smarter than he was. You should be careful which of your parents' footsteps you want to follow, though I suppose both trails are marked in blood."

"Elias, stop!" Martin shuts his eyes tight to not see Gerry's pained expression, focusing on the cold, slimy feeling of the fog that resides within his core, but he can't- the Lonely's refusing to come to his call, and Martin wants to scream, because when Gerry warned him so many months ago that he'd ruin his plan, Martin wasn't expecting it to be by making himcare so much for him. "Peter, just- do it already!"

The man's face is veiled in satisfaction, and Martin has no doubt that he too knows Martin won't survive the Lonely like this, and the act is as much a fulfillment of the wager with Elias as it is his revenge for Martin unraveling his plans.

"Martin!" Gerry throws himself forward, and Martin feels his hand pass straight through his front.

The last hint of color he sees before the grey takes it away is that heart-wrenching mix of green and blue.


Martin's trail is a soft green against the dirty stone floor of the tunnels. Not as easy to follow as Daisy's, and mingled with a sickly grey one that smells of salt and absence.

"These tunnels don't make sense," she grunts after taking a left turn for the sixth time in a row.

"They change." Jon sniffles behind her, his footsteps light and hurried in contrast with Daisy's heavier, determined ones. "I feel a sort of- a pull, towards the center. I'm guessing that's where Martin is?"

Basira doesn't respond, sure, Jon could've come down here himself, but then Daisy would've given up, would've died in her arms without the interruption, without the goal.

"Do you feel Gerry?" Daisy asks. There's a light growl to her voice that wasn't there before, and it makes Basira stop a little. "Is he alright?"

"He's- I think he found Martin. It's like the two mirrors thing, whenever I try to See any of them." Jon wipes a hand across his brow, letting out a soft, sheepish chuckle. "I'm- I feel blind."

"We're being followed," Daisy says calmly, and Basira spins around on her heel. The Hunt doesn't manifest with light, there is no eerie glow to her warm brown eyes, but Basira sees her fingers curled in the shape of claws, and the stiff line of her back just as clearly, the blood simmering under her skin, not yet boiling but very much threatening to. "Are you going to come out, or will you keep hiding like rats?"

Basira's gun is on her hand in an instant, and she pulls Jon behind her, a rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins at the familiarity of falling into step with Daisy.

"Must admit- I'd been hopin' you'd be dead by now." She doesn't know the old man that comes from behind the corner they just turned, but she can guess who it is just by the distortion to his features, his too-wide grin full of too-sharp teeth, his eyes that reflect the light of their torches in the way no human could. "We wanted to have Jonny boy for ourselves for a bit."

"We got a few statements we'd like to give." And if that's Trevor Herbert, then this must be Julia Montauk, of course.

"You didn't dare go against Daisy and me last time," Jon pipes in from behind Basira, and she contemplates turning around and strangling him herself, because of course Jon will hear danger ask for him by name and be a smartass about it. "Now there's three of us. Doesn't sound too smart."

"But see, we're well out of your dear Archives now, Jon dear." Julia takes a step to the side that Daisy mimics, keeping herself between the groups. "And your guard dog here looks like a famished mutt. I like our chances, actually."

"Brought this on yourself, really." The old hunter cracks his neck, running a red tongue over his teeth. "We'd have let you live, you were going around stopping rituals even, but you just had to go and take that page out."

Basira feels more than she sees Jon's patience dwindling. There's static in the air sure, but there's something in her connection to the Eye that reacts to him getting ready for a fight.

"Easy, Jon," she mutters, her gun trained on the old man's forehead.

"We're wasting time. I need-"

"Go, just follow your call," says Daisy, without moving an inch from where she's facing the other woman down. Basira can See the blood rising hotter and angrier inside her, and Daisy's almost back to looking like herself, the light back in her eyes, the steel in her spine, the slightest hint of a smirk as she stares Julia down. "We'll take care of this."

Jon hesitates for a moment; Basira can see the struggle in his eyes, going from Daisy to the hunters to her-

"Just go!" Basira snaps. "You know what's going on here, go find out what's happening there!"

And well, maybe it is underhanded, to use his worry for those two against him, but if it gets him to leave...

"I'll come back," Jon says hurriedly.

Basira nods. "Or I'll find you. Go!"

He rushes down the tunnel; Basira wonders, daring a look over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of his awkward race around a corner, is this the last she sees of Jonathan Sims?

"That's cute!" Julia snarls, calling her back to attention. The faint orange glow behind her is easy to miss, but Basira recognizes it easily enough. "You're getting very high and mighty there."

"This one is not even a full avatar," Trevor gestures at Basira with a chuckle, and it feels both relieving and insulting. "You can't take the two of us alone, not in your state."

"I don't know. What was it you said a moment ago?" Tim speaks from behind them, causing the two hunters to whip around to face him. His eyes glow like two angry embers; Basira remembers this Tim not from the night before the Unknowing, but from the warehouse up North. "I like our chances."


The pull at his chest is not foreign to Jon, though it feels as different as day and night from the one he followed to find Gerry when the hunters came the first time.

It's something built into him from the moment he opened his eyes as the Archivist, something that ties him to the Archives, to whatever it is that lays at the middle of this labyrinth, and Jon despises it.

Still he follows it, heading to whatever fate awaits him willingly, for them.

The chamber he finds himself in is enormous, the walls made up entirely of cells with thick bars covered in rust. At the center, stands a tower made up of blackened stone, the very top domed in clouded glass, and the Beholding drops a word in his mind with all the ceremony of an artist revealing their Magnum Opus.

The Panopticon.

"So good you could join us, Jonathan." Elias's voice hits him like a hammer to the chest, and only then does Jon notice him standing at the base of the turret, his arms crossed behind his back and smiling beatifically in his direction. "Was it hard, finding the place?"

"Not- not too much." Jon steps closer carefully. He still can't See Martin or Gerry, but Elias being here -how did he get out of jail? Was he ever really trapped there?- is not a great signal.

"Because I called you." Elias nods. "I thought you might want to pick up what you lost."

Shit.

"Where are they? Elias, if you-" Jon's rather pathetic attempt at a threat is cut off by Elias' gleeful cackle.

"Calm down, Jon. Gerard's merely a bit... lost in thought. As for Martin, the door is open, if you want him back."

"What door? Elias, what did you do?" Jon snarls, pouring the compulsion thick into the question.

"I cashed in a favor. Or rather, a wager." Elias smiles. "You've grown fairly powerful, haven't you?"

"Elias-"

"You'll find Martin right where you put him." Elias' eyes gleam dangerously, his smile still sharp on his face. "In the Lonely."

"W-"

"As much as I'd enjoy a chat, I'd advise against dallying. He was in a bit of a state when he went in. Not too suited to survive in there, even after all these months." Elias takes a step aside, clearing the way to the stone stairs that curl up around the body of the tower. "Good luck, Jonathan. I'll be seeing-"

Whatever he was going to say next, Jon doesn't care to know. He rushes past him, climbing the stairs as quickly and as carefully as he can, keeping away from the edge because he wouldn't put it past himself to simply trip and snap his neck.

The interior of the turret is mostly empty, but his eyes pick up on three details immediately. The first is the dessicated body sitting at the center of the eye carved on the stone floor. He Knows who he is, and who the man outside isn't, but right at this moment, he couldn't care less.

The second thing he notices is the door to the Lonely, like a tear on dark fabric leaking out a soft silvery light and heavy wisps of fog that drift down to the floor.

Gerry's crumbled next to the body like a puppet whose strings were cut off. His arm stretched out towards the rift, and he's bleeding, a puddle of acrid-smelling ink under his head.

Jon rushes to his side, falling to his knees beside him and turning his head as carefully as he can.

"Gerr- I- can you hear me?" he asks, his heart beating so hard he's worried it'll punch a hole right through his chest. Gerry's eyes are wide and glassy and Beholding green, and his papery white lips move around words Jon cannot hear, but he's alive, and that means they have a shot still.

"I need- Gerry, I- you have to wake up now. I'm-" This is- he's so bad at this. How do you call a person back? I'm sorry but I love you, please don't go? "I need you, please."


"Told ya!" The old man smirks, his sharp teeth painted red with the blood flowing from his nose after Tim's headbutt. His claw-like nails sink into the flesh of Basira's neck, and the whirlpool of activity in the tunnel comes to a screeching halt. "This one is not quite done yet. Let's see if she bleeds like a monster or like a human."

If one thinks about it objectively, Tim's cockiness wasn't necessarily unjustified. He merely failed to factor in the part where he technically doesn't want to blow up the entirety of London to get rid of two hunters, or turn Daisy and Basira into a pile of ashes.

"That's enough," Daisy growls, loosening her grip around Julia's neck. The woman slashes at her face as soon as she's free, the knife leaving an angry red gash across her cheekbone and nose.

It makes something hot an angry burn at his chest, that even with all this power, he's still useless to stop this.

"How sweet." Julia shoves her off, climbing to her feet with a slight limp in her step. Tim feels a dark pang of pride at the angry red burn on the side of her face. "You're not the monsters we wanted, but it's okay, we don't discriminate. Let's see that throat, old man."

"Basira?" Daisy calls out. She's still on her knees, still watching her own blood drip down to the dirty floor of the tunnels.

"Yes?" Basira asks, then chokes a little when Trevor presses his nails a bit harder.

"Will you find me?" Daisy's starting to shake, and Tim takes a step back even as the Desolation in him beckons him forward, because the sheer amount of sorrow and rage coming from her is intoxicating.

Another wave of loss, of suffering hits him just as hard. Tim darts a glance at her, but there's nothing in Basira's face that betrays the pain simmering inside her.

"Anywhere."

Daisy's form splits open.

It's like watching a flower blossom in a timelapse video, or a moth emerge from its cocoon. The creature that comes out is long-limbed and sharp-fanged, and its fur shimmers with a faint coat of blood as it leaves behind the useless skin of Daisy Tonner. They watch it in stunned silence as it raises to its full height, its hunched back grazing against the roof of the tunnel, a cavernous growl squeezing out from between jaws where the hide is stretched too thin, pierced here and there by sharp yellowed fangs, its eyes like two pinpricks of light at the end of a cavernous tunnel fixed on the hunters before it.

"...Fuck," Julia mutters. Tim is inclined to agree.

Then the thing that was Daisy takes a step towards her, and the room explodes in activity again. Basira is shoved to the side as Trevor rushes to step between them, and it's all Tim can do to throw himself over her, as two and then three beasts slam each other against the walls of the tunnel, raining down dirt and debris that digs into Tim's waxy flesh.

It feels like hours before the howling fades away, before the tearing of flesh under claws and fangs leaves behind a silence so haunting it very nearly drowns the roar of the Desolation inside him.

"G- get off," Basira orders, pushing a hand against his chest. Tim scrambles to his feet and offers a hand that she ignores, her eyes focused on the soggy skins left behind in crumpled lumps by the beasts. "I- shit."

"Eloquent." She's looking down one of the tunnels, the one that reeks of hatred and pain, and Tim knows very well the sort of debate brewing in her mind. "Are you going after them?"

"Are you?" she snaps, whipping around to face him. Her face is carefully blank, and Tim doesn't point out the red rims of her eyes, or the pain emanating from her in waves. It doesn't take a genius to understand she's pinning her own hesitation on him. He doesn't know much about Basira, but he might understand that it's easier for her to handle weak people than to be weak herself.

Is he going after them?

He could probably find them, following the claw marks and the rage. If they make it far enough from anyone that could get caught in the crossfire-

"Why were you down here?" he asks, though he thinks he might know the answer already. Jon is many things, but he wouldn't abandon them so easily.

"Jon was still holding on to you when they found you, you know?" Sasha -no, not her, not anymore- had said, and Tim had believed her immediately, just as he believes it now.

"Martin and- they're missing. We think they're at the center of this- this mess." Basira's voice is almost frail as she continues to look down the corridor the monsters disappeared in.

"Can you find them?"

"Yes." The word comes immediately, mournful and without hesitation.

"Well- let's- let's get to it. Somehow I doubt Daisy needs us that much right now."

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

"You're making a right mess of me," he says. He's standing next to the table, watching the proceedings with something that almost feels like interest. "I thought you had more experience at this."

"I was feeling experimental." She shrugs. Her arms are covered in blood to the elbow, and her chest and face are also splattered red. "I felt like it had to be special."

"Very romantic," he says dryly. "What's going to happen to Gerry?"

"Gerard will be fine." She enunciates the name clearly and firmly. They never did settle that argument, but she pretty much just won, he guesses. "He's got the potential."

"He's two years old."

"He's my son." She saws angrily, until the bone finally breaks. "You brought this on yourself, you know?What were you thinking, pulling your eyes out?"

"I suppose I did. I thought you'd be happy that I was free." He shrugs again, before extending a translucent hand to push a lock of blood-soaked blonde hair behind her ear. It passes right through. "It's nice to see you again."

She pauses on her work, her eyes -he always did love that perfect mix of green and blue- fixed on the carnage dripping down to the kitchen floor.

"You knew how I was," she says finally. "I never hid that from you."

"You didn't."

That's not an apology. It's not an excuse. It's not enough for this man who sees himself dead on a table and asks about his son first, why do they both look so satisfied with it?!

The saw is heavy in his hand, and slippery with the blood that stinks the whole room of iron. Gerry tries to drop it, tries to step back, this is not him, up to his elbows in the blood of the one he loves-

"Gerry?" Jon's voice washes over him like cool water over a burn; Gerry thinks he might cry, when he blinks away the image of his parents and Jon is there, looking down at him in concern. "I'm- you're- how do you feel?"

"Like shit." Gerry lets out a dry cackle that's just this side of hysterical, before the gravity of the situation catches up to him, and he sits up so abruptly Jon has to throw himself back to avoid getting head-butted. "Fuck. Jon, we- Martin-"

"I know, I- Elias told me." Jon bites at his bottom lip. "I'm- it looks like we're completing the card after all."

"...Looks like it," Gerry says. It leaves a bitter aftertaste in his mouth, but there's no other way to go about it. Jon's not going to leave Martin in the Lonely, and Gerry's not going to ask him to. He climbs to his feet with a groan -he definitely bruised something- and Jon follows suit. "I'm- I don't know how well it'll go, Jon. You were able to use me as an anchor in the Dark, but I don't know if you can just- just pull Martin out. The person has to want to come back, usually."

"Let's find out." Jon takes a deep breath, his gaze fixed on the rift to the Lonely for a moment. He looks over his shoulder at him, and there's an odd intensity to his eyes, not the eerie power of the Archivist, but merely the one befitting a man in love. "Are you ready?"

"I- what?" Gerry blinks a couple times, before his own words come back to him from so long ago, whispered against Jon's lips with more devotion than any prayer he's ever uttered, the threat of an apocalypse looming over their heads and in his heart the firm intention of walking into the Dark for this man. "Oh."

"...I don't mean to force you to-" the little yelp Jon gives when he leans in to kiss him might just be enough to turn him immune to the Lonely, Gerry thinks.

"Let's go get your Martin back, then."

Chapter 19

Notes:

CWs for this chapter:
-Depression
-Parental neglect
-Past implied suicidal ideation
(These are present in the very first POV, and are related to Martin's past. Please feel free to skip it if the topics make you uncomfortable)
-Canon character death

Chapter Text

 

 

XIX

Martin is seven years old the first time he realizes how utterly and completely alone he is. Back then he still goes by a name that isn't his, and he doesn't yet have the words to describe why it feels wrong.

He looks around at all the children in his classroom; their clothes look clean and smell good, and their mothers not only pick them up from school, but they look happy when doing so. He asks mum once why she never smiles, does something hurt? Maybe the doctor can give her more pills?

Mum doesn't respond. She merely gives Martin that long, serious look that always makes Martin think he said something dumb, and goes to her room, leaving Martin alone with his cold supper and a slow gathering fog that he can't see.

Martin is fourteen years old when he first understands he's unwanted. He's begun to figure out who he is, and his clothes are ill-fitting, just like he himself is, bouncing around between groups of people that aren't really his peers, and merely accept his presence like one would any other part of the scenery.

Mum is no longer subtle, and the look isn't serious as much as it is distasteful, no matter how hard Martin tries. He would like to tell someone about this, but when he thinks of reaching out he remembers the only messages in his old school notebooks are those of well-meaning teachers, wishing him luck and praising a potential that Martin knows isn't there.

He's sixteen years old, when Martin comes to the conclusion that he's perhaps meant to be alone forever. Mum's illness has gotten so bad that Martin has to drop off school to work and care for her. She doesn't look at him anymore, not even when Martin finally shows up looking like he's always wanted to. He doesn't know exactly how to feel about this, because as much as he didn't want a fight, it's yet another proof that his existence is irrelevant in her life.

He tries to tell himself this is just his poor self esteem. Of course his mother loves him, she's his mother. She kept him alive, she cared for him, she's just... ill. And she's always been strong-willed. To a child it might've looked like irritation, but Martin is an adult now and he's learned life is not at all like in Hallmark movies, and if he sat down to cry every time mum didn't say 'I love you' back, he'd seldom have time to do anything else.

Martin is twenty two when he accepts he's exhausted. Of this life, of his mother, of himself. He wants to do something about it, but the pill bottles behind the bathroom mirror scare him just as much as the University pamphlets he hides under his pillow.

He strides up to the imposing looking building by the river with his forged CV in hand because he doesn't know what else to do. He gets the job, but as the Head of the Institute shakes his hand to dismiss him, Martin looks at Elias Bouchard's bright green eyes, and knows that he knows. That somehow this man has realized he's an impostor, that he's gotten this far only by convincing people he's far more capable than he actually is.

But he needs the money, and this job is far less demanding than anything else he could've gotten with his lack of credentials. He signs the contract, and he doesn't notice the jealous cling of the fog around him, as the Eye turns its gaze on him.


"What is this place?" Tim asks when they come into the cavernous chamber.

Basira looks around, nailed in place by the unsettling feeling of relief she's experiencing. The cells are empty behind their rusted bars, but Basira can See the outlines of the prisoners where they died when they were Known by a power they couldn't even begin to understand.

"It's- it's a place of Beholding," she mutters. She hates it here, hates how comfortable she feels in this place that's so permeated with death. It's another reminder of what she is, of all the shit she let pass; it's a bit of a bad joke, that after looking the other way for so long she's now become something that can't look away. "Jon's up there. And Martin too."

"What about Gerry?" Tim asks.

"I dropped him there. Not sure where he went after." They whip around at the new voice, and sure enough the entrance to the passageway they came through is now a very large version of Helen's door, with the Distortion herself swinging too-long legs as she sits on an enlarged doorknob. "He was in quite a fit about Martin, though."

"Well, better late than never, I guess." Tim grunts.

Basira rolls her eyes, because of course Tim has been so lost on his personal drama of whether or not he wants to forgive Jon that he hasn't noticed anything else. Still, her mouth twitches; it's a good distraction from the constant wondering about Daisy. She cups her hands around her mouth, taking a tentative step forward.

"Jon? Did you find them?" she calls out. No one responds, and Basira gets a muted pang of surprise at the way her stomach drops with worry. Maybe she did care after all. "Get ready. Elias was here. And Lukas too."

"That's comforting," she hears Tim grumble behind her as he follows her lead. It feels... it's different.

It's not Daisy. It will probably never be Daisy again, but it feels good to have a team at her back.


The Lonely smells like tears.

It's a deceptively simple smell, building up like bad memories and a knot at the back of your throat.

Much like in the Dark, there's no colors here. Unlike the Dark, there is nothing here, not even fear, or the certainty that there is something waiting for you to give up and consume you.

The Lonely doesn't care about you.

No one does, or you wouldn't have ended here. Do you care about this? You have always cared so much. It was exhausting, and it did nothing but cause trouble to you and the ones you thought you loved.

Isn't this a lot easier? You don't have to feel anything, here. You can't hurt anyone here.

"-on? Can you hear me?"

The scent of lavender hits softly like a memory, and Jon blinks until he can distinguish between the cold inside him and the cold around him.

"Gerry?" he asks, but his hand closes around nothing.

"-m here." Gerry's voice reaches him from far away, even though Jon is sure they were holding on to each other when they entered.

"I- I can't see you."

"-ou feel me?"

He can, Jon finds. A thread of white-hot steel pulling at the left side of his chest, the ghastly feeling of lips on his own.

"Yes. Yes, I can." A love that is felt but not seen, just like-

"-ind Martin," Gerry says from his corner of the Lonely, which could be an inch or a mile away. "-ocus on that."

That- that makes sense. Martin is still human, he's the most at risk here. Once they find him, they can get out, and the other will follow. Should follow.

"Okay, I- be careful." Jon tries to add something else, but the words that Gerry uttered so easily on the kitchen floor that night feel impossible to push out.

"-ove you," Gerry whispers, before his presence fades away.

'Me too,' Jon thinks fiercely, desperately and futilely. 'Me too, and I will find the two of you if I have to Know every inch of the Lonely, until it can't keep you from me.'

The Beholding purrs in delight at the declaration. It doesn't care why the Archivist uses it as long as he does. Jon should probably care about that a little more than he does, but the only thing in his mind now is Martin, and the need to get him out of here before he can't distinguish between it and himself.


"Can you see the entry?" Tim asks, stepping away from the dry corpse in the center of the room.

"Not really," Basira shrugs. "I can see where their trails end, but- we can't go in, Tim."

And that's that, he supposes. She says it with such finality, with such certainty, that Tim has no choice but to accept it as fact.

Martin is gone.

Martin, the last of them, the only one untouched by all this shit. Martin who brewed them tea and pretended he wasn't making cow eyes at Jon even though he behaved like an absolute ass. Martin who found Tim at his living room with fire in his veins and offered him the same unconditional friendship they'd shared before everything began to go south.

He warned them about this. He warned both of them and the worst part is he can't even be angry at Jon about it, because Jon is gone too, and because he himself wasn't able to keep Martin here, he wasn't enough.

This is- he's the only one left. They're all gone, and they slipped through his fingers even after he got a second chance, one after the other, Danny, Sasha, J-

"I wouldn't touch him right now if I were you," Helen says somewhere in the room, and it's only when he opens them that Tim realizes he's shut his eyes; he looks in time to see Basira's hand retreating from his shoulder, as Helen speaks again. "Should I go get Melanie?"

"No," Basira says immediately. "She's out. We don't- we don't go to Melanie unless there's no other choice. We have to-"

"We have to what?" Tim snaps. He's so tired of this, of losing people- he liked it much better when he'd just woken up and all he could feel was rage. "Let's just pop your eyes out too, so I can blow the fucking place up." And himself too, if he's lucky.

"Could you stop moping around already?!" Basira whips around to face him. Her eyes are burning with intensity, and her fists are clenched and shaking by her sides. "You've seen him walk from worse, you've walked from worse. Now- now we have to- I don't know what happened here, but if Elias walked out of jail exactly today, then it's got to have something to do with Martin, or-"

"Or Jon's marks." The answer hits Tim like a slap to the face.

'You're just missing one, aren't you?'

'The Lonely, yes.'

'How convenient isn't it? Martin's sudden promotion.'

'I'm well aware it's my fault, Tim, thank you.'

What else could it be? Whatever Elias is planning-

He turns to her, and in her eyes he finds the same understanding, the same clicking of pieces he just went through. The fourteen marks were deliberate, orchestrated; Annabelle Cane's statement was nothing short of a confession.

It doesn't change anything, not really, everything that happened, everything Jon did is still there, a wound that scarred badly and that still aches when pulled at, but-

"We have to get them away," Basira says.

But at least for now, Tim has a purpose again.


Gerry's never been to the Lonely before, though he's felt its grip on him many times in his life.

It has loomed over him ever since he was a child, alone and confused and fearing and craving his mother's hugs in equal measure. Back when he first started learning about the fears he did wonder why it never struck, why it never pulled him in to devour him whole. It was only later that he understood what made him so resistant to this particular fear.

You defeat the Lonely with love, and Gerry has never been short of that.

Whether or not it's been paid in kind is another matter entirely, but he loved his mother, and he loved Gertrude, and he loved every soul he helped save from a fate worse than death. It has to be enough now, and if it isn't... well, Gerry's always been good at making round pegs fit into square holes, and this won't be the exception. He won't let Martin be the exception.

He wanders across the Lonely for what feels like hours, when he spies a figure hunched on the floor. There's no heart to race in his chest, but Gerry hurries his steps when he recognizes the muted black of Martin's hair, the tired curve to his shoulders.

"Martin? Martin!" Gerry exclaims, falling to his knees across from him, and swatting away at the thick fog that lays around the man like a cloak. "Fuck, I- it's so good to see you. What the hell were you thinking?!"

Martin doesn't look at him, doesn't even look up, and when Gerry lays his hands on his shoulders there's a thin layer of cool dampness that he wipes away hurriedly.

"Huh. I didn't expect you'd be here," Martin's voice echoes oddly, like it's carrying across water. "I thought they'd stop if I let them put me here. Did they send you here too?"

"I- n- no, Martin." Gerry tries to crouch lower to enter his field of vision, before he carefully lays a hand on Martin's round cheek to softly pull his face up. "No, we- Jon brought me in. We came here for you.

"Jon." Martin's grey eyed focus on him, and Gerry feels like he's been punched in the gut. He can't taste the emotion in Martin's voice like he can with Jon's, but he doesn't need to. He's heard the kind of sorrow poured in those three letters.

"Yes, he- he's here too. Now that I got you, we just need to-"

"You should go to him."

"I mean, yes, we both need to-"

"I think it's better if I stay here, Gerry."

"...What?" Gerry scowls, then feels his eyes widening in terror when his hand starts going through Martin's cheek. "Shit- Martin no! We need-"

"I really loved him, you know?" Martin's silhouette is growing harder to see, like a mirror fogging up.

"Of course I know, you- Martin you pretty much only tolerated me because of him, I know you love him."

Martin lets out a chuckle; it's a low, sad sound that makes Gerry's stomach churn.

"At first, I suppose." He shrugs, and his contour grows a bit fainter. The only thing Gerry can see clearly is his sad little smile, like some twisted version of the Cheshire cat. "I was sad at first that you- but you turned out to be so amazing, in the end. I was happy he found you."

Fuck. Fuck, fuck- Gerry tries to grab at him again, but his hand just goes clean through.

"Martin, it's- it's not over. We're not done, he wants you, he still-"

"I think it's time to go now-"

"Martin Blackwood you're not going anywhere," Gerry snaps. This can't- this is not going to end like this. He won't let it. They were supposed to sit down and talk about the future, there was going to be a future to talk about, for fuck's sake! "I will follow you to the end of the Lonely if I have to, you're not going to shake me off this easily."

"I really liked that about you too. You made me feel wanted."

"That's because I do, you idiot!"


"They're safe, see? At least for now." The voice is insidious, frustrating. It gives off the feeling of practiced politeness, empty pleasantries that mean even less than cold, uncaring silence. "It's very heartwarming, if ultimately futile, of course."

"I take it you're the reason I can't reach them?" Jon asks coldly. He can feel the Forsaken rearranging itself as they speak, the space between his and the two silhouettes hunched over in the distance growing wider and wider, so that every step he takes towards then moves him ten steps back.

"Does it really matter?" Peter asks. "They don't need you there, and it's only a matter of time before they give up."

"I will find them first," Jon says simply; there is no other choice, no scenario where they don't come out of this together. He'll make sure of it.

Peter laughs, and the sound echoes oddly around Jon, like only the ghost of it was reaching his ears.

"I doubt so. But you're welcome to keep trying."

"Why don't you come speak face to face, Lukas?" The fog around him takes on a sickly green hue where the glow of his eyes illuminate it, and the Lonely curls more thickly around him, hiding Peter from his Sight, from his reach. "Afraid of being seen?"

"I've dealt with your kind before, Archivist."

"So that's a yes, then."

"Fooling around with that toy of yours really have you some undeserved bravado, didn't it?" He sounds a bit disgruntled now, Jon notices with a muted, dark amusement. "Since he's not human, I'm not sure if he can even be consumed here, you know? I wonder if he'll just walk around forever until he shuts down."

"I'm not his only anchor," Jon scowls. That much is true, isn't it? Melanie-

"Please. Do you really believe he'll walk away without you? Both of you? Anchors are very effective, Archivist, as long as you aren't tied to a sinking one." Peter's smirk is palpable in his voice, and Jon grits his teeth. That's- it's not entirely wrong. Gerry's far too selfless, far too dedicated to putting others before himself.

"He'll do it for Martin," Jon says with far more vigour than he feels. That was the plan, and Gerry's not stupid in the least. Out of the three of them, Jon's the one that has a highest chance of survival here. If he has a chance to at least pull Martin out-

"Oh, but Martin doesn't want to go." Peter chuckles. "You let him fly too close, Archivist. This is his place now."

Silence stretches over them for a moment, the echo of Jon's breathing the only sound for miles.

"...You brought him in here, though." That's what Gerry said, what the Eye confirmed. Martin chose to come willingly, but it was Peter who opened the door. "You can kick him out. Both of them."

Peter doesn't respond immediately, and Jon focuses on the two silhouettes that he can see, but will never reach, not as long as the Lonely keeps pushing them apart.

"I could. For a price."


It feels like his words resonate around them for an eternity, before the odd dissonance of the Lonely takes it away completely.

Martin is still there, barely visible and barely tangible under his bruising grip, the only sound between them is Gerry's agitated breathing.

"Martin?" Gerry asks carefully. While Martin has stopped fading away into the fog, he doesn't seem to be getting better either. But if his words kept him here, then- then maybe there's still a chance. "I'm- I know I'm not Jon, but- but I came here for you, alright? I wanted to come for you."

But it doesn't work that way, does it? You can be the most desired, the most loved person in the world and still be alone.

"Why?" Martin asks. His eyes fix on Gerry's, grey and empty of any and all emotion, but it has to mean something, that he hasn't left, that he still wants to know.

"We need you," Gerry answers truthfully. He doesn't know too well what it means, but it's been a while since this was just about Jon.

"You know that's a lie, Gerry." The corner of Martin's lips twitches into a humorless smile.

"It's not, it's-"

"I think I want to stay. Nothing hurts in here. It feels... quiet. We can all be happy, like this." There's a longing in his voice when he says it, a soft wistfulness that Gerry doesn't trust right now.

"Martin, I'm- listen to me," Gerry asks, nearly begs. He shouldn't have been the one to find him, he realizes with a start. It has to be someone he loves, he remembers telling Melanie so long ago. And still the fact remains that Gerry's the only one here, and if he's not enough, then he'll have to remind him of the one who might just be. "Think of why you did this, think-

"...What?"

"Martin, who is your reason?"


"You want me to stay in their place." Jon says quietly, clenching a fist in the fabric of his jumper as the realization dawns on him. "Why?"

Peter stalks around him, watching him under the cover provided by his patron. He can feel the Eye searching for him, but its intensity is growing fainter by the second, as the Archivist begins to bend under the weight of his own doubt.

"Trust me, Jon, the Eye has given me plenty of reasons. But I must admit I'm simply not too happy with Elias at the moment and I'm very curious to see what he'll do if you don't make it out of here." Bit of an understatement, honestly.

"I-"

"That's the offer," Peter interrupts. "What do you say, Archivist?"

The desolate questioning in Jon's face is an absolute delight to behold.

"Take your time. Though I feel like the choice should be easy. Or are you hesitating because your pet undead will die without you anyways? You can't have everything, Jon." Peter tuts consolingly. "Either he dies out there, or the three of you stay in here."

"You said- you know Elias is planning something. He-"

"Oh, he'll try to get you back of course." Too much invested in this one, years of orchestrating his marks and survival. Elias won't just start over, Peter isn't even sure he could start over, without the Mother's webs that drape over this one's shoulder as a blessing. "Granted, I'm not sure how much of you there'll be left by the time he works his way back into my good graces.But that's not necessarily a bad thing in your books, is it?"

"...It isn't." The thrum of the Eye in the air fades a little more, when Jon lets his head drop.

Peter isn't terribly surprised. He might not be Martin, whose entire core calls to the Forsaken like they are one and the same, but Jonathan Sims is still an incredibly lonely man.

It's about regret, in his case. Peter can feel all the mistimed connections that haunt him, when he reached out only to find it was far too late and he'd pushed way too far. The memory of waking up alone in a hospital room, and knowing he was neither expected nor wanted back.

"I thought so. Your friends will be much safer without you, Jon. You know that." He's not sure how much more convincing Jon actually needs, but it can't hurt to double down, he decides as he stops his pacing by his side and leans in to whisper in his ear. "You can't hurt anyone here."

"I... I suppose so."

"You know so." And Peter does too. Won't it be poetic, to keep Elias' pet in here as revenge for his own sabotaged ritual? Not much he can do, if there's no one to wear the crown. "It's all up to you, Jon. What do you want?"

Peter has dealt with beholders before, far more than he should, actually. He knows how they work, how for all they preach omniscience, they home in on a purpose, and become blind to everything else. Gertrude wanted war, Elias wants power, and this sad, broken man wishes uselessly for redemption, and if he can't have it, he'll have immolation.

"So? What will it be?" he asks.

Jon's head tilts up slowly, and Peter freezes at the intense neon green of his eyes, and the downward curve of his tightly pressed lips.

"A statement, I think," he says, and all around him the Watcher's eyes burn holes through the fog, pinning Peter in place like stakes, their focus so heavy it stings.

He tries to remain calm, to keep his fear from the Eye. This is his domain, and he can't be harmed here, not even by Elias' trained dog-

"Peter Lukas, you will give me your story."


His reason.

Did he have one?

Was it saving the world, or did he just want to look good while killing himself? Was it revenge against these things that took all the ones he loved, or spite at not being taken himself?

This place makes it hard to think. All you can do is sit and feel the emptiness inside you, smell the tears and listen to the silence. Was that his reason, finding a place to escape to? Maybe he just wanted to rest, for once, forever.

He's so tired.

There's a man before him. His hands are heavy on Martin's shoulder and face, but so careful, like he's made of glass or secrets. The man's eyes are beautiful, desperate mix of greens and blues, and his lips curl around words that barely reach him, words Martin doesn't know if he wants to hear.

He did have a reason, didn't he? It had a name and a face, a lopsided smile and eyes swimming with sadness.

Didn't he hate Martin? That's what they had in common, isn't it? Before the worms, before the fear.

Where is he now?

Martin remembers him, dead in all but name, laid on a hospital bed like a broken doll. His hand is limp in Martin's own, and every time he presses it to his lips Martin swears it's grown colder.

Was that his reason? What was he more afraid back then, the thought that he wouldn't wake up, or that he might?

The man before him speaks again, and his hands on him feel heavier, warmer.

He doesn't like him, Martin remembers. How easily he stepped into the Archives, how well they fit together. Martin looks at him, and he doesn't know if he wants to tell him to go away or ask him what took him so long, why couldn't he have come before Martin gave up on his future for a chance at saving Jon's?

Martin tries to recall the man's name; maybe it'll help him figure out why he's here. It's a good name, he's sure, because he's a good man. A simple name, the kind you say with a smile. An incredibly, absolutely, undeniably mulish and irritating name, what on Earth is he doing here?!

Martin came here to keep him safe, because even knowing this was a trap for Jon, it was the only way to get Elias to stop hurting him, why would this idiot follow him in?!

Now all the work he did will be for nothing, because Martin knows as sure as the sky is blue that Gerry won't go away, won't let him fade into the grey. He'll find Martin again and again and again, until he answers his question, or the Lonely consumes them both.

This was a gamble he took to try and protect him, and now both of them are here and Jon is lost in here too, and Martin wants to scream at the absurdity of it all.


"Did you pack-"

"I packed the first things I saw, Basira, if they don't like it they're going to have to suck it up."

"That's fair."

"Where are they going?"

"North. Daisy had- she has a place. A cottage on the countryside."

"Oh, Martin will eat that stuff right up."


"-tin come on." Gerry tries again. Martin is still there, still tangible under his hands, but he still won't talk, won't look at him, the only sign of life to him is the slight furrowing of his brow. "Think- think of him, he's coming for you, we both did. Tim would've come too if he'd been there I'm sure, he's a prick but he loves you. So many people care, Martin, but we need you to care too, we-"

It's alright, he tells himself with just the slightest edge of panic. He's got time, and he'll keep going until the Lonely steals his last breath from his lungs, they are not going to lose Martin.

"Just- you have to- Martin I know you have what you need to break it, but you need to remember it yourself. You need-"

"I need you-" Martin's voice rings out clear and firm, without the ringing of the Lonely, and Gerry freezes. Martin's eyes are bright and green and burning with righteous indignation as he scowls down at him. "-to stop being so incredibly infuriating!"

And then Martin is collapsing against him, and it's all Gerry can do to hold him steady as a wave of relief washes over him.

"I'm- sorry?" He asks, his voice tinged with confusion.

"No you're not," comes Martin's sullen voice, muffled against his shoulder.

Gerry lets out a bark of somewhat hysterical laughter, tightening his grip around Martin's frame. He feels solid, and growing warmer by the second, and Gerry feels a little like he did when Jon opened his eyes after so much begging.

"No, I'm not."


The man gasps in exhaustion and pain, as the last of his tale tumbles out of his lips.

The Archivist watches, adds the story to his archive with the same delight with which one would enjoy a feast.

It's a pathetic, hilarious joke that Peter Lukas ultimately dies protecting the Pupil's secrets, when the Archivist demands the truth.

The Eye hums in delight, and the Forsaken shies away from its unblinking gaze, from the power of its chosen, from the future this promises.

It knows with glorious certainty that when the Archive speaks next, the world will listen.


Martin feels the Lonely break around them like something being ripped from his chest.

He misses it immediately, the pungent smell of salt and humidity, and the emptiness inside him. The arms around his shoulders, the scent of lavender and ink under his nose, the warmth of another body pressed tightly against his is overwhelming.

"-'re back!" He hears Basira scream somewhere, and the sound of echoing steps coming closer.

"Hey there," Gerry whispers somewhere close to his ear. "I have someone for you."

And Martin's heart drops, because he knows who that is, and he knows what he said the last time he saw him. How could he forgive him for that? For turning him away when he came to him with a promise of freedom, of a future together? Of-

"Martin?" Jon says his name like a prayer, like he doesn't know if he's more afraid of his silence or his response, and when Martin lifts his face from Gerry's shoulder, he finds that he looks much the same, his teeth worrying nervously at his bottom lip as his dark eyes search Martin's face for... for what?

"Jon." Martin's own voice is a pitiful, exhausted thing, but the name sounds just right in his lips, like a memory, like an answer to a question he can't bear to think right now.

It's like Jon's strings have been cut, and he goes down on his knees by their side, slotting himself right under the arm Gerry lifts for him. Martin has a spare second to think of how well they fit together, before Jon buries his face in his chest and it hits Martin that he's here too, held between them like he belongs, like they were waiting for him.

"I'm sorry I didn't find you," Jon whispers into his chest. He feels nothing like Martin imagined, and is somehow much more real for that. "I'm sorry I let it get this far."

What could he possibly say to that? That it's not Jon's fault that Martin wanted to die? That he's sorry too, because now Jon has all the marks and nobody knows what that means, but it can't be good?

Objectively speaking, Martin knows it would've been much better for them -maybe even for the whole world, who knows what Elias is thinking?- if they'd let him in the Lonely.

It's tough to voice that aloud however, with Gerry's arms around him and Jon tucked so perfectly under his chin. Their presence hurts, but Martin hasn't felt this much like himself ever since Tim first came, and he knows he needs them here precisely for this reason. Without the Lonely's overbearing, suffocating presence all around him, it's all too easy to see just how close he came to losing himself.

"...I've missed you," Martin says in the end, probably long past the time they've stopped waiting for an answer. Still, it's the truth, and Martin's spent so long denying it that it feels almost like another lie. He tightens his arms around Jon, partly to check if he's allowed, but mostly to confirm he's actually real and there.

Gerry clears his throat a little. "Would you like me to leave you two alone?" he asks quietly.

'You found me,' Martin wants to say. 'You found me, and you didn't let go, why would I want you to leave?'

Words are still difficult though, especially with the fog still trying to pull at him, yelling at him from all sides that he doesn't matter, that they saved him out of some misguided sense of heroism, and not any particular interest for him. That it is he who is intruding, that they could've lost each other, and it would've been his fault.

Martin shakes his head and shifts to lean a bit more comfortably on his shoulder. His neck is already starting to smart from bending down, but even the pain is a blessing, a reminder that he's alive, that he's human and can feel things, good and bad.

The faint scent of lavender drifting up from Gerry's hair and Jon's comforting weight in his arms are grounding. Soothing.

"Martin?!" Tim's arrival is heralded by the room growing warmer, as if to chase away the remnants of the fog that clings to Martin's tired bones. "Fuck. You're- are you alright?"

"Right as rain," Martin rasps out, cracking an eye open -when did he close them?- to look up at him. Even splashed in blood and dirt, Tim's a sight for sore eyes, the concern in his gaze so simple and sincere not even the Lonely can twist it into loathing. "What are the bags for?"

"Management said you had too many vacation days saved up," Tim croaks with a laugh just this side of hysterical. "We booked you a holiday."

And Martin would like to respond to the joke, he really would, but his eyelids are growing heavy with exhaustion, and it's all he can do to aim a smile -who knew he could still do that?- his way, before he lets go.

"You have to get away before he comes back-" is the last he hears Basira say.

It's not over, he remembers, they're not done. But for the time being, they're all together and they're safe, and Martin is here because they want him to; it still feels like a lie, but nothing else makes sense and he has to allow the tentative, absurd hope that it might be true.

Martin decides that, maybe for once, the rest can wait.

Chapter 20

Notes:

Hey y'all, sorry for the late update. I didn't forget lol I've just been feeling sorta off with the end of the year coming and everything.

Hope this brings you some joy

Chapter Text

 

XX

Probably due to the Distortion's influence, Gerry's eyes take a bit longer than usual to adapt to the darkness. The first thing that hits him is the scent of grass and wet dirt, and he gives Jon a quizzical look as he hears Helen's door close behind them.

"One of- of Daisy's safehouses," Jon responds to the unspoken question. The name is drenched in so many feelings it's difficult to separate just one, but the overall taste is grief, and Gerry has to agree. It's always painful to lose someone to the worst parts of themselves. "Are- do you need help?"

Gerry snorts. "Sure, let's trade," he jokes, shifting Martin on his back. He can't really see Jon rolling his eyes, but he's fairly sure it's happening just from the scoff in the dark.

"You're hilarious."

"One of my many talents. Just- will there be a place for him to sleep? I wouldn't want to put him on the floor." As his vision grows used to the darkness, he can see the faint outline of a small cottage on their left, and the irregular shapes of bushes and other plants all around them. Behind them is a little stone fence with a wrought iron gate, which he supposes is the door Helen brought them through.

"I- yes. There's- there's a bed. And a couch." Out the corner of his eye, he sees Jon bend down and tilt a flowerpot to retrieve something from underneath. "Both are comfortable enough."

"Good. It probably isn't a great idea to leave him alone tonight," Gerry says carefully as Jon pushes the key in the lock. Martin will have to forgive him the awkwardness of waking up in bed with them.

"Yes, I didn't think so. The bed is- it's not big enough, but- well, the one at the flat wasn't either."

Gerry smiles, and he leans down to press a kiss to Jon's temple in the penumbra of the cottage. "That's the spirit."

And in they go, and they spend most of the night making sure the cottage is somewhat livable, before crawling into bed.

"So you killed him?" Gerry asks a few hours later. The first suggestion of morning light is already filtering through the clouded windows, and he finds a certain feeling of peace in the sound of Martin's quiet, steady breathing. Between them, with their joined hands resting on his stomach, Martin sleeps still; he looks a bit grey still, but he's still breathing and he's still there, and that's what really matters.

"I did. It- he wouldn't have let me reach you otherwise." Jon exhales slowly. "I'm- I know I shouldn't have-"

"Jon, I promised Lukas months ago that if you didn't kill him, I would. You just... stole my shot, I suppose." Gerry shrugs. He can feel Jon's gaze glued to his face though, and he sighs. "Listen, I'm not about to condone you killing people, you know that. But- I don't think we could've saved Martin if you hadn't gotten rid of him."

"Maybe you could've pulled him out."

"And maybe it would've pulled me in instead." Gerry shrugs again. "We don't know what could've happened Jon, only what did, and what happened is that you saved Martin. That's- don't forget about that."

"I don't. I can't." Jon sighs, and Gerry pushes up on his elbow to look at him. He's looking at Martin's face like a bird would at the sky, and Gerry finds himself smiling fondly at the sight. "I guess- I guess we were lucky you decided to hound him after I went into the coffin, huh?"

"A kindred spirit, I had to help. Just two idiots moping after the same, bigger idiot."

"You two do have terrible luck when it comes to crushes, I suppose." Jon says it lightly, with a small, crooked smile on his lips. Gerry still doesn't particularly like the aftertaste of the words.

"Nothing to do with luck," he says, shrugging. "Loving you is a conscious choice, Jon. You can ask him when he wakes up, if you don't believe me."

"I'm- I think that would be too forward."

Gerry rolls his eyes. "You're ridiculous."

"You're ridiculous."


When Martin wakes up, his first thought is that he feels warm.

It's something he hasn't felt in a while, since his connection to the Lonely became strong enough that not even Tim's presence was enough to fend off the cold.

The bed below him is soft and comfortable enough, but unfamiliar still. It's been a long time since he's woken up on a stranger's bed -it always made him feel worse the next day-, but what surprises him the most is the feeling of the two bodies pressed up against his sides.

And then it all starts coming back.

He opens his eyes slowly, follows the dust floating lazily in the air across bright beams of sunlight that paint the wooden walls gold.

"You're awake," Jon says quietly by his left.

"How are you feeling?" And that's Gerry on his right.

The warmth, the peace, the quiet concern in their words. If this is a dream then let it be so, Martin decides as he closes his eyes again.

"Alive," he says after a moment. "You- you bought me back."

"You decided to come back. It was all you, Martin." Gerry's voice is gentle, and Martin wonders for a moment how it isn't this what made it into the statements. It's always about his looks, about the cryptic knowledge he dispensed to those in need, but there's nothing about the way Gerry Keay decides that you matter, and leaves you no other choice but to believe it. "You remembered the things you love."

"I remembered I was right pissed off at you, what were you two thinking, following me in there?" Martin snaps back. His chest hurts; the Lonely keeps trying to whisper at him, how he could've been the end of them, how he dragged them into danger, isn't that just what he always does? Cause trouble and force others to help him out?

Jon sighs. "We were thinking about you, of course."

'Of course', he says. Like it was a foregone conclusion, like they didn't even have to think about it. Martin's closed eyes sting and burn a little.

"Jon?"

"Hm?"

"Am- what am I now?" Martin asks. It's a lot easier to focus on things that can be categorized, explained, that aren't just a tangle of red-hot feelings much too big for his chest. "Am I an avatar?"

Gerry shifts on the bed to press a little tighter against him. The feeling isn't entirely pleasant, because there's still a part of Martin that aches for the cool emptiness of the Forsaken. Still, he doesn't move away. He doesn't want to.

"As- as much as you can be, without dying." Jon sits up, and Martin opens his eyes again to find him looking down at him with his face alight in thinly-veiled concern. "I- Martin, you chose the Lonely."

"I did. I- I thought it would keep you safe." It didn't, of course, and he only really ended giving Jon the last of his marks.

"I think you'd be the first and only person to ever have chosen the Forsaken out of love." Gerry chuckles and sits up as well. "You just like breaking the rules, don't you?"

"Like- like you're one to talk," Martin croaks out. The two of them are backlit by the early morning sun, like a vision, like a dream. The weight of their gazes on him is overwhelming, and it scares him a little how much he doesn't want it to stop.

"Well, maybe Jon here just has a type." Gerry smirks, and he leans down to press a kiss to a sputtering Jon's cheek, before he turns and gives Martin another one of those searing seafoam gazes. "Get some more rest, I'll go see what we're working with."

The bed bounces a little when he climbs to his feet, and the door to the little bedroom squeaks closed behind him, leaving the two of them alone and in a dense, loaded silence.

"Oh, and talk a little!" Comes muffled through the door, Gerry's voice tinted with unmistakable amusement, before his footsteps fade away.


"...I feel like we've been tricked, somehow," Martin mumbles after a couple seconds.

Jon lets out something between a snort and a sigh. "I think this might be payback for hoisting Tim on him after the hunters came," he confesses. This still feels unreal, that Martin is alive, that he's here, that he's not sending him away. "But I- we do need to talk. Not- not now, if you don't want to. I mean it's- you're still recovering and-"

"I don't really- is there anything for us to talk about?" Martin shrugs. "He wasn't wrong, you know? I- the Lonely was always there, but I did choose it for you. Every step of the way."

Ah.

Jon sighs in a futile attempt to calm down his thundering heart, as he looks down at Martin on the bed. The soft green of his eyes is almost hypnotizing, and the streak of white in his dark hair feels like a medal, a show that he went through hell and came out stronger.

"I- can- would It be okay if I lay down with you again?" He asks. Before, it was a necessity, a measure to keep Martin grounded; this time Jon wants to do it because Martin wants him to.

"I would like that," Martin breathes out after a moment. "I- where are we?" He adds after Jon has laid down a few inches from him.

"Scotland," Jon replies. "This- it was Daisy's house."

"Was?"

"I- Daisy..." Jon cuts himself with a sigh, when words refuse to come.

"Oh, Jon..." Martin whispers, and his hand grazes against Jon's softly. "I'm- is she-"

"Not- not dead. It's- worse, I think. Basira hasn't gotten around to start tracking her, but she will soon, I suppose." And when she finds her... who knows? He can See many things, but not the strength of Basira's will.

"I'm really sorry."

"Me too. But- if anyone has a way to get her back, it'll be Basira. We just- we need to hope for the best, I think," he says. Martin's gaze is burning holes in the side of his face, and Jon turns to him with a raised eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing. It's just- it's rare to hear you be optimistic."

"...Oh." Jon feels his face heat up at the- it's not quite an accusation, but there's a little twist to the edge of Martin's lips that make it feel like so much more than just a casual remark. "I- Gerry's contagious."

"He really is." Martin shakes his head a little, rolling his eyes with a smile. It makes something unclench inside Jon's chest, until the smile starts to fade, and Martin schools his expression into a careful blank mask. "Listen, Jon- I- he wasn't wrong. What I feel for you-"

"Martin-" Jon says, his voice strained and much too weak to be heard. Sure, objectively, he knew it was very probable that Gerry was right, but- but it's still a whole other thing to hear Martin sort of say it.

"-but I'm- I know it isn't fair to expect it back, or-" Martin turns to face him, and Jon wonders once more how he ever looked into these eyes and doubted the emotions so clearly written in them. He really was dense. Is dense, probably, but he's getting better, hopefully. "I'm- I'll get out of your hair, just- go back home. Tim's there, and-"

"Martin," Jon repeats, quietly but firmly enough that Martin seems to latch on to the calm behind it. He's spent so long being afraid these past few months -these past few years-, that even Jon is a bit surprised at the peace he feels right now. "Do you want to leave?"

"I- I don't. But I- the last thing I want is to get between the two of you, Jon. I- you deserve each other," he says with such finality that Jon can guess the other half of that statement even though Martin doesn't voice it.

Jon turns his hand on the bed, so that his fingers are just the slightest bit tangled in Martin's larger ones.

"I walked into the Lonely for a reason, Martin." Jon tries a smile, and is rewarded by the slight widening of Martin's eyes, the soft parting of his lips.

"...Ah," Martin says after a moment. "But- but then-"

"Can I let you in on a secret?"

"A sec- what?" Martin frowns.

Jon leans in closer to Martin, almost close enough, if any of them were inclined. He's delighted, when Martin doesn't move back.

"Jon?"

"I think-" Jon starts in a conspiratorial whisper, very aware of how far one's voice can carry when one's connected to someone else by some uncanny Eye bond "-my boyfriend might like you too, Mister Blackwood."

Somewhere deep into the cottage, someone drops what sounds like a pan, or a pot, and Jon snorts both at Gerry's indignation and Martin's wide eyes.

"I- Jon-"

"You don't- if you want to leave, we won't stop you." Jon gives a light squeeze to the fingers trapped in his. "But we don't- we would very much like it if you'd stay with us for as long as you feel comfortable." He waits a couple seconds, before he leans in to rest his forehead against Martin's.

"I- I think I would be okay with that," Martin whispers back, his breath tickling on Jon's lips.

"That's good. I've been informed you and I can both be very stubborn, so I'm glad to hear we're on the same page."

Martin chuckles slowly, almost like he's forgotten how to do so. "Is he really one to talk, though?"

"Oh trust me, he has zero self awareness."

And that's that, Jon decides. Love is not a thing that's said, so he would very much like for a chance for it to happen.


The first few days are the weirdest by far.

They move carefully around each other, an odd tension in the air that's just waiting to break. Working around the house helps, Gerry thinks; it's difficult to worry about where you stand with someone when both of you are being berated by your terrible cleaning skills.

"I somehow didn't expect you to be so good at this," Gerry says after Jon practically wrestles the dusting cloth off his hands.

"You should've seen how I left Georgie's flat." Jon pushes some sweat-soaked locks out of his face, leaving a long streak of dust across his cheek. "Being on the run from the police is a better motivator than any playlist, if you ask me."

Gerry watches him go at the kitchen table with remember vigor, rolling his eyes with an amused snort that Martin mirrors from where he's sitting at the other side of the kitchen. He looks at him over Jon's head, surprised once again by just how comforting the green of his eyes is, and the spark of fond amusement as their gazes meet.

"How are you feeling today?" Gerry clears his throat to ask.

Martin makes a noncommittal noise, tilting his hand this way and that. "Better, with something to do. I think we'll need some groceries soon... Tim only packed food for a few days."

Gerry knows that, and Jon knows that too. None of them have been eating any more than a few bites when Martin watches them, partly because they don't need it, but mostly because Martin does, and the longer the food lasts, the longer Martin can take to recov-

"You two should go find some, actually." Jon pushes the hair out of his face again, before he huffs in frustration and ties the dusting rag on like a bandana. "It's not like you're helping here."

"Excuse me?" Gerry arches an eyebrow. "You told us to get out of your way!"

"I did not." Jon gives him a scathing look over his shoulder. Gerry winks at him. Jon quickly turns back to the table, and Gerry's stomach flips a little when he hears Martin snort again.

"It was sort of implicit," Martin says quietly. "I sort of assumed we weren't doing a good enough job for you when you took our things." And he gestures to the raggedy broom in Jon's hands, which Jon robbed him off before he went after Gerry's rag.

Jon at least has the decency to look ashamed, but he doesn't give either utensil back. "Well, it's ridiculous to have three people cleaning when there's more to be done."

And yes, they- they do need the groceries -or rather, Martin does- but still... "I would much rather not leave you alone," Gerry says.

Jon's lips curl into one of those lopsided smiles, his dark eyes looking sympathetically up at him. "I'll be fine for a few hours. And if I'm not, I'll- I'll know where you are."

"...You should ask the Eye to make you another me. That way I'd be able to keep both of you out of trouble," Gerry grumbles. It's not like he can tell Jon no anyways, and he wouldn't let Martin go out alone either.

"You? Really?" Martin asks dryly from his end of the table. Gerry tries to focus on Jon's shit-eating grin even as he feels Martin's eyes burning holes on the side of his face.

"All I'll say-" Gerry lifts his hands in surrender. "Is that out of the three of us, I'm the only one that has never pissed off an avatar so much that they've gotten thrown into an alternate dimension."

"I'm pretty sure Peter was about to. And Simon too." Martin shrugs.

Jon scowls. "Wait, Sim- Simon Fairchild? Why would Simon Fairchild want to send you into the Vast?"

Oh. Oh yeah, he didn't-

"I'll go get our jackets." 

"You didn't tell him?!" Martin's voice is somewhere between scandalized and delighted as Gerry retreats from the kitchen in a hurry.


"I thought he didn't need to sleep," Martin whispers. The fire they built in the tiny chimney crackles happily, warming them just enough that Martin himself starting to get drowsy.

Jon looks up from Gerry's head on his lap, his hands stilling on the small braid he's weaving by his temple. "He doesn't. He just likes it."

"And you don't? Martin asks. Gerry has, as usual, taken up most of the sofa, which means Jon is pressed flush against Martin's side, and his presence there is a lot more warming than the fire.

"Not with all the nightmare eating, I don't particularly enjoy it." Jon snorts and goes back to his braid, leaving Martin entirely at a loss as to what he should answer.

There's a long moment in which the only sounds in the room are their breathing and the crackle of the fire, before Jon speaks again.

"I'm- that was a joke."

"O- oh."

"...Sorry," Jon adds a bit more quietly.

"I- no need to be sorry. I-" What could Martin possibly say? That sometimes he forgets he and Jon don't actually know each other? He should say something about how he'll try harder, how he wishes he clicked with him as easily as Gerry does, how he's been trying -and failing- to understand the mystery that is Jonathan Sims since that morning years ago when he came to the Institute expecting to be berated for being stupid enough to get trapped at his flat by the very things he was sent to investigate, and was instead offered sympathy -however clumsy it was- and a safe place to stay.

He really shouldn't be here.

This place, this- this little pocket far from the world that they've found for themselves, this is the only place where the two of them can be safe. He's just intruding-

"Martin," Jon whispers. His voice is careful, soft. His fingers are tense where they're buried in Gerry's ink-black hair.

"Hm?" Martin asks. There's an odd reverberation to his voice, and the room feels like it's grown colder, even though the fire burns bright still.

"I- you're- stay with me, please." The end of Jon's sentence curls up like a question, and Martin arches an eyebrow. "Your- look at your hands."

He does, and then he's looking straight through them, at his lap and the sofa beneath him.

"Oh. I- l don't know what to do." Martin not quite asks, feeling the comforting numbness of the Lonely drape over him like a blanket, drowning even the fear at the thought of curling mist and empty space, so empty, forever.

"Wh- what do you need to hear?" Jon's voice is tinted with the slightest bit of compulsion, and Martin feels the truth escape him before he can even think the words.

"That I'm wanted here. That I matter." Ah, he thinks as he watches something wash over Jon's face. This is- it's pretty pathetic.

"Hm. I-" Jon clears his throat. "I'm not terribly good at this. I wish- I wish you could compel me instead."

"What would you say?" asks that little, treacherous part of Martin that doesn't quite want to go.

Jon's gaze lifts to his again, his eyes fading back into the usual, beautiful dark brown after the compulsion.

"I'd say you are loved. But I'd also- I think I'd also say that you are worth so much more than the love others bear you, and- and that I'd be very glad to remind you of that as many times as it's needed."

It isn't a compelled confession of course, it could never be. It maybe feels a lot more sincere because of that.

This is not the truth torn out by force, but one freely given by a man who has decided Martin is worth all the trouble he brings.

Pushing the Lonely away hurts, and all his feelings returning at once is both dizzying and overwhelming, but Martin is glad to feel the numbness go.

He is even more glad, when Jon's head leans on his shoulder, and one of his hands leaves its nest in Gerry's hair to come to tangle in one of Martin's own.

"Thank you," he whispers, squeezing back at Jon's thin fingers.

Jon's grip tightens, and Martin's heartbeat speeds up when his hand is brought up to a pair of chapped lips, and a kiss is pressed to his knuckles.


Gerry's always faintly aware of where Jon is, like a bird that knows where it nests no matter how many turns it takes. Even now as he fades back into consciousness, he's able to feel Jon's presence, steady and calm by his side.

"You watch us a lot," he says, feeling his lips curl into that easy smile Jon always brings out of him.

"Isn't that my job description?" Jon asks, and Gerry snorts, opening his eyes. "I just- I shouldn't sleep. And sometimes I just need to remind myself you're safe."

Gerry lifts a hand to cup the side of Jon's face. "He's recovering well enough."

"I meant you too, you know?" Jon says dryly. Gerry frowns a little, confused.

"Me?"

Jon gives a long-suffering sigh -which Gerry thinks is incredibly hypocritical of him- before he slides down the bed to lay down flush against him.

"I was worried about you too, when I got to the Panopticon," he whispers, his words punctuated by Martin's soft snoring. "You were just there, unconscious. Bleeding."

Oh, Gerry thinks. He's not sure why the thought is so surprising, but for some reason he never stopped to think that Jon had been as worried for him as he was for Martin, in that moment.

"I was fine. I-"

"I thought I had lost both of you." Jon rests his hand on Gerry's chest, right where his heart doesn't beat. It burns, and it's heavy in a way Gerry knows has nothing to do with its actual mass. He doesn't think anyone has ever been concerned about losing him before.

"Never," Gerry whispers after a moment. "Not if I have any say in the matter."

"What if you don't? The Eye-"

"Didn't you say so yourself? I'm not the Eye's, Jon. I'm yours." Gerry scowls up at the wooden ceiling like he could glare a hole through it and at the Watcher itself. "I'm here to stay, for as long as you want me."

"I'm- that's good." Jon swallows heavily. "I think I will want you for a very long time."


"He's been gone for a while," Martin comments. Jon looks up from the book he's reading, only to find Martin leaning on the mossy stone fence to look down the road that leads to the town.

He closes his eyes for a brief moment, before he climbs to his feet and walks over to him.

"He's alright," he says as he comes to lean on the fence as well, pressing himself against Martin's side. "He's looking for a shop that carries his brand of hair dye."

Martin snickers above him, which Jon finds warming enough to ignore the cold countryside breeze. If he finds himself leaning back even further, and Martin shifting to let him lean on his chest instead, it's nobody's business but their own.

"Is he really?"

"I'm afraid so. And let me warn you, he's a mess. Mark my words, I'm going to end up doing it myself, unless we want the bathroom turning into a crime scene." Jon gives a long-suffering sigh, and is rewarded by the rumbling of Martin's chest as he laughs again.

"I could help. I've never done it before, but it sounds fun." There's a slight questioning to the offer, like Martin is testing the waters, or expecting to be refused.

Jon turns around without stepping back, bringing a hand up to rest on Martin's shoulder. Martin's eyes are fixed on him, their colors a perfect mix of the vibrant grass and the stormy sky behind him.

He will probably never be free of the Forsaken's influence, but for the time being he wants to be here with him. With them.

"I would love that. I'm sure he would too."

"You think?" Martin is leaning down in a way that feels almost subconscious, that indicates Jon might be something to be desired rather than feared. Jon finds it utterly intoxicating.

"I know." He wishes for a moment Martin, like Gerry, could feel the truth in his words. Since it's not the case, he figures he'll have to settle for repeating it as many times as it needs to sink in. "Martin?"

"Hm?" Martin asks. Jon curls the hand in his sweater into a fist. Martin leans down a bit more.

There's something to be said about the quiet loneliness of the countryside, and how nobody hears the seams on Martin's sweater strain. No one sees any kiss that may or may not occur, and if there is a single tear running down a round cheek after it, no one is there to witness Jon wiping it away.

It is a good kind of isolation, one that feels safe, because they're together.


They two of them are a lot more relaxed around each other, Gerry's noticed. Martin still walks into rooms like he's intruding, Jon still treats the two of them like they're made of glass, like they could disappear if he's not keeping an eye on them, but they're getting better.

Jon fits in Martin's arms like he was made to be there, Gerry thinks. Far from any bad feelings, it ignites in his chest a fierce rush of fondness, and no small amount of protectiveness.

They deserve to be like this forever, with him watching only from as far as the other end of the sofa, with Martin smoothing his thumb over the eye on Gerry's ankle that's resting on Jon's lap.

It's cosy and warm and normal, and as much as Gerry yearned for it, the sheer amount of comfort he feels sitting here is enough to scare him. Which makes him slip back into the safe, well known space of teasing Jon.

"-u should've seen him," Gerry continues with a smile. "It was always 'no Gerry, it's selfish of me to care about Martin and I'm the worst person in history' and 'Martin is doing this to save the world, it has nothing to do with me because again, I'm the worst person in history', was he like this before?"

Gerry catches Jon glaring at him, and he gives him a scrunched nose smile and a blown kiss. He goes red in two seconds flat; works like a charm every time.

"Oblivious?" Martin smiles softly -everything Martin does is soft, Gerry's constantly marvelled at how a person that has been hurt so much can still find kindness in himself for others. "Sort of. Did he tell you about the time he thought I was a ghost?"

Jon groans and turns to hide his face against Martin's shoulder, which immediately has Gerry straightening up in interest.

"You know he didn't. Tell me all about it."


The kitchen smells heavenly when Martin steps in, and he finds Gerry already perched on one of the chairs, looking expectantly at-

"You can cook?" Martin blurts out before he can stop himself. Gerry chuckles at Jon's flinch, leaning against Martin's side when he comes close enough to where he's sitting. It's- he's incredibly tactile, Martin was surprised to discover. He wonders if it caught Jon off-guard too at first, to be touched so casually. Personally, Martin likes it, and he likes it a lot more because every touch burns a bit more of the Lonely away.

"You don't have to sound so surprised." Jon turns to face them wielding a scowl and a wooden ladle. "I'm a grown man."

"Well you did invest weeks into convincing us you stabbed yourself with a bread knife, forgive me for believing you." Martin smiles.

"I want to hear that one," Gerry pipes up, wrapping an arm around Martin's waist. "So? What's for dinner?"

"Just some beef stew." Jon steps a bit closer, and Gerry leans forward, lips parted. "You're ridiculous. You don't even need to eat," he says, but he gets the ladle close enough that Gerry can close his lips around the edge.

It's a bit odd to see Jon interacting so easily with someone, when he's usually so guarded. It's... a good look. They look comfortable together. He's thought that ever since he found them sleeping at the Archives that night after the coffin, though back then it hadn't brought him the warmth it does now.

"Whoa, this is really good." Gerry's eyebrows rise up his forehead. "You're full of secrets, Mr. Sims."

"Again, no need to sound so surprised." Jon rolls his eyes, but Martin's lips twitch at the satisfied smile on his face. "Anyways, it's about ready. Do you want to eat now?"

Martin is so busy watching Gerry make faces at Jon that it takes him a moment to realize the question is aimed at him.

"Oh, I'm- I could eat, but are you two... oh." Martin fidgets a little when something clicks in his mind. "Is this for me?"

"Huh?" Jon looks up from where he's scowling at Gerry's faces, looking a bit confused. "I made enough for three."

"Yes but- you two don't really... you know." Martin makes a vague gesture, between the two of them and the pot boiling happily on Daisy's little stove.

"Oh. Well, no." Jon shrugs. "We can, but we don't need to."

"Then why-"

"It's not about the food." Gerry pats Martin's hip before he climbs up to his feet. "It's about you." And he just up and walks away to grab three bowls from the cupboard, leaving the two of them staring at each other in loaded silence.

Jon clears his throat, averting his gaze. "He's right, you know?"

Martin feels his face heat up. After embracing the Lonely so closely, it's still overwhelming to have all these emotions so close to the surface all the time. Did he feel this much before, or is his- his mind, his heart, making up for all the time he wouldn't let it feel anything?

"I'm- thank you."

Jon smiles, small, lopsided and sweet, and Martin feels his heart flutter in his chest a little. "Anytime."

The stew is surprisingly good, Martin discovers a couple moments later, and he makes sure to voice his appreciation after the first few spoonfuls.

Jon rolls his eyes and scoffs, but Martin can see the pleased smile he hides behind his chipped mug, and he knows he will gladly spend the rest of his life complimenting Jon only to see that view.

"I'm- it's good to know you like it. I haven't had anyone to cook for in a while," Jon mumbles quietly.

"Are you kidding me? This is some good stuff." Gerry taps the spoon against his bottom lip with a clink of metal on metal. "I never learned to cook."

Martin arches an eyebrow. Gerry doesn't seem like the kind of person to depend on someone else for something as basic as feeding. "How come?" he asks, and it's only then that he catches the slight head shake Jon is giving him.

"Bad mum, no dad." Gerry shrugs, and oh. "I'm sure you can relate."

Martin freezes, eyes wide. It's- he definitely can, but he's never- Gerry says it so carelessly, like it has no weight at all, even when Martin knows perfectly well Elias used it against him before... which he can also relate to.

"That's one way of putting it." Martin snorts before he can stop himself. Out the corner of his eye, he can see Jon relax as well, once it's clear none of them took it the wrong way. "In my defense though, I learned to cook on my own after I grew up. What's your excuse?"

"Spooky books. Never really had much time, I lived on what was cheap and quick." Gerry winks, giving them a smug grin. "I guess you two will just have to take care of me."

Martin rolls his eyes "Or you know, teach you." He taps at Gerry's nose with the back of his spoon, and smiles fondly when said nose is scrunched at him.

Jon just watches them like one would a sunset, and Martin's heart gives another jump. He just might be able to get used to this.


There's a single beam of moonlight filtering through the window, painting a stark white line over the two sleeping forms before him.

Jon watches them from the other side of the bed, immobile in his fear of waking them up.

He drinks in the sight of them like a dry field drinks up rain after a drought; Gerry's brow finally relaxed in his sleep, his head resting on Martin's shoulder, his hair a tangled puddle of black against Martin's off-white sleeping shirt. His hand resting over Martin's heart, like he'd been counting the beats to fall asleep.

Martin's nose is buried in Gerry's hair, and Jon feels a soft pang of excitement, when he realizes he's not the only one that finds safety in the faded scent of lavender anymore, when he notices Martin's free hand is stretched towards him, and that he's allowed, encouraged even, to grab that hand, to press up against them and take comfort in the warmth of their bodies.

Instead, he watches. This should be what his powers are about, he thinks wistfully. What wouldn't he give, to Know love instead of fear; to build an Archive out of the memories of these two.

Write a thousand statements about the feeling of their fingers in his hair, the soft pressure of their lips on his skin, the lazy smiles every morning, the quiet snoring that lulls him to peace during those precious nights he's allowed to sleep. Perhaps Martin is rubbing off on him, Jon thinks, but they deserve it. They deserve to be the subject of a thousand poems, after fighting tooth and nail for their happiness, and finding it in a small cottage where their only problem is that the bathtub isn't big enough for the three of them.

The world is still threatening to fall down around them, but it can wait. It can wait until this becomes the new normal, until they can go out and fight again, with the thought of coming home as their fuel.

There's a well known click under the bed, and Jon smiles, chuckling.

"I don't think so," he whispers. "I think... I'd rather tell them when they're awake."

The tape recorder clicks again almost sullenly, but Jon pays it no mind. The time for secrets is over, and the promise of waking up to them again and again, of mapping their every reaction for the rest of his life... that feels like a happy ending.

Chapter 21

Notes:

'sup

Sorry I can't really keep up with a consistent posting schedule anymore

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

 

XXI

Martin doesn't wake up with a start. His heart isn't hammering in his chest and his breathing isn't shallow and hurried; his nightmares are not the kind that makes you feel in danger, the kind your body wants to wake up from.

They're... gentle.

Calm walks down into a soft grey expanse where he knows nothing can hurt him, because he is alone asides from his thoughts, and the sadness that permeates his every step.

He guesses it must show somehow when he's dreaming of the Lonely, because he usually wakes up to Jon or Gerry's gently concerned voices, and a hand nudging at his shoulder until he decides it's time to come back.

Funnily enough, it's the lack of those what does it this time; if neither of the two is waking him up, that means it's one of those rare, blessed nights in which the three of them were able to sleep, and they're going to be pretty sad if they wake up and find that Martin dreamt himself into the Lonely.

He wants to think they'd be at least, even if it's a bit selfish.

It's with that want that he opens his eyes to the darkness of the bedroom, and he turns to Jon with a slow-spreading smile when he hears him muttering something about a cat in his sleep. He doesn't Watch people's nightmares on the nights Gerry feeds him, and it's nice to know he's just having a regular dream. It feels... normal. Like what Martin wants the rest of their lives to be.

He looks over Jon's shoulder, to see how Gerry's doing, and his stomach flips when he notices the man is not in bed with them.

It's okay, it doesn't have to be something ominous, Martin thinks. His heartbeat is speeding up now though, as he climbs off the bed and investigates the empty bathroom, before risking the rest of the cottage. People go for midnight snacks, that's a normal thing to do. Even if Gerry doesn't get hungry, he still likes to eat.

He jokes and says it makes him feel like a person, though Martin thinks he's the most human of the three of them, whenever he watches him hold Jon in his arms, looking down at the man like he's surprised he's still there, and the soft light of the cottage projecting a golden hue over his dark hair, making Martin's hands itch for a notepad and a pen.

His stomach knots tighter and tighter over itself, when he moves down the corridor towards the kitchen, and finds the entire cottage is encased in darkness.

"Martin?" a voice asks from the pitch-black kitchen, and Martin jumps, his chest flooding with the mix of exasperation and relief that has become synonym with Gerry in his mind.

"Why are you in the dark?" Martin asks, his voice soft. It feels important, for some reason, that they don't disturb the silence too much. As Martin's eyes get accustomed to the darkness, he can make out Gerry's form against the far end of the kitchen, his hair messed from restless sleep, his face tired, a steaming mug in his hand.

"Don't need it to see," Gerry whispers back with a shrug. "Why are you up?"

Martin makes his way over to him, leans on the counter by his side. It's hard to say if Gerry's radiating warmth, or if Martin is just too cold. "Nightmares."

"...Ah. Sorry." Gerry reaches over to place his mug on the table, and turns to face Martin. "Are you- I could make you a cup of tea. Can't promise it'll be any good, though."

His tone is genuinely apologetic, and Martin feels his lips curl into a smile. "Well, you had to be bad at something, didn't you?"

"Is my lack of tea-brewing ability a deal-breaker?" Gerry's voice carries the hint of a smile now, and his fingers brush against Martin's on the counter. "I'm willing to take some lessons, if that's the case. I happen know the perfect teacher."

"It apparently isn't a deal breaker, because you're both hopeless at it." It's mind-blowing, to think they're just... here.

Alive, standing at the kitchen in the middle of the night, the scent of coffee curling around them like a blanket as they make quiet jokes about a relationship that they haven't discussed, but that is somehow there anyways. The tension of looks exchanged over Jon's head, of brushes of skin that feel loaded with electricity and the knowledge that the other will be there, steady and reliable like the sunrise every morning.

"Well... the offer still stands, or if you want some of my coffee-"

"I shouldn't." Martin shakes his head. "It gives me anxiety, and I was hoping to go back to sleep."

"Oh." Gerry looks sideways and up at him, looking at a loss of what to do. Martin finds it endearing; of course Gerry can't deal with the thought of not fixing something; can't even fathom the thought that just his presence is doing wonders to ground him. "Can I do something, then?"

Martin looks down at him, at the faintest gleam of moonlight that comes across the dusty windows -they need to clean that before Jon takes it upon himself to do it- to only insinuate the beautiful mix of blue and green of his sweet, concerned eyes.

"You could kiss me, Mister Keay."

The embarrassment of being so blunt is more than worth it, when Gerry's eyes fly wide open, and a surprised chuckle escapes him, almost sounding like it was punched out of him.

"I- would that help?" he asks, but he can't keep the smile off his lips and Martin is so taken by the sight of him that he nearly leans down to do it himself.

"I think there's one way to find out." Martin smiles.

Gerry's hands are careful when they finally land on him; one on the back of his neck, one on his cheek, just like he's seen him touch Jon a handful of times before they kiss. Martin's heartbeat speeds up, and he might be drunk on the feeling already, the thought of being wanted almost as intoxicating as its counterpart.

He lets himself be pulled down, lets his face be tilted to the side, and the hand on his cheek pushes his glasses up his forehead so they don't get in the way.

It's a bit poetic, to kiss this ghost of pain and ink and love under the quiet glow of moonlight, and know that the only lonely thing in this kitchen is the mug of coffee cooling on the table.

They separate slowly, like waking up on a lazy morning, and Martin's wet lips tingle with want and with the weight of words it's far too soon to say.

"Did that help?" Gerry sounds cocky and pleased, but also a little bit breathless, and Martin rolls his eyes as a wave of warmth washes over him.

"You know, I'm not so sure," Martin taps a finger against his chin. "We might have to try again to confirm."

Gerry laughs quietly, probably to avoid waking Jon up, Martin thinks, and the words threaten to spill from his lips again. "Well, we have to be certain, don't we?"


"She knew these were not her children, and this was not her home. But they kept calling her mum, and there were many, many pictures on the mantle showing the happy life they lived. Feeding the ducks at St. John's, having a picnic by the lake, playing at the beach, practically every moment of their life documented in carefully crafted snapshots. She did not remember having a spouse that captured those moments either, but surely the pictures couldn't be lying to her, could they? She'd had a bad night's sleep, she was confused, and she needed to make breakfast for her children, what kind of mother would let them go hungry? She swore she'd never be like her own." Gerry readjusts his arms as Jon shifts on his chest in seek of a more comfortable position, and he reaches forward to kiss the crown of his head before continuing. "She started breakfast as she usually did, eggs on toast, and two slices of grilled ham, one for her and one for Dusty. Her hands stilled over the sizzling pan as she contemplated the name that felt so natural in her mind but that didn't fit with the reality she was currently living. She had two children, a house, and a lovely spouse with a lens for a face. She did not have a playful little mutt with ash-colored fur and a long lolling tongue, always with a chewed up stick by his awkardly large paws-"

"So what you're saying is you can escape the fears with the power of quiche and the power of puppies?" Martin asks, his voice tinged with amusement.

"That's exactly what I'm getting from it too, Martin, thank you." Jon snorts, and Gerry squeezes him in retaliation before looking at Martin. He finds him by the window, sitting at the little table they dragged there, with a notepad and a steaming cup of tea before him.

"Don't encourage him, that's how you end up having to pull him from coffins and alternate dimensions."

"In his defense, it was hardly his fault that he got hit on the face with that bat."

"See? Martin knows when things are my fault, that one wasn't."

"The coffin was definitely your fault, though." Martin points at him with the spoon he used to stir some sugar into his drink. "Is this a mixed one?"

"It definitely sounds like it. Spiral, Stranger, Eye... I'm thinking it's the house itself." Jon shifts some more on his chest to look at Martin too, before squeezing Gerry's forearm. "We'd known if someone would just finish the statement."

"So demanding." Gerry rolls his eyes.

"The hungry, hungry Archivist," Martin mutters under his breath as he blows on his cup of tea, and Gerry snorts over Jon's offended 'Martin!'. It's- it's good to see Marting feeling comfortable enough to joke around. "Sorry, sorry! Finish it, I didn't mean to interrupt."

"Don't apologize," Gerry chuckles. "Where was I?"

"The power of puppies," Jon grumbles.

"I'm going to stop feeding you, sir."


"You should treat me to lunch or something, I've been sitting on a bus for eleven hours," Tim groans as he stretches his arms over his head to pop the kinks in his back.

"That's kind of your fault though," Martin chuckles. His shoulder feels cold where he bumps it against Tim's, a reminder that none of them really escaped the Institute intact. "You could've come through Helen."

"And miss the chance to feel like a regular human being? Martin, please." Tim bumps his shoulder right back as they walk down the main street. The little town is quaint and quiet, picturesque in a way Tim knows both Martin and Jon are suckers for, which he supposes is good enough. Martin deserves to end his story in a place like this. "How have you been?"

"Hm? Oh, we've- we're doing well. It's- it's good. We're good." There's a spot of color to Martin's face when he smiles, and Tim rolls his eyes. "What?"

"You've really got the worst taste in men, it explains why you were never into me."

"I hope you'll be able to forgive me," Martin laughs. "How are things back home?"

Tim shrugs, shifting the cardboard box he's carrying to support it on his hip instead. "It's going. Elias is still nowhere to be found, not that the police are really looking for him anyways. Basira could probably find him, but she's got other things to worry about now."

Martin lets out a slow exhale, his shoulders growing a bit heavier. "Still no luck with Daisy?"

"She knows how to find her just fine, and Daisy's leaving a trail of dead avatars that's pretty clear to follow even for regular people." Tim sighs as well, running a hand through his hair. "Daisy moves too fast though. There's no way to predict where she's going next, she's not following any pattern."

"Yeah... Jon said as much. He's tried- he says the things he Sees in her mind make no sense, it's all impulse and instinct, nothing logical that he could understand."

"That sounds about right," Tim mutters. The thing that broke out of Daisy's skin, that launched down the tunnels in a clash of claws and fangs and blood along with the other two... he doubts there's much human thinking going on with any of the hunters right now. "I suppose it's not too bad as long as she's only hunting avatars, isn't it?"

"I don't know," Martin says quietly. "I don't- things don't feel as black and white anymore, if you ask me."

Tim snorts.

"Some of your best friends are avatars?" He asks. Martin arches an eyebrow, giving him a pointed look, and Tim feels the teasing smirk on his face turn pleased instead. "Yeah. Okay."

The rest of the way goes by in silence, until Martin points ahead at a little cottage a few ways away, and speeds his pace almost imperceptibly, much to Tim's amusement.

The place looks nice enough, a little stone fence with a wrought iron gate and a path made of stepping stones leading to a door whose blue paint has long since chipped and faded under sun and wind and rain. It looks... inoffensive, a little slice of the countryside to escape the chaos of the city, or whatever terrible plans your eldricht monster of a boss has weaved for you. Cozy and warm and welcoming, a place where one could make a home.

Martin pushes the door open, and Tim freezes at the very familiar scent coming from inside.

"...Tim?" Martin turns back to look at him when he doesn't follow him in. "What's wrong?"

How to explain it to Martin that nothing is wrong, or rather nothing he can put to words?

He remembers this smell, and the last time he felt it, the sound of rain spattering on the windows, and a movie on the background. He remembers teasing (back when he thought he was healing, that maybe one day there would be more to his life than just mourning his brother) about feeling like he was being set up for something, and then the hurried announcement and yes, don't be ridiculous, of course I'll move to the Archives with you, does that mean I have to call you boss now?

The thrill of being a safe space for someone, even broken as he was.

"Tim, are you-"

"Martin? Did you bring- oh." Jon stops just short of actually stepping out of the kitchen, looking at him like he's a ghost and the Desolation inside him burns, though whether it's Jon's sorrow or his own that he's feeding off of is anyone's best guess. "I'm- hi."

I hate you. I miss you.

"Hey," Tim pushes through a dry throat. "You- you made barg?"

Jon nods slowly. "I understand, if you don't want to eat with m-"

"It would be very stupid, though," interrupts a third voice, and Gerry's stepping out into the living room from somewhere deeper into the cottage. "You'd have to go all the way back to town to find yourself a sandwich or something. You look like crap, but I guess a long bus ride will do that to anyone, even fear avatars huh?"

His voice is somewhat terse, and Tim wonders if he can feel the hurt in Jon's voice just as intensely as Tim himself can. The air in the room grows heavy as every eye settles on Tim, waiting for him to reply.

"I'm- yeah. I think I'll ask Helen to give me a ride back. I can stay in her for a while to make it up to her," he says finally. Things are never going to be the same. Tim doesn't want them to be the same. The friendship they shared once was rooted in pain too, but this is different. "I could eat something, I guess."

It takes him a while to bring it up, but he finally gathers his thoughts enough to do it  later that night, after they've had dinner and cleared the plates away.

"I'm- I brought some statements," he says.

"Oh?" Martin arches an eyebrow where he's dropping an armful of blankets and a pillow on the sofa.

Tim averts his eyes.

"I just- I know you have other ways to feed now, but I thought it would be a good idea to keep your boyfriend from running dry too soon." He can feel their eyes on him, but he keeps his gaze on the little radio on the table by the window. "We don't want you going out to hunt random people."

"Thank you, Tim." Jon says quietly, carefully. Tim doesn't have to look up to guess Jon isn't looking at him either, or the small lopsided smile.

"Hm," he says. "Dinner- it was good. Thank you."


"Gerry? Martin wants to know if- what are you doing?" Jon's words taste like surprise and laughter, like warm honey, like so many emotions Gerry has never had aimed at him before, and that feel like coming home. "You've got dirt on your nose."

Gerry looks up to find Jon leaning out the open window, looking down at him with bright eyes and a brighter smile. He's suddenly very aware of how he must look, the aforementioned dirt on his nose, and his hair done up into a messy bun to keep it out of his face, kneeling on the ground with a pile of badly pulled weeds by his side.

"I'm- I've never had a garden before." Gerry shrugs. It's not so much the words he's embarrassed about, but the implications. Like painting the door, like oiling the gate, building a garden is not something one does for a temporary place. "I just thought it would be fun to try- whoa, careful!"

He reaches up to hold Jon's forearm as he all but climbs out the window and comes to crouch down by his side.

"Have you started thinking about what you will plant yet?" Jon asks. There's not a hint of compulsion in the question, despite his eyes lighting up with the eerie green of his powers. "Maybe a raspberry bush, carrots... some potatoes later on?"

Gerry snorts. "Did you just use the Beholding to Know what veggies we could grow?"

"It's high time it was useful for something." Jon shrugs, giving him a coy little grin. When Gerry reaches over to pull him against his chest he comes easily enough, laughing. "You're going to get dirt on me."

"Get used to it." Gerry presses a kiss to his cheek. "I love you."

Jon turns his head then, to kiss the corner of his lips. "I love you too," he says.

The words pour into Gerry like warm water over a sore muscle, and they settle in his chest right where his heart should be, bright and warm and so sweet with emotion that Gerry can't bring himself to answer in any way other than squeezing Jon tighter against his chest, burying his face in Jon's mess of soft dark and grey hair.

"Jon? Did you- oh!" Martin's voice says above them. Gerry looks up at him, taking in his slightly confused smile. "What's happening?"

"We're planning a garden, apparently," Jon says before Gerry can respond.

Martin's eyebrows arch, and his mouth forms a little 'o' of surprise. "That sounds lovely actually."

"Any requests?" Gerry asks. It's a bit ridiculous how happy this makes him, that the two of them just... hopped into his dumb idea. It feels hopeful, like they too want to plan for a future together.

Martin rests his chin on his crossed arms on the windowsill, and gives them a smile just the slightest bit mischievous.

"I think we should plant lavender."


"I thought you were done with the pining, sir," Gerry whispers into his ear, the grin clear in his voice.

Jon merely smiles and moves along on the sofa to make some space for him, before he turns back to look at Martin.

He's practically nose-deep in the old transistor radio they found back at the toolshed, his sleeves rolled back over his forearms and a streak of dust across his forehead where he scratched absentmindedly a few minutes ago.

"I'll give it to you, it is a nice view," Gerry adds. He's got no regards for subtlety of course, and Jon smiles wider as Martin's cheeks flush a little, though he keeps his gaze stubbornly focused on the inside of the radio. "Are you sure you don't want us to get a new one?"

"This one is perfectly good, thank you." Martin rolls his eyes. "It just needed some cleaning."

The satisfied smile on his lips when he flips the switch and the speakers crackle to life is a memory Jon will treasure for a long while.

"You continue to surprise me, mister Blackwood." Gerry chuckles. "What are we listening to?"

"I don't really- oh, this is good." Martin smiles again when the radio picks up a frequency. The music is somewhat static-y, but still recognizable as some old 70s rock. The tempo is fairly upbeat and cheerful, and Martin bounces a leg to it. "The silence was starting to get to me."

"We can't have that," Gerry nods solemnly, climbing to his feet. "C'mere."

"What?" Martin chuckles, but his hand comes to rest on Gerry's offered hand as the song picks up in rhythm.

"I'm asking you for this dance, sir." Gerry grins and pulls him up and against him in a twirl that has them tripping over each other and stumbling to regain their balance.

Jon smiles softly to himself as he watches them fall into step with each other, laughing all the way like a couple teenagers that have had one too many beers.

Gerry leans up to kiss a freckle on Martin's cheekbone, and Martin's eyes slide over to pin Jon, brighter than ever and making his heart skip a couple beats.

Jon stands no chance when large hands wrap around his wrists to yank him to his feet, but realistically, he wasn't really going to put up much of a fight.

'You can't dance and stay uptight' indeed.


"It just doesn't make too much sense, if you ask me," Melanie says. She's not terribly worried about it, but it's been on her mind for a while now. "Jon feeds from you now, Helen has me or Tim in her corridors sometimes, I don't think I've ever seen Tim feed... I thought these things forced you to hurt people. Like the Slaughter did with me."

"I don't think anyone really knows, firecracker. The entities don't come with a manual, no matter how many old idiots have tried to write one." Gerry taps her knee softly with something cold and hard, and Melanie wraps her hand around the cider can. "Jon still has statements sometimes, so he and Helen are still feeding off of other's fear. My best guess is that Tim is feeding the Desolation with his own."

"What's Tim afraid of?" Melanie arches an eyebrow, taking a sip of her drink. It's both sweet and tart on her tongue, a good contrast to the bowl of salty chips Gerry placed on her lap when they came to sit at the garden.

"Jon, mostly," Gerry grunts. "Or rather, Jon mourning the way he was before. The Desolation is about sorrow and loss too, and those two have enough of that."

"Wow, I didn't know you were still so bitter about him ruining your first date." Melanie hides her grin behind the can; she can practically see Gerry rolling his eyes from the scoff he gives next.

"I think I'm allowed to be wary of an avatar of the Desolation holding a grudge against Jon."

"Or thinking he does."

"Or thinking he does," Gerry agrees. "What I'm saying is- I don't think even the avatars themselves know how this works, asides from 'feed your entity or you'll have a bad time'. What Gertrude and Dekker knew, what I thought I knew- even what the Eye lets me Know now is very limited when it comes to this."

"What about Martin?" Melanie asks.

"What about him?" Gerry asks right back, his voice careful. Melanie rolls her eyes.

"Does he feed too?"

"Not quite," Gerry says quietly after a moment. "He's neither here nor there, you know? Lukas forced him into the Lonely, but then he chose it himself. He's like Basira, or you when you had the bullet, only there's nothing to pull out of him to fix it."

The disappointment at this fact is clear in his voice, and Melanie remembers once again the kind of person her friend is.

"I'm sure having you helps." She shrugs. "All of us, I suppose."

Including herself in it feels weird, but right. Georgie's laugh comes through the window, mixed with Jon and Martin's quieter chuckles, and a crackly radio playing old classic rock. The garden smells like moist dirt and the cool, crisp highland air, and she can hear Gerry digging around with what she guesses must be a spade.

"I wanted to kill you when I first met you, you know?" she blurts out. And now I'm here sitting with you while you work on your dumb little garden, she thinks, but doesn't say.

"I did get that impression, I don't know why. The knife, maybe." Gerry chuckles, and his spade thuds on the ground before he comes to sit against the wall with her, bumping their shoulders together. "I'm glad you didn't."

"Yeah." Melanie goes to take another sip of her cider to soothe her suddenly dry throat. She knocks her foot against Gerry's leg. "Yeah, me too."


What with his mother, his general insecurities and the whole 'comiting to the embodiment of loneliness' thing, Martin has had very few opportunities to live with people in his adult life. He's surprised to find that he likes it, despite the constant itch of frustration coming from the bits of the Forsaken buried feel within him.

There's something to be said about hearing Gerry whistling to himself as he works on the garden, or waking up from a nap to the scent of whatever Jon is cooking for supper.

There is notoriously less to be said for stepping on a wet towel at four in the morning when he's just trying to go into the bathroom to pee.

"Gerry!" he snaps, trying to keep his voice to a whisper because even if Jon isn't asleep or even in the room right now, it's four in the morning.

"Martin? What happened?" Gerry asks a second after, his voice just the slightest bit shaky still, which Martin would take pride on at any other time. "Are you okay?"

"Why do you insist on leaving your wet towels on the floor?"

"...Oh. Sorry?" Martin can practically hear Gerry's sheepish smile. "In my defense, I mostly lived in motel rooms?"

"Yes, and then you lived with Jon for like seven months." Martin rolls his eyes, straightening back up. "I'm going to have to do something about it."

"Oh, are you? What will you- oompf!" Gerry's low, teasing voice is cut short when the balled up damp towel finds its mark, and Martin closes the door to the bathroom with a satisfied smile.


"We should start thinking of what we're going to do, I think." There's something to Martin's voice when he says it that gets Gerry into high alert mode immediately, which is a bit ridiculous, considering they're standing in front of the produce rack at the farm shop while Jon chooses some vegetables.

"About what?" Gerry asks.

"Well mostly I-" Martin stops and clears his throat. "I just-"

Martin stops again, this time with a little chuckle that sounds more nervous than amused. Jon turns around, eggplant in hand and eyebrow raised questioningly.

"Martin?"

"This is probably the weirdest way I've asked 'what are we?' in my life," Martin says after a couple seconds, shaking his head with a smile. "But mostly- are we staying here? At the cottage, I mean."

Oh.

"We can't keep living off of our savings, and I somehow doubt Elias is going to keep paying me and Jon a regular salary," Martin continues far more casually now that he got past the initial awkwardness, seemingly unaware of Gerry's brain blanking. "It does get a lot cheaper with the two of you not needing to eat, but I should probably try and get a job to, you know, feed myself and the like. I guess my question is if you'd rather stay here or go back to London or...?"

Gerry feels his eyebrows raise as what Martin is asking slowly rains down on him. It's- it's one thing to entertain his normal, boring life fantasies, and another one completely to hear someone else voice them.

"Hm. I suppose we do have to return to London eventually, to help look for Daisy." Jon taps his bottom lip with the eggplant's stem. "Whether we stay there or not is another matter entirely, I suppose. I don't really have a preference, Gerry-"

"The carrots won't be ready to harvest until next year," Gerry blurts out when they both turn to look at him. It feels important, for some reason.

These past three months have been a dream, so pleasant and calm Gerry has caught himself thinking on more than one occasion that maybe- maybe he's done, and he can rest now, here at the end of the world with these two.

Maybe he's earned this.

Jon and Martin are still staring at him, the former's eyes are gleaming with something that looks like fondness, and the latter's got a hand up to hide his grin.

"I mean- we can go wherever-" as long as they're together, that is, but he's not about to say that, not after using carrots as his excuse. "Just-"

"He does have a point, Martin." Jon interrupts him with a shrug, coming closer to slot himself under Gerry's arm.

Martin nods sagely. "We can't just leave the carrots."

"Stop," Gerry snorts, shaking his head as Martin comes to lay a kiss on his forehead. I guess that's a yes on the job hunting, then. I could try to get something too."

"Huh." Martin blinks, and his shoulders shake with a little huff of laughter. "Gerry, I think you might be the one person on earth whose CV could look worse than mine, even with the unverifiable previous job."

"What a blast of an interview though, can you imagine? 'It says here you haven't had a job since... Pinhole Books around ten years ago?' 'well yes, I was off stopping terror rituals and killing people, and then I was dead for four years, but I got better.' "

"I think I'd hire you just for having the guts to lie like that," Jon says from under his arm, before accusingly pointing the eggplant at Martin. "And your previous job is hardly unverifiable. I actually think your previous boss would give you a sparkling review."

"The one you killed after he put me in a nightmare dimension?" Martin asks, an eyebrow arched and his lips curled into an amused grin.

"I'm trying to flirt with you, sir," Jon deadpans. His voice has the light, tangy aftertaste of his bittersweet jokes, and Gerry squeezes him a bit against his side.

Martin's grin turns pleased as his face colors slightly, which makes Gerry smile when he realizes Martin was just fishing for the confirmation.

"I could give you a recommendation letter too." Gerry tangles his fingers in Martin's free hand. "Martin Blackwood? Overqualified for any job you throw at him, his only areas of opportunity are the occasional arson in work premises and the fact that he's very bad at keeping people out of his office."

"Certain people," Martin says, butting his forehead against Gerry's with a smile.

"You two are ridiculous," Jon chuckles. "Let's get home already."

Home, the word rings in his chest like a bell, like the heart he wasn't given back but feels the pull of at every waking moment.

"Yeah. Let's go home."


The creature -it is shaped like a human, but the hunter knows better, can smell the monster in it- squirms and thrashes in its jaws, though what end it hopes to achieve is a mystery to the hunter, because the only thing it gets for its trouble is for said jaws to clench down tighter around it, until yellowed, long fangs pierce skin and stain red.

It tastes like dirt.

The hunter despises the taste of dirt, and even more so the feeling of it sliding down its throat, far too evocative of another time, another life that might as well have lasted forever, were it not for the prey it let escape, that for some reason came back and clung to it as tightly as the hunter now clings to its newest victim.

Deep down in the hunter's chest something sparks to life at the thought, the memory of thin hands pulling at it even as pointed stones dug into their skin. The prey has a name, or at least it used to.

The hunter shakes its head, trying to rid it if the useless, confusing thoughts.

It too had a name one day, but that does not matter now. It is the hunter, and what it does is to chase, to kill.

It lets go of the broken body between its jaws, just as another scent drifts into its nose.

The hunter changes tracks, and starts the chase again, leaving behind any thoughts of previous prey, named or not.

Jon sighs, blinking the black and white and red of Daisy's vision away.

It's nothing new, he had an inkling of what he'd See even before he looked, but it still hurts. With each day that Daisy passes under the thrall of the Hunt her mind grows more and more distant, far from any reach they could have.

They need to go back to London soon. Between himself, Basira and Gerry, they might be able to pin Daisy's location before she bounces again.

It hurts. Jon is more than aware that after so much fighting to become something else, what dragged Daisy back into the pit she promised to not to return was her fondness for him.

The darkness in the room recedes a little when he opens his eyes again, the green glow casting eerie, menacing shadows out of every unassuming object, like trying to convince Jon he's not the most dangerous being to ever sit in this living room.

Down the little corridor come the sounds of Martin's soft snoring and whatever it is that Gerry's mumbling in his sleep, and Jon sighs. The tape recorder still runs somewhere in the living room, waiting perhaps for a declaration.

"I'm- I'll breach the topic with them tomorrow." He says in the end. Talking to the tapes has always felt grounding. "We just have to find Daisy, and then we'll be free to come back here for however long we want."

For the time being... there's no use in worrying, Jon guesses.

Out the corner of his eye he catches Martin's notebooks on his little table by the window, and he feels his lips arching into a smile despite himself.

They've come a long way from Jon fishing out discarded poetry from garbage bins, he thinks to himself as he pulls one of the notebooks. Thankfully, Martin has said he doesn't mind them reading his things as long as he isn't in the room, so this will make for a nice distraction.

"Good things", Jon reads aloud from the page he opens at random, which he notices has a lot less crossed out sections than the others. Apparently Martin found his words pretty easily after a few stumbles at the beginning. "You'll- you'll have to forgive me, Martin," he tells the recorder, chuckling. "I've never had a voice for poetry, in my opinion. But I'll leave it to the jury to decide."

He clears his throat, holding the notebook open with two fingers, Martin's neat, tight handwriting illuminated in green.

'Good things, by Martin K. Blackwood.

There is something interesting to be said
About things that come in threes.

Like coins in a fountain rings to a circus, or stars to Orion's belt,
Like three acts parts to a story that is not finished yet.

Why is it that three's a crowd, yet
Good things come in three's?
People always say hello, Jon. My apologies for interrupting whatever it was that our mutual acquaintance managed to sneak this into, but I thought it better to let her arrange the delivery as she saw fit.

Hopefully this finds you alone; I shouldn't speak ill of a gift from our patron, especially with how well he served his purpose, but as useful as he's been in keeping you alive and encouraging you to develop your powers, your dear Gerard is quite adept at getting in the way, no doubt he gets it from Gertrude. Though I do suppose I should stop underestimating Martin by this point, shouldn't I?

I must admit, I neither expected nor wished to watch him walk out of the fog with you. It is far too late in the game for unwanted variables, but by this point I suppose I must simply sit back and hope that the Mother's blessing is enough to keep him out of my designs.

By this point I suppose you have attempted to stop reading, I don't recommend it, you will only hurt yourself. I thought your little retreat had lasted enough already, and you could use some help getting back into the flow of work.

Let us begin then, just one more, for old times sake.

Statement of Jonah Magnus regarding Jonathan Sims, The Archivist.

Notes:

Like. Sorry?
(Tags still stand tho)

Chapter 22

Notes:

I saw a tweet that went like "sometimes the only motivation getting you through writing a scene is knowing it'll upset your friends when they read it." and it reminded me I had to post this ♥️♥️

Happy first Post End Week buds, how are we feeling?
Let's do the apocalypse all over again, see where it takes us, shall we?

 

CW for the end of the world terribleness, self-hatred, jgm under duress, etc

Chapter Text

 

XXII

Click.

"It can't be as bad as it looks. Nothing could be this bad." There's humour in the man's voice, a sort of fond amusement as he enunciates the words, the beginning of a joke.

"I think we might be looking at different Archives, Tim." The answering voice is dry and unenthusiastic, but the first man chuckles like it's the punchline to his setup.

"There's three of us, we'll figure it out." Some fabric rustles, a disgruntled huff, another chuckle. "Let's go, Sasha should be done already, we said we'd go get drinks."

A long-suffering sigh. "If you insist."

"I do! It's the last time we're going out as coworkers, Boss."

"I'd say this is your last chance to get in my hair, if I didn't know better." Steps growing fainter, as the speakers walk away.

"But you do know better."

Another sigh, a lot less long-suffering, and a lot more amused. "I do."

Click.


"We need to get going," Martin says. It feels like the thousandth time he's said it, and maybe it is. Time feels... weird, lately, and memory much more so.

"I'm..." Gerry sighs, also for what feels like thousandth time. "You're not wrong."

"Of course I'm not." Martin crosses his arms over his chest. Gerry's eyes -they look dangerously bright lately, but Martin doesn't fear them as much as he fears the sad, unspoken truth they carry- are searching for his, and for all that Martin tries to stand strong, he gives in eventually, and goes to sit by his side with a tired sigh of his own. "I know, I know."

"You do?" Gerry comes to rest heavily against his side, and after a couple moments, Martin drapes an arm around his shoulders. It's- it's not Gerry's fault, he thinks. It's not anyone's fault. "It's someone's fault."

"Well, yes. Elias', but still-" Martin lets out a low exhale. "I should have done it."

"If you're going to blame yourelf-" Gerry nudges his leg with his knee, "-you'd be good blaming me as well. Blaming Jon."

"Why would I blame you?" Martin asks dryly. "You were going to kill him when I couldn't. You would've done it."

"Yes, to keep you safe." Gerry shrugs. "Not wanting to kill a man doesn't make you a coward, Martin."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to."

Martin purses his lips. "If I had-"

"It wasn't Elias that put that statement there," Gerry interrupts him before he can even form the thought. "You know that."

"No, I don't!" Martin snaps. "You keep saying that, Jon said that, but I don't! A- and even if I did, am I not supposed to feel guilty that I was under- that they used me to push Jon into starting the apocalypse?!"

"Welcome to the club," Gerry says dryly, and Martin stops so abruptly in his tirade that he very nearly bites his tongue off.

Especially with how well he served his purpose.

Elias' words, written in Martin's own unwitting hand, are burned in his mind.

"I- uh-"

"It's okay." Gerry runs a hand over his hair, his lips pressed in a tight line.

"...It's really not." Martin says after a while. "I- it's not- how can you be so calm?"

"I'm not, I just-" Gerry's eyes are far-off, lost in the depths of the cottage, a door that doesn't open anymore, unless one of them opens it first. "I'm focusing on the two of you right now. Otherwise it's too much."

"How- how does it feel for you?" Martin asks quietly.

"It feels... good, I suppose. Like this is where I'm meant to be, which I suppose is true, being a- a monster of the Eye or whatever. I don't like it."

Martin pulls him a bit tighter against his side, though it makes the part of him that is not quite human roar in discomfort. "You're not a monster of the Eye."

"Agree to disagree, won't we?" Gerry smiles. It's the same gesture he normally uses to rile him up, playful and amused and now tinged with a hint of sadness, and it makes Martin so mad, the unfairness of it all. "Is it different for you?"

"I just- there's a place I 'should' go to. A place where I'd be alone."

"Is that why you want to leave?" Gerry arches an eyebrow.

"Of course not. I'm- I want to fix this but Gerry, I don't know if we can fix it. I don't know how any of this works."

Gerry nods once, a slow tilt of his head like the weight of it all is too much, before he springs back up. It's a gesture so inherently him that Martin feels a fierce rush of protectiveness surge up in him.

They deserved better. They still do.

"I- if we-" Gerry starts, then stops to sigh again. "Jon would be safe if we left. I think we both would be too, but I'm not sure, and-"

"And we aren't leaving him." Martin completes the thought. Gerry nods again, even more exhausted this time. "What are we supposed to do, then? Just wait until he's done torturing himself with those tapes?"

A few notes of a discordant birthday song seep from under the door to reach his ears faintly, the ghost of a memory that he shouldn't be able to hear from this far away, but Martin guesses it's one of those things he's meant to experience precisely because it will hurt him.

"I'm- I don't know, Martin. I really don't."


Click.

"Are you on?" A few static-laden taps. "Test, test, testing prehistoric equipment? Okay, yes. How should I... oh, I know. Recording by Sasha James, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute... Hah"

A small chuckle, before the woman speaks again. "Well, the payrise isn't that great anyways, and at least I don't have to pretend I'm a prick all the time, like Jon does." A sigh. "Tim's starting to get tired of it, but I think Jon just- it's tough starting as a boss. I think he's mostly posturing for Martin? When it's just the three of us, it feels just like when we were back at research. He'll get over it, I'm sure."

Another chuckle, a bit embarrassed this time. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. I guess it just feels nice to say it aloud knowing no one will hear it."

Silence. Papers shuffling, the clicking of a stapler, and a sound like someone sliding something heavy across a flat surface.

Thoughtful tapping against wood.

"I'm- it's not like I'm angry at him, I know he thinks that too. I just... I guess it's disappointing to be passed over. I've been thinking of looking for something el-"

"Hey there!" A new voice. Deeper and amused, warm. "Are you done?"

"Almost. I forgot it was Friday. You and Jon ready?"

"I'm... I was actually thinking it could be just us tonight."

"Oh."

"If you want, I mean. If not, there's still time to tell him, or we don't have to go at all." The man's voice hasn't come closer, and a door creaks like someone is shifting against it.

A long moment of silence, before the woman speaks again.

"Mr. Stoker, are you suggesting an office affair?" The woman's smile is audible in her tone, and there's a far off sound like a sigh of an exhale.

"Well, I think these archives have been far too peaceful for far too long, don't you?"

An amused huff.

"It's not a very wise thing to do."

"We don't have to."

Laughter, this time. "No, we're gonna. Let me get my coat."

Click.


"She never liked you," Jon says. His voice sounds hoarse with disuse as he glares resentfully at the whirring tape recorder in his hand. "I wonder how it would've manifested for her."

The device doesn't respond, of course. Just sits there, recording, watching. Its intentions, good or bad, have no effect on what it can and cannot do. It was made for a purpose, and that is that.

"I guess it's moot, though." If he's to believe Elias, and there's really no reason why he'd keep lying after achieving his goal, Jon was ripe for the picking decades before even considering setting foot on the Institute.

He can see them now, the hair-thin threads of silver wrapped around him, innocuous in appearance even though he can feel their pull.

Jon knows what the Mother wants of him now, hears it all around him in the creaking of the cottage, the screaming in the wind, in Martin and Gerry's insistence.

He won't give it to her.

Like the Spiral or the Stranger, the Web doesn't enjoy being Seen, and Jon feels it pushing him to not think too much about it or its motives.

He lets it, for the time being. He has other things to focus on, things he hasn't allowed himself to dwell on yet, with Sasha and Tim's voices still swimming in his mind.

"...I did think she resented me," he says after a pause. He closes his eyes, and he sees what would've been. Sees her covered in scars, terrified, hurt. Making the wrong choice time and time again, no matter how hard she tries. "I never- I'm glad it wasn't her."

The fate that befell Sasha wasn't gentle, but at least it was swift. At least she didn't live to see herself turn the world into this cesspool of suffering. To enjoy it.

"They think... They want to leave. Both of them." Sasha was right, it is easier to talk to the tapes, even if Jon is not under any false notion regarding whether or not he's being listened. "They- Martin thinks we can undo this. That there's a way to turn things back."

Jon doesn't know if there is, but- if there's a chance, what right does he have to attempt it, after what he did? Gerry just- he tries to keep things light, but Jon knows he's growing tired of mediating between appeasing Martin's urgencies, and giving Jon the time he thinks he needs.

"I'm- I just-" Jon sighs, clears his throat. "Recording ends."

But it doesn't. It never does anymore.


"Still nothing," Georgie sighs as she drops on the couch next to her.

"I expected as much." Melanie lifts the hand not sunk in the Admiral's fur, and Georgie tangles their fingers together. "What were you trying now? Calling again?"

"No, I... I used the recorder app. I thought it might reach him, but no luck."

"It was a good idea." Melanie shrugs. "But these things and technology just don't mix too well. I'm surprised your phone is even working at all."

"I mean, it's not. It's just working enough to get me frustrated, which I guess is the point."

Melanie chuckles. "The point is actually to make you scared, but that's not going to fly with you, and it makes them angry." The entities are nothing if not petty.

"What about you?" Georgie's hand tightens in her. "You can be scared."

"I'm not," Melanie says. It's- she's worried, but as long as she and Georgie are together... "The Eye can't see me."

Gerry once told her words carried power, and these ones hold truth. The Eye no longer has a claim on her, as much as it resents it.

"But the others can?" Georgie asks. Melanie can picture her expression perfectly, a thick eyebrow raised in question.

"They should be able to." She shrugs "I'm guessing the reason none of them have snatched me up is because I'm in your… aura? Blind spot? Anyways, I don't think I'll try going out on my own anytime soon."

"Probably not a good idea, no… What are we going to do, then? If we can't contact them-"

"I think- I think they'll be coming this way. Or I hope so, at least." They have to. They wouldn't just... If there's a way to turn it back, it will be here at London, at Magnus' tower. They'll come, and then they can take him on together. "I think we wait."

It feels odd, to actively choose inaction. Melanie has spent her whole life on the move, for new stories, for more adventure, for something that makes her clench her hands into fists.

"...we wait, then."


Click.

"Hi, Jon. I- I hope you don't mind that I'm recording. I thought-" a long, tired sigh "-I don't know what I thought. They just... they remind me of you. It felt right."

A sound of fabric shifting, something soft being patted. "There, that ought to be more comfortable. You're starting to look a bit pale, I'm- I'll ask the nurse if we can move your bed closer to the window so you get some sun. You'd probably hate that, but you need it, Jon," the man chuckles a little.

A long beat.

"I miss you."

Silence. Heavy, tense. A slow, deep inhale. The man clears his throat, and resumes speaking, as casually as before.

"Peter Lukas offered me a new position at the Institute. He- Elias left him in charge, don't ask me how that works legally, but... he wants me to be his assistant." A pause, a scoff, a little chuckle. "Yes, yes I know it is a trap, alright? I'm not stupid, Jon!"

Another chuckle, though this one takes a hint of fondness at the end.

"I know. But... we got attacked, just last month. The Flesh. Melanie managed to drive them back, but we- we lost three people. Emily from Research, Duke from the Library, and Len from Accounting. They didn't even care that they were normal employees, they just-"

The man's voice cracks, and he gives himself a moment, another slow intake of breath. "Lukas says he can protect the Institute. With- with what we know about the Lonely, I don't doubt it. There's... There's something else he isn't telling me. I- I'm not sure what it is, but I can guess it won't end well for me."

The silence that follows stretches for far longer than its predecessors, until the man sighs again.

"Not like I care much, anyways." A chair creaking, as the man atop it shifts. "I'm... I'm starting to understand you're not going to wake up. Wh- who would've thought I'd be the last one, huh?"

A flat, humourless chuckle.

"Guess... guess it's what I deserve, for staying behind every. Single. Time."

Minutes tick by after his words, in a seemingly endless silence, almost like the tape ran out of battery or somehow stopped recording without announcing it.

The chair creaks again.

"Goodbye, Jon."

Click


"I just- why do you keep listening to them?" Martin is asking as Gerry enters the bedroom, his voice not quite snappy, but coated with the same deep weariness that's permeated his every interaction with Jon for a while now.

"Because there has to be a reason why they're here. Why-"

"Jon, they're here because Elias wants to rub it in your face. He wants to hurt you even more, and- and you're going along with it! What could there possibly be in them that you don't already know?"

Gerry sighs, shoulders heavy with his own exhaustion as he looks out the window. The eyeballs growing out of the carefully tilled earth turn to stare back at him.

He's free now, he knows.

In this new world ruled by the Watcher, his ultimate 'prize' is to not be tied to Jon anymore. There's a place with his name on it, just like Martin said. There, he could thrive, an eternal existence as a reward for- for pushing Jon towards this.

Gertrude's eyes blink accusingly at him from where he remembers planting the carrots, and Gerry scoffs.

"Of course I'm not going to. Don't be an idiot." Gerry rolls his eyes. There just. There has to be a way to reverse it, no matter-

'No. I don’t think so. Once an Entity fully manifested, I doubt it would be keen to fully relinquish its grip on reality. And as for those unlucky enough to survive its rule… I don’t think they’d be in a state to do anything about it.'

Gerry sighs. Ever the optimist, the old hag.

He feels the cabin creaking and shifting, feasting on the sorrow that thinking of Gertrude brings him, even after years and deceptions.

It can't consume them, he Knows. None of them are human anymore, not completely. The cabin is just... a memory granted teeth, a place that haunts its occupants instead of the other way around. What hurts them -or him, at least- is the fact that what was supposed to be a sanctuary became a prison, and the only fear to be found here is, Gerry thinks, the fear that this will be the thing to break them apart, with Jon locked in the bedroom listening to his ghosts, with Martin pushing and pulling at him and Jon snapping back like a wounded dog.

It's decent fear. The fact that Gerry doesn't know which one of them to side with only makes it worse.

He understands Jon's reticence, the feeling that if he tries again, it will only make things even worse. He understands he's hurt, and scared, that now more than ever, he doesn't want the power Elias forced on him.

He also understands Martin, the- the need to fight back, to keep moving. To not be a fucking piece on a chessboard again.

Melanie's eyes, scarred and blind, turn to look at him.

"...I know. We're- I know."

Slowly, reluctantly, Gerry pushes away from the window.

This is not a conversation he wants to have, but...

Well, at least Martin will be happy that Gerry's siding with him, and Jon... Jon will understand.

Hopefully.


Click.

Statement of Jonathan Sims, the Archive, regarding the current state of affairs.

It is time you take a look at the world you have created, you have put it off for long enough.

You can feel it with awful clarity, even when you pretend the opposite, for their sake. Or is it for yours, desperate to hide the kind of being you are from the ones whose opinion you value the most? All around you, here in this space that is made safe only by your presence, suffering is the course du jour, tailor-made for each and every innocent you have condemned to this life that is not a life as much as it is the bare shadow of an existence.

You do not hear the screaming as much as you Know it -what don't you Know now?-, resonating in your mind every second of every day, if those things existed anymore.

Despite yourself, you sometimes wish that the screamers would choke on their own blood, that their lungs would collapse with the force of their anguished crying, that they could reach into their own ribcage and pull out their heart to squeeze the life out of it, out of themselves.

You want to think that way at least they would be free.

You know better of course. The rules of this new reality you have imposed on everyone are clearly outlined before you, like a neat bullet point list you've learned by heart. The first of these points is the worst, and it's the one that keeps you up at night when you're unable to wake the ones you love from their frantic nightmares, when they toss and trash on the bed, calling out for people who aren't there.

'You made this. This is for you.'

And when you wish fervently for the deaths of innocents, when you pray for each breath to be their last, you try, but can't quite keep out the satisfaction, the delight that comes from Knowing all this fear.

The world is in agony, but it will never die.

You hide here in this cottage that was home because it held the ones you love, clinging desperately to the idea that it can still be a shelter, if you only wish hard enough. You know the thought is as futile as the feeling, love did not make you holy, and it won't consecrate this place.

The cottage feeds on your fear and your doubt, on their tired eyes and strained smiles, and it whispers into your ear that it is only here that you will find peace. Wasn't this your happy ending, wasn't this all that you wanted? A cozy place to end your story with the ones you call your heart?

They hate it here almost as much as you wish they would hate you, but they stay for your sake. Have any of you ever done things for yourselves? All the three of you know is self-sacrifice, and how little it pays. You feel that this place that is not a home is feeding on you, and you relish on it, because it's the only penance you will find in this world that has made you untouchable.

The ones you love want to leave, want to fight; you wish you had an ounce of the hope they still nurse at their core, because you are as afraid to leave as you are of the cottage consuming you if you don't. Every day your interactions are more stilted, more tense, and you wonder which one will crack first.

And that's what it all boils down to, doesn't it? Fear. You're scared of seizing what's yours. Of facing this world of your making.

You're terrified of what awaits you out there, of what awaits you in here. The Pupil wasn't mistaken when he called you an Archive of fear, and it is time that you come back.

You can feel the call at your chest, like a bestial instinct that wills your bones to move, to go back to your place of power. You've been feeling it for a few days now (there are no days anymore, not in the world you've created), but it grows stronger every moment, more recognizable. You followed it once already, traversing a labyrinth like the map to it was burned on the inside of your eyelids.

You've tried futilely to ignore the call, just like you've tried to ignore the silk wrapped choking tight around your throat, pulling at you like it has done all your life. Was there ever a chance for things to work out, or were they just the delusions of a monster that thought -hoped- that maybe if he loved enough, he'd become a man again?

You know the answer to that, of course. You Know everything. What was it that she called it? Ineluctability. Swimming frantically upstream only to be pushed back in the end, because your limbs will get tired a lot sooner than the tide.

You are exhausted, and you have been for a while.

Statement ends.

Steps, slow and unsteady, and the creaking of a door. Some heavy breathing, like the breather has just run a marathon, or had the air choked out of him. A broken, slightly hysterical laugh, no longer the Archivist, but merely a broken man.

I don't want to go.

Click

A moment of silence that seems to stretch for an eternity, as the two of them look at the lone recorder.

"Martin, go get your backpack."

"I'm on it. Meet you outside."

Chapter 23

Notes:

'sup, not dead, slowly getting back into writing. Turns out I like my own stories and I should continue them? Who knew lol.

Anyways, hope y'all are doing okay!

CW: the eyepocalypse. Descriptions of physical illness (pus, mucus, blood, etc) and violence (slaughter-like)

Chapter Text

XXIII

This town is sick.

Not just the inhabitants, mind you, though it is in them that the infection is more unsubtly, glaringly present.

The illness runs deep into the town's core, it crumbles walls and rots trees, makes the water run thick with muck and the air so dry and heavy that if given a choice, those breathing it might choose not to.

They are not given a choice.

Most of the people in the village (they were people once, before they became sacrifices, fodder for the illness and the observer above) do not remember the days before the change, before the illness came. Those who do, wish they didn't. It's a special kind of torture, to remember better days and to know they are long gone, and not likely to return.

Festering hope is as painful as any other disease.

Perhaps the worst thing about the illness is that it's not merely affecting their bodies. The masks keep out the worst of the virus, hide the rash and the pus and the rotten, bleeding gums from their neighbors' eyes, but they do nothing to stop the purulent words, the suspicious gazes. The disease has poisoned them so deep and so good, that they have convinced themselves that They are the ones at fault, They brought the plague here, if they were to get rid of Them, the illness would go.

Who 'Them' is changes from person to person, but it is always someone other than themselves.

No one can pinpoint exactly when the man comes into town, because they lost track of time so long ago, but they all Know he is here. The people of the village don't like outsiders any more than they like each other, which is to say not at all, but this is one they can't lift a finger against.

They bar their crumbling doors and draw their raggedy curtains, and peek out with suspicious, watery eyes at the man that stops at the main square, and talks into some device for a while.

His voice comes out strong and clear, unimpeded by any mask, and the gazes become judging, resentful, jealous. The man breathes in the sickly air and doesn't cough, doesn't collapse with painful sores blossoming across his skin.

Some notice the delicate round scars that mark his skin here and there, but they are dry and clean, and they don't ooze the congealed, pungent pus that the town's inhabitants have grown used to wiping off their faces with rags that only grow dirtier by the day.

The man takes a last look around the plaza, then risks one at the Observer above.

Then he is gone, and the villagers are relieved.

He looked healthy, they tell each other in a rare moment of solidarity against a common foe. But who knows? Who can really know what sort of ailment he carries whithin his chest, and whether or not it will be worse than their current situation?

It is better that he is gone, and takes his problems with him. They have far too many as it is.

It is not long before the inhabitants of the town have forgotten about the man, and they're back to glaring at each other over the rim of their masks, wondering which of their neighbors carries the disease in them, which of them deserves to be put to death to protect the community, to keep everyone safe.

And so, the illness spreads.


The village grows smaller with every step it takes. The Archive knows it doesn't make much sense, but it also knows that is how things are now.

It's experienced the fear of that domain, archived it, and it no longer matters. It can fade in the distance now, like so many useless memories.

"Well, that was just the slightest bit disturbing," says a voice to its right, just as a door creaks open. The Archive doesn't stop walking; it never does. "Hm. You're not even going to talk to a friend?"

"I have a place to be at." The Archive says, the words bitter on its tongue. Out of the corner of its eye -it's always looking forward, always at the goal- it can see the Distortion tilt its head and arch an eyebrow. "Don't you?"

"It can take care of itself for a bit. It's not like I can do much about it one way or another. But you know about that, don't you, Jon?" It says the name slowly, like it's testing how it'll react.

"I Know." It says simply.

"Ugh. You're even worse at conversation now. Tell me, where are lovely Martin and Gerry? Do you Know that too?"

"I do." The Archive says. The Distortion's voice hurts its senses, makes its head hurt, its ears throb. Still it looks forward, to the place where he ought to be, and continues walking. "They travel too. I know what they wish to accomplish. I also know it to be futile."

"As optimistic as always, I see. Is it Elias?"

"Magnus," the Archive corrects, neither it nor the Eye willing to let a piece of bad knowledge go unchallenged.

"Yes, yes, whatever. Tell me, how does it feel if I do this?" It asks, and a long hand wraps its fingers many times around the Archives' wrist.

It starts almost imperceptibly, like a trickle that slowly but steadily becomes a stream, and the Archive feels its steps falter, before the Distortion sticks its head before its own.

Her eyes are swirling and bright-colored, as usual, changing from one second to the next like a kaleidoscope slowly turned on itself. It makes his head hurt, but she's finally, thankfully blocking the Panopticon from his sight, and though the call still pulls strong at his chest, he can think.

"H- Helen." He says, testing the name just like she tested his. That was his name, wasn't it? He's Jon.

"That's neat. I figured it might confuse it a little," Helen smirks, looking awfully pleased with herself even as she walks backwards to keep up with him. "But much as I'd like to, I can't just stay staring wistfully into your eyes until they catch up, I'm afraid."

"You- no. It would grow tired of the intervention, sooner or later. I could destroy you."

"Is that a threat, Jon?"

"A warning," Jon sighs. "But thank you, for- for the respite. How did you find me?"

"Popping up here and there. Usually I have a knack for showing up where I want to be," Helen chuckles, shaking its- shaking her head. The- the confusion she caused is starting to wane.

"Yes, I... that makes sense." The Arc- Jon focuses on keeping his eyes on hers, on the swirl of nausea in his stomach, on the way his steps are unsteady and faltering. "I think you should go."

"Mmm yes, I think so too." Helen nods, before taking a step back. "Good talk, Jon. I'll be dropping by again."

The Archive does not respond.

There is a place where it must go to, where it will have all the power the Eye has seen fit to give it. Where it will Watch over the world its created for itself, feast on the fear of victim and torturer alike.

The Archive walks.


Basira huffs in annoyance, as the trail she's following changes directions abruptly.

It looks different now from before the world ended, but she's unsure if it's because she's changed, or because Daisy did.

It doesn't really matter, she supposes. She'll figure it out when she catches up and has to figure out how to get the jump on her. Right now, Basira has other things to focus on.

This place -this 'domain', a voice that sounds suspiciously like Jon's says in her mind, and Basira shakes her head to dislodge the thought- this area, she thinks stubbornly, is covered in rot and stinks to match.

It looks like the alleyway behind a convenience store, or rather countless convenience stores, and every so often employees with pus-coated fingers and faces covered in bleeding ulcers come out of reinforced backdoors to throw out perfectly good food.

It begins rotting as soon as it touches the ground, barely recognizable under the mold by the time the starving victims that litter the alley reach for it with their bone-thin hands. Still they eat it, they've had nothing else for days, and then they drag themselves away, their stomachs already seizing with cramps.

She can't help any of them, not the ones who took pleasure in denying the ones in need, who clung to their wealth with the ferocity of a hoarding dragon and whose biggest fear was to one day be treated like they did others, nor the ones whose only crime was being born in a pit they couldn't escape, those whose nightmares were written on overdue bills and sung in the crying voices of hungry children.

It's disgustingly appropriate, Basira thinks, that she once again finds herself in privilege. Untouched and above it all, and following Daisy's trail.

Later, she tells herself.

She has a promise to keep, and then- then she can find Jon, and get this over with.


"How are you doing?" Gerry asks as they walk. The dirt beneath them crunches and kicks up in little clouds that don't dissipate as much as they go on to meld with the dust floating ever present in the air.

They've been walking in near-silence for the better part of the day, each of them lost in thoughts they can't or won't share with the other. For his part, Gerry's been very abruptly reminded that whatever he shared with Martin at the cottage started because of both their feelings for Jon, and he's been wondering how firm a ground they stand on now that he's gone. He likes Martin, cares for him a lot, but... this is a worst case scenario if he's ever seen one, and he's seen what stress does to people.

"Well, not great. But also a lot better than I could be in these circumstances, I think." Martin sighs. "Definitely better now that we're moving, though I wish it wasn't- you know. How about you?"

"Similarly, I guess. I'm worried about Jon." Gerry shrugs, and his stomach feels a bit lighter after putting that out there. "There's probably only one thing that can hurt him now, and he's walking straight for it."

Martin sighs again, longer this time. It makes Gerry want to lay a hand on his shoulder, but he doesn't know how well-received it would be, so he abstains.

"It must be good, to at least know some things."

"You're marked by the Eye, can't yo-"

"I'm only marked enough to know it resents me a whole lot for choosing the Lonely," Martin says with a mirthless chuckle. "Enough to know I only very narrowly avoided getting the short end of the stick under the new administration." He gives Gerry a look he can't decipher, out the corner of his eye. "I'm guessing you're a lot better off than me?"

"It is... very satisfied. And for what it's worth, the Eye won't hurt you, I think. You're very important to Jon," Gerry says. 'And to me,' he doesn't add. He's not so sure it matters. Unwanted as it is, his allegiance to the eye is enough to keep him safe, but he's very aware he's no Archivist. "We'll find him. We just- we have to keep walking."

"Towards the menacing eye tower, I assume?" Martin asks, his voice as dry as the cracked ground below them.

"Elias really said to hell with subtlety." Gerry snorts, and the ends of Martin's lips twitch for a second, before he schools his face back into a thoughtful frown.

"What are we going to do when we find him, Gerry? I'm- I'm guessing we'll end up at the panopticon one way or another, but once we're there... what then?"

Gerry doesn't respond right away, instead letting several minutes go by marked ony by the rise and fall of their footsteps. The ground is not too dry anymore, the dirt now moist and a turning a deep, worrying hint of reddish brown that he contemplates as he thinks of an answer.

"I don't know," he admits in the end. "I... this is not a possibility we ever planned for. You heard Gertrude's tape, she didn't think it would be possible to change the world back if a ritual ever suceeded."

A few more minutes go by, their steps no longer kicking up dust but making a soft squelching sound instead. The scent of iron in the air is strong, and though Gerry tries to Know what's ahead of them, all he can glimpse is that it is Not For Him, that his place is further away, and he must continue.

He hopes it wont be for Martin either, because he's not sure what that means for him. For them.

"I didn't like that she yelled at you," Martin says quietly by his side, and Gerry has to backtrack a little in the conversation to make sense of what he's talking about. "Did she do it a lot?"

Gerry snorts again, but it comes out a little choked up. It still feels odd, when someone feels offended or protective on his behalf instead of the other way around.

"When she wanted me to listen." He shrugs. "Gertrude wasn't stupid."

And he says no more, because he does not know what else is there to say. Martin, perhaps better than anyone, understands.

"There are rituals, aren't they? Rituals that actually work. Like Elias', like the one Gertrude used to bind Agnes." Martin kicks at the dark, soggy ground beneath them. "Both are Web, I suppose?"

"I don't know that they're the Web as much as that the Web itself is just playing all the participants around."

"Wait, what?" Martin stops and spins on his heel. "You mean this wasn't even the Eye's doing?!"

"I'm- I really don't know anything, Martin." Gerry runs a hand down his face. "I'm starting to wonder if I ever did. It's just guesses upon guesses- if I knew something, anything, I'd tell you. Please trust me on that."

Martin doesn't answer, and when Gerry looks up at him, he finds his eyes -green and grey, and dull with a far-off look but so stubbornly present- pinning him to his spot.

"I do." Martin nods in the end, after a couple more seconds of silent contemplation. "I really do." He sighs, then. "We're getting close, aren't we?"

Gerry arches an eyebrow. "How can you tell?"

Martin's answering smile is tiny with barely a hint of almost sheepish humour, and Gerry feels his stomach flip on itself as he smiles back.

"Too many people."


They can't see them.

They aren't really drones per se, but she can't think of any other way to describe them, these metallic yet organic looking contraptions that glide around focusing their shutters on everyone and everything... Or evereyone and everything that isn't them. Their cold, uncaring gaze drifts over the two of them (three, if you count the cat in the bag) like they aren't even there, and the things themselves part before them as they walk towards them.

It's almost hilarious, or it would be if the situation wasn't so dire, Georgie thinks as they traverse the broken streets of what once was London in one of their little recon missions. Turns out all you need is to be scared enough one time that you fill your quota, then you're good to go for the apocalypse.

"What's this one like?" Melanie asks in a whisper.

"There's- it's offices," Georgie explains. "Blocks and blocks of office buildings."

They're built in shiny, transparent crystal, so that the people working inside have a clear view of the outside world, or could, if their spines weren't warped and bent, pulling them down every time they dare lifting their gaze from the blinding light of the screen before them.

Even from a distance, Georgie can see their bleeding fingers with their cracked fingernails, tapping away at their keyboards, see the tears running down their face from eyes that cannot blink.

None of the buldings have a door, and when Georgie looks more carefully -she doesn't want to, but she figures she owes it to these people; if they have to suffer through this, then she the least she can do is witness it- she sees that none of the computers are connected to anything.

The workers cry and cry, their quiet, broken sobs echoing across the street as if undeterred by the glass, and Georgie feels like joining in.

"They're working. They can only work. It's- it's just torture, how is that even a fear? They're just-"

"Trapped?" Melanie asks, her voice bitter. "Buried, probably. It's not too much of a stretch, is it?"

"I- I wonder if we could get them out. I mean, the walls are just glass, we could just break it and grab as many as we can and run?"

"Run where though?" Melanie arches an eyebrow. "It's not like there's a place where..."

Georgie turns to her, when Melanie's voice fades into silence. "Are you okay?"

"...A place where the Eye can't-"

"Melanie?!" A third voice says, and the two of them whirl around to face it.

The woman is wearing dark clothes and a headscarf, and her eyes are glowing an eerie, poisonous green that has Georgie pushing Melanie behind her as she comes closer.

"Who-"

"Basira?" Melanie asks, leaning around her. Georgie gives her a fleeting look, before returning her attention to the newcomer.

"Your coworker?" She asks. She's heard a bit about her before, from Jon when she asked how they found such a secluded hiding place so fast, from Melanie when she complained about the work; she even saw a picture of her on Melanie's phone once, but- but she's deep enough into this that she knows faces don't mean anything anymore.

"Maybe?"

"What do you mean maybe?"

"If the Stranger didn't pull its shit again. Basira, is that you?"

The woman stops a few steps from them, holding her hands up to her chest.

"Not saying it's a good thing, but I don't think the Stranger could touch me now," she says.

Behind her, Georgie hears Melanie huff.

"Gone all team Watcher then, haven't you?"

The woman flinches a little at that. Her hands clench into fists, and the corner of his tightly pursed lips twitches, before she gets it back under control.

"I have to find Daisy," is all she says.

"...Yeah. That- that would do it, I suppose." Melanie sighs. A pause. "This is Georgie."

The woman arches an eyebrow. "The Georgie?"

"Yup."

"Huh." The woman's too-bright eyes sweep over her. "Nice to meet you."

The Georgie in question -the Georgie, apparently,- blinks. "Likewise? I think? I-"

"Do you know where Gerry is?" Melanie interrupts. "Jon?"

The woman blinks, and her eyes glow a bit more intensely for a moment. "I do. I- he's next on my list. After her."

"Well, that sounds ominous," Georgie interrupts. This Basira doesn't seem too human herself, what right does she have to hunt Jon? "I highly doubt he meant to cause this, in case you thought-"

"I know that." Basira rolls her eyes, and Georgie feels her eyelid twitch. "This was- Elias was marking him. Or rather, having the entities mark him. It has to have been him. It's- that's why Tim and I sent them up north. To try and keep Elias from- we didn't know, or we would've-"

Her voice fades.

The three of them stand there for a moment in silence, and Georgie's grateful. She doesn't know how Basira would have ended the sentence, and she doesn't want to know.

What would it have taken to stop this from coming to pass? What will it take to fix it?

"Are you two safe?" Basira asks, and Melanie snorts again.

"Safer than them," she says, gesturing vaguely in the offices' direction. "I don't- I think it can't see me. And as long as I stick to Georgie, neither can the others."

"I- that's good. It's good to know it worked." She gestures at her face for a second, until she seems to catch on that Melanie can't see her, and Georgie feels her lips twitch at the embarrassed frown in her face. "Your eyes, I mean."

"Yep. Good investment," Melanie says dryly. Then, after a beat, "I tried calling Helen. She didn't come."

Basira sighs. "Probably busy somewhere else. I... I'm thinking Tim too, probably."

"You think they lost it?" Melanie asks. Her voice is, Georgie notices, just the slightest bit sadder.

Basira shrugs, the movement jerky and evasive. "I don't know. Maybe? It feels like- I have some control, because of the Eye, you know?"

"I can imagine. You don't sound super thrilled."

"I'm not." She pinches the bridge of her nose, as if warding off a migraine. Georgie notices some of the drones turn to her like moths to a flame, and the light behind her eyelids grows brighter still. "Enough. I've got to get moving, before Daisy gets too far."

"Well... Be safe, I guess."

"...You too. Both of tou." The woman nods at Georgie. "I'll try to bring the others back here. Don't get too close to the tower on the meanwhile."

Georgie snorts. "Trust me, we weren't planning on it."

"Good. Bye." And with that, Basira spins on her heel and starts walking away, without a single look back as Georgie watches her grow smaller and smaller in the distance, until she takes a turn and she loses sight of her.

"Your friends are lovely," she comments, and Melanie snorts.

"Gerry's a lot more charismatic, when you're not badmouthing one of his boyfriends. Also I figure hunting down your lover turned monster in the middle of the apocalypse would leave you with little motivation for small talk."

"And you thought the YouTuber community was full of unnecessary drama."

"Ugh, don't even mention it, that wasn't even interesting drama." Melanie bumps her arm with her shoulder, smiling. "Let's go back, shall we?"


"This way!" Martin yells after he spots an opening. He goes to run that way, his heart beating an incessant, frantic drum in his ears even more deafening than the one resonating all around them.

"Wait- no!" Gerry screams behind him, and he yanks Martin back just as another of the creatures falls exactly on the spot Martin was going to step into, stabbing with its bayonet fingers at blessedly Martin-less space.

"How do we get out?!"

"Keep running-" Gerry just barely dodges out of the way of an incoming blow, and the creature roars, enraged at losing a kill. The one that almost skewered Martin just now responds in kind, before it launches itself against the other and starts stabbing at its bloody, battle-marred skin. The only good thing about this place is that these things seem as interested in hurting each other as in hurting them, Martin thinks.

"Run where?! They're everywhere!" Martin's voice is nerve-wrackingly high-pitched with hysteria, as they watch the two monsters roll around stabbing and cutting at each other, and hear the clanking steel of weaponry as more are drawn in by the sounds of the fight.

"I'm trying to See a way, but-" Gerry throws himself back when one of the creatures swings too wide, pulling Martin along with him. "Try calling the Lonely! Maybe it'll make it easier for you to sneak-"

"I'm sorry, but I'm feeling very present and stab-able at the moment!" Martin snaps.

"Stop screaming!" Gerry screams. The creatures scream back. Martin is very tired of this Slaughter kingdom or territory or whatever the hell it is.

"Fine." Martin takes a deep breath; it smells of iron and sweat, and only really serves to put him more on edge. Still, he takes a couple slow, controlled steps back, trying to not call the attention of the fighting creatures, least they become their target again. "Fine, just- shit!"

It's all he can do to pull Gerry against him as yet another creature of the Slaughter pops up behind him, and then they're running, running, just running, even though every fiber of Martin's body is itching to turn around and fight back, be it his own instincts or the Slaughter's influence on him.

His skin feels too tight, his hands aching to clench around something, and Martin is furious

He wonders for a moment if this is how Melanie felt, the rage burning under her skin at the prospect of yet again being found lacking. Isn't that how it always is? Martin, who needs to be saved, explained the world around him, Martin who everyone is always so keen to underestimate...

"-tin, don't- don't turn around now, we're amost there, don't listen to it-" Gerry's voice is muffled by the blood pulsating in his ears, but something in Martin aches at it. He needs to listen to him, he knows. The Slaughter is not for him, and there's no telling what might happen to him if he stays here. He can't leave Gerry alone, and- and they need to find Jon. Still, the promise of release, of finally letting go of all the tightly compressed anger he's been hauling around for years, it calls to him as enticing and deadly as a siren song.

"I don't- talk to me," he asks, begs. Gerry's voice pulled him out of the Lonely, and he wants the comfort it brings. "Can you feel Jon?"

"I can," Gerry responds hurriedly as they run, pulling at Martin through patches of dirt turned to red, slippery mud, the iron stench spearing at Martin's nostrils as they stumble across them. "I can, Martin, he's moving, but he slows down at times, we just have to catch up to him."

"Do you think he's alright?"

"More- more alright than us, definitely. But he still needs us," Gerry says. His voice holds a strange, forceful conviction to it, and Martin has the sudden suspicion that the words are as much for his own benefit as they are to keep Martin distracted as they reach the end of the trenches. "Almost!"

They come to the end of the Slaughter's territry in a last, frantic race. Martin really only realizes they're on the clear because Gerry skids to a stop, then bends at the waist to catch his breath in the sort of shaky, ragged gasps that are all one can give once adrenaline starts to fade.

"Don't-" Martin starts, then stops to clear his throat. It still tastes like iron, and he wonders if he bit himself while they ran, or if it's the air itself that carries rage within it. "Don't ask me to go into the Lonely again."

"Huh?" Gerry looks up at him, just a bright blue-green eye peering through the curtains of his deep black hair.

"Before. You wanted me to- you said I should go into the Lonely, to try and sneak away."

"Oh. Yeah, it- I thought they might have a harder time spotting you if you did."

"Well, don't suggest it again." Martin scowls as Gerry straigtens up, his brow furrowed in what looks like confusion. "I don't know if I can even go into the Lonely anymore with the new rules, but I'm not leaving you behind anyways. Ever."

"...Oh." Gerry's confused frown softens, and he looks away from Martin as he lets out a quiet snort of nervous laughter. "Right. I'll keep that in mind."

Martin rolls his eyes, but his irritation has faded enough that he finds the sight endearing. "You're ridiculous." He says, and Gerry chuckles again, not offended in the least. "Well. If that's settled... how on Earth did Jon go through this by himself?!"

"Ah... well," Gerry brings a hand up to rub at the back of his neck, the easy, pleased smile practically evaporating from his face. "I don't know that he has to worry about getting hurt anymore, Martin."

They stand there for a beat of silence, while Martin wonders how to break it to his- is Gerry his boyfriend? They didn't really discuss it before the world ended- that he's not being nearly as clear as he thinks he-

"So your type is just 'generally ominous bastard', then," says a familiar, well-loved voice. Martin turns around with a smile, as Gerry groans loudly behind him. "There's no accounting for taste, I suppose."

Martin lets out a relieved, slightly hysterical laugh. "It's good to see you again, Tim."

Chapter 24

Notes:

Customary "not dead", how are y'all?

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

XXIV

"You're staring at me." Gerry's eyes don't open when he speaks, but the corners of his lips turn upwards.

Martin smiles, resting his chin on his bent knees. This cave, at least, is empty of Slaughter (or otherwise) victims, and he'll be damned if he doesn't enjoy the momentary peace, especially since the Lonely inside him is starting to rear up again in response to Gerry and Tim's presence. "How could you tell?"

"Eye things." Gerry shrugs and, much to Martin's amusement, keeps his own eyes closed still. "And you just admitted to it, of course."

"Of course," Martin nods sagely before he reaches out to run a couple fingers through Gerry's hair. "Your roots are coming in again."

Gerry's eyes do open at that, tinged with an annoyance so sincere and resigned that Martin is surprised to feel a chuckle bubble out of his mouth.

"Which is incredibly unfair, if you ask me. Beholding brings me back, body made anew and all that, and it doesn't even have the decency of saving me the pain of hair dye."

"I think it looks cute," Martin says with a smile, which only grows wider when Gerry's pale skin flushes at the compliment. "But who knows? Maybe you can ask if there's an abandoned box of dye lying around. Might be a box full of spiders at this point, though, so maybe it'll have to wait until we fix this."

Gerry moves to sit up and against Martin's shoulder, and places a kiss on Martin's cheek. "One more reason to fix it then."

"Are you done?" Tim says so sullenly that Martin breaks out laughing. "Glad to see you're having fun."

"In my defense, I was just looking at him. I didn't know he was awake," Martin smiles.

"You knew he wasn't asleep, he doesn't sleep!"

"He does, sometimes! Back at the cottage, he-"

"Martin, I'm begging you."

Gerry presses another kiss to his cheek, possibly just to piss off Tim, and Martin laughs again. It's... It's good to have things to laugh about sometimes.

They'll fix things. They just- they have to keep trying.


The Archive walks, and how wonderful it is that it walks!

It crosses the domains untouched, unharmed, documenting everything it sees as it was always meant to do, feeding its patron with the fear of the watched, the wicked delight of the watchers.

The Eye loves it as one would their own heart, or lungs, or hands, as much as a being of its nature can feel anything that isn't voracious hunger, and it yearns for the Archive to come at last to its rightful place, so they can consume and delight in what they've created together.

Right now, the Archive traverses one of the Stranger's domains. It can feel the reluctant respect it's awarded there, by the entity that would've brought its own new order, or believed it would if not for the Beholding's actions.

Here at least, the Archive is not an outlier. It doesn't ache for its old name, as those are meaningless in this domain of spinning confusion, of stolen faces and broken identities. The Distortion follows it around, as usual. The Archive sees it pop here and there, watching it as it gets closer and closer to the ever-spinnning carousel, but it doesn't dare get too close. It has felt the Stranger's grip on its wobbly sense of identity, and the encounter was far too close for it to feel comfortable trying again so soon, especially when the Archive is not in the right place to save its hide once more.

The Archive worries not about the beings that ride the carousel, victims that turn assailants and back again at every turn of this reality that has become the only thing they know. They are not powerful enough to hurt it, nor would they be able to rip its identity away anyways. It has trascended such concepts, and in this world it has created it has no need for fear.

When a man walks up to it, it does not concern itself with him, though it does wonder briefly about why he is here, and not spinning along with the others.

"Jon?" He asks in a deep, smooth voice- but not he, not quite, right?

The Archive walks.

"Jon!" The man- the person insists, hurrying his- their pace, to keep up with the Archive. "Jon, where- what the hell is happening?!"

"He's not very much himself at the moment," the Distortion pipes in. It stays carefully away from the- the Not Man, only close enough for its ever-changing voice to carry over. "He destroyed you."

"He what? I- what on Earth are you talking about? You- who are you?" They hold a hand up to their shoulder, like the memory of an old wound aching.

"I'm Helen," the Distortion says, its long, long fingers wrapped around the edge of its door, prepared to shut it tight at a moment's notice. "I take it you're not the Not Them, then? How'd you get back?"

"I- no! I'm- I'm everyone," Everyone says. "Or- not. I'm- I have a name, I just don't- listen, I know Jon. I'm sure of that. He must know my name, if he'd just- Jon, look at me!"

"You could try touching him," the Distortion suggests. "It brings him back for a couple minutes when I do it."

The person (who has a name), scoffs vaguely in its direction. "I know you probably think you're being helpful, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

The Distortion smiles then, a sharp-toothed, ever-changing mirage of a gesture. "Do it, then, if you dare. If you want to know."

The Archive pays them no mind, as it walks. Its attention is focused onward, always onward, towards the place where its patron and the Mother call it back. One step at a time, savoring all there is to witness, all there is to add to its annals, and-

There's a table.

There isn't. Or- or there is, but it's not just a table.

You have to touch it.

You shouldn't, you don't want to, you're just- it's confusing here, and there are so many things happening, just-

"Jon?!"

But you do! Don't you get it? You were put on this Earth just to touch this table. It will solve all your problems, you just need to touch it.

You will never see him again, any of them, but you have to know, don't you? Hasn't that always been your downfall, the stone you trip over every step of the way? There are other ways to find knowledge, better ways. If you don't touch it-

Touch it.

"J- it hurts!"

Your skin itches. It's not- It hurts along the seams (what seams?), but it won't for long. You don't need it anymore. That lovely, lovely face with the freckles that only really show up when you smile, when the sun hits you just the right way, won't you let me borrow it for a while? No, not whole, just- yes, your nose will do, and the way you chuckle when you keep secrets. You can keep the gleam in you eyes just before you make a joke, and your hands that are so agile and smart.

They won't even know the difference, I promise. I'll take good care of them for you, or should I say, for me?

"Jon!"

The Arch- Jonathan Sims looks up at the shout, to the face of the tall young man with the sandy hair and light brown skin who's got a hand wrapped around his wrist.

Does-? He doesn't know this man, does he? Is- he's not one of the ones he left behind, he's not- what are their names?

"Huh... I'll be honest, I was counting on you vaporizing them like you did before," the Di- Helen says as she comes to stand by his side, laying a long-fingered hand on his shoulder, and the call of the Eye, of the Web, breaks down even more.

The- the man, he's got to focus on the man.

No one that ever met him remembers him now, as his cousin Lawrence is currently trapped miles and miles under the ground, and the only thing he remembers with clarity is the wide open sky that he will never see again.

He looks into the man's eyes, the soft warm brown with the gentle speckles of green, set in a perfectly unremarkable face.

This man, when he was born, was named Carl Moore.

"Jon?" Helen asks again, and the mild headache her voice brings is a blessing to him, as the waves of confusion and distortion chip away at the control of those who would call him to the place where he belongs. "Why are you not dealing with them again?"

"I- you wanted me to destroy them?" Jon blinks, still a bit dazed by the clarity in his thoughts.

By his side, Helen shrugs. "I mean, they did try to kill me, and you, and everyone else in the Archives at some point or another. I thought they were due for some retribution."

"I'm not them. Or- or I am, but- but not them," says the man who is neither a man nor Carl Moore, and Jon nods."I don't- I don't know how it works very well."

And then it hits Jon who they are, who she is, because he can see (not See) how much that bothers her, how much the thought of there being something she doesn't understand, some information she doesn't know, itches at her like a scab.

How perfect she would have been for their patron, Archivist or not.

Her hand is still clenched tight around his wrist, and through the confusion of the Stranger spreading from it he feels relief and despair warring at his chest.

For all that he grieved losing her... this is not a fate he wanted for her, just like he didn't want it for Tim, for Martin, for himself.

"Jon?" she asks, in a voice that isn't her own except that it is now, for all intents and purposes, along with all the others inside her. "Do you know who I am?"

"Your name," he starts carefully, with intent. If by decreeing it he can make it a so in this new reality his words wove together, he will abuse the power, just this once, for the ones he loves. "Is Sasha James."


The beast's bright red tongue runs over rubbery black lips stretched too thin over a long, bony muzzle.

It tastes of iron and pain, and victory.

Those of its kind don't usually fall to their own, but this one ran too far from its packmate, thinking it could overtake the beast just with the strength born of its rage, and it paid the price in blood.

And still the feeling of satisfaction is short lived, and the beast's hackles raise and its fur stands on end as it feels itself watched again.

It despises this new world, with the billion eyes watching its every movement, trying to make it feel like prey even as it moves through the territories hunting those that wronged it in the past.

The beast's bloody drool splatters onto the barren earth as it takes another step forward, lifting its muzzle in the air to sniff out its next target, when it smells it.

The scent is too sweet, like a wound left to fester, beginning to rot. It follows the beast, as it's been doing so for many blinks of the ever-watching eyes in the sky; the beast knows not where it comes from, except that it brings with it the memory of old hunts, tinged with the taste of dirt and secrets and shame. A raggedy cot dressed in sheets that smell of-

Of her.

The beast's throat ignites with a low growl, as its patches of mangy fur stick up in response to the stress. Who is she, chasing it like the other two? What gives her the right, then, to hunt a hunter? What power could she possibly have?

Is it the strength of shared secrets, the guilt of a vice left to fester because ignoring the infection was a lot easier than cleaning it out? The pain of understanding that the stains of blood in the past won't be erased with effort, just like they weren't with tears. Or does the power come from somewhere different? From wanting, wishing so desperately for more time, just enough time to build a future where mistakes are not forgotten but not repeated?

Is it the taste of a last, bitter kiss, being ready to leave this world knowing your last breath is safe in her lungs-

The beast shakes its head, as if trying to rid itself of the corruption's carrion flies that feed on the blood so often dripping down its face.

The dripping salt is an unexected treat for them, but not one the beast is aware of, or equipped to understand. It's not a creature of thought, but of impulse and feeling, but this one is new and confusing, and all it does is make it angry.

It bends its elbows, and rubs its face free of any wetness on the coarse, dry dirt. In doing so, a new track snakes into its nose, and all thoughts of unpracticed gentleness are quickly chased from its mind, as it perks up to attention.

The time for thinking, for feeling, is gone. Only the hunt remains.


"A w- excuse me?" Tim looks up at Martin, arching an eyebrow. "You want to do what?"

Martin's eye twitches the slightest bit at Tim's voice. "Take a walk. Just for a few minutes. I won't go far, I just- I need a break."

"Sure, just look at the scenery." Tim glares up at the sky. It glares back, of course. "What do you even need a break from?"

"That'd be us," Gerry says on his other side, shrugging. Tim whips around to face him, the prickle of irritation catching on his chest like an errant flame on dry leaves, but the man isn't even looking at him. He's giving Martin a look Tim can't quite decipher, like he's reading into things Martin didn't even say. "Please don't leave. Okay?"

Martin's far-away eyes seem to focus on them just the slightest bit, and he smiles a little. "Promise. I'll- I really won't go too far. I just-"

"I get it." Gerry nods, offering an encouraging smile. "Go."

Martin looks... he's different, Tim decides as he watches him walk away without a single look back, and he pretends he doesn't notice how he seems to grow more and more grey with every step. Even before the world ended, when Tim visited him at his little happy ending, the Lonely clung to him stubbornly, muting the glow of his sappy, enamoured little smile. But this is something else-

"Are you okay?" Gerry's voice snaps him out of his reverie, and Tim looks away from Martin standing alone a few stone throws away, out of earshot but not out of sight, just far enough to not be with them.

"Is he okay?" Tim asks, but he's not too sure he wants to know the answer. When in his life has it been better to know than to remain ignorant?

Gerry's shoulders sag a little, and though his smile from a moment ago hasn't completely disappeared, it looks... sadder, somehow. "As much as he can be. He's- it's the Lonely. I can only imagine that our presence is overwhelming at times." He turns to give Tim a softer, sadder shrug. "It's not you, by the way. He had to take time away when it was just the three of us too, at the cottage."

Tim stays quiet for a moment, contemplating this new information. Matching it with this man that yearned for company, for camaraderie. That just wanted to belong."...It sucks. That he'll never get rid of it."

"It does." Gerry nods. "But he'll be fine, I think. There's more to him than just the Lonely. Like there's more to you than the Desolation."

What makes Tim pause is the way the he says it, this man he doesn't particularly like, and that doesn't like him either. The casual confidence in the declaration, like one would establish well-known truths. The sky is blue, water is wet, and you are so much more than the sorrow that won't let you die.

Tim doesn't know that this is true anymore, but... it's a good thought to have.

"How are you holding up?" Gerry asks.

Tim snorts, his breath coming out in a puff of white, hot steam. "You know, enjoying the apocalypse. Why do you care, anyways?"

Out the corner of his eye, he sees Gerry shrug.

"I just do. You'd have to be a lot bigger of an asshole for me to not care." His mouth curls into an amused smirk, before it softens into something much more muted, and when Tim follows his eyes, he sees Martin's silhouette still facing away from them. "Besides, they love you. I'd do a lot worse than caring for an idiot for the two of them."

Tim purses his lips and looks away then. What can he say to that? What does he have the right to say?

He knows a thing or two about loving lost causes, but what he felt was never enough to save any of them. Not his brother, or Sasha or- Tim is starting to suspect his pained heart was where the spark of the Desolation first caught, where else could his grief stem from?

"I'm glad they have you," he mutters in the end. That much is at least true. However obnoxious he finds the man, he was at least there to be what Tim couldn't. Maybe if he'd come sooner, Sasha wouldn't have been lost.

"Thanks. But-" by his side, Gerry sighs, "I don't know how much of a difference I really made. The world still ended, and I was just another piece on the board."

He was, wasn't he? It's what Martin whispered to him. A gentle, encouraging piece that made Jon feel loved and supported, so he wouldn't notice the trap he was walking into, the thing he was becoming.

"You made a difference. To Melanie, to them," Tim says, his voice drenched in stubborn determination, and he surprises himself thinking he sounds like the Tim that believed there might still be hope, in those short few days after the first attack on the institute before he realized his friend didn't trust him, and Sasha (never Sasha) made it clear that he could only trust her. "I just-"

"Hm?" Gerry turns to look at him, his face a mask of mild curiosity.

"Maybe it's not- maybe the destination is the same. But how we reach it matters."

Gerry's gaze returns to Martin's form, like pulled by a gravity he can't hope to resist. "Those are some wise words, coming from you."

Tim kicks up some dry dirt at him. "Sod off."


"But... but how?" Sasha -that's her name, how could she ever forget it? It... it's hers, no matter what face she wears now- "I'm- I was dead. I felt her ripping my face off."

She feels Jon flinch under the hand she's still wrapping around his wrist, under the one the other woman lays on his shoulder, and her heart aches a little. He looks so tired, covered in scars and his face gaunt, with a deep, haunted look in his eyes that are just now starting to go back to the usual, warm dark that Sasha knows, instead of the uncanny neon green.

"It said you were alive, after that. That you even tried to get us to see you, but we-"

"But you didn't." Sasha nods. She... she remembers that. Sort of, like flashes of a fever dream. Just a shadow clinging to her stolen body by a thread of white-hot pain, just enough to keep her from death, to feed off her suffering and fear as much as it fed from the uncertainty it sowed amongst her loved ones. "I don't... this is all crazy."

If not reassuring, it's certainly validating, she thinks as Jon explains what happened to her, the confirmation that her suspicions were right and they were tangled and stumbling blind into a web larger and stickier than any of them could've seen coming, but that's about the only silver lining in the story Jon tells. All of her friends -and Sasha has to wonder if that isn't exactly why the Not Them went for her specifically, with no one outside the institute to notice or care what happened to her- turned to horrors against their will, doing their best to survive without becoming the very thing that ruined their lives.

"Keep your hand on him," the woman says pointedly, and Sasha looks down to find she let go of Jon at some point.

"Why... why do you think it couldn't kill me? Why am I me, and not the others?" she asks after grabbing him again.

Jon, or rather this stranger that wears his name and his face, yet behaves so much more gently, who looks like he's been carrying the weight of the world -or his guilt, which might just be heavier- for a long time, shrugs.

"You were marked by the Spiral and the Eye, before the Stranger took you. I think the Stranger just couldn't rip that out of you entirely; both the knowledge and the deception were too big a part of you, and neither is something the Stranger deals with easily."

"I feel like I should take offense to that."

"I mean, I am only implying you're nosey and a liar, but take it as you will." Jon shrugs again, this time with the barest hint of a lopsided smile on his thin lips, and Sasha snorts. She hadn't heard Jon joke around since their time at research, and she'd missed it. Perhaps this is her Jon after all. "In any case, I suspect you- since you were the last victim, and the only one who retained a bit of conscience, when I- uh-"

"When you killed it," the woman -it's so weird to think of her as the Distortion, when Sasha can still remember Michael so clearly- supplies promptly, and Jon flinches again. "Quite a sight."

"...Yes, thank you Helen. Your- your hand, please." Jon clears his throat. Helen stops fidgeting with her hair, and grabs his shoulder again. "When I destroyed the Not Them, all the identities they'd stolen were released. But the only one that still remained was you, so-"

"So now I'm all of them?"

"I- they're all you now, I think."

"Hm. How am I different from the Not Them, then? Will I have to keep doing what it did?"

"I... doubt so? The Not Them did not have a sense of identity, which is- it's basically what you are now. I- I have no idea how you would feed the Stranger. I suspect similarly to how Tim feeds off his own fear?" Jon frowns, and then... and then his face goes slack, and his voice grows deeper, smoother. The voice she heard often behind his closed office door as he read melodramatic tale after take into an old recorder. "The fear of losing your identity along with your ever-changing body, who are you, if you shed your face like a mask without any warning, any control over it? Is that your face in the mirror, or have you lost yourself again, this time for goo-"

"Jon?" Sasha scowls.

"Touch him," Helen reminds her.

Sasha goes to squeeze his wrist again, and his eyes snap to her, bright green and empty for a moment, before the color starts draining again. "What was that?"

"I- who-" There's a hint of confusion in his dark eyes as they sweep her face, and Sasha feels something inside her shift with delight at being unknown. "Oh. I- right. Sasha. I- I apologize," he runs his free hand over his face. "I- sorry. I just need to- the fear needs to be annexed, wherever it comes from."

"That's very enlightening." Sasha deadpans.

Jon chuckles sheepishly. "It's as clear as these things get, I'm afraid."

Sasha arches an eyebrow, which takes her by surprise because she had never been able to arch her eyebrow before. Perks of a new body, she guesses. Maybe she can even whistle in one of them.

"Rose Cooper's can whistle." Jon nods, before grimacing a bit. "Sorry."

Sasha whistles. Or she doesn't, because apparently Carl Moore can't do that, but it's the sentiment that matters. "That'll take some getting used to."

"I'm-"

"It's not your fault." She shakes her head. "It's still hard to believe, you know? Elias being some sort of- of cosmic big baddie all along. Why would he want you?" she asks, then winces when she realizes how it sounds. "I mean-"

"No, I- I get it. It's- it really wasn't- I wasn't special. It was the Web's choice."

"Jon-"

"I- I can feel it pull at me even now, you know? That's probably why- Helen, your- thank you," Jon stops, continuing only once Helen's hand has been laid on his shoulder again. "It's not too happy you're blocking me from it. Or the Eye, for that matter."

"It's a pity that Tim killed that woman from the Dark, then. Maybe that would've been enough to cut them off completely."

Wait, what?

"Tim killed someone too?" Sasha asks, forcing the words past the lump in her throat.

"...If it's any consolation, Martin hasn't killed anyone," Jon says.

"Yet," Helen adds with a smile that curls in on itself over and over again. Her dark curly hair waves in the non-existant breeze, and her eyes swirl like milk stirred into a coffee. "But I'm rooting for him."

"I'd much rather you didn't," Jon deadpans, rolling his eyes. "I'm... I think I don't have much time left," he says then, in a muted, demure voice

"What?" Sasha whips around to look at him, feeling her fingertips grow cold with anxiety, realizing only then that she let go of him again.

"W- oh! No, not- not like that." Jon looks up at her, and she's stricken again with just how- how tired he looks. "I just- I have to go. But I'll be..."

He lets his voice fade before the 'fine', and Sasha knows he couldn't bring himself to lie.

"Well, yes," Jon chuckles. "I've been told I'm a spectacularly bad liar. I didn't see the point in trying." He sighs then, his gaze drifting off far away. "I wish there was a way to- I'd like to leave them a message. To let them know I'm- they know where I am. But I- I'd like them to know I am myself. Sometimes."

"Uh- question?" Sasha lifts her hand. When did she let go of his wrist? She grabs him again.

"Yes?" Jon asks. Sasha notices Helen's hand on his shoulder letting go one finger at a time, and his eyes starting to glow green again.

"Does that mean we're coming with you?"

"Huh. I- I suppose it would be easier if one of you told them in person."

"...But?"

"But nothing, I suppose," Jon sighs. "I- I felt slightly better, thinking I wouldn't be going alone."

Sasha's heart aches in her chest, and she feels her resolve solidify. She left them alone before, she was ripped from them.

It will not happen a second time.

"Actually," she says hurriedly. "You got a point. If two evil entities want you to walk into Mordor, and we can slow it down, we should. Message it is!"

Jon gives her a charmingly owlish, confused look, before it morphs into careful gratitude. "Message it is, then." He turns his hand around to squeeze at hers. "We just need to think of how."

"I don't imagine you were carrying a pen and a notepad when you got called, did you?? Helen taps her chin with a long finger, and Sasha's shoulder aches. "I could stab you, like the good old times. Blood is easy to write with."

"I- uh- I feel like bloody writing wouldn't be particularly reassuring." Jon grimaces again. "I think... yes, that could work. I- Sasha? Could you help me?"

"Yes, I- always!" Sasha hops to her feet as well, and Helen unfolds herself to keep holding Jon's shoulder. "What do you need?"

"That rock, the- yes, the flat one. Could you push it closer?" Jon asks.

The rock Jon pointed to is medium-sized and oblong, and Sasha finds it easy enough to flip it on its side to roll it over to where Jon waits, holding a smaller one to his chest. Without Sasha's hand on him, his eyes have gone green again, but he still seems to have control over himself. Mostly.

"Thank you. Now just- I want it on top of this one." Jon kicks at a larger, flatter rock by his feet. "We can probably just flip it over- yes, like that."

He waits until Sasha has finished pushing her rock on the other one, before placing his own on top.

"A cairn? Don't you think we need more than three rocks?" She asks, arching an eyebrow.

"No I- three's a fine number i think," he says. There's something both soft and intense in his eyes when he says so, and Sasha feels her lips curl into a smile. "Oh, actually... Could you lift the top one again?"

As soon as Sasha does, he shrugs off the faded green hoodie he's wearing, with its frayed cuffs and much too large for him, and is left only in a threadbare t-shirt -also far too big- while he carefully folds the garment. He lays it on top of the middle rock, and nods for Sasha to place the top one back.

"There. They should- they'll know I'm thinking straight. Or- or at least that I'm not completely gone," he mutters.

"Hmmm knowing them, that wouldn't stop them from following you." Helen says by his side.

"Yeah, that... that does worry me a little, thank you Helen."

"Anytime," she smiles. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be, I fear." Jon sighs. "I... its good to have you again, Sasha."

'It's good to be back,' Sasha can't bring herself to say. She's only heard a part of the story so far, but she already knows returning from the dead is not a positive.

"I'm here," she says instead. That at least she can be sure of.

They let go. And Jon walks.

Notes:

Okay so, the Stranger and the Spiral always make my head hurt, but the way I see Sash's new existence is basically the polar opposite of the Not!Them. Where they didn't have an identity and stole other people's as a means to survive/hunt, Sasha is only an identity. All of the people that the Not!Them ever consumed are now Sasha, and Sasha is all of them.

She doesn't necessarily need to feed from other people, but if she did the fear that would sustain her is basically the brief nervousness and uncanniness of running into someone you definitely should know at the mall, and not recalling their name. For the most part though, she's self-feeding. She exists ina astate of constantly worrying about losing her own identity because she's now everyone the Not!Them ever ate. Feeling like this body that is yours is not entirely who you are, even though it should be right? You're in it, it has to be you. (so some of my own dysphoria thrown in there for good measure, because what is writing if not self-projection?)

Hope that clears it up a little?

Chapter 25

Notes:

Hey y'all, how's everyone doing?
Hope you enjoy the chapter but first off two announcements:

-FIRST: There's a final chapter count now! It's tentative give or take one chapter, but the rest of the story is completely outlined, and I hope to finish it at some point during this year. There, that's vague enough that it won't stress me out.

-SECOND: This is the last time this fic will update until the story is complete. I have one more chapter in the backlog, but the end is a bit of a cliffhanger and I don't feel comfortable going into hiatus there. Once the story is complete, I will be posting one chapter every Friday until we're done. Thank you for all the support you've given me and my lil' story, I will continue to check and respond to comments periodically, but I want to try and give it my all without extra pressure, now that I'm on the finish line.

Okay, housekeeping is done, on with the chapter!

CW for
-Thoughts of mortality (the End domain)
-Verbal abuse and guilt tripping of one Timothy Stoker
That's about it, I think?

Chapter Text

XXV

The Eye is not dissatisfied.

How could it be, with the world remade in its image, able to witness the terror of every sentient being trapped in a taylor-made nightmare, fed a steady influx of the victim's horrified thoughts through the Pupil's gaze, and even more substantious recollections of fear through its beloved Archive.

No, the Watcher is not dissatisfied. It is far too large for such menial emotion.

It does not at all resent how the Web has such a strong thrall on its Archive, or the fact that it can't risk burning it away even with all its power, because it's currently the only thing spurring the Archive towards its rightful place.

It does not, of course, resent the figments of Stranger and Spiral that drag stubbornly after its Archive, halting its process, delaying the assimilation, or how its Archive seems to relish these interruptions in its pilgrimage.

It is certainly puzzling, the Archive's reluctance. What else could it want, if it's so close to achieving its full potential?

Truly, out of all the Servatoris that the Eye has had over the course of millenia, the Archive that used to be Jonathan Sims is by far the most vexing one. For all that it's given in to its true nature, absorbing knowledge everywhere it goes with no purpose other than to know , it still clings to its humanity with a zealous fervour that not even Gertrude Robinson, so desperate to not become a monster, possessed.

And for the first time in centuries, ever since a young avatar started toying with the idea of a ritual to join all rituals under his patron's inevitable gaze, the Watcher feels the inklings of the familiar, dangerous impulse that birthed it in the hearts of all creatures millions of years ago.

Curiosity.


It's weird being like this, Sasha thinks as she looks down at her reflection on a foul smelling oil puddle.

This time she's a bit shorter, with wavy reddish hair and light brown skin dotted with freckles here and there, and bright hazel eyes that look back inquisitively. 

Is this how she looked before? Was this her face?

"Did you meet me? Before I changed, I mean," she asks out loud. There's no one in sight at the moment, but it's not like Jon will think she's ridiculous for talking to herself, not when he's doing the zombie tour back to his creepy tower. 

"It wouldn't really matter, would it?" Helen's voice comes through the bright yellow door of a broken down barn. "Do you remember me?"

"Not really. But I don't- there's a lot of things that are blurry. I don't know which memory comes from which life." Sasha sighs. "I'm so stupid."

Helen tilts- no, she rotates her head to the side. Sasha shrugs.

"It's not like I didn't know the sort of things that were in Artifact Storage, you know? Part of- I always knew these things were real, at least a little. But I still went in there."

"I feel like I can't give you too much flack about going into places where you shouldn't." Helen shrugs. 

"I don't know that I can blame you either, Michael was very convincing," Sasha chuckles to herself. "Should we give him a break?  Maybe if we try sitting with him she'll have a harder time breaking us apart from him?"

Helen's smile is the mischievous, malevolent gesture she remembers from her predecessor. "If it'll bother the spider."

Jon comes to slowly, when Sasha wraps her arms around his torso. He slows down first, his eyes still bright green and focused on the tower, before Helen layers a large hand on his head, and he turns his face to look at her. 

"Who- oh. Sasha?" He asks.

"That's me. Wanna sit down?" She smiles fondly at his relieved expression. It's- whoever she is, she's someone who brings comfort, who brings safety.

"Yes, that- thank you, both of you. That would be good," he says, blinking hard as they pull him down to the ground. He folds like a piece of paper, wrapping his arms around his knees; Sasha sits sideways on his feet, and hooks an arm behind his calf before grabbing her own wrist with her other hand. This should work at keeping them linked for a bit. 

"That was faster than before," Helen comments. Her knees bend at three or four places as she sits down next to them, and it makes Sasha feel a little dizzy, so she looks away. 

"I could sort of hear your conversation." Jon's voice is thick and raspy, like he's nursing a hangover. He blinks once more, before aiming a serious look at her with determination burning in his dark eyes. "What happened wasn't your fault, Sasha."

She doesn't really answer that. Maybe one day she'll forgive herself for falling first, for not being there -would she have made any difference?-, but the hurt is still a bit too fresh. Instead, she leans on her side to rest her cheek on Jon's knees. 

"Talk to me." She can feel her arm trying to snake away from under him, and she clamps down even more stubbornly on her wrist. They'll have this, goddammit, they deserve it.

"What do you want to know?" He asks quietly.

"Everything," Sasha responds. Off to their side, Helen chuckles. "What?"

"Very on-brand," says the Distortion. Like Michael before her, it feels like Helen is reacting to the punchline of a joke that hasn't even been set-up yet, and Sasha finds it very frustrating. 

"Fine, then." She rolls her eyes. "You've told me about the fourteen. About Elias and Gertrude," she lists off, like she doesn't know exactly what she wants to ask about. "About Leitner. We haven't talked about the elephant in the room, but I figure explaining how you came to be the apocalyptic MVP would take far longer than we-"

"Sasha," Jon interjects quietly and almost politely, and Sasha deflates like a balloon.

"Well? Will you tell me?" She asks, moving to sit on Jon's feet again as she's almost slid completely off. 

Jon's hand comes to wrap around her wrist and gives it a sympathetic squeeze.

"We- it was mostly my fault," he begins. It's a starter he uses often, Sasha has noticed. "When you- I was- I pushed him away. Him and Martin, but I think it hurt him the most, you know? Martin was probably used to it by then," he adds bitterly. 

Sasha nods, the scratch of the rough denim of Jon's jeans a welcome distraction from the thoughts beginning to swirl in her head. Of course it hurt him; he always did put too much faith in the people he loved.

"It was too late by the time I realised the truth. We- did he tell you about-"

"Danny?" She whispers. "Not all of it. Just that he... went missing. That he was looking for him."

Above her, Jon nods slowly.

"It was him," Jon says. His voice is almost defiant as he declares it, almost proud. "The Watcher likes to think it was me who stopped the Unknowing, that it was the reason the Stranger didn't succeed. But it was all Tim."

Something inside her rears up its ugly head at his declaration, angry and spiteful and filling her mind with thoughts of fire and pain and melted wax.

"You... blew it up. The whole place," she says. The memory feels as foreign as remembering her mother's voice, and it comes with the empty sadness of knowing nothing is truly hers anymore.

Jon nods again. "We both- we died there. Or we should have but we both..."

"Chose to come back," Helen says pointedly, and Jon merely sighs as she brings her hand up to wrap it around his shoulders again.

"Why did you?" Sasha asks. It's a bit morbid maybe, but... 

"I was afraid of dying," Jon responds in a voice almost too low to be heard. "I couldn't- I didn't want to die without-"

"I don't think you have to apologise for wanting to survive," Sasha says in what she hopes is a soothing voice.

"Sasha, I knew what I would become. I knew, and I still chose-"

"Jon, you're human," is all Sasha says, but it's pretty effective at stopping Jon on his tracks. 

He snorts, and he only sounds the slightest bit hysterical. "No I'm not. We're not, I don't think."

"Why do you think Tim chose to come back?"

"To...kill me, probably?" Jon smiles fondly. "He would have, if Gerry hadn't been there I think."

Sasha blinks. "Who's this Gerry person? You've been mentioning them, but I don't think I ever knew them. Any of me," she adds, combing through all of her memories for the name.

"I- uh. You didn't- or you did, but not- not in person." Jon starts squirming away from her, but moves back a moment after realising the pull. "He's Gerard Keay, remember the statements he was in?"

"...The guy with the bad dye job? Casually shells out five thousand quid for a book? Shows up burned to a crisp at a hospital to tell the nurse cryptic shit?"

Jon snorts, and Sasha smiles. It's always been hard to make him outright laugh, so especially with the current circumstances it's a bit of a victory.

"Give him a break, he was trying his best," Jon says fondly after he sobers up. His smile turns a bit sad then, after his words. "He always is."

Sasha arches an eyebrow. There's a lot to unpack in that look, but first things first. 

"So he came back?" She asks. "I remember he was supposed to be dead, did he fake it, or is he like us?"

"Like you and me, dear," Helen answers before Jon can.

"...What's the difference?"

"Helen is not exactly an avatar," Jon sighs. "She- the Distortion is a creature of the Spiral. Like- like the Not Them were to the Stranger. It was never meant to have a physical form, it was only by Gertrude's doing that it became tied to Michael, and later Helen. She didn't choose to become an avatar, she was just... made by the entity. Like you, or Gerry."

"So I'm even more monster-y than you, got it." Sasha gives him a dry stare that Jon responds with a small sheepish grin, and she huffs. "So which one remade him?"

"Beholding," Jon says, and his eyes flash green briefly as if in recognition.

Sasha gives him a long, searching look. His face is... his whole expression is a bittersweet tableau, his lips curled in the same sad smile from a bit ago.

She nudges his knee with her cheek. "What's the story there?"

Jon sighs, deflating like a balloon under the sun.

"It's- Gerry's kind. Good," he starts, giving her a firm' look like he's daring her to disagree. "I- I didn't ask for him to be- if I'd been given the choice, I would've chosen to let him have his rest, because he deserves it."

"But?" Sasha asks, because this all sounds like Jon is trying to convince himself rather than her. 

He gives her a look then, a little bit lost, a little bit guilty. "But I don't regret that he was brought back, Sasha. I don't regret him, or anything that has happened since then. I know the kind of person that makes me, but-"

"Hey," Sasha interrupts him, looking up at him from the uncomfortable, well-loved cradle of his bony knees. "What happened to you, Jon?"

The sad, sheepish smile comes back with a vengeance, making Sasha's chest ache for him.

"Fell in love. Ended the world."

"Well, that escalated quickly. Anyways, I can't wait for you to introduce me to your cryptic mall goth boyfriend." She smiles back at Jon's little snort. "Okay. So... so Tim came back from the dead. You came back from the dead. You brought someone else back from the dead-"

"Technically it was the Beholding-"

"Yes yes yes," Sasha waves the correction away. "What about Martin? Is he alright?"

"As alright as he can be," Jon sighs. "he was... Pretty angry at me when I left them, I think."

"Them?" Sasha arches an eyebrow. 

"Him and Gerry. I- they were still at the house. I don't know if-"

"Wait. The house?" She asks, and Jon blinks back at her a little owlishly. 

"Our- well, not ours I suppose, it's Daisy's. But I don't think she's in any state to ask for it, and Gerry's garden is-"

"Jon?"

"Yes?"

"Why does Martin live with you and your boyfriend?"

"Uhm-" Jon's skin is dark enough that it's always a bit hard to tell when he's blushing, but Sasha knows him, and her suspicions are only confirmed when Helen chuckles behind him. 

"I think that story will need a few more stops to tell, but it's pretty amusing if you ask me."


"This is- what is this?" Martin asks. Nestled down innocently at the bottom of an unassuming valley, the construction spins and spins, and faint pipe music echoes around, eerie and alluring in equal measure.

"Don't try to make sense of it." Gerry shrugs, giving his hand a squeeze. 

"On the nose, is what it is," Tim grumbles on Martin's other side, and Martin snorts. 

"Is it really? Technically, carousels are more of a carnival thing, not necessarily circus-y, are they?"

"Wow," Tim deadpans, "I didn't know Jon was contagious."

Martin feels his lips curl into a sad smile. Jon is a sensitive topic with Tim at the best of times, and this is far from it. Of all the territories they could've come across this is definitely the worst one, and Martin knows too much by now to even consider the thought that it's a coincidence.

"We don't have to get close to it," Gerry is saying now, pulling Martin out of his reverie. "We'll just cross, move on to the next, right Martin?"

Tim remains quiet, his wax skin rippling like water about to boil, his bright orange gaze fixed on the carousel where faceless figures chase after one another with no rhyme or reason as to who's prey or predator anymore.

This feeling isn't new, comes the sad realisation. Time and time again, the Stranger has torn Tim's life apart right when he's managed to piece it together again. This is what's worst about the entities, isn't it? It was the Desolation that claimed Tim's humanity, but the unknown will never stop haunting him.

Gerry's hand squeezes his again, a bit more insistently this time. Martin blinks, and looks sideways to find Gerry's seafoam gaze focused on him.

"Martin?"

"I- yep. Just walk right past it, I never did like carousels anyways. Never got what the fun was in just spinning around with all the folks staring at you."

That startles a laugh out of Tim at least, rips his eyes away from the spinning behemoth for an instant. 

"You don't like rollercoasters, you don't like carousels... you'd be a pretty lousy carnival date, huh?" Tim's attempt at a joke is weak, but it's there; it's a lot better than the haunted look from a moment ago.

"The ferris wheel at sunset sounds pretty nice," Martin shrugs, before adding pointedly, "you know, in case anyone wants to keep it in mind."

It has the desired effect of making both men snort, and Gerry squeezes his hand a third time, slowly and fondly like he doesn't even care Martin's skin is only barely tangible.

"Subtle."

And Martin, with the Lonely condensed in his stomach like an empty void, would love nothing more than to shake himself free and disappear, when faced with the brunt of these emotions aimed at him. Instead, he squeezes back a bit tighter, because some things are worth the hurt. 

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he grins. "Let's go then."

The walk down the valley is a lot shorter than it looked; distances are not really a thing anymore, always just the right length to be frustrating. 

True to their word, they try to stay as far from the carousel as the domain will allow them, which is to say, not far enough.  The figures -he victims , Martin reminds himself- reach out to them with begging hands, never longer than an instant before the slow spin of the gargantuan machine takes them away.

"Do you remember that time-" Martin starts, before letting his voice fade. What would he even bring up? Not the little tidbits Tim mentioned about Danny, their childhood games, the excursions that would lead to his loss. Not the memories of the four of them during the early archives days, before Sasha was taken and Jon was sent down a road he could neither see nor escape. Not the days at his flat during the past year, after Tim's mockery of a resuscitation, when his hatred and sorrow forced his tired heart to beat again. He doesn't know anything about Tim that wouldn't cause him much more pain, he realises with a start. Just enough familiarity to hurt, never to heal.

It's infuriating, to think he's all that Tim has anymore.

"You kept my flat after I left, didn't you?" Martin asks instead. "Be careful; I had a couple break-ins when I was living there," he adds. The attempt at humour tastes somewhat bitter on his tongue, but Tim's mouth twitches a little at the remark. 

"That happened to a friend once," Tim says after a moment, trying to drown the sound of the victims. "Sod always had terrible taste, ended up moving in with the intruder." 

"Well, who knows? Maybe the intruder was surprisingly charismatic," Martin says. Gerry nudges his shoulder with his own. 

"I can guarantee he isn't," Tim snorts this time, and Martin smiles. 

"I don't know Tim, I think you may be biassed." The carousel extends for many yards still, but it's- it's fine. They don't have to walk around it, their path is just a tangent to this circle of lies, and they'll leave it behind soon enough. "I find that he makes really good conversation."

"I don't think I've ever been on one of these, you know?" Gerry takes the cue flawlessly, albeit... weirdly. 

"Never?" Martin arches an eyebrow. "They're fairly common."

"My mom wasn't really the fun carnival day type," Gerry shrugs, "maybe my dad took me on one, but I would've been too young to remember."

"And you never wanted to take a day trip on your own?" Martin asks, and Gerry snorts. 

"Bit too old for that then, I think dear."

"Your boyfriend was riding carousels at twenty three, I doubt anyone would've judged you," Tim cuts in dryly, and both of them turn to look at him in surprise.

"Jon?" Martin asks, at the same time Gerry asks "He was?"

"Once, after he and Georgie broke up." Tim's shoulders jump in a sharp shrug; he looks uncomfortable rather than angry though, and it doesn't escape Martin that this is the first time Tim's brought up Jon on his own. "He told me back in research, before- before Sasha transferred."

Oh. 

The next few steps go by in silence, and Martin reflects on that statement, and all the things contained in it. 

A time where these two trusted each other, when the biggest problem between them was a misplaced folder, and both of them were healing. Hoping to heal. None of them with the slightest inkling of the storm brewing over their heads from the moment they signed their name on the dotted line of the contract.

"...I wonder what animal he rode. Did he tell you?" Gerry's voice breaks the silence, and Martin snorts. 

It's... it's very Gerry, to focus on the little details of the people he loves, instead of the  past gone by.  It makes a lot of sense considering the life he's lived.

"I- don't think he did?" Tim blinks. "I'd bet on the-"

"Cat," Martin says along with him, smiling. "If you ask me, that sounds like the healthiest coping mechanism he's tried."

"I don't know," Gerry leans over, hooking his chin on Martin's shoulder. "There was this really good period when he was moping about you ignoring him, I made him coffee and he read me definitions off the dictionary."

Martin laughs. It catches on his chest a bit; he's- he's laughed so little, since the world changed. It burns the Lonely inside him, but it's worth the effort to turn his head and lay a soft kiss on Gerry's cheekbone. "Very romantic."

"Jon doesn't even like coffee," Tim groans from his other side. "You know? I think this might be my personal tor-"

"Nice of you to visit, big bro," says a voice to their left, and Tim freeze s. 


The man that now traverses the Corpse Routes does it with a single, firm certainty.

He will die.

Like everyone else that came before him, and everyone else that will come after, he's not exempt from mortality, and he doesn't shy away from the fact, though that doesn't mean he isn't terrified by it. 

He wouldn't be here otherwise. 

He fears not the inevitability of the deed itself, but the thick veil of the unknown draped over it like a shroud. 

The man was implacable before the change, month after month he visited a new specialist, tolerating the pinching and the pricking and the judging in an attempt to find what would it be. What would take him? Would it be his lungs, his heart, his brain? Or would it come from the outside, he'd think as he clicked on yet another news website to see just what tragedy had taken many like it would surely one day take him.

This quest was never guided by the burning determination of those who desire to live, but rather the desperation of those who wish to be rid of uncertainty, those for whom the wait is a lot more painful than the blow. 

In a similar vein, the man poured years of his life into trying to resolve the question that has plagued humanity since the first time a loved one was checked with worry, and found stiff and cold to the touch. 

What is it that comes after the End?

He's been to endless places of worship, listened to wise words from all paths of life, swallowed truth after truth after truth, despairing a little more every time that believing didn't bring forth an Answer. Needless to say, the man never really grasped the true meaning of faith, but then again it was never spiritual peace that he was after, was it? The man sought the answer not in order to avoid a grim fate, or to score himself a few extra points before that unknown assailant inevitably drags him away from everything he knows. 

He fought sleep off every night, trying to remain alert until his tired eyes gave up and fell closed, and his last thought was without fail dedicated to whether or not he'd ever open them again. Whether or not he'd ever discover what lays beyond in time to prepared, or if his mind, his life, his very being would just blink out like a lightbulb, never to experience a single thought again, no more idea of what happened to him than he does now. 

The route this man follows is a long one, longer than anyone who marches by his side. Terminus feeds on each and every one of the fearful theories the man spins even in this scenario in which When, How and Why are especially useless. 

The Coroner watches him -and others- from his post overlooking the domain, though he does not know either how or when the man's route will end. The End hasn't decided yet, and the uncertainty of the man in the face of inevitability is the most delicious feast. 

The Archive watches as well, and he- it quietly contemplates the blurred distinctions between the entities that now rule the world in deference to its patron. The man's desperate search for knowledge, for truth, didn't do anything to endear him to the Beholding. His fear of the unknown didn't bring the Stranger or the Spiral running to sink their claws into him. Instead, the man's fixation with his own end, was what dragged him here, to the one path in this new reality that may in time grant him relief from his torment. 

Terminus has always been far gentler than its peers...

The Archive- n- no. Not- not the Archive, is it? Is he? 

He- he has a name, sometimes. Thoughts of his own, like just now. Questions that go unanswered, or that did, before all this. 

It- he has them more often, lately. Murky, unfocused things that barely scratch the surface and can never leave his lips, until the Distortion and the Them place their hands on him. 

Or their entire mass, like the- like Sasha's doing right now, clearly taking advantage of the larger body she has today, with a round face and short black hair, pretty much covering Jon as she lays on top of him.

"Was this really necessary?" Jon asks. Then, when he recognizes the throbbing pain at his knee, "did you trip me to the ground?"

"Technically, Helen did." Sasha shrugs, "I want to test how long it takes like this. I think I have to notice if she makes me move my entire body."

"I hardly tripped you too, it was bound to happen when you're going around reciting your little statements as you walk," Helen grins, resting the tip of a sharp finger on his forehead to clear the last remnants of the Web's pull away. "This one feels different, doesn't it?"

"It... does." Jon feels his brow furrow. "There's- I can feel the edges of this domain."

"And?" Sasha asks, squirming to slip an arm under hers and Jon's bodies for extra safety.

"And there's-" the realisation hits him so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that it's all he can do to turn his wide eyes towards Sasha. "Sa- there's- there's less people by the end of the domain, than there is by the beginning."

Sasha blinks and gives him a flat stare, and Jon kind of remembers that expression; it's nice to know that was real, even if the Not Them stole it. "That's not as telling as you think it is, Jon."

Jon smiles sheepishly as the dryness in her tone. "Sorry. It's just- Sasha, people are not supposed to die anymore. They're supposed to suffer forever, this is how this works-"

"Lovely."

"-but if there's less humans once this domain ends... that means they're-"

"Dying," interrupts a voice that is most definitely not any of Sasha's. A voice that, perhaps very tellingly, Jon remembers in a dreamy, confused haze. "And that is exactly what I wished to talk to you about, Jon. If I can still call you that, I mean."

Sasha's gone stiff over him, and Jon stretches his neck to look over her shoulder. "Oliver Banks," he says in lieu of greeting as he crosses glances with the other avatar.

Oliver arches a thick eyebrow, pointedly looking down at Jon's current situation. "I- should I ask?"

"I'd rather you didn't," Jon huffs, "but if you're still in Anabelle Cane's good graces, I'd appreciate you telling her I can walk on my own."

The man snorts at that. "I find that she very rarely is satisfied with the pace one chooses to move at. Will- can you get up, or will we have to talk with them holding you down all the time? I don't think I've ever seen you on your feet."

"Please don't say it like tha-"

Sasha shifts and twists on top of Jon, pulling him this way and that until she's sat  behind him, her arms criss-crossed over Jon's chest as she holds him in front of her like a barrier, and Jon sees Oliver's frame stiffen as Sasha looks up at him in the body that once belonged to Graham Folger. 

"I know you."


The hunter snarls softly in irritation as it drops its latest kill, a small woman that tastes of running at full speed across an open field. 

It's not the first of her kind the hunter has killed, though the last one was a long time ago. Back when it hid its claws and fangs, and it had a name and a pack. 

The thought -the hunter is not too used to those anymore- leaves behind a sharp pang of hurt in its stomach, and it shakes its head trying to rid it again of the scent of coconut, the muted buttery yellow of a soft headscarf. She who hunts them isn't pack, or she would stand by the hunter's side and soothe the deep-seated rage that smolders inside its stomach. 

There's smoke in the hunter's nostrils, and it huffs and puffs to clear it away too. The mere thought of fire makes it angrier, and it can't pin the reason why. 

It remembers it feels personal, an injury close to its heart. A burn-smooth hand clinging to it in the depths of the pit, and the bitter understanding of its own stupidity, its own hypocrisy.

They weren't pack back when it happened, but the hunter should've made it right when it had the chance. 

If the one that hunts them isn't pack because she does not stand by them, what does that make of the hunter, that let her own get hurt and then didn't avenge their pain?

Smoke and suffering prickles and burns in her nose, and the hunter's snarl deepens. 

The great Eye in the sky follows the hunter's movements, as she changes directions abruptly to finally follow the scent of fire. 


The man that stands before them is wrong

His dark hair reflects the light like a cheap plastic wig, his skin is just the slightest bit too tight, his full lips pulled into a sneer like someone who's heard what a smile is supposed to look like, but didn't understand it well enough.

Coupled with the fact that he looks like an off version of Tim, it's not hard for Gerry to figure out his identity- or rather who he's supposed to be. 

"I don't- you're- you're not him," Tim says. 

"Oh?" says the skin of Danny Stoker, stretched thin over its plastic frame. "And whose fault is that, big brother?"

"Don't listen to it Tim," Martin cuts in firmly when Tim flinches. "You know what this is. What it want-"

"All I wanted was for you to come with me that night, Tim. But you were... what was it? Too tired? Too worried about getting caught?"

The mannequin takes a step towards them, and Gerry moves to stand on Tim's other side, feeling the Eye bristle and come to life under his skin. The Ceaseless Watcher holds no love for the Stranger, and they once fought over Tim.

"Fuck off," Tim snarls. His shoulders are stiff, a muscle on his jaw twitching with stress. "Get back to the carousel, or I'll-"

"You'll kill me?" Danny smiles again, even more unsettling than last time. "A bit too involved for you, isn't it? I'm honoured, at least this time I wouldn't die alone."

Tim's skin is starting to bubble at his temples and the edges of his mouth, and every deep breath he takes in seems to make the air around them hotter.

"What are you even doing here?" He tries. "I thought- I thought Grimaldi ate you just like that."

"It's easier to believe that, isn't it?" the puppet grins. Like the smile before, it's meant to be unsettling and it delivers on that front. "Just  a quick flash of pain, and sweet little Danny's gone forever... Did that help you sleep at night?"

"Can you do something?" Martin leans forward to look at him, and Gerry grimaces.

He... could. 

The Eye has made it no secret that it's pleased with him for serving his purpos e, and that in this new world Gerry's firmly under its protection and patronage. He could do something, he thinks as he looks at the puppet passing for Danny. The Beholding thinks it's some sort of poetic justice, that Gerry suffered so much in life, and now he gets to not only See his victim's past pain, but force them to relive it too, to feel it all over again until it destroys them.

Gerry mostly thinks it's a bit patronising, and entirely useless in a situation where he doesn't want Tim to watch his brother's lookalike bending under the weight of all the regrets and wrongs Daniel Stoker ever had or made in life.

"It- not here. It wouldn't work."

"What do you me-"

"Oh, we fed on him for days , you know?" The thing keeps saying. "Stripped him of everything bit by bit, skin and memories and secrets, and you know what the best part is?" Danny grins. "He didn't ask for you at all.'

"Stop."

"He knew how you were, poor dear Danny, his big brother too much of a selfish coward for him to have any hope of you saving him even as he lay dying, as we ate him-"

"It's not the thing that took your brother, Tim," Gerry says as calmly as he can, taking a short step away from the searing heat Tim's emitting as the Eye provides the information. "It just looks like it. It's how this works; it's showing you the ones the Stranger took from you, it's trying to get a rise out of-"

"Well, it's working !" Tim snaps, whipping around to face him. 

It's objectively a good thing, because at least that means he's not paying attention to the puppet, but it also serves to confirm just how out of it Tim is, his eyes glowing like burning coals, his skin bubbling and melting off his frame at the corners of eyes and mouth.

Gerry's abruptly reminded that he doesn't know Tim nearly well enough to help calm him down, and he Knows with the certainty given to him by his status, that if Tim loses control now they're never getting him back; he just can't let that happen, can't let him lose himself to his patron now that they're en-route to fix this whole mess.

Gerry grits his teeth. "Hey, try to think of-"

"I'm actually surprised it was so effective," the puppet smirks. 

"On me," he tries again, reaching out to yank on Tim's shoulder when he makes to turn back, and regretting it pretty much immediately as the boiling wax sticks to his skin, and fuck , he'd forgotten how much it hurt. "It's not worth-!"

"I would've gone for Sasha, but then I remembered you don't even know what she looked-"

And then his voice is gone, just like that.

The only thing breaking the silence left behind is thEir heavy breathing, and the eerie music of the carousel and the strange, fading echo of what might've been a scream. 

The two of them whip around to face the empty space where the puppet used to be, only to find a swirling of mist and a mostly transparent-

"Mar- what did you do?!"

"Don't," Gerry grunts out through the pain when Tim makes to move again. "Breathe."

"Let go of me," Tim grumbles. He sounds- hurt. Agitated. Through his connection with the Eye, Gerry can sense just how much of it is humiliation at once again having the Stranger drag out what he thinks are his biggest failures. Wrong as it may be, he can't bring himself to care too much, not now that he's not in immediate danger. Tim has those who can comfort him, and he's not one of them.

"I can't. Maybe once you cool down a little."

Tim bristles, his eyes glowing just the slightest bit brighter and a new wave of pain flares through his hand. "Was that a fucking jo-"

"It really wasn't," Gerry has the presence of mind to notice how even when he's in excruciating pain, he mostly sounds tired. He should talk to someone about that. "In fact, I don't think I'll be doing anything with this hand in a bit, let alone letting you go."

"I- what- oh, fuck !" Tim flinches, when he looks down to see his arm mostly melted around Gerry's throbbing, bright-red hand. "Shit, I-"

"It's fine. I'm already losing feeling on it. Just calm down." Gerry shrugs. Now to deal with more pressing matters. "Martin? Are you with us?"

It takes a while, but Martin's faint voice thankfully reaches them, though his silhouette is still hard to see amongst the mist. 

"Turns out the Lonely's still a thing. Or at least something I can do, it seems like," he says, quiet and far-off like a whisper over water. "I'm sorry, Tim. It was the only thing I could think of."

"Worked like a charm," Gerry responds after it becomes evident that Tim won't. His hand lost all feeling minutes ago, but the heat emanating from the man's body is starting to subside, so with some luck they may be able to unstick soon. "You held up good, considering everything," he turns to Tim. 

"I... I know it was lying. I want it to be a lie." Tim's voice is hoarse with emotion, and Gerry aches for him a little.

"The Stranger lies," he says simply, and that is all he will say on the matter. The true extent of Danny Stoker's suffering is a secret he'll keep to himself, as is the fact that he did, in fact, call for his brother with his dying breath.

Some knowledge must be kept secret, despite his patron's convictions.

"It will not hurt you again," Martin's echoing voice reaches them again. Gerry doesn't know if he means the specific puppet Martin sent into the Lonely or the Stranger as a whole, but he doesn't doubt the declaration anyways. Martin's eyes are visible through the mist, and they're cold .

"Don't leave?" Gerry asks; the slight pleading in his voice may be somewhat underhanded, but he'll do whatever it takes. 

"...I'm not planning to," Martin responds after another long moment. "Will your hand be okay?"

"I suppose it'll heal? I may not be Jon, but I'm still a monster of the Eye, I'm bound to have some special privileges."

"Don't say that," Martin huffs, and his form becomes a bit clearer. "You're not a monster of anything."

Gerry feels his lips curl softly into a smile. With the remaining nerves in his hand, he feels Tim pull away slowly until his skin peels off of Gerry's melted palm. 

"Sorry," he mutters, his gaze glued to the ground.

"At least you only did the one hand. Molina went for a full hug." Gerry looks down at his burned hand curiously. The skin is already trying to regenerate, and he hopes it will finish healing before the nerves grow back. He also hopes the nerves will grow back, of course. "We should keep moving; now that this place has messed with us, it should be about ready to let us out."

"Is that how it works?" Martin asks as he takes a step closer -but not too close- to them. "If we hadn't feared the Stranger, we would've been trapped here forever?"

"I doubt it, because we're not afraid of the Stranger," Gerry answers as he starts walking again. Getting Tim away from this thing can only be beneficial.

"...so we can only be trapped here if we fear the Stranger, but we can also only cross this place if we fear the Stranger?" Martin's dry voice brings Gerry's smile to a full grin. 

"Makes perfect sense if you ask me."

"I was going to thank Tim for not burning you to a crisp, but I'm not so sure anymore," Martin's silhouette grows a little more visible, and then some more when Gerry blows him a teasing kiss. "You stop that."

"What is that?" Asks Tim's exhausted voice.

"What- oh," Gerry stops short a few feet of the... Formation? Three stones of decreasing size, piled one on top of the other, and between the second and third-

"Gerry-"

"Shit." He launches forward before Martin can get another word out; he doesn't- the Eye didn't give him a heart when it brought him back, but Gerry's chest still feels impossibly heavy and tight as he shoves the smallest stone off the pile. Below it is a soft green hoodie, folded neatly in a square with the off-white, slightly chewed-up zipper on the front. It's not his, but Gerry has worn it his fair share of times since moving into the cottage, and the last time he saw it- "Martin."

Martin's still translucent hand comes to rest on the hoodie, his fingertips passing straight through the soft green fabric before he pulls back. "W- do you think he left this for us?" He asks, and the hope in his voice is almost painful to hear. 

Gerry lets out a slow exhale, crouching before the makeshift cairn. Is- if Jon left this, if Jon is trying to communicate... then he's still fighting. He's still trying .

"... I'll go on ahead," Tim says, and it's only then that Gerry notices how long the silence has stretched for. "Won't go too far."

Martin waits until Tim's steps have faded, before sitting down next to him. 

"We'll get him back," he says. His fingertips pass through Gerry's knee like they did through the hoodie, and it's a bit startling how it feels like nothing , Gerry decides.

"I know we will."

Silence.

"It's been different, hasn't it?" Martin says.

"It hasn't. It's the Lonely speaking," Gerry responds perhaps a bit too quickly. It is the Lonely, it-

"It's not bad to admit it." Martin's echo-y voice cuts into his thoughts. "Like I said, we'll get him back."

But Gerry can read between the lines of what Martin is saying, has grown to know Martin enough in the past few months, and he doesn't like what he's hearing. 

"I don't know about you," Gerry starts slowly. It feels like that night so long ago at Jon's flat, trying to phrase things in a way that wouldn't send him sprinting like a spooked horse. "But I don't think different is bad. We're... adjusting. But I don't need Jon here to want you. I was hoping you'd know that by now."

"I did. I do." Martin sighs, and out of the corner of his eye Gerry sees him get more and more solid, and feels the weight of his hand on his knee. "It's still a bit hard to forget this only started because of him."

"Things rarely start and end the same way, don't they?" Gerry shrugs before awkwardly unfolding the hoodie single-handed, and pinning it under the burnt hand's elbow to pull the zipper down. It may be a bit on the nose, but it's still worth it to see Martin come back to his full colours -and then some-, when he starts slipping the garment on. "I'm going to need some help with the other sleeve, if you could?"

"You're ridiculous," Martin's voice is soft, when he goes to gently stretch the cuff open so Gerry can slide the damaged hand through without scraping it against the cloth.

"Like I keep telling Jon, it's far too late to send me back," Gerry grins. 

Martin doesn't say anything else, but he zips up the hoodie to just below his chest, before leaning in to press a kiss on his forehead, and Gerry's pleased to notice his lips are far from cold on his skin.

Chapter 26

Notes:

We're out of hiatus guys! Thanks to everyone who kept leaving comments, it really lifted my mood!

TWs for this chapter:
Fire
Grief
Gore (implied)
Insecurity/jealousy, but the second part is mostly lighthearted and discussed almost immediately

Chapter Text

XXVI

Oliver isn't home.

Of course he isn't, he left months ago after another row of fighting. It hadn't even been the worst by far, but they just- Graham was tired, and Oliver was always busy.

Graham looks at the table again, running a finger over one of the curved edges of the spiderweb.

Perhaps that's why he's thinking of Oliver after all this time.

Despite his collected, professional looks, Oliver's got a very endearing weakness for "the occult", as he likes to call it. Somewhat of a guilty pleasure, he often says.

Said.

Anyways, Oliver would've been all over the table, with its web design that if you look at juuuust close enough, turns out to have hundreds and hundreds of names written into the canal-like grooves, in a font so tiny it reminds Graham of that carved rice grain at the Ripley's museum.

Perhaps- perhaps he'll give him a call.

They didn't end in the best of terms but it doesn't mean they can't build a relationship again, right? Doesn't mean they can't be friends. He once loved Oliver, that can't be gone just because he's no longer in love with him, which is something Graham often tells himself despite being very much sure of the opposite.

Maybe just lunch, and then a visit to the flat so he can fawn over the table. Run a finger along the edge like Graham likes to do when things are overwhelming, only to look up and find it's been hours since the last time he did so.

Only if Oliver isn't busy, though.

"And you were," Sasha says. Her voice feels- it doesn't feel like her voice, and there's a pang of panic in her stomach. If it's not hers, whose is it then? "I- you never picked up the phone."

The man looks a bit pale still, looking at her like he's seen a ghost.

"I'm- no. I think I might have- Jon?" He turns to give him a questioning look, and Jon shrugs.

"Hm. I didn't think you'd recognize Graham's real appearance," Jon hums casually, almost to himself. "Maybe because you were dead when she was taken. Anyways, you were on the ship at the time. Bad reception, and then the satellite killed you."

"Excuse me, the what?" Sasha blinks. None of this makes any sense, why is Oliver here and why was he dead? Who is this Oliver person, what-

"Graham-"

"My name is Sasha," she shakes her head. That's the main thing she has to be sure of. She's Sasha. She may have been Graham once, but now Graham is Sasha and that's all there is to it. "Jon, care to explain what's going on?"

Jon gives her a worried look, the corner of his lips turned down in a concerned gesture.

"Back when you were only Graham," he starts slowly after a moment, "you knew Oliver. I think you were-"

"A couple," Sasha nods abruptly. She remembers, intimately. But this makes no sense... was- how did she never notice Oliver was an avatar? He was always a terrible liar, she would've- "How- how did you end up like this?"

Oliver's eyes -they're light gray now, she realizes, like the color has bled out from them- slide to Jon somewhat nervously, like this encounter isn't going as neatly as he wanted.

It's very Oliver of him to have planned the whole thing, Sasha thinks with a spark of fond amusement. They must cut an appalling picture smack in the middle of his no doubt carefully orchestrated dramatic encounter, the Distortion and the Them dogpiled up on the Archivist.

"Oliver," she says, her voice firm. "Jon is alright, with some luck he's not going anywhere while we talk. But now, I think you owe me an explanation."

"I owe- what happened to you?" Oliver asks back, still looking for all in the world like he did all those years ago when Sasha asked him what his plan was if Barclays didn't work out, bewilderment and confusion warring on his usually calm, handsome face. "You were safe! I- why are you not Graha-"

"Don't call me that," Sasha snaps. "Don't ever call me that."

Ollie's face clears up all of a sudden, the way Sasha remembers it doing whenever he caught onto the plot twist of a movie. His eyes soften, and he looks at her gently, sadly.

"Stranger?" Is all he asks. His voice is careful, almost apologetic, and it makes Sasha want to cry. It's- this new existence is confusing at the best of times, and there are so many things she didn't get to tell Oliver, so many things she only thought about after he left.

Is this the constant in all of her lives? Loved ones left behind none the wiser, unsaid words that weigh her tongue down?

"...There was a table," she says after a moment. A table, popping up in her life again and again, to rip her away and fill her absence with poison. To hurt those she loved wearing a face that isn't hers, killing her a little more every day. "I got it at an antiques sale, you know I liked- you would've liked it. It was black shiny wood with a spiderweb design. Very on-brand for your aesthetic," she adds with a wet-sounding snort.

"...That's why I couldn't see your root," Oliver says after a long, tired silence. "It wasn't you anymore."

"I'm going to pretend I know what that means."

"It's- Jon can explain later, I'm sure," Oliver sighs. "I- Jon? Was it because of me?"

Sasha feels Jon move under her, partly to shrug, partly because of the Web urging him to escape. She readjusts her position to hold him down, and he gives her ankle a grateful squeeze.

"At this point I'd say it's just as likely that it was because of her past association with you as it is that it was because of her future association with me," he says in the end. "I'm not too keen on figuring out the Mother's mess anymore."

"I'd say that's wise." Oliver runs a hand down his face, and Sasha's stomach contracts with a sudden, fierce rush of fondness, as she knows with unerring certainty what words will come out his mouth next. "This is not going how I expected."

"Always glad to rain down on your plans," she grins.

Oliver snorts at the familiar exchange, shaking his head softly as his lips stretch into a smile. The dimple forms on his left cheek still, Sasha notices with muted amusement.

She loved him so much. Those should've been her parting words, instead of a scathing remark and a sarcastic 'wish-you-well'. And now they're quite literally two different people -many different people, in her case-, and whatever bridge still connects them to the past is now weak and crumbling.

Will it feel this way with Tim too? With her daughter, her wife, her cousin? Though she's back after so long, she's not the person any of them lost, just enough of it to hurt them.

"Sasha..." She can hear Jon under her starting to speak, and she shakes her head.

"I'm fine. Just- I'm fine." She turns to Oliver again. He's still giving her that pained, sorrowful look, and Sasha looks away. "Tell him what you need to tell him."

Oliver sighs, and moves around them to crouch by Jon's head.

"I'm sure you've noticed by now, but-"

"Humans are dying here," Jon interrupts. "It makes sense, but it's still unexpected."

"Do you know what that means?"

She feels Jon nod.

"It's not a big leap," he says, and Helen snorts.

"You don't need to be Martin to figure it out?" She asks.

"Exactly," Jon says, and the smugness in his tone makes Sasha smile. "The Watcher isn't loving the revelation, I must say."

"I didn't think it would," Oliver agrees. "There's plenty still here, but mine isn't the only End domain."

"Not by a mile. And other avatars are not as into the passive observer style as you are," Jon says. "Which is a bit surprising from you, by the way."

"Is it really? t's not like trying to help ever did me or anyone any good." Oliver shrugs.

"It did me a lot of good, I'd say," Jon's voice has turned almost contemplative.

It feels like an eternity, before Oliver responds with another question.

"What about everyone else?" he asks in a careful, measured tone.

And then another one, before Jon speaks again.

"I... can't speak for anyone else, but- but Oliver, I'm grateful I woke up. For many reasons," he says thoughtfully. "Even if I shouldn't be."

Out the corner of her eye, Sasha sees Oliver nod slowly.

"What will you do about this?"

Jon sighs. "I don't really know. The Mother and the Watcher are both trying to take me to the panopticon, but I suspect they each have a different goal once they get me there, and I can't say I care much for either of their plans, whatever they are."

"That'll make them happy," Oliver observes. Then, after a moment, "you know what's funny?"

"Historically, I don't," Jon says in a dry, monotone voice that makes Sasha snort. "What is?"

"I could feel you, back at the hospital. You were halfway into my patron by the time I opened the door for you to leave if you wanted," Oliver says. "You weren't afraid of dying back then. You felt mostly... irritated."

Jon sighs. "I didn't want to- I couldn't stand not knowing what had happened with the others. Or why this had happened to me."

"I figured. But yes, you weren't afraid." Oliver shrugs. "You are now, though."

There is silence, as Jon contemplates how to respond to that.

"Didn't have much to leave behind back then," Jon shrugs. "Sasha? I think it's time we get going. Helen left."

"Oh?" Sasha turns around, only to find that Helen and the door are nowhere to be seen, and she's already halfway through getting off Jon. "Well, that sucks."

"It's okay, it worked for a lot longer than the last time," Jon smiles up at her as he gets up, his eyes already turning the poisonous neon green of the Beholding. "I'll see you soon, and... thank you, Oliver."

"It was nothing. Really," Oliver says quietly, watching Jon walk away. "So... so you cut him off from the Eye?"

"Both of us," Sasha corrects him. "One of us can weaken the call so he's conscious, but both of us can make him stop."

"That must be useful."

"It is." Sasha shrugs. She should say something else, but she can't for the life of her figure out what. She's no longer the Graham he knew and loved a lifetime ago. "I better get going. I have to keep up with him."

It's only about a dozen or so steps, that Oliver speaks again.

"Sasha?" He asks, and it's the same tone he used for her old name before, despite the word itself being different.

"Yes?" She half turns to look at him, keeping an eye on Jon even as her heart hammers in her chest.

"It was- it's nice to know you're back," he says. His lips are curled in the gentle smile that not once failed to make Sasha respond in kind, not even now.

"You too," she says. Then, because she has to, because it wouldn't be fair otherwise, "I'm different- I'm not the one you knew. Not really."

Oliver seems to mull this over for a couple seconds, before looking back up at her with those uncanny pale eyes.

"I'm not, either." He shrugs. "But... those two didn't end up well anyways, did they?"

Sasha snorts; it feels like a weight is dissolving off her stomach, and she gives him another smile before she goes to turn again.

"Don't be a stranger, Ollie."


The Eye feasts and feasts and feasts, gorging gluttonously on its brethren themselves feeding.

The other entities have ever resented it for that, but there's little they can say when it was the Beholding and its avatars that brought for the world they've been crawling towards for millennia. Feeding it with the suffering they cause is the least they can do.

And still, the feeding isn't quite as satisfactory as it should, not after the Archive's continual revelations, which the Eye is increasingly peeved about, were overlooked by the Pupil in his search for triumph.

More humans have to be being created now, despite the world's new state. Even the Lonely bred its own stock. Surely they won't all end up waltzing into Terminus' cold, impassive embrace.

The eye feasts, but what before felt a scrumptious banquet tastes like ash, and scatters just as fast.


"You got any plans?" Martin asks. The fire in the middle of their 'camp' -are they really stopping for the night if there's no night anymore?- gives off little in terms of heat, but it pushes the illusion of normalcy, which Martin is grateful for. "After we fix this?"

"If  we fix this," Tim shrugs by the other side of the pit.

"When  we fix this," Martin remarks a bit more firmly. He feels a lot more like himself today, 'camping' with his friend and with his boyfriend stuck to his side, still clad in Martin's green hoodie that clashes so much against the rest of his outfit.

It's easier to believe it like this, that Gerry doesn't want him just because of Jon.

"Hm. I don't know. Traveling, maybe. I liked that before. And now I don't have to stay at the Institute, so..." Tim shrugs brusquely. "You?"

"Well... we have to stay up north until Gerry's carrots are ready to harvest-"

"Stop that," Gerry smacks a hand against his thigh, his face coloring charmingly in the light of the fire.

"I'm serious! I've got plans for those carrots," Martin snorts. "But yeah, after that... I don't know? I don't want my flat back, and Jon probably lost his already..."

They- maybe the cottage? If they get Daisy back, they could purchase it from her. If they don't- well, she won't be asking for it back anyways.

The three months they spent there were nothing short of heavenly, and Martin remembers even the awkwardness of learning to move around each other with undeniable fondness, boundaries and tastes learned slow and carefully, like they had all the time in the world.

They'd been very naïve, in hindsight.

"The bookstore and my mother's house above it are still standing," Gerry pipes up. "We'd have to find out if Gertrude did something with the papers; hopefully it won't matter that the owner was dead for a while."

"It's still sad though," Martin boops him on the nose. It's hard to feel down when faced against Gerry's absurd sense of humour.

"Oh, tragic. I hear he left behind two grieving boyfriends, he was apparently supernaturally handsome and charismatic."

"Bit of a big head, though. But hey, there's no accounting for taste," Martin shrugs, then smiles when Gerry places a kiss on his shoulder. "But yeah... I guess it's an option. I just didn't expect you'd want to live th-"

"We can raze it to the ground, sell the plot and use the money to purchase something," Gerry cuts in, his voice casual and light.

Tim's eyes flash orange across the campfire though, so Martin guesses there's a lot more feeling in the remark than what Gerry meant to put into words.

They sit in silence for a moment, until Martin softly squeezes Gerry's shoulders.

"I wouldn't be opposed to a little flat, I suppose. Granted that there are no wet towels left on the bathroom floor."

"What kind of unconditional love is this?" Gerry laughs.

"If Jon loves us less because of improperly dusted surfaces, I can love you less for having to step on a towel at three in the morning." Marin smiles. This feels good. They will fix this. They will.

"I still can't believe you two tried cleaning in front of Jon," Tim snorts. "Did you learn nothing from the first three months down at the archives, Martin?"

Martin shrugs. "I learned he liked his tea with two sugars, he was less of an ass when I made it that way."

"Your taste in men sucks," Tim says for the umpteenth time, rolling his eyes to the sound of Martin's laughter.


"We'll need to stop him soon," the Dist- Helen says. Her voice reaches the Archive as if through water, the call of the Spider adding to the natural muddying of the Spiral.

"So soon?" Sasha- yes, it's Sasha, the real one. "He said we shouldn't do it too often, didn't he? Or they'd get impatient."

"It will be a short one," Helen reassures. Just like everything else Helen does, it's not too reassuring. "I've been keeping something for him, and he's going to need it before you go into that one."

"...You know? That was also very annoying back when you were Michael."

The Archive feels its lips curl into something resembling a smile. With all the overlap between Stranger and Spiral, it's not too surprising that they bounce off each other so easily.

"You still went to the cemetery, didn't you?"

"That says more about my lack of self preservation than it does about your powers of persuasion, if you ask me," Sasha says dryly. "Should I sit on him again?"

"Oh, for sure. She's not going to like it one bit." Helen's sharp, angled smile is all too easy to picture.

"Wonder why she hasn't stopped you yet, then."

"Can't reach me in here," Helen responds, and the Archive hears a loud creak, like old hinges and wood. "Dear Tim did quite an exhaustive cleaning last time he was in me."

"...You're just saying stuff to make me curious on purpose aren't you?"

Helen chuckles. "There's just enough Beholding in there."

"Real funny," Sasha says, and then there's a pair of slender arms wrapping themselves around its torso, and then a long hand does the same around its wrist, and the call fades off into the background.

Jon blinks owlishly up at the sky, a bit disoriented as he always is whenever Sasha and Helen call him back.

The sky blinks back, and Jon rolls his eyes before focusing on his captors.

Sasha's barely older than a teenager today, he realises with a pang of sadness. It's- not having known them personally, it's easy to ignore the many victims the Not Them took, the many lives it cut short far too early.

Young Lisbeth Ackerman had meant only to squeeze in a last minute rehearsal for their acting club's performance, even willing to ignore the prop table that had unnerved them so much the whole week.

Still, this body's strong and heavy enough that it will take Jon some effort to break free when he inevitably starts trying.

"Hi. Want me to sit on your stomach?" Sasha asks, leaning her head on his shoulder as she tangles her fingers behind his waist. "Your lap?

"Hi... My- my lap I think. I should be able to see- Helen said she had something for me?" He turns to look as they lower themselves to the ground, and finds that the hand on his wrist extends into a forearm and then an arm clad in a pristine purple suit jacket that disappears behind a bright yellow door.

'That doesn't bode too well for Martin,' says Helen's voice behind the wood, and Jon's heart skips a beat.

"H- Helen?" He asks, his voice hoarse with anticipation.

'-oesn't. But I'm- I wonder if you'd be this far gone, if I hadn't turned you away when you first came to me.'

"It's time," Helen says; Jon can only barely catch a glimpse of her mischievous grin through the cracked door.

And then a lone tape recorder pokes through the threshold.

'Is that what this is, then? Making amends?' A tired sigh. Has he always sounded this exhausted?

'Not really. I- we were always going to change, I think. Our only choice is how we do it.' The sound of something being pushed across a flat surface, and Jon remembers the eerie stillness of the office, the hopelessness after Anabelle's revelation. 'I hear you collect them?'

'Only until it's time.'

'Time for what?'

'I don't know.' An amused huff that is echoed from behind the door, even as Helen's hand convulses around his wrist. 'Doesn't it frustrate you, Jon?'

A little, choked up laugh that has Sasha giving him a little squeeze in her arms. 'You'll have to be a bit more specific.'

'All these rules about what should and shouldn't be done. We are power. Why should we be contained?'

Helen's hand flinches and spasms, and Jon reaches out almost desperately to grab on to her jacket. There's- this feels like Eric Delano's tape, and even back then the Spider never did factor avatars helping each other into her plans. There's something here that he needs to hear, and she will not stop him.

'I think... Because I want to be contained.' Jon says so many months ago. A man not yet broken but starting to crack, held together only by the flimsy promise of hope. 'If I'm going to be a monster, I'm going to be one on my own terms.'

Jon feels his breath catch on his throat, as the feelings that back then accompanied the words rush back into him.

'How noble of you.' Helen says, and Sasha snorts on his lap.

'Selfish, really. It's the only thing I have left.'

'Didn't she say it wouldn't matter, in the end? The grand scheme of things, and all that?'

'It matters to me.'

'So you'll spend the entire journey there being miserable, just for the sake of some moral high ground?'

'If I weren't miserable in this situation, I wouldn't be Jon. I- maybe the Spider dropped me gift-wrapped at the Eye's front door, yes. But it can't take that from me-'

"...It can't take who I am," Jon speaks over his own voice.

There's- Sasha's weighing him down, and Helen is still trying to cling to him, and the Eye and the Web are pulling him forward while his pained heart pulls him back, and it's just- it's just too much.

He earned his happy ending, and they tore it from him. Just like his life, his loved ones, his home, his hope for a future.

His hands clench -the burnt one with a spasm of mind-clearing pain- in Helen's jacket, in Sasha's sweater.

"Jon?" Sasha whispers against his shoulder, her breath hot through the fabric; a reminder that she's alive because of him. Because of his actions, not the Eye's, not the Spider's.

"Let me up," he says, and when Sasha leans back in surprise her face is illuminated in an eerie green glow that makes her skin look pale and greyish. "I need to be up."

Helen's hand spasms so violently it releases its hold on his wrist, and a moment later Jon feels the sharp sting of her knife-like fingers in the flesh of his forearm, trying to anchor herself by whatever means possible.

And Jon looks up.

At the panopticon so far away, at the empty expanse before them where he Knows the Mother of Puppets waits patiently for her little toys to return, dancing to the tune she plays so cheerfully.

The glow of his eyes Illuminates the way ahead, and for a moment Jon fancies himself a beacon, a lighthouse standing impassively while the storm rages around it.

The world around him trembles, rises up to meet the one who created it, who gave it a new purpose.

"I think," he says, his voice deep and laden with power, just like he remembers it being when he brought the world down. "I'm quite done being told what to do."

And the call breaks.

It feels like coming up from a deep dive and breaking the surface to take a deep breath, like he can see the world around him clearly for the first time since his time at the cottage.

The pain of Helen's fingers digging into his flesh is sharp in a way it wasn't before, like it's Jon who's feeling it rather than the Archives, which he guesses is just the thing.

"...Are you okay?" Sasha asks, and Jon nods a bit shakily, grateful for her arms around him as he doesn't feel too steady on his feet at the moment.

"I just- I'm going to need a moment," he says, squeezing back at Sasha's chubby frame.

And so they stand there, their silhouettes profiled by the bright, angry orange light of the burning city waiting ahead of them.


This new domain feels... odd, is the best way Gerry can describe it.

Familiar but not quite right, like visiting your childhood home after a few decades, and finding you no longer fit in it, if you ever really did.

All around them hundreds, maybe thousands of people walk towards their own death, dragging their feet along the bright, pulsating red root that marks their individual ends.

"This one feels worse than the Stranger," Martin grumbles by his side.

"You think so?" Gerry hums absentmindedly.

There's something almost peaceful to the victims' journey, a sort of poetic acceptance to their long-awaited rest. Like-

"Gerry?" Martin's hand lands on his bicep, pulling him to a stop.

"Hm?" Gerry blinks, looking up at him with a lazy smile.

"...No." Martin frowns, snapping his fingers an inch from his eyes. "Cut it out, I'll pinch you."

"Cut what- oh, fuck!" Gerry flinches away at the sudden jab of pain, his mind coming back into focus. It feels a little like waking up from the dormant, pseudo-conscious state he remembers from the book and-

Ah. Of course.

"Are you with me?" Martin asks, his hand still heavy on his arm.

"Let's revisit that later, but yes," he blinks a couple more times, careful to keep his eyes on Martin instead of focusing on any of the victims. "Where's Tim?"

"We were having a conversation before you went Walking Dead on us," Tim's voice behind him sounds decidedly grumpy.

"What happened?" Martin's hand moves from his arm to cup his cheek, and Gerry feels his face warm up at the tenderness in the gesture. It's not- despite being so liberal with his own touch, he's not too used to others reciprocating in kind. "I thought the Eye-"

"The book," Gerry's voice sounds a bit hoarse when he forces it out again. "I'm- I did spend a good chunk of time wishing for an End of my own, I suppose."

"...Ah."

"I'm fine now, it's- it just felt familiar," Gerry says as reassuring as he can even as he still hears the siren call of Terminus all around him. "I'm sorry for scaring you."

It takes a few more moments, but Martin eventually huffs with what could pass as amusement. "Just warning you, if you do it again I'm just going to drag you out."

"You know what? That sounds perfectly fair, you deserve your own 'dragging a stubborn mule of a man away from a fear entity's grip' experience, it's life-changing." The smile comes to Gerry's lips a lot easier now, and he scrunches his nose at Martin just to make him snort and shake his head in fond exasperation.

"So funny, mister Keay..."

"This is very sweet and all," Tim grunts behind them, "but could we please get going? This place is not even scary, it's just depressing."

"I'm sorry it's not up to your standards," says a new voice, and Gerry whips around with Martin in tow.

The newcomer is a slender, young black man with short cropped dark hair, giving them an unimpressed stare with his eerie grey-white eyes.

"We don't want any trouble," Gerry says, slowly and carefully. There are three of them, but End avatars are different. He's not too sure any of them can even be killed anymore, but all they need is to pass through; better to do it without any fanfare. "We'll just be on our way."

"Everyone is, it seems," the man rolls his eyes, before pinching the bridge of his nose. "No, ignore that. Sorry, I'm not having a great time."

Gerry risks a look at the travelling corpses in lieu of voicing his retort, and the man shakes his head.

"Yes, I know. It's not like I can do anything about that, though, so-"

"It's- you're him," Tim's voice cuts through like a knife, and Gerry's surprised to see his brow furrowed in thought. He hasn't heard of this particular avatar, and he can't imagine why Tim would've either. "With the- Martin, the veins."

"The- what?" Martin scowls in confusion.

The newcomer seems collected and peaceful, but Gerry keeps his gaze trained on him; he's met kind monsters before.

"You came by the Archives to warn Gertrude she would die," Tim says, and Gerry has to rip his eyes from the man then. "Jon asked me to look for him," he says, and the tiniest pinprick of orange glow alights in the depths of his dark eyes when he turns to look at them. "He said the Web kept me from finding him. His name is Oliver Banks."

Gerry feels Martin's hand twitch in his arm, as the man nods in response to Tim's words.

"Apparently I’ve made of trying to help archivists somewhat of a hobby," Oliver shrugs, before his gaze settles on Gerry. "You feel like the End."

"Books fear me, the Entities want me," he says with a shrug as Martin's hand flinches on his arm again, and Tim snorts. "Are you going to let us through?"

"Ah. Gerard Keay, then." Oliver's gaze is a bit unnerving still, but Gerry holds it as steadily as he can, with the certainty that he's simply not going to die until- "You're going after Jon, aren't you?"

Huh.

"How'd you know?"

"Your root ends with him," Oliver half-shrugs, tilting his head to the side as his gaze intensifies. "Or... starts. I've never seen anything quite like you."

"He gets that a lot," Martin cuts in dryly. "Now if you excuse us, we ought to get going," he adds, when Oliver doesn't immediately look at him.

"Yes, I suppose you should," Oliver nods in the end. "They aren't too far ahead."

"Got it, thank you, bye."

Gerry arches an eyebrow as Martin marches on, pulling him along by his grip on his arm.

"They?" Tim asks behind them, but Martin is channelling a draft horse and they're out of earshot by the time Oliver responds, if he even does.

They stop when they reach the end of the territory, which is as any other liminal stretch between domains; just empty, barren land with little to no defining features other than a rock or two.

Martin very tellingly doesn't let go of his arm.

"So. Are we going to talk about that?" Gerry arches an eyebrow.

"About the dead people walking, or you wanting to join them?" Martin huffs, going to sit on a boulder a few feet away.

Gerry snorts fondly, walking calmly up to him.

"I told you why I wanted to walk with them," he shrugs. "Are you going to tell me why you were jealous of that man?"

Martin's head whips up to look at him like a deer in the headlights, and Gerry feels a burst of triumph in his chest. Getting one over Martin doesn't happen often, and he doesn't think he'll ever stop enjoying it.

"I wasn't- where on earth did you get the idea that I was jealous?!"

"Martin, not six months ago you were looking at me like that," Gerry rolls his eyes. "So either you're jealous, or you have a very curious way of showing me you don't like me."

"You know what, I'm starting to question it myself," Martin grumbles, his face colouring a little when Gerry laughs. "Stop that. Come here."

"Coming, coming," Gerry says consolingly, taking a seat next to Martin and throwing an arm over his hunched shoulders. "What is it?"

"...Jon was in a coma for about three months," he says in the end.

Gerry nods. "Melanie did mention something like that when I woke up and she was threatening him with a knife, yes."

Martin's lips twitch, but they don't quite smile, and his eyes are still downcast and, when Gerry leans in a bit closer, going somewhat grey.

"I went in to see him every day," Martin says, his voice not white sullen anymore, just... defeated. "Every day for three months. I talked to him, I asked him to come back, but- and this Oliver guy went in once, gave him a state- it wasn't even a statement, he just spoke to him! And-"

"And Jon woke up?" Gerry completes the thought when Martin abandons it. Then, after a weak nod from the man, he adds. "He's an avatar of the End, Martin."

"It doesn't matter," Martin remarks sullenly. "All I know is he pulled Jon back. I couldn't bring him back from the End, I couldn't bring him back from the Buried, and I wasn't even there when you called him out from the Dark. I keep failing him when he needs me the most and-"

"If it helps somewhat, you didn't even try to pull him out of the Buried, I'm still convinced you could've reached him."

"...Gerry, how on earth would that help?" Martin deadpans, and Gerry holds his hands up in surrender.

"I said if. All I'm saying is I just know you went straight for the tapes idea because of the Lonely. It worked just fine in the end, but if you'd called him, he would've heard."

"But then-"

"The End is different, Martin." Gerry's arm goes back to its place on Martin's shoulders, his free hand coming to tangle their fingers together. "Terminus doesn't give up its victims so easily. I doubt anyone but one of its avatars could've opened the way back for Jon, especially if the Web was involved."

"...It's very stupid, isn't it?" Martin mutters after a few minutes.

"You can't help how you feel." Gerry squeezes his hand. "As long as you understand it's not something you need to be worried about."

Martin snorts softly, before pressing a kiss to Gerry's cheek. "I should learn from you, then?"

"Oh no, I'm not possessive but I'm very jealous," Gerry shrugs with a sheepish smile, "I just dealt with it in a completely different way, apparently."

He squeezes Martin's hand again when he breaks down laughing, satisfied with his efforts. Gerard Keay, paragon of emotional maturity and healthy communication.

"Am I interrupting?" Tim's voice breaks him from his reverie, and Gerry looks up to find him standing a few feet away, arching an eyebrow at the tableau they cut.

"We were just done," Martin responds, somewhat breathless still. "Did he tell you who Jon was with?"

Tim shakes his head, his brow furrowed. "He just said some other avatars. Helen, I guess."

"Maybe he found Daisy?" Martin asks, his amusement fading into intrigue.

"Maybe..." Tim mutters.

Gerry arches an eyebrow. "You don't sound too happy about that."

Tim gives a half-hearted shrug, and a tired sigh.

"I saw her change, down at the tunnels. It was- I never said it because Basira had been running herself ragged, but... at this point, I wouldn't want anyone to find Daisy, not even him."


All around her it smells like fire and burnt hair and cooked meat. The smoke tastes of salt, like evaporated tears, and she can hear anguished cries coming from countless ragged throats.

These aren't prey, she decides. The hunter feeds on panic and adrenaline fueled by the eons-old instinct to escape or be killed. She despises the taste of sorrow, of hopeless desolation. Of those that have given up and lost all the fight they could give.

The fire licks at her sides, at her paws. It singes off patches of raggedy sand-coloured fur, and makes every step on her already misshapen legs even more agonising. Her form, which is only suited for giving chase and taking prey down, is all but encumbering as she tries to make her way through the burning buildings.

What was she looking for here?

Was it- retribution?

She came here to settle debts, to pay harm with harm. To find-

"And to what do I owe the honour? The great and powerful Archivist, and his pet monsters?" says a voice, up, up, up in one of the burning buildings, and the hunter's chest swells with a snarl that crackles louder than the fire around her, before she jumps.

The building's wall cracks under her weight, her claws digging deep into crumbling concrete to pull the hunter up. The smoke chokes and blinds her, but the sting barely registers in her mind. All she has to do is go up, up, up.

"I'll be honest, we could've taken the long way. I was just curious," says another voice, and the hunter flinches, her torn, leathery ears perking up in recognition. Is this the prey she's looking for?

"-were already a little nosy prick back then. Sometimes I still regret not having killed you, your pain was so tasty," a voice says. It's hoarse, like the speaker has spent years inhaling smoke, and bitter. It sounds like mean laughter and pained cries, and the hunter's hackles raise.

"It's a very popular opinion, I've found," says the other voice, quieter, tired. Unamused.

The Hunter's brain flares up with alarm as recognition finally hits. This is the voice in the deep, the one that spoke of home, and he shouldn't be here- or- or should he?

The hunter stops her climb for a moment as her smoke-addled mind snaps and chases at itself. Which one has the blood that sings to her? Which is the one she's hunting?

"But then again, I wouldn't have this sweet, sweet little corner of hell to myself would I?"

"Ideally, no. I suppose you've enjoyed it so far?"

"Who was this again?" asks a third voice, one that sounds like confusion, like lies. It makes the Hunter angry, she doesn't like its kind. It was voices like it that took her into the deep and tight and crushing, where her will broke along with her mind and body.

"No one, really."

"Oh, is that so?" the first voice cackles. "Look at that, becomes an eminence and forgets about the ones who made him. You wouldn't be here without my mark, Archivist."

"You say that like it's a bad thing, though I can see why you would be under the impression that I ought to be grateful for that."

"Jon- the fire is-"

"Of course you'd be one of those," the voice laughs again, "all holier-than-thou and pretending you're above the rest of us. Pretending you're not the worst of us. Does it make it easier for you to sleep at night, after what you did?"

"I don't sleep much," says the voice. Then calmly, quietly. "I'm going to kill you, Jude."

"Jon?!" the lying voice asks. "You said-"

"You're bluffing," the first voice barks. "You're feeling their pain aren't you? Feeding off of it, like the parasite you are. Are you enjoying it?"

There's a pause, during which the hunter crawls higher up towards the smoking window the voices are coming from. She's so close, so close to being done.

"I am."

"Why would you shut down an easy meal?"

"That's just who I am, I suppose." The response doesn't wait this time, and the voice in the deep is firm and calm, before it adds almost sheepishly, "that, and I really don't like you."

The steel frame of the window is partially melted, soft and malleable under the hunter's claws, and she can finally see inside the room, preparing her hind legs for a jump. The woman reeks of wax and smoke, facing away from the hunter and towards-

The hunter freezes.

And she knows all of a sudden, with the sort of instinct all great predators are born with, that she's no longer the biggest danger in the room.

The creature on the woman's other side pulls at her as much as his presence terrifies her, soothes her and agitates her in equal measure.

Apex, whispers some tiny, primal voice at the back of her mind, and a low, anxious growl leaves her throat.

She should leave. She should turn tail and run and make sure to never again cross paths with this being, to never-

"You can't be angry at me still, Jon. You shook my hand didn't you? It was your fault, like everything else," the woman laughs, and the hunter sees red.

The woman crumbles like sand under her weight, and her claws dig into soft, pliant flesh that tears so easily, that bleeds out choking rivulets of thick black smoke that swirls up into the hunter's nose and eyes.

Boiling wax sticks to her teeth and sears her gums and tongue as the hunter bites and tears and chews. The woman is not so much afraid as she's shocked at the pain, at finding herself a victim. Prey.

Swallowing her bit by bit satisfies a deep, old hunger seated deep within the hunter's stomach, and she feels herself relax at last.

It took her a lifetime but she did right by her pack, which is what matters, she thinks as she plops down on the hot floor to lick the wax off her paws.

"Jon, what the hell is that thing?!" The hunter whips her face up at the voice. She's on the shorter side, plump-faced and with a large, soft belly, and she reeks of the Stranger.

The hunter hates her immediately.

She climbs to her feet again; her humped back bumps against the burning ceiling, searing some more fur off.

"Uh, you- you may want to go into Helen," the man says as the hunter takes the first step towards them. He's small in size, and were it nor for the power the hunter feels contained within his frame, she could swallow him in a single bite.

"I really don't," the stranger says. She takes a step back, and the man steps before her. "Jon-"

"It's- she can't hurt me," the man says, though he doesn't sound so sure. There is a certain hint of fear to his scent, a dubious, sad sort of terror. What scares this monster, the hunter realises, is not knowing if he should be afraid of her. "I- do you remember me?"

The hunter snarls.

He smells of old paper, of shiny plastic and blood. Of suffering, so much suffering that the hunter wonders for a moment how it is that he's still walking around.

He smells of- of everything.

Darkness, lies, pain, deep, fog and all the others, they swirl around inside him like he's containing them all, like he's made out of them all.

Another step. She cannot kill him, but she can kill the stranger.

"Y- you said you'd kill the other one, maybe you want to redirect that murderous energy?"

"I- no!" The man's face pales. He takes a step back as the hunter advances towards him. "No, she- Daisy?"

"This is the cop?!" The woman retreats all the way back to the crumbling, smoking door. "The one that tried to kill you?!'

"Daisy, can you hear me?" the man asks again, and the hunter responds with another snarl. She doesn't want to fight this being, but she will if he stands in the way of her prey. "We've- we were worried about you, all of us."

There's a thin, pale scar in the man's throat, and something aches in the hunter's chest.

"Please," says the man. His voice is soft, and it reaches the hunter as if through many miles of rock. "Please, Daisy. I don't want to hurt you."

"I don't think she'll do you the same courtesy, Jon." The stranger has managed to open the door behind him. "Come on."

"Sasha, I can't- I need to at least try to-"

"She's clearly not recognizing you, let's get out of here!"

"We can't."

"What?!"

"Don't- Sasha, listen to me," the man gives the stranger a worried, anxious look that sends a pang of recognition through the hunter's mind. "Don't try to run, she wants to chase you."

"I- why me?!"

The man's eyes, large and dark and sad, turn towards the hunter again.

"She's not too fond of the Stranger."

"Well- well, that makes two of us," the woman stutters, but she lets go of the door. "Jon..."

"She's in there," Jon- the man says. "Daisy, I found you once-"

The hunter snarls, but he trudges on, unimpeded. He's always been so stubborn.

"No, listen! I've been looking for you! Basira's looking for you!"

The name feels like a whip across the face, and the hunter recoils. It's a name of- of coconut and yellow, a name whispered with a last, dying breath.

'Will you find me?'

It pulls at her like a hot-red hook through her entrails, the name, the man's voice.

'Always.'

There's dirt closing off all around her, sharp stones digging into her flesh, and try as she may she simply cannot draw a breath that doesn't smell of rotting old wood and rain. Her ears are ringing with thousands of agonised screams, and the hunter can't tell if it's the Desolation's prey or her own, or if there's any difference at all.

"Jon, I- fuck!"

"Daisy- !"

The man's blood on her tongue tastes familiar, and his fear is delicious and filling and wrong. It burns her tongue and makes her choke like she just bit into something foul, but her jaws are locked around him and she feels-

She feels defenseless.

She was so afraid of this, of losing control, of losing herself.

But she did it for him, for- for her. It was worth it, to give herself away one last time. Why does this hurt? What is she missing?!

"Daisy!" The man is screaming in pain, and it hurts, the word jabs at her blood-lusted mind like a knife, and the concern in the man's voice is the cruel hand twisting the weapon in the wound. "Daisy, please!"

"Daisy, the quiet!"


"You know... I still stand by my opinion that the carousel was far too on the nose, but this isn't a much better look," Tim sighs.

The heat of the fire all around them feels like a pleasant, almost familiar warmth, and the victims' pained cries taste absolutely scrumptious with sorrow. It serves to remind him of what he is, and he hates it.

The flames nearby flare up, fed by his resignation.

"I don't know where you got the idea that these things know how to be subtle," Gerry says, pulling him out of his mind. When he looks over, the man is almost done putting his hair into a messy bun, which he ties with a hair tie Martin pulls from his own wrist before pulling the hood over his head and tug on the drawstrings, presumably to keep the ash out. "If it makes you feel better though, you're as far removed from an avatar of the Desolation as you could be. I think the reason it brought you back-"

"Was to make me miserable, I know," Tim grunts, as they resume their trip across the burning city. "I just- I hate it here."

Or more accurately, he hates that he doesn't hate it. That knowing everyone around him is for once in as much pain as he constantly is in gives him a sense of vindication he hasn't experienced in years.

He could stay here, he thinks.

They pass the remnants of a burning hospital, and Tim breathes in the hopeless cries of those who will just never find peace again, not in this place. He could make it so that each and every one of them suffers what he suffered- what's the saying?

Misery loves company.

"Are we going to run into someone here too?" he asks after a while. "I don't think I ever met anyone from the Desolation."

"I don't think so," Gerry says carefully. "This place is....recently unoccupied."

"What's that even mean?" Martin turns to look at them with an arched eyebrow. "How would you know?"

Gerry shoots a look at the infinite, unblinking eyes that cover the sky.

"Right-" Martin nods, "dumb question."

"Was it Jon? Like he did with the- with the thing that took Sasha?" Tim asks.

"I... Think? I only get vague knowledge, nothing too specific. Right now all I know is this place is looking for someone to sit on the big chair." Gerry looks at him out of the corner of his eye, and Tim keeps his gaze fixed firmly on him. "How are you doing?"

"I don't like what you're implying," is all he says, sending the closest flames flaring up into the sky.

"That's good. I don't like it too much either." Gerry looks on ahead. "But here we are."

"Here we are? What- oh." Martin says before following Gerry's gaze. He seems to deflate, but his colour surprisingly doesn't wane when he turns to look at him. "Tim?"

"I'm not going to stay here," Tim says so shortly it sounds strained even to his ears, like he's trying to convince himself more than he's trying to reassure Martin. "I won't. I-"

"Tim," Martin repeats, gentler this time.

"What?" Tim clenches a fist in the fabric of his jacket.

"I'm- I know you wouldn't do this-"

"I wouldn't." But he would, wouldn't he? Hasn't his entire existence been about causing pain, ever since he woke up? To Jon, to Martin, to himself- hasn't he fed on it, fueling his fire with their loss? "Martin-"

"I know. But- but I think you need to look up," Martin's hand feels warm for once, the chill of the Lonely chased away by the fire's heat.

"I don't want to," Tim shakes his head. "Just- just guide me out."

"...I get the feeling that won't get us anywhere," Martin says gently. "Gerry? Am I wrong?"

"It would be too easy, I think. We've established the Desolation will gladly feed on him, and- and the Watcher wants to see him choose."

Tim shuts his eyes tight, resenting in a way he never did when he was human the bright orange spots that explode behind his eyelids as he does. He- he doesn't want it.

Not the pain blossoming at his chest, nor the power he can feel at his fingertips, or the voice -his own voice- that tells him this is justice, that he deserves this.

Who knows pain if not him? Who knows better how to rip these humans to pieces, how to show them just how insignificant and hopeless their lives are, until all they are is an agonising longing for that all that they have lost, all they have destroyed?

Who-

"Tim. You have to look." Martin's voice is still gentle, but firmer this time.

"I really don't want to," Tim says.

I really don't think I can.

"You're not alone this time." Martin's hand on his shoulder squeezes a little, and surprisingly doesn't flinch when Tim lets out a dry bark of laughter.

"That's rich, coming from you." There he goes again, striking where he knows it'll hurt the most, where-

"It is, isn't it?" Martin's voice sounds like- Tim opens his eyes to see the sad, gentle smile spread across his features. "I think it makes sense, though."

"It does."

"I would know."

"You would."

Martin doesn't react to the jabs, doesn't retaliate with the pointed, barbed remarks Tim knows he's capable of dealing.

"I don't think you want to be here anymore," he goes on casually, like they're talking about leaving the office early. "I don't care much for it either."

The crackling of the fire calls him, the screams of those that are like him, that decided to take out their hurt on the world, to strike first, lest it strikes them down.

"Martin-" it feels like the smoke is choking him, even though that shouldn't be possible anymore. "I don't think I can say no."

"I think you need to try." Martin squeezes his shoulder again, and his voice is so calm, so casual that Tim clings to it to try and anchor his own whirlwind of emotions, before looking up.

The House of Wax museum looks just like he remembers. Just like he dreamed it would look like burning to the ground.

It smells of burnt plastic and wax, and through the smoke-blackened windows he sees silhouettes, so many silhouettes. Some are human of course, clawing at the walls and at themselves and each other and screaming through tear-hoarse throats.

Some others move far more gracefully than they should, trapped in a haunting dance even wreathed in flames as they are.

He- this is for him.

This is the little tailor-made corner of hell afforded to him by the grief and the spite that simmer at his core.

In here, it doesn't matter how much he lost, how much he hurts, because he can make sure everyone else hurts more. Isn't this what the Desolation means for him, a way to pay back the world for how much it took from him?

"Tim?" Martin asks gently. "Are we going?"

Tim wants to say yes, he knows he should. He doesn't want to stay, he's relieved to realise; his feelings about that haven't changed and the burning wax museum is not as much a lure as it is a sad reminder.

Where is he going to go?

Walking away from this doesn't mean he doesn't take it with him everywhere he goes. Not contributing to torture the people trapped in this domain doesn't mean he will not do the same to the people out there, he doesn't think he knows how to do anything else anymore.

"I- Martin, what for?" They don't really need him, do they?

"What? We're looking for Jon-"

"Well, you can keep doing that. Gerry's the one that can find him, not me," Tim sighs. "Just... just fix this mess."

Make everything right so that Tim can go back to sitting in the dark in Martin's old flat thinking about everything he lost.

"That's exactly what we're doing," Martin says firmly. "All three of us. You said you didn't want to stay."

"I don't." Tim shrugs, his eyes still glued to the blazing building, and it almost hurts to tear them from it to look at the other two. "But Martin- this is what I am. It's always going to be what I am."

"Don't be-"

"Martin, just- stop," Tim interrupts, punctuated by a loud crack from one of the museum's windows. "I've tried to fix it. It doesn't work. Maybe it's time to accept that. Maybe there was something else in there at some point, but it's gone. This is all that's left."

Martin's face crumpling down just accentuates his point, he feels like. Dealing with Tim is like trying to handle broken glass, you're bound to slice your hand open at some point, no matter how careful you are.

"Tim-"

"Hey. I'll say something too," Gerry cuts in, leaning around Martin to look at him. His eyes are Watcher-green and he has no doubt the man is seeing more than what Tim means to let out. "First off, I think you're an asshole."

What.

"...This is your pep talk?" Martin gives his man a very unimpressed look, but Gerry merely shrugs.

"It's true. You get under my nerves, but they love you, so I'll deal with you," he goes on. "You hurt people when they try to help you, because you're hurt. It sucks, sometimes we get dealt a shitty hand."

The flames covering the building flare up in response to Tim's irritation, but he pays them no mind in favour of glaring back at the man. "You would-"

"I would know, that one's not going to stick with me." Gerry clicks his tongue. "But I digress. What I mean to say is I'm impartial here. You can't try to rationalise this as Martin being Martin and trying to cheer you up because he likes you, like you were doing just now."

"You're making a real good case to get me to come." Tim's eye twitches. He sees Martin's eyebrows raise, and his lips twitch like he's holding back a smile. "It's not like I think Martin's a doormat or-"

"Good! He isn't, but he and Jon are willing to let you get away with a lot of crap I don't particularly care about." His eyes are fixed on him with laser-like focus, yet he speaks casually enough that Tim gets the feeling he isn't even interested in the conversation, which is- Tim no longer feels too guilty about melting his hand by the carousel. "I only met you after the Desolation brought you back, so I have to imagine you weren't always an insufferable prick, just most of the time. But I did notice something about you."

"Oh?" Tim grunts, annoyed. "Really? Aside from that charming diagnosis of my psyche, you had time to notice something about me?"

"I'm observant like that," he says, and his neon-green eyes flare up a little. "I've only seen you use what the Desolation gave you one time, you know? Which is quite tame for avatars with your particular alignment, like I told you."

"I- what?"

"Come on, Tim." Gerry smirks. "I'm sure you remember lighting up Manuela Domínguez like a summer bonfire."

Tim clenches his fists by his sides. "Don't- it's not like I enjoyed it, I had to do that!"

"Oh you had to?" The asshole has the gall to fake shock. "Why?"

"Because-" Tim starts then stops, his indignant snarl stuck in his throat.

Because Jon was in danger.

Gerry's smirk grows more pronounced the longer he stays quiet, and Tim- Tim hates him for that-

"What about-"

"Stop."

"-the tunnels? With Julia and Trevor?" Gerry steamrolls over his objections, like he doesn't know the answer, like he doesn't know it's because he was trying to buy Jon time to get to Martin, to help.

"What's your point?!" he bites out. The asshole is still just standing there, looking like a particularly smug turtle with the hood of Martin's hoodie pulled tight around his face.

"My point is you're trying, Tim, whether you think it's enough or not." Gerry shrugs, and the animosity melts off of his face. "It's really the only thing we can do, any of us. It's what Martin and I will do. Now, are you coming with us, or not?"

Tim blinks. And then he blinks again. And then a third time.

The building still burns behind him -inside him-, but it's no longer the only thing in his mind. He saved Jon, that time up north. He helped save Martin, helped protect Basira. The Desolation never meant for him to do anything other than cause more pain either to himself or others, but he did it still.

He takes a step forward, and then another, and Martin and Gerry fall into step beside him, all three of them in silence.

He can only guess they did what they had to here, because they come to the end of the burning city not long after- or rather, the end of the burning city comes to them, marked by a tall, blackened building with claw marks up its side.

"Jon was here not too long ago," Gerry's eyes flare green again as he looks at the building. "We're closing the gap."

"Is that how he pulled you out of the Lonely?" Tim grunts as they watch him walk further on, looking at the ground like a hound sniffing for a trail.

"It's very frustrating, isn't it?" Martin snorts by his side. "But very effective, I'm afraid."

"I suppose," he says. Martin is smiling at him when he looks up. "What?"

"I knew you'd come."

"...I have to try, I guess," he sighs. "Is that a house up ahead?"

It looks far too normal than it has any right to be, just an old manor with a large garden, and moth-eaten curtains billowing out every open window.

"I... guess?" Martin arches an eyebrow. "Doesn't look too bad compared to the others we've seen, does it?"

"It doesn't, and I don't like it," Tim scowls. It feels... familiar. Like it's sapping warmth away, like even the Watcher averts its gaze from it. "I think we'd better take the long-"

"We have to go through the house!" Gerry's faint voice reaches them, the man merely a point of bright green profiled against the building's silhouette, waving his arms at them.

Martin winces. "...Looks like we have to go through the house."

"We have to go through the house," Tim sighs.


"Doesn't that feel weird?" Sasha asks, because she's mostly sure she's not in mortal danger anymore but also because that has historically never stopped her before anyways.

"I figure it feels better than going naked through the apocalypse," Helen says, sticking her head out her door a few steps away. "Besides, she's done worse."

The other woman doesn't answer.

She's clinging to Jon's hand like a kindergartner about to cross a busy street, and hasn't said a word other than his name from the moment she climbed out of the bloody, misshapen hide naked and covered in gore, and now she walks behind him in silence, dressed in the ill-fitting, torn garments of the woman she mauled to death.

She looks- frail, is the only word Sasha can think of.

Despite her lean frame being lined with muscle, despite her height and her teeth sharpened to a point, she seems lost and confused, like Jon is the only thing she's sure of anymore.

Bit of a surprising look, for someone who made him dig his own grave before she decided not to execute him.

A few steps ahead, Jon sighs.

"I- please don't bring that up. Out loud, I mean," he says.

Sasha arches an eyebrow. "First off, if you keep looking into my head, you'll see things you don't want to see-"

"That's very ironic, coming from you."

"-and second off, why? Is it a bit too R-rated for her?"

"Sasha," Jon sighs again, and she bristles.

It still irks her, to think of all that happened, all that she couldn't help with because of her stupid detour to Artifacts Storage.

"It wasn't your fault," Jon says, a lot more patiently than Sasha would've thought him capable of. "And Daisy- she's different than she was back then."

"Must've been one hell of an apology." She crosses her arms over her chest.

"Not really..." Jon looks away, his gaze fixed at some point by Sasha's shoes. "... it's not like I can forgive her for that. She knows that."

"Then? What changed?"

"She did." Jon shrugs. "It's never going to make it right, but- but she's no longer the person that could justify those things. That would do them on the first place."

"Hm," she huffs, and Jon gives her a tired smile.

"We may not be humans anymore, but we're still just... people. It's always going to be messy." He looks forward then, before squeezing at Daisy's hand and gesturing at Sasha to keep moving. "We should go on; I'm getting cold."

Chapter Text

XXVII

The house is empty now, or perhaps it has been empty for a while.

It used to be a family home, though the people living there (they used to be people, before they were sacrifices) have not been family for a long, long time.

Most of them don't remember what life was like before the fog rolled in. Those who do are poisoned by the memory of 'sweeter' times that are not likely to return.

The times were not sweeter. They just remember them that way. Tomorrow, they will think today was sweet as well.

Even their aching, closed up throat and the cloying, salty taste of tears on their tongue will be painted a warmer shade by the golden light of their addled memory, by a broken soul that finds its 'now' so unbearable it has no other choice but to yearn for a past that was never quite like they insist it was.

The fog hangs thick in the air, impossible to see through, to move through without ending up covered in a thin sheet of moisture that cools you to the bone, making it so heavy with the pungent smell of unshed tears that if given a choice, those breathing it might choose not to.

They are not given a choice.

Perhaps the worst thing about the fog is how insidious it is. How it eventually, inevitably grows to fill and blur any space it's in. Any mind.

By this point, more than half of the inhabitants of the house are sure they must have been the ones to invite it in. It wouldn't be here otherwise, would it? It must be their fault.

If they invited it in, their fog-addled brains attempt to reason, then it must mean they like living like this. Why else would it be here? Why else would they stay?

Some of these people were always like this, a breeding ground for the loneliness that now makes its nest inside their tired bones.

They were always so, so exhausted, from the moment they were born. They called them old souls, and said they were special and oh, so brave.

And then they left them alone.

For some others it's different, the feeling as overwhelming as it is undesirable. They spent their whole lives surrounded by those they called friends. There may always have been just the slightest insinuation of it at their core. They were always so eager to push it aside for another bout of laughter, another hug, enough to fend off the symptoms but never to really heal the purulent illness, never enough to fully convince themselves that they're so surrounded with love that it couldn't possibly be anything but real.

Those take it the worst, a delicious morsel of self-despair and pain.

Sometimes the people in the house believe they catch a glimpse of someone. That they hear a whisper, or the echo of steps disappearing just behind a corner. Their hearts speed up, pumping more delicious fear through their veins, and they rush in a panic after the ghost. They do not want the company, but the alternative is even worse.

They never find the other person, and they're left wondering just how sad, how pathetic they have to be to imagine that there is someone in this entire grey world that cares for them when they themselves don't.

A door whose existence nobody remembers -why would they need it? They do not want to leave. However terrible it is in here, it's sure to be worse out there, right?- slams shut, and the house's inhabitants take a single, panicked breath in unison.

There are strangers in their sanctuary.


It doesn't take a genius to figure out what domain the house belongs to, even if Martin hadn't noticed Gerry's hand tightening on his, as if trying to test his physicality.

The building is tall, with large frosted over windows on all three storeys. The wood paneling exterior has gone dry and grey, and there's a steady, slow stream of fog escaping from under the huge double doors. It looks like a place that could've been magnificent and full of life, with music spilling out through open windows, the scent of food drifting from the kitchen, and a door left unlocked for visitors and friends alike.

He guesses this is similar to what Tim felt walking through the burning confines of the Desolation domain, as he steps towards this empty husk of a house and tries as hard as he can to not think of the comparison to himself.

As they come to a stop by the entrance, Gerry tugs softly on his hand before stretching up to place a kiss on his cheek. His lips are searing hot on Martin's cold, somewhat clammy skin, but he leans into the touch anyways.

"Think of him," Gerry murmurs gently into Martin's ear, and he shivers. It's a bit telling still, that Gerry's first instinct is to ask him to think of Jon- "...Us."

Martin says nothing, but the word seeps into his core like warm water, and he squeezes back on Gerry's hand as much as he can. Us.

"This feels almost intentional," Tim mumbles by Martin's other side. "Stranger, Desolation, End, Lonely... It almost feels like-"

"Like it's targeting us personally?" Gerry asks, watching warily as Martin reaches to touch the doors with a translucent finger.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," is all Tim says.

Gerry doesn't. Martin agrees.

The doors swing inward on silent hinges, letting out a waft of cold, heavy fog that reeks of tears.

'I'd say you are loved.' Jon says. Before them the chimney crackles happily, filling the memory with warmth. Gerry sleeps on Jon's lap, peaceful. Safe. 'But I'd also- I think I'd also say that you are worth so much more than the love others bear you, and- and that I'd be very glad to remind you of that as many times as it's needed.'

He closes his eyes as they step in, and he focuses on the memories even as the warmth of Gerry's hand in his seems to evaporate.

'Martin Blackwood you're not going anywhere,' Gerry snaps, and Martin knows it's true, knows Gerry will make it true, that he's wanted in this moment more than he's ever been wanted before. 'I will follow you to the end of the Lonely if I have to, you're not going to shake me off that easily.'

The door closes, but Martin's smiling.

It's difficult to see inside the house- the walls are painted a light, dull gray that makes it difficult to distinguish where the fog ends, and the frosted-over windows let in just enough light to project vague, fuzzy shadows on any available surface.

The Lonely embraces him like a long-lost child come home, Martin notices with no small level of resigned revulsion. It reminds him of Peter's empty jovial voice, and his cold eyes that watched Martin like a meal that's not quite done yet. It hurts a little that he was right in the end.

This is what he chose for the men he loves.

This is the part of him that lurks behind each and every barrier he's put up between himself and everyone else, in hopes that they'd stay if they didn't see just how empty he was.

"Was it like this when you got lost the first time?" Tim asks somewhere in the fog.

"There wasn't a house." Martin's voice seems to come from nowhere, and everywhere at the same time. By his side, Gerry walks a little faster. "Just... void. I knew no one would be able to hurt me again, because they'd never find me."

"And I took that personally," Gerry squeezes at Martin's hand. "And I will again as many times as I have to, so don't force me."

Martin snorts a little. "The Lonely doesn't like you at all, you know?"

He feels Gerry's presence by his side the way he imagines an oyster feels a pesky grain of sand before it starts coating it in nacre, just an irritant that it can't assimilate, but can't spit out either.

"I didn't think it would," Gerry huffs sullenly.

It's a bit funny. Gerry has been as surrounded by this entity as Martin has for his entire life, yet he's nearly immune to its effects out of sheer, stubborn care.

'Martin,' a voice whispers in his ear. Where his ear would be if Martin wasn't a sentient ball of cold fog at the moment.

It tickles at the edge of his memory, the image of a gentle, empty smile and cold blue eyes that look through him.

'Martin. It's not too late yet,' Peter whispers. Martin shakes his head like a dog shaking off flies. This is just- it's his subconscious. Jon killed Peter. And- and if by any chance he lived in this place for long enough to leave behind part of his humanity, whatever shard of him that stayed behind in the Lonely is nothing but an echo.

'Do you really think he could kill me? In my own domain?'

Martin stops walking, squaring up his shoulders stubbornly. "It doesn't matter what I think, because he did. You're just... my imagination. Or this place. You're not real."

The soft chill of the Lonely tickles at the edges of his mind, familiar and soothing and unwanted, he reminds himself, clenching his fists.

'Yes, because you've such a firm grip and what is and isn't real, heh. Forgive me!' Peter laughs.

"Now, what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Martin spins around, but all he can see is the dull, grey wallpaper of the corridor, the dark oak doors covered in a thin layer of condensed fog. "I had a firm enough grip to know you were trying to use me, and turn it against you."

'Martin,' Peter says, his voice the kind, consoling tone Martin loathed, like he's a child throwing a tantrum and Peter is a tired, patient parent trying to reason with him. 'This has been a very pleasant dream, but don't you think it's time to wake up now?'

That doesn't make any sense. This world, this house with its ghosts and its freezing corridors is not something he'd dream of.

"It's not a dream. None of it is, I wouldn't dream of th-"

'Really? You wouldn't? A quaint little life where you're so loved, and then a daring journey through hell itself, in which you're the single most important person, rescuing your dearest Jon from a terrible fate?' Peter snorts again, and Martin bristles. 'This is a repeat fantasy for you, isn't it?'

"It's not a dream!" Martin snarls. "Jon killed you to get us out of the Lonely, and-"

'Get who out of the Lonely?' Peter asks, his voice tinted with the same cruel amusement Martin still has nightmares about.

"M- me and Gerry?" He says. He doesn't mean for it to sound like a question. It does anyways.

'Who?'

Peter's voice trickles down his back like freezing cold water.

"I- Gerry. He's right-" he goes to squeeze Gerry's hand, but it closes on empty air. "It's- he was right here. He and Tim came into the house with me."

'Last time you saw Tim, you were hiding from him. You saw him come into your flat, and you decided you couldn't deal with him again. Never again.' Peter hums. 'As for Jon's little chewtoy? You told him to leave, just like you told Jon to leave.'

"No, that- that didn't happen-" but it did, didn't it? Gerry was banging on his door to try and get him to come out, and Martin told him he didn't want to see him. Jon came at him with a plan for freedom, for sacrifice, and Martin turned him away.

Peter isn't lying.

Is that what this is then? What all of this has been, just Martin's delusions as the Lonely feeds on him?

The little cottage, Tim coming for a visit, waking up every day in a bed that's far too small, drifting off to sleep before the chimney, nestled comfortably between the two of them.

It's been... perfect, Martin realizes with a start.

But it hasn't, has it?

Jon's too anal when it comes to cleaning, Gerry keeps leaving wet towels in the bathroom and he can't cook to save his life, and the two of them get on Martin's case when he gets too absorbed writing and forgets to eat, and Martin never has the heart to tell them he rarely feels hungry anymore.

It's been imperfect, messy at times. A far cry from the fairytale ending he's always imagined for him and Jon, starting with the simple, wild fact that it's not just the two of them.

"He was there. When-" the memory jolts through him like a lightning bolt. Gerry standing over Jonah Magnus' body and holding Peter's offered knife. Gerry's face twisted in pain, black ink running out of his nose as Elias drives terrible, painful memories into his mind. "He's the reason I asked you to put me in the Lonely. I- so Elias would stop hurting him. I did it for him."

Peter stays silent, which is perhaps even more telling than anything he could've said.

Martin snorts. It sounds a bit hysterical maybe, but it's better than the nothing threatening to nest in his chest.

"I did it for him, and right now I'm not doing this to- to be some sort of hero," he says, his voice gaining strength with each word that leaves his lips in a puff of white steam.

'Don't pretend you're better than this, Martin. You've always wanted to be important,' Peter says, his voice seething with venom and resentment.

"No I haven't. That's what you want, Peter. That's why you thought I'd fallen for your lie, why you thought I was going along with your plans." Martin laughs now, and it feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. "I'm doing this for Jon. It's always been for Jon. And you know what?"

Peter, or the part of Martin's mind that is, and will always be Peter, remains quiet. Its silence sounds like defeat, and it's all he needs to go on.

"You couldn't stop me then. And you will not stop me now."

He feels 'Peter' fading like a heavy veil being lifted, feels the Lonely's bone-numbing freeze make way for a soft, almost refreshing chill.

He will never fully step out of the Lonely, but he's not trapped here.

"Huh. I- I guess it was time I dealt with that, wasn't it?" he mutters to himself. It's a bit silly, he thinks, but it feels like speaking to Jon's tapes. "Now- now where are those two?"

He looks around.

The house is still grey and miserable, and he can now see the haunted forms of the victims looking for an exit they will not find, barely grazing against people they do not see, and recoiling away in fear.

Tim and Gerry are obviously, glaringly absent.

"Great. Just wonderful. Real opportune, Martin, go on a journey of self-assertion in the middle of a fear domain." He huffs. "Let's go then, one door at a time."

It's fine. He'll find them, and then he'll just have to sit through an earful from both of them.

"Jeez, this house sucks."


"-ven is this house? Sure it looks terrible, but bad design is hardly existential dread," the girl is saying when Daisy finally manages to calm down enough from Jon's departure to start paying attention. Her voice is slightly snappy and impatient, like she's not used to waiting, to not knowing. It feels- it reminds her of Basira, hunting for answers like a hawk, and the comparison feels like a blow to the chest.

'Will you find me?'

'Always.'

Did something happen to her? Is she trapped in one of the many terrible places Daisy crossed while hunting for anyone her addled mind remembered as cowering prey?

Or worse, does it mean Basira simply gave up on the search? Forgot the promise she made right before Daisy tore herself open to let the monster out.

"-ut if I could guess I wouldn't be asking you," the woman rolls her bright blue eyes, running her hand absentmindedly through her short straw-colored beard. "Though I suppose asking you is its own kind of defeat."

"And yet you did it anyways," Helen replies, her voice tinted with the sort of unnerving humour that always made Daisy feel like she knew something she wasn't saying, and they were all incredibly funny to watch in their ignorance.

"You're particularly helpful today, huh?" Sasha groans. "I just- it's its own kind of hell, you know? This thing doesn't want me to know things, wants me to keep everyone fooled, even myself, but I want to know."

Helen chuckles. "The Eye must've been really miffed when it lost you, huh?"

Sasha seems to ponder this for a few moments, tapping at her pierced bottom lip with a thick finger.

"It's weird, really. I think if it hadn't been the Stranger, it would probably have been you," she says in the end. "Or like... Michael-you. I wouldn't have chosen the Spiral either, but I can't pretend he didn't have me hooked."

They go silent after that remark, and Daisy immediately misses the sound of their quiet conversation. It had felt- almost companionable. Like sitting in silence behind a desk and watching Melanie and Basira chat.

"Which-" she says before she can contain herself, then flinches when both their gazes land on her. Helen seems mostly curious at her intervention, but Sasha's eyes narrow a little, watching Daisy warily. "Which... which one would you have chosen, then? They're all pretty bad."

Sasha's eyes dig into her, and Daisy wills herself to remain calm. She doesn't need her to like her. Sasha's important to Jon, and that means she's important to Daisy, despite anything Sasha might think of her.

"Hm," Sasha says after a moment. "I don't know- we should have those, shouldn't we? The Avatars Choice Awards, preferably minus the slime."

Daisy blinks. This is Melanie's onion quiz all over again, why does she even try with these people?

"I- uh-"

"It's interesting though. The Eye clearly wanted me, and fine, I was always a bit nosey, but- hm," Sasha trudges on, seemingly not having heard Daisy's interjection. "The Spiral doesn't fully do it for me. I never liked confusing people. But I- Michael was fascinating, you know? He terrified me, and I knew he couldn't be trusted, but- it was like looking at a thousand stained glass windows mashed together. I kept trying to- to understand the picture, all of the pictures, but I also didn't want to. Does that make sense?"

"It doesn't," Helen and Daisy say almost in unison. Helen's nodding solemnly; Daisy can feel a headache coming.

"I figured it didn't," Sasha shrugs with a snort. "Anyways, I think pretty much anything is better than the one I got, which I guess is the point of everything, right?"

"I... Guess?" Daisy blinks. Speaking with words still feels foreign and confusing. Her tongue still tastes like blood, and her throat is still hoarse from the howling and the snarling, but it gets a little better with each word she says. "I think I would've liked one that didn't fit me. That way- uhm. It's- it's hard for me, you know? To differen- dis- to separate what I'm feeling from what it wants me to feel. I think it was the same for Melanie, and Tim."

"Let's not forget the Eye people," Helen hums, "oblivious to it as they are."

"In Jon's defense," Sasha interjects immediately, which Daisy can appreciate. "It's not like it could've gone any other way for him."

"I don't know," Daisy says quietly. "Apparently they all wanted a piece of him at some point."

Sasha snorts. "Which is par for the course for Jon, really. But I don't know that they had anything on him, you know? He- all Jon ever wanted were answers. He was afraid."

"Well, now he has all the answers." Helen shrugs.

"See, I don't know that that's any better for him," Daisy mutters.

Sasha nods. "Probably not. But it's all we have to work with, isn't it?"


This is fine, Gerry thinks to himself. Every step they take makes a muted squelching sound on the soggy carpet covering the corridors. They just have to make it to the other side, it's- if there's any avatar watching over this domain, it would be extremely unlikely for them to approach the group.

Just like that time so many months ago, being in the Lonely feels odd. Like a diver in a neoprene suit he feels the temperature cool around him, but the deep, bone-chilling cold can't reach his skin. Martin's grip on his hand is weak, but it serves to remind him he's there. They're together, they're going to find Jon, and that's all that matters.

He thinks of Jon's little lopsided smile, of Melanie's punches when she's happy. Of Martin's eyes, and the little handwritten signs he made for Gerry's garden. This is all he needs; not a happy ending, but the promise of a story.

"Was it like this when you got lost the first time?" Tim asks quietly.

"There wasn't a house." Martin's voice echoes all around them. Gerry scowls, and walks faster. "Just... void. I knew no one would be able to hurt me again, because they'd never find me."

"And I took that personally," Gerry squeezes at Martin's hand. "And I will again as many times as I have to, so don't force me."

As far as threats go it's not a great one, but he thinks he hears Martin's quiet chuckle, so it has to be enough.

"How come it's not affecting you?" Tim's voice reaches him again.

Since he's the only one visible at the moment, Gerry assumes the question is for him.

He looks through Martin between them, and finds Tim's ashen face covered in a thin layer of moisture. His eyes are absent as he walks forward, like he's looking at something far beyond what's in front of him.

"It is, a little," Gerry says, shrugging. Conversation can only be useful to push the Lonely away further, so he'll indulge. "It's- hm. I've been alone pretty much my whole life, you know? But I know- I don't know when exactly I rationalized it, but I understood that it was not my fault."

"...Well that's bullshit," Tim grunts, "it's not Martin's fault either."

"Well no, but Martin doesn't see it that way, does he?" Gerry sighs. "In my case- at some point I understood I'd never have my mother's love, or Gertrude's, but I loved them anyways. And I loved them without expecting them to love me back."

"That sounds very healthy. How does it help against the Lonely?"

Gerry's shoulders raise again. "I never cared much for who loved me, as long as I was able to love someone. The Lonely can't touch me, I'm not afraid of being alone, or forgotten. As long as I remember them, I'm alright."

Tim is quiet for a couple steps, as they take a bend in the corridor and walk through a particularly dense patch of fog.

"Somehow I don't think that would work for me."

Gerry winces. He can't taste Tim's voice like he does Jon's, but the pain in that statement is easy to read, as is the slight, ghostly warmth permeating through the fog.

"You- I feel like it's different for everyone. You and Jon... Both of you have a lot of guilt about being the way you are."

Tim scoffs. "That's your great analysis? You don't like being a monster, Tim?"

"Listen, it's really just a guess. No one has ever been able to understand the Entities; anyone who thinks they have is a lying, arrogant idiot," he says. It won't be great if Tim gets incensed here, but at least they're not in the burning city anymore. "I feel like one can only be held partially responsible to the consequences of their acts if they didn't have all the information they needed when they tried to act in good faith-"

"I wanted to kill myself and Jon and everyone in the wax museum." Tim shrugs. It doesn't look nearly as unaffected as Gerry imagines he wants it to.

"Come on, Tim. You know as well as I do that that was the last domino in the line." Gerry rolls his eyes. "There's only so much you can do to stop the crash when you lost your brakes already."

"Well, losing them was my fault, wasn't it? Jon's fault."

"Is that really what you believe, or is it what you want to believe so you can keep hating yourself, and Jon?" Gerry asks. It's weird that Martin hasn't intervened yet, but it's probably just that he's too tired to do so.

"Don't get smart with me. I- how is it not our fault?"

"You signed a contract for an office job," Gerry says dryly. "That you were probably guided to by the Web. All you knew was that you had a job at the Institute. You were- toppling the first domino was so far out of your reach that you might as well say it's my fault that I was born to my mother."

"It's-"

"They told me your story, you know?" Gerry interrupts. He's getting a bit tired of having to talk Tim back to his senses, but Martin is in no state to do it himself, so the responsibility falls to him. Still, he hopes the reveal will be enough to push Martin into speaking. "If we're objective, I think the only choice you could've taken that would've kept you from this end would've been to not go looking for your brother that night. You never see Grimaldi, you're only barely marked by the Stranger, maybe in a couple years you send in a statement to this Institute you've heard about, then go on your merry way."

"I-"

"Jon was eight, and decided to read a book at the park. Does that sound intentional to you?"

Another ajar door goes by, swollen with moisture and cracked from the cold like all others in the house. The smell of tears hangs heavy in the air, and Gerry can hear the soft murmurs of dozens of wandering ghosts that he can't see.

That no one can see.

"It just. It sucks that they aren't fair," Tim offers after a long silence. It doesn't escape Gerry's attention that he skipped his question entirely, but he lets it be. "If- it would be so easy if they only took bad people. You'd see an avatar and you'd know 'there goes another one of those bastards', and you could hate them, and go on with your life."

Gerry nods. He thinks he knows where Tim's logic is heading, and it's something he's thought about before.

"But then you look at Martin, or Melanie- even Helen was just trying to do her stupid job, and they all ended up just as tainted as us."

"It's never been black and white," Gerry agrees. "It's- some people seek it out, but most are just... Going about their lives. Trying to survive after something terrible happened to them. They're not evil for wanting to live."

"And how do you justify the rest?" Tim asks. The question itself is accusing, but Tim sounds mostly tired.

This Gerry doesn't answer immediately.

He knows what he wants to say, just as he knows that it's not the answer he would've given not two years ago.

"I don't," he says finally. "I don't regret trying to help people survive their encounters; they deserve as even a playing field as they can get, considering what they're up against. But- but who knows? I don't. I'd never allied myself with avatars before, my references were people like Rayner and Elias and Jude Perry or the Lukases. Hell, I used to think Trevor and Julia were as good as it got, using their power to hunt others like them, and you can imagine my review of those two wasn't stellar. And now I'm getting a point of view I just didn't have before."

"...So it's different because you're on the other side now?" The fog is thick, but he can see Tim arching an eyebrow at him. "Sounds a bit biased if you ask me."

"Changing your posture because you get new evidence is how it should go." Gerry shrugs; it feels a bit defensive even to himself, but well... It's a tough subject. "None of you are like any avatars I've met before. Daisy looked freshly fed that time you two chased Jon to Chelsea. I'm pretty sure Helen is feeding when she folds herself weird and makes your head hurt, and Jon can feed me by reading from a restaurant menu. Hell, you get bitchy with Jon once and you're set for a month!"

"I resent that."

"But do you deny it?"

Through the fog, he sees Tim huff and look away.

"I didn't say that. Anyways, that's your excuse? We're all just too pure and good and our avatarhood is different from everyone else's?"

"Daisy and Basira were dirty cops, Tim," Gerry says, rolling his eyes. "All I'm saying is this goes against everything I thought I knew about avatars. Does it mean everyone can feed differently, and most just choose not to? Are there avatars that are never discovered just because they've found other ways to feed their Entity? I don't know, but I think that warrants a look when you're debating on your right to exist."

"Jon eats people's nightmares."

"Well, maybe it's just unfortunate then!" Gerry snaps. "Maybe it's like when you're watching NatGeo and you feel sad for the zebra that the lioness is chewing on, it sucks but-"

"People aren't zebras, mate," Tim cuts into his rant like a hot knife through butter. "I'm not- I don't know if it's justifiable, or if one should even be judging it, like you said. I just- this is probably how Jon thinks, you know?"

And just like that, it's like all the fight drained out of his body.

"Of course I know that, Tim," Gerry sighs, tired. "You don't think I worry about it? About what will happen when there are no more statements, when I have no more tales to tell him? I see him trying to ration them out, trying to sleep only when he knows he can affect people the least, I can't- yes, I am biased, I love him. If thinking that him feeding is a necessary evil makes me a hypocrite, then I guess that's just what I am isn't it?"

Silence. Some more doors. A kitchen where an old kettle has been left on the cold stove.

"Martin? What's your take?" Tim asks, and Gerry sighs again.

"He's not here, but we've talked about that and-" he stops on his tracks, and he sees Tim's shape freeze as well.

"What did you just say?"

"I- M- fuck!" He whirls around to look at the corridor they've been walking on. "Martin?! Martin-"

Tim's hand clamps down on his forearm just as he's starting to move away, and Gerry turns back to look at him. He takes a deep breath that tastes of humidity and tears- technically he knows his heart is not racing, but it sure feels like it.

"How do you know he isn't here? He faded when we first came in, but he was still there. Couldn't he be-"

"He's not here," he repeats, and his eyes burn with the power of the Watcher confirming the information it delivered so casually just a moment ago. "He's- Tim, we left him behind."

Tim's face looks sickly pale under the green light coming from his eyes when the information finally sinks in.

"Fuck... should we go back? Is there- can you even sense him if we run into him?" he asks, but Gerry's no longer listening. "Can he hear us if- hey!"

Gerry runs.

He makes his way back as well as he can, letting the Eye direct him when he falters on the route; it feels nauseating to let it guide him so easily, but Martin needs him, and he's going to find him again and again, and as many times as he has to.

"Martin?!" He yells out as he runs. It has to reach him, right? If not his voice, his longing at least. "Martin Blackwood, I'm growing those carrots for you, you better not disappear on me now!"

His breath comes out in white, labored puffs, and he feels the Lonely's cold bite starting to nibble at the edges of his consciousness.

"You can't keep him from me, you can't," he snarls, "Martin? It can't take you! It couldn't take you at your lowest, and it can't take you now, it-"

"There is something to be said, about things that come in threes," says a voice, and Gerry trips over his own feet and slams against the wall as he topples to his knees.

It's a tired, gentle voice that tastes of love and regret in equal measure, an apology turned sound in the only voice that matters in this new reality.

How did he miss this? Was he so focused on his conversation that he missed not only Martin's fading, but also-

"Like rings to a circus, or stars to Orion's belt. Like three parts to a story that is not finished yet."

Gerry springs to his feet, warm, elated, hopeful.

And he runs.


She'd been having some trouble adapting to it before, but with these current circumstances, Melanie's once again forced to admit her new condition is both a blessing and a curse.

It feels at the same time relieving and disgusting to be just... removed from the apocalypse, from all the suffering she can hear around herself and Georgie, but she can't witness or stop.

'If you do this, I'd much rather you stay out for good,' Gerry had said just a few months ago. An eternity ago. Would she have, if the world had given her the opportunity? Those months with Georgie were idyllic, just... learning to live again, without the fear hanging around her neck like a chain.

"What's this one look like?" she asks in a quiet whisper. Isn't this the least she owes the victims? Or is it the seeds of Beholding that not even the blinding could get rid of?

"They're- it's just people. They're wandering around, but it's- Melanie, it's wrong." Georgie sounds almost incensed, like she did when she was irritated at bad research or the editing software not working correctly. Despite everything, it makes Melanie's lips twitch into a smile.

"Wrong how?"

"I can't- they crash against things sometimes, they're all bruised, but there's nothing there. And some of them are walking up or down stairs but-"

"But there are no stairs." Melanie nods. "So they're trapped? In like... What? An invisible tower? A room?"

"Looks- well, no, it doesn't look like anything," Georgie huffs, "but it feels like it's a maze for them? A weird one. Sometimes a person will crash into a wall and then someone else will go the exact same way and just keep going."

"Makes sense." Melanie shrugs, and Georgie makes a choked off noise to the side.

"How does any of it make sense?"

Melanie snorts. "I don't know, babe. I used to hang out inside Helen when she needed a pick-me-up. Sometimes physics are optional."

"I'm not even going to go into that," Georgie huffs. "But yeah, they-"

"H- hello?" comes a third voice, and Melanie freezes. "I- are you real?"

They stay in silence for a bit, all Melanie can hear is the thundering beat of her heart, and the person's agitated breathing.

"Geor- I- yes? We're real. Do you- are you alright?" Melanie asks, once it becomes clear Georgie will not respond. "Do you know where you are?"

"I- I'm lost," the person says, and it's only then that Melanie realizes.

"Dr. Daley?" she asks. She goes to take a step towards the voice, but Georgie's hand closes around her wrist like a clamp, holding her back. "Laverne?"

"Do I- do you know me?" the voice sounds dubious still, but Melanie grows more and more certain with each word the woman says.

"I'm- Laverne, it's me, it's Melanie. Melanie King, do you remember? The one with- you know, the job I couldn't tell you about?"

"With- yes, your- I know you. I- how- are you lost too? Are you alright?" Melanie can't see her face of course, but it's just as heartbreaking to hear the change in the woman's voice once she recognizes her as someone she's responsible for. A terrified victim, worried for her patient's safety.

"No, I- Georgie, let me go!" Melanie snaps when Georgie pulls her back again. "What's going on with you?!"

"We've been out for too long. We need to go back."

"Yes, and we have to take her with us!"

"We can't," Georgie snaps back. "We- what if I can't shield you both?"

"What? Wasn't it what you suggested before, with the office workers?"

"I- yes, but it's different. It's- listen, these things are getting weirder. Worse. What if my thing is not strong enough to block you both?"

"We know you're shielding her now, or she wouldn't be able to reach us," Melanie insists. It's- if Georgie's blindspot can blanket these people, if they can break them out-

"Melanie, we don't know how this works!" Georgie snarls. "I can't- if it puts you in danger-"

"So we're just going to leave her here? Leave them-"

"Pl- please don't!" Melanie flinches at Laverne's ragged, terrified voice. She switches her cane to the hand Georgie's holding to extend the other in her direction, and jumps when Laverne's own clasp around it with the desperation of a drowning woman. "I'll- please don't leave me here! I'm- I don't know where I am, I- I can't find the way out! I don't know how long I've been in there but- I thought it was my home at first, but I couldn't find the door, and now it's my ex-wife's place, and-"

"Hey! Hey, it's- don't think about it. It's- it confuses you, it's normal." Melanie tries, aiming for the soothing voice the doctor used to use in their sessions. "Is this helping? Just- keep breathing. Try to remember- think of simple things. We're not going to leave you here, okay?"

"Melanie..." Georgie starts, and Melanie turns around as much as she can without pulling her hand out of Laverne's grip.

"Georgie, we can't do this."

"Weren't we going to wait for Jon and-"

"But that's different! Georgie, we can't choose to stay out of it just because we can, not if we can actually help! I know you're-"

"Afraid?" Georgie completes after Melanie lets her sentence die out, her own voice just this side of bitter. "I'm not. I don't- that's the point. I can't judge if- I can't."

And it makes sense, doesn't it? Like refusing to use a stove because you know you won't feel a burn. It occurs to Melanie then that perhaps she's not the only one that needs a little help navigating the world, and the thought surprises her enough that she can't help the bark of nervous laughter that burst through her lips. Melanie King, daredevil and risk assessor.

"Well- well I can." Melanie nods. "And I'm scared. But- do you trust me? To tell you when it's too much?"

Georgie remains quiet for another long, long moment, the only sound around them the other victims of the maze crying out as they crash against walls or fall down stairs, and Laverne's heavy, agitated breathing.

"I do. Always." Then, very slowly, she squeezes Melanie's wrist. "Let's get her to a safe place, then. We'll come back for the others."


He Knows they're in here.

It's hard to be surprised with the world's knowledge at his fingertips, and Jon approaches the abandoned manor with purpose, if not with urgency.

They've conquered I Have No One before, the three of them, and it will not be a problem as long as they focus on each other.

It's funny that after leaving them in such a dramatic manner the reunion should be so incredibly mundane, and Jon finds it comforting. They deserve as much normalcy as they can get. They've earned the right to be boring, he thinks.

Trying to guess what the Entities want is a fool's errand, and one that has led to so many failed rituals before the one that ended it all. Still, Jon decides he's fairly qualified to determine his current situation.

The Lonely wants him out, and it's furious that it's powerless to remove him, given his new status.

Jon, who can be a little petty when the occasion calls for it, thinks again of how the fog makes him think of Martin. How he Knows what awaits him here, thanks the Forsaken for once again playing such an important role in their reunion, and takes a vindictive sort of joy in seeing the fog shy away from him, in feeling the house grow colder in sullen retaliation.

The corridors seem to elongate as he walks down their length, the windows grow more and more fogged up with each step, and Jon can taste the desperation permeating the air.

"Martin, are you around?" he asks aloud. "I'm- it's me. I'm back."

The corridor, the fog around him, it all remains stubbornly quiet. Jon sighs.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't- it wasn't really my choice. But it is now, and I'm here. I chose to be here, and I would very much like it if you were here with me." Nothing still. Jon runs a hand through his hair, tugging softly when his fingers catch in a couple knots. "I don't- I never told you, but I quite liked the poem you wrote at the cottage."

The fog swirls away from him, and he feels his lips curl into a grim smirk. It has to help, right? One way or another.

"I still remember most of it, before the uh- unwanted additions. I-" he clears his throat, and he can feel the Eye trying to infuse his words with power. Meaning. He gently but firmly pushes it away.

These words come from Martin's pen have a lot more power than anything the Watcher could offer.

"There is something to be said about things that come in threes," he starts. It's hard to not remember that night, but he shakes the memory away. This is about Martin. About them. They matter just as much as the world falling apart, at least to him. Jon has ever been a selfish man. "Like rings to a circus, or stars to Orion's belt. Like three parts to a story that is not finished yet."

Is the room growing warmer, or maybe it's just Jon's wistful thinking? Are the words calling Martin to him, or simply driving the Forsaken even further?

"Why is it that three's a crowd, yet good things come in three's?" he recites, his voice growing fainter as he gets closer and closer to the end of everything. "People always say-"

"Nothing, because I didn't finish the damned thing," an amused, faux-sulky voice says from somewhere to his right, and Jon feels like the weight has been lifted off his chest. "I had some good lines in that one."

"Maybe you had good inspiration?" Jon asks, turning to the vague outline of a man in the remaining, thinning fog. "Or-"

"Insufferable is what my inspirations were," the silhouette says. "Couldn't even let me finish the poem before snooping."

Jon smiles, reaching a hand in offering. It tingles when the outline of Martin's own wraps around it. "How would you have ended it?"

"Hmmm... People always say third time's the charm, and I find myself relieved." He thinks he can see a pair of greenish grey eyes, tired and soft and gleaming with amusement as they look down at him. "I found you once, and then you me, and us, plus you, makes three."

Jon's smile stretches into a full grin, as he steps in to Martin's clearing silhouette.

"It has a nice rhythm, if you ask me."

"I shouldn't, really," Martin smiles against his hair. "I happen to know your opinions about my poetry."

"Well, that's just unfair," Jon scoffs. Martin's arms are solid enough now that he can wrap them around him, pull him in closer. "I'll have you know I've gone through a fair share of character development ever since, and now I-"

He never does get to tell Martin about his new, far more lenient takes on poetry, as that's exactly the moment something large and heavy crashes against them at full speed and topples them down to the ground.

Jon groans in disgust when the side of his face makes contact with the soggy, salt-smelling carpet, and hears Martin's mirroring complaint as he turns to lay on his back.

The tips of Gerry's long black hair tickle at his nose and cheek, as the man looms over them, still catching his breath from the sprint and grinning so wide it has to hurt.

"Hello there, sir. You wouldn't happen to have seen a boyfriend, have you?" Gerry asks, making Jon snort.

He smiles, blowing softly to get the hair strands out of his face.

"An incredible coincidence, I actually did find one. A very good one too, very careless of whoever lost him, honestly." Jon snorts again when Martin's semi-tangible hand smacks at his shoulder. "You know? I liked it better that time I ran into you. Seemed a lot safer, if you ask me."

"If it helps any, it would've been perfectly fine if someone was solid enough." Gerry leans down then, and- and stops an inch away from actually pressing his lips against the corner of Jon's mouth, giving him a cheeky smirk that makes Jon huff in mock-frustration, before he leans up himself to kiss him instead.

It feels like home, Jon thinks, and squeezes his eyes shut when they start burning. This world belongs to him, but this here is where he belongs, with Martin's arm around him and his fingers tangled together with Jon's, the familiar faded scent of lavender overpowering the salt, and the way Gerry chuckles softly when Jon tugs at his lip ring with his teeth.

"The Lonely hates you both so much," Martin says by his side, and Jon can't help but to crack up at the contentment in his voice. "I think it's ready to let us go now."

"Yes, I do think this one definitely didn't go how it was expecting," Jon chuckles, before letting out a slow, deep exhale, and turning just enough to hide his face in Martin's chest. "Just- I've missed you both so much."

He feels them shift around him, Martin bringing him up closer against him, Gerry practically laying down on them like a clingy dog unaware of its size. There's a kiss at the crown of his head, and another at the exposed curve of his neck.

"It's alright," Gerry says, his breath hot against Jon's collarbone. "We're together now, we- you found us."

"I'm sorry. About everything," Jon whispers.

Martin's fingers push softly on his chin to tilt his face up, and then he's resting his cold forehead against Jon's, looking at him with his beautiful, green-speckled grey eyes. "None of this is your fault, Jon. We were just trying to live."

"We should get back to that, by the way." Gerry's eyes gleam with amusement as he leans his cheek on Martin's chest. "Let's focus on fixing the end of the world, because I have some ideas on how to remodel the kitchen."

Jon snorts. "Why would you get any say on the kitchen?"

Gerry shrugs, his lips still curled into that satisfied, carefree smile. "I didn't say I'd be cooking, but I happen to have pretty good taste, if you ask me."

Martin huffs with laughter and uses the hand he'd been resting on Gerry's back to push the sweatshirt's hood up, effectively burying his face behind a black and yellow curtain and making Gerry sputter  and spit out hair in indignation.

"That'll keep him quiet for a moment," he snorts, ignoring Gerry's offended 'hey!' to turn towards Jon again. "Is- are you alright now? In your tape... It sounded like something was pulling at you."

"It was," Jon hums, running a hand through Gerry's hair to comb it back into place. "Both of them, the Eye and the Web. They want me at the panopticon, and they weren't too happy with how long it was taking me to get on the move."

"Is it over though? Did you shake it off?" Gerry catches his wrist and places a kiss on the palm of his hand, still looking down at him like he'll disappear if he lets him out of his sight.

Jon nods. "I had some help? But they should- none of them is controlling me right now."

"Help?" Martin asks, and Jon can almost hear the scowl in his voice. "From who?"

Jon sees Gerry snort and move up to nuzzle a disgruntled Martin's jaw, but he ignores his curiosity in favor of the warmth the picture brings to his chest.

Then Martin's question actually registers in his mind, and he squirms to sit up.

"It's going to be a bit messy," he says, smiling nervously. "But- but I think you'll be happy to see her."


Tim sighs when Gerry sprints away like a spooked rabbit without a single look back.

He's getting very tired of chasing after Martin's boyfriends, and he plans on having a very strongly worded conversation about it once they get him out of the literal plane of eternal isolation again.

Gerry's longer stride means it's a lot more difficult to keep up with him than it was keeping up with Jon, but Tim does his best to follow him as they make their way back through the manor, trying to ignore how he's getting more and more turned around every time because every corridor looks the same, sad and grey and endless, populated by translucent shadows that turn away from them to try and remain in the anonymity they both fear and crave so deeply.

Tim's desolation doesn't burn as bright here. This is a place of sorrow too, but not the kind he feeds on. There's no spark of anger here, no regret mixed in with the grief that makes you want to scream until your throat tears and blood drips out your mouth along with your pained cries. Instead, it feels muted. Resigned. This is a sadness that drags you down and reminds you that you are nothing, you never were, and every attempt you made at changing that never did anything but prolong the inevitable, instead of allowing yourself to fade into the background like you were always meant to.

For the first time since he woke up in his furnace of a grave, in this body made anew out of ash and tears and pain, Tim feels cold.

"Martin?" He hears Gerry call out, and echoes it with his own desperate frustration. No one responds, of course.

And then Tim feels it, skidding to a halt as his mind freezes in fear. The pressure, the uncanny weight of someone staring at him from every possible point. The knowledge that he's close to a bigger predator than himself.

He's aware Eye-aligned people are more powerful in this new reality, the idea planted in his mind from day one; it's just how things are now, fear burns bright, humans cry and the Eye reigns. But he's been travelling with one for a while now, and it has never felt like this.

"Gerry? Are you feeling-" Tim starts to ask, only to cut himself with a frustrated groan when he hears the man speeding off again. "Come on! I thought you knew how to think in a crisis!"

He gets no response as he runs forward, other than the sound of a door swinging open, and a brief glimpse of a green hoodie disappearing as the same door swings shut. Tim reaches forward to open it again and speed off after him-

And then he's standing on a grey, dead yard, the house behind him closed and cold and uninviting.

Fuck.

Fuckfuckfuck.

He throws himself against the door again, but opening it brings forth just a thick, spilling cascade of silvery fog he can't pass through. It mixes with the wisps of it starting to form over the withered grass, and Tim feels the tips of his fingers start to go numb as he turns back, leaving the door ajar.

The house separated them one by one, and Tim is far too aware he doesn't share Gerry's near immunity against the Lonely.

The wilted grass at his feet smokes sadly, too damp to burn properly as Tim stomps around in circles and tries to figure out what his next move will be.

He's never going to be able to find them, they're- he's on his own now, and-

Should he try to find Jon himself? Will it let him walk away if he simply gives up on retrieving them? Could he even find Jon, if they were using Gerry to track him? Should he just keep going towards the Panopticon and hope for the -worst- best?

But he can't give up on those two, can't just... Leave them behind to rot in the Lonely, with Martin dissolving into it and Gerry just roaming the house forever. All he needs is a way inside, and he can keep looking. Just-

"Helen?" He calls out. He has little hope for an answer, but it's his best bet. "Hel- I could really use a door right now, Helen!"

The sound of creaking wood is startlingly loud at his back, and Tim feels the knot of stress on his chest release so abruptly it's also dizzying as he turns around.

"Thank god, Helen I need-" he freezes.

The door to the house has been pushed fully open, and standing at the threshold of the stupid manor is Gerry, his arms thrown around Martin with the tenacity of a drowning man clinging to a piece of floating debris after a shipwreck. And what a shipwreck Martin is, his grey eyes trailing thin wisps of fog, only mostly visible still but smiling so wide it probably hurts, and tucked under his chin, also clinging to him with what looks like a borderline painful grip...

Logically, Tim knew they were bound to meet up with Jon. That was, after all, the main purpose of the trip. Catch up to Jon so he can't be dragged back into whatever Elias is planning again.

Still, he hasn't- he was hoping he'd get a bit of a heads up, because Jon looks exhausted. The soft, lopsided smile on his lips is not enough to disguise the deep-seated sadness in his dark eyes, and it's- it's too much.

Is this what he looked like when he woke up from the comma? When he came out of the coffin?

All Tim can think of are the long nights after they first moved down to the Archives, when Jon was so determined to make a dent in Gertrude's 'organization' system that he just waved off Tim's inquiries of whether or not he'd like to walk to the tube with him, and there's bags under his eyes, and his hair is a mess and-

"Oh. Hi, Tim," Jon says quietly, unsure of the reception -and why wouldn't he be, after everything that's happened?-, his chapped lips pressing together nervously.

He reacts on instinct, is the only explanation.

He's vaguely aware of Gerry trying to put himself between them when he rushes forward, and Martin holding him back with a gentle arm around his waist. It's all too easy to yank Jon toward him, though every fiber of his being screams 'DANGER' when Tim's hand closes around his wrist, when his arm wraps around Jon's back.

"You- you stupid idiot," Tim snarls as he squeezes him tight. Jon's slender frame fits against his so comfortably, so... Familiar. "You're so damn lucky we're helping you pick up your mess."

It's slow and painfully tentative, but Jon's arms eventually come to squeeze back at Tim's torso, and it's- he should not be feeling so at home here, he still despises Jon, he's still angry, he-

"Yes, I- I've always been, I suppose," comes Jon's shaky, nervous voice. Not the voice of the monster that monsters fear here at the end of the world, but the voice of a broken man.

"Shut up," Tim snaps, burying his face in Jon's bony shoulder. "Shut up, Jon you're so stupid."

"We should-" says Gerry's voice somewhere off and to the side.

"Shh, they're having a moment." And Martin's, who sounds entirely too amused by someone who just walked out of the Lonely.

The door creaks open again, turned bright yellow and tall, and a distorted, echoing voice reaches them all in waves.

"Oh, you finally caught up. Took you long enough," says Helen, and Tim lets go of Jon like he's been burned, whipping around to face her.

"Well, excuse us from not traveling around with the apocalypse MVP, and-" he stops short, when he catches sight of the man next to her. He's tall and pale, with a short cropped beard that matches his curly blond hair. His bright blue eyes are fixed on Tim, wide and nervous like he's seeing a ghost. "Uh- do I know you? Do we know him?"

He turns to Jon, still at arm's length and now watching him with an almost pained, careful expression.

"...Jon?"

"I- uh..." He turns towards the man, who's still looking at Tim like he's a mirage. "Should I tell him?"

The man fidgets on his spot, before taking a deep breath and looking back at Tim.

"I... Hello, Tim," he says, his voice quiet and nervous.

Tim arches an eyebrow.

"Hello?" Out of the corner of his eye he sees Gerry jerk upright against Martin with a little gasp, his eyes glowing Watcher-green again. It's getting on his nerves that everyone seems to know what this is about. "Uh. I'm sorry, but I just don't remember you."

"You do, just- just not like this," the man says. His voice is gentle, like he knows Tim a lot more intimately than Tim is aware of. He smiles a little, and Tim can practically swear he's seen that gesture before, the way his shoulders give a little aborted shrug. "It's me, Tim."

Tim's mouth dries up, and the Desolation flares up in his chest with a vengeance.

"Stop that," he snaps, clenching his fists by his sides. "You're not her. You're not-"

"Tim-" Jon tries, flinching a little when Tim turns to him again.

"It's not- he lied to you," he says. It sounds a lot more pleading than he expected. It can't be her, he won't let himself even entertain the possibility, because he can't go through it all again. "It's not her."

Jon smiles, sad and gentle and understanding, and it's not helping Tim feel any less like throwing something.

"No one can lie to me anymore, Tim." He turns towards the man, his eyes lighting up like miniature searchlights, and Tim feels the very world focus its attention on the man before him. "Who are you?"

The man looks at Tim as the compulsion takes effect, and his eyes gleam like hers did when she had a secret far too juicy to spill away from their little corner of the break room.

"I am Sasha James," he says, his voice loud and clear over the furious beating of Tim's heart. "And I've missed you a whole lot, Tim."

She smiles, and Tim's knees give out under him.

Chapter 28

Notes:

CWs for this chapter:
Body horror (Flesh style)
Mentions of violence
Manipulation

Chapter Text

XXVIII

Since there's no time anymore, their routine is a bit weird.

They walk for however long they feel is enough. Maybe cross a domain or two. Then, once they have decided it's been a day, they set up camp and rest.

It's a whole other pantomime, since literally none of them need to sleep anymore, but it gives them the illusion of normalcy, which is a luxury far more precious than actual rest.

Daisy naps or talks to Jon, whenever he's not huddled over with Martin and Gerry in their own little corner. Helen pops in sometimes to check in on them, or just because she's bored, Tim hasn't sussed that out yet.

For his part, he sits on his own and stares off into the distance, waiting for them to get en route again. Before, he did so alone, trying to ignore Martin fading, and Gerry's incessant prattling to keep him present.

It's different now.

He's not sure when Sasha changes appearance, if she does it during the 'night', or just when no one is paying attention to her. Sometimes he'll just turn to her, and freeze in confusion for a minute until his brain catches up and he understands who he's standing next to.

Maybe with time he'll learn to immediately associate the feeling of 'Stranger' with Sasha, which would be both ironic and infuriating, he thinks.

"Hi," she greets as she comes to sit by him that night, nudging his shoulder with hers. "Would you mind some company?"

Tim looks at her out of the corner of his eye. Today she looks like a woman in her mid forties, with short fluffy black hair and pale skin marked here and there with wrinkles, crow's feet by her eyes, laugh marks by her mouth.

"I wouldn't mind you," he says simply.

They sit in silence for a while. It's not their old, content silence, but rather a far more loaded one, bursting at the seams with all their unsaid words.

"Hey-" Sasha says finally, nervously. Tim can't remember her ever sounding nervous, but then again anything he does remember about her is dubious now. "Uh- hey, check this out-"

She purses her lips into a tight 'o', and lets out a shrill whistle that's far too loud in the quiet of the barren wasteland.

He hears Jon snort somewhere off in the camp, and when he turns to her again her self-satisfied expression is so smug he can't do anything but smile.

"You couldn't whistle before?" He asks, amused.

"Never," Sasha nods proudly, and his smile widens.

'She couldn't whistle, but she can now.'

It's another piece to the puzzle he's arranging to form the picture of the new Sasha. The old one? The real one.

"...She could," he says quietly. He doesn't know why he brings it up, but he remembers her so clearly, whistling a little cheerful tune as they walked over to her place from the bus stop.

Sasha exhales slowly and her shoulders sag a little, which immediately makes him feel guilty for poking her enthusiasm.

"Of course she could whistle. That's so unfair," she says, though the humor in her voice sounds performative at best. "...I'm sorry."

"I- for what? Being body-snatched?" Tim blinks.

"I don't really know, is the worst part," she sighs. "I'm- I hate that I'm always going to be another reminder of it for you."

Her grief drifts from her like sweet perfume, almost intoxicating as if wraps around him.

"You can't help it anymore than Danny could," he says after a moment of contemplation. "I'm just the Stranger's chewtoy, I guess. It could be worse. I could be Jon."

Sasha snorts. "I don't know, he seems pretty happy to me."

Tim risks a look over to where Jon is nestled comfortably against Martin's side, braiding Gerry's hair where he's resting his head on his lap.

"Trust Jon to lose the cosmic lottery and still get two boyfriends out of it," he scoffs, but it lacks any real fire. He sighs again, longer this time, before adding with a snort, "but anyways, it was kind of my fault too. I should've known it wasn't you when she asked me out."

Sasha deflates against him again.

"Don't- it's not like that. It was never like that," she says. Her voice is muted now, and Tim can't help but feel that he struck far deeper than he intended with his lame attempt at self-deprecation. "I loved you. I love you now."

"You don't have to explain anything, Sash."

She shrugs, as if dismissing his words.

"Romance is... complicated. You know- you know about Jon, you know how it is sometimes." She kicks off a little dirt with the heel of her shoe. "Sex is easy, but you seemed to know what you wanted pretty well, and I didn't didn't feel like that. Didn't know if I'd ever feel like that. I wasn't going to just fool around with you knowing that."

Tim snorts. This is the second time he has found himself on receiving end of this particular conversation, even if it's on the opposite side of the spectrum. Maybe he does have a type.

"I appreciate that. I wouldn't- it did sting for a little while back then. But I didn't expect anything from you outside of what you wanted to give me," he says in the end. "I still don't."

"I know you don't." Sasha says quietly. Then, after what feels like an eternity, "...it's really me this time, though."

Tim lets out a long, nervous exhale, and he drapes an arm over her shoulders. They feel bony and sharp, foreign and unknown against him like everything else about this woman.

But it's Sasha, and that's all that matters.


The garden is full of statues.

No, not statues.

Not cold, unchanging stone, imperfect in its perfection, incapable of change and growth.

The gardener's flowers are perfect, in that they aren't born like that. He can prune them of their defects, correct their growth and reshape them into what they should be, water them with their own tears and smell the gorgeous, sweet perfume of their pain.

This one for example, the Piper Arietinum.

This particular specimen had an almost disappointingly normal upbringing. Two parents, two older siblings, school and dance lessons and summer camps whenever it was affordable. Evenings out with friends, a coffee here and there, a couple kisses exchanged in the darkness of a movie theater.

Its metamorphosis began almost by accident during one of these outings, when returning home late at night- or rather, early in the morning, it witnessed a butcher shop's employees wheel some carcasses in through the back door. It had eaten pork before of course, chops, sausages, loins... It just had never spared any thought for the fact that 'pork' was not an animal in its mind, but rather a denomination created for the sole purpose of distancing the product from what it had been in life.

The pig's eyes were glassy and dry, a fat purple tongue sticking out between rows of uncannily human-like teeth, and as it was wheeled in for dismemberment, for processing, for turning into something faceless and unrecognizable as anything other than sustenance, the pig's clouded eyes blinked, and it gave one last, long-suffering sigh.

The doors closed behind it, and Piper stood frozen on the mouth of that alleyway, terribly, so terribly conscious of the non-existent differences between itself and the animal it had just seen.

Skin, fat, teeth.

Flesh.

Piper never again tasted a bite of meat in its life. It spent its nights tossing and turning in its bed, feeling the butcher's hook dig in its shoulders, the knife slipping under its skin, carving the meat into juicy steaks served to faceless strangers commenting on the quality of the cuts, the marbling of the fat, the tenderness of the flesh.

It would wake up day after day and pat its shoulders to find them free of vicious hooks, and spend the entire morning trying to remind itself that it was human, that it had emotions and dreams, and was miles away from any dumb animal that would eventually find itself marching down the corridors of a slaughterhouse.

That it wasn't meat.

Upon the changing of the world, the Piper Arietinum sprouted at the garden, where the gardener tends to it and does as is needed to turn it into the best version of itself.

Look at it now.

See the skin, stretched almost translucent to form the swollen pods, hanging heavy from the bone-thin stalk? The gardener arranged it like a dancer, which is what it was in life, with the knobby wrists tied up over its head, its spine curved into a graceful arch, its bright red tongue pulled out through the open mouth like a ruby-colored flower.

Every day, the gardener snaps the pods free. Just a twist and a tug, to avoid harming his prized vine.

Then, he pops them open.

Most of them are plump with tears, which he dutifully collects into the tank to water the rest of his garden.

Some others however, are far more substantial.

The tumorous growths contained within the pods are smooth and red, sometimes with a tooth in their midst, or the crude beginnings of an eye. These he feeds carefully past the Piper's open lips, sliding them down its tongue so that it may taste at last the perfect, succulent quality of its meat.

He has turned it to its true purpose, and away from any measly pretentions of superiority.

It is flesh, and flesh is to be molded and perfected, and consumed.'

Jon blinks and shakes his head softly, and Gerry waits until the green in his eyes has faded completely to lay a careful hand on the back of his neck.

"...Do you do this on all of them?" he asks. On Jon's other side, he can see Martin still reeling from the content of the statement, his hand still extended only an inch away from one of the meaty chickpea pods that he'd been about to poke before Jon went off.

Jon shrugs, looking up at him with a little sheepish, crooked smile. "I thought I could use the boost?"

Gerry sighs. "Well, that's not reassuring in the leas-"

"I can't believe the Flesh out of all entities is advocating for veganism," Tim comments casually. He and Sasha are off to the side, looking at an 'orchid' made out of a peeled-open man, whose petals unfurl with each pained breath of the victim. "Did you really need to do that?"

"I think it's advocating for the exact opposite," Jon snorts, then sighs. "I don't know. I like to imagine that in archiving their fear I'm giving them a break from carrying it all by themselves."

Gerry knows Jon could Know if his hypothesis is true.

He also knows he prefers to stay in ignorance, for once.

"Well... Let's hope that's it," Martin agrees, stepping away from Piper. "Is he here?"

Jon nods. "Around."

"Who are we talking about?" Sasha rests her chin on Tim's shoulder.

"Jared Hopworth," Gerry says. "Flesh avatar. Never met him myself, but I've heard he's good at ribs removal."

Martin snorts, and Jon gives Gerry an annoyed glare. He counts it as two victories.

"Will you ever stop bringing that up?"

"Bringing what up?" Sasha asks again, frowning. "I don't remember you telling me about this?"

Tim also looks fairly puzzled, and Gerry realizes with a rush of elation that Martin must've never told him either.

"Oh, it's just that-" he starts, grinning.

"He took out two of my ribs because I asked him to, that's it." Jon cuts in with a hurried grumble. "I needed it to go find Daisy in the Buried and-"

"No you didn't," Gerry snorts.

Jon's eyes narrow. "You know? I think I could send you back now, actually. No receipt needed."

"You can't possibly do that now, I find him funny." Martin comes to stand by his side, and Gerry leans against him with a smug grin.

"I appreciate your ribs, Jon," comes Daisy's quiet voice. She's been standing by the edge of the group, and the sight of her is somewhat sobering, Gerry finds.

She looks... not great.

He doesn't understand all the nuances of this new world, but he's very aware that the fact that she relinquished the form granted to her in order to sow fear is probably not doing her any favors.

She looks most herself when she's talking to Jon, but she keeps her distance when the rest of them are around, like a stranger at a party or a new child at the park, and Gerry feels a little bit... guilty, at the distance.

She may have walked willingly into the Hunt's grasp the first time, but he's all too aware that she gave up on her chance at peace to help Jon. To keep Basira safe.

He's not a stranger to making the wrong choice for the right reason.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jon's expression softening when he turns to look at her.

"Thank you, at least someone does," he says with a gentle, encouraging smile. "But yes, he- I'm not sure what to do about him."

"I mean... you were going to kill the other one, weren't you? The one that burned your hand," Sasha says. "Why's this one different?"

Gerry arches an eyebrow. "You've been killing avatars?"

"I- not really?" Jon averts his gaze, examining a woman whose body has been expertly espaliered on a wooden frame.

It doesn't taste like a lie per se, but Gerry still rolls his eyes.

"Are you trying to, though?" Martin asks by his side. Jon leans in closer to the woman. "Hey, I'm not complaining?"

Gerry's not the only one that whips around to look at Martin, so he's at least somewhat reassured that he didn't completely misread his boyfriend's character.

"Are you advocating for murder?" Tim asks over Sasha's amused chuckle.

Martin has the decency to blush at least, but Gerry gets the feeling that it's got more to do with being the focus of everyone's attention than anything else.

"What? If he hadn't killed the Not Them, Sasha wouldn't be back. Or- you and I would still be stuck in the Lonely," he huffs. "For all we know it's helping the victims, right Jon?"

"Uh... I don't- I mean they are still suffering," Jon offers meekly. "But at least no one is enjoying their suffering?"

"Except for the Watcher," Tim not quite asks, but he looks surprisingly non-confrontational, when Gerry turns to give him a piece of his mind.

Jon gives a guarded, sharp shrug, his eyes gleaming a resentful neon green. "The Watcher wants stories. Humans are more likely to clearly remember fear than they do anything else. I think all of us can all attest to that."

Jon's words leave behind a heavy silence, blanketing the garden with its tense, unwanted truth.

"So... so do you want us to find him?" Daisy speaks up quietly. "I can help you, but- just with the finding I think. I don't want to-"

"I wouldn't ask you to do that, Daisy," Jon says, giving her another smile. "Not even if I needed it. Besides... He's coming to find us instead."

There's a large, looming shadow stretching from behind a tree made out of three people growing through each other (in what Gerry's very sure is a poor allegory for codependency), and all the 'plants' in the garden seem to shift away from it, trying to escape even knowing their roots are firmly dug into the barren ground.

"Hello, Jared," Jon greets calmly. His eyes are back to neon green, and while Gerry wasn't there when he finished off the Not Them or Peter Lukas, he gets the feeling that he knows perfectly well how this will go down.

It comes with a sick satisfaction from the part of him that's purely Watcher, some twisted sort of pride at seeing Jon standing so confident, so powerful, knowing this reality is his for him to mold and destroy to his liking. This is a world created for them by their patron, and those who face its ruler can choose only between praising and perishing.

"Are you okay?" Martin whispers, squeezing at his hand. "Your eyes-"

"I know, I- weird Eye things, it's nothing." Gerry shakes his head, before looking at the shadow again. "Hiding back there is not really going to do anything, you know?"

He knows the man was dead from the moment Jon decided it.

There's some wet, mushy-sounding movement behind the tree.

"Took me a bit to figure out which rib was hurting," comes a voice, loud and... large, is the only way Gerry can think to describe it. Too large a tongue moving across too many teeth inside a cavernous mouth, letting out a sound more like a cascade of rubble than a voice. "Those were some fancy words about my pretty little chickpea. Very finnicky when I feed it, even when its meat is so sweet. Needs lots of care, that one."

Jon's body is taut like a bowstring, his eyes glowing so brightly with intention and fresh fear that they illuminate the entire garden, casting long, black shadows out of everything under their gaze.

Gerry finds that there's no difference between his own twisted shadow and those of the tortured victims of the Flesh.

"Come out," Jon orders, and the man- the rolling piece of meat, with bubbling eyes and arms and bones shifting to the surface, comes out if the shadows.

"I have made them perfect," Jared Hopworth shrugs. There's not enough discernible a face on him to determine his expression, but his voice sounds pleased. Unrepentant.

Proud.

"That's what you think," Jon starts; the sky comes awake with millions of thousands of eyes a pinning the avatar under their gaze. They wait for an order, Watcher itself holding for the verdict of its most beloved offspring. "But without you, they will prosper."


"What are you thinking about?" Martin asks, coming to sit by his side in the ground.

They've made 'camp' far enough from the garden to not be able to hear the pained groans, but still within sight of it.

"Nothing, really," Gerry mutters to himself, worrying at his lip ring with his tongue. "I guess I knew it wouldn't free them, but I was hoping for something, you know?"

"I do," Martin sighs. "But it's like Jon said. At least no one is actively relishing on their suffering anymore."

Gerry leans against his side, and waits for the quasi-eternal moment it takes Martin to decide if he wants to drape his arm over his shoulder before settling against him comfortably.

"It- I make no illusions. I know we can only do so much against them," he starts, somewhat sullenly. Martin's cold finger comes to tap and flick at his lip, and Gerry nibbles on it to chase it away. "It just... At least before I actually got to help people. This just feels like damage control."

"I think we're doing the best we can with what we're given." Martin squeezes his shoulders. "I know Jon is at least."

"Yeah, speaking of." Gerry shifts in his grip to look up at his face again. "How come you were so hesitant at killing Elias back then, but now you're all pro Jon going smiting angel on people?"

Martin gives a non-chalant shrug. "I wasn't myself in that moment."

"...I don't know if I should be worried about the implication."

"You have time to think about it," Martin chuckles. "Hey, how's Daisy?"

Gerry turns to follow his gaze, and instinctively lifts an arm upon finding Jon standing before the two of them.

He comes down immediately, nestling himself between the two of them and letting Gerry wrap his arm around him like a safety blanket.

"Better. It helps that my way of- that it doesn't look anything like how the Hunt does it," Jon sighs. "How about you two?"

"Just discussing Martin's moral code," Gerry shrugs, snorting when Martin headbutts him softly. "You know, murder cheerleader and whatnot."

"What are you pearl-clutching about?" Jon chuckles so quietly Gerry feels it rather than hears it, just a low vibration against his chest. "Gertrude killed her fair share of avatars."

"None that I saw, if you can believe it." Gerry shrugs. "She didn't like me interacting with the ones she had dealings with. I think she felt I was too volatile and I'd ruin things."

"...That wasn't it at all," Jon says softly after a long moment of silence.

Martin squeezes Gerry's shoulders.

Gerry clears his throat.

"You didn't kill Oliver Banks," he says, somewhat awkwardly in his attempt at changing the topic. "He marked you too."

"The extent of Oliver's adventures as an avatar consists of trying to sleep, and uselessly trying to warn people about their untimely ends." Jon shrugs. "I believe he feeds not on humans' fear of death, but rather on his own despair at his inability to prevent or change any of it. For all that he likes to say trying to save people is futile, Oliver feels a whole lot."

Out of the corner of his eye Gerry sees Martin roll his eyes, and he snorts.

"So... murder-exempt because he's inoffensive?" he asks. Maybe it's not just him who's having a rough time trying to decide the rights and wrongs of this existence.

"Hmm... I suppose?," Jon hums. "Maybe not inoffensive, but he's... Different. Like Tim."

Gerry rolls his eyes. Martin snorts.

"So that's your criteria?" Martin asks, squeezing Gerry's shoulders. "If they don't hurt humans, they can stay?"

He doesn't have to voice it for Gerry -and Jon himself, guessing on how he stiffens against them- to think of the glaring hole in those parameters.

Jon doesn't really fit into that box, most of the time.

"We're doing the best we can, with what we're given." Gerry tightens his arm around Jon, and Martin leans down to press a kiss to the crown of his head.


The worst part about this, Daisy decides, is the knowledge that she could find Basira, no questions about it, no ifs or buts.

The scent of faded coconut shampoo prickles in her nostrils, calling her across the twisted geography to where they would be together, whether Basira is either hiding from her or seeking her out.

It makes her clench her teeth so hard her jaw hurts, and her throat feels choked up with the acrid taste of tears.

All she needs to do is give in again.

Accepting once more the form that represents everything that is wrong about her, everything that she was willing to die to keep buried down where it wouldn't harm anyone ever again.

"You won't," Jon mumbles quietly by her side.

They're walking along the length of a flimsy hanging bridge, its wooden planks growing thinner and thinner with each step, and surrounded with the screams of those who tried to turn back and caused the entire bridge to collapse under them, sending them careening into a fall that will just never end.

"I mean... I did it once already," Daisy sighs. "And it was for her too."

"It was a different situation." Jon squeezes her hand. "Back then it was the only choice you had to keep her safe."

The taste of the two hunters' blood weighs on her tongue.

"How come I somehow always end up having to choose the wrong option?" Her stomach gives a terrifying jump when she steps forward and the next plank doesn't come, but she merely pushes forward and it manifests under her at the same second. This place can't scare her. Everything that she fears is inside her. "At what point am I actually at fault?"

Jon remains quiet for a moment, with Martin's disgruntled mumbling behind them the only sound overlapping the screams.

"You'd be at fault if you chose it now, I think," he says finally. "You have other choices to find her. You'd be at fault if you chose it and actually wanted it."

Daisy looks on ahead.

The end of the bridge seems impossibly far, despite the fact that they've been crossing for what feels like hours already.

It's never going to end, she realizes with a start, and the wooden plank groans under her weight at the thought. It's always going to be like this, an endless stretch of saying no at every turn, because saying yes means game over.

She laments once more the fact that Basira wouldn't let go of her as she faded into sweet, eternal nothing on her lap.

"Living is hard. And it's- no one is ever going to thank you for the effort you put into choosing the right thing to do, even if you hate it," Jon says behind her in a tone that makes it clear he's had this discussion with himself before. "It's all just for you. And you deserve to look back and be proud of the choices you made. And the ones you didn't."

Step. Wood creaking. The wind blowing in their ears as it swings the bridge from side to side.

"I was going to kill you," she says quietly. "I don't think- I didn't do it because I didn't want Basira to see."

God, every word feels disgusting in her mouth.

"I know," Jon's voice is so low she's surprised she heard it over the whistling of the wind.

It's all he says.

"Basira doesn't have the greatest moral compass when it comes to me," she chuckles. It sounds wet. "Using her as my standard for what's acceptable is not great."

"It isn't," Jon agrees.

What else is there to say about it? She's sorry she made him dig his own grave before attempting to execute him? She's sorry she never apologized for it? She's sorry that she will spend the rest of her life trying to be better, but it will never erase the fear he felt standing there with her at his back, knowing she would end his life and not feel a single thing about it?

That back in the coffin the only thought she had as she gripped tight to him to keep the Buried from separating them was that this was so unfair, that she dragged him into a grave one way or another?

Jon doesn't speak. It's not like there's anything he can say about it. Should say about it.

This is for Daisy to remember and repent for as long as she lives, knowing Jon is only a drop in the bucket she filled to overflowing.

"Daisy," Jon's voice is soft, as is the hand he wraps around hers. "We can't stay here... you have to go on."

Daisy blinks.

She looks over her shoulder, and finds Jon and the others waiting in line behind her where she stands frozen in place.

She looks forward.

The end of the bridge is only a couple steps away.

She sighs, and takes another step.

Jon doesn't let go of her hand.


"I mean... We could just go around, couldn't we?" Sasha asks, though she gets the feeling she knows the answer. "It's not like it's going to chase us."

"It just might," Tim grumbles, resentfully eyeing the looming library building. "Jon? Can you go around it?"

Jon whips around to look at him, as though he'd forgotten they were there.

"Uh- I- I could," he says. He looks pale and somewhat nervous, and though Sasha knows instinctively that there is nothing in this world that could harm Jon unless he lets it, she's far too aware of his story to think he's unaffected. "But you couldn't. She'd make you go through."

"We'd be okay though, wouldn't we?" Gerry asks. He and Martin haven't let go of Jon, one with a heavy hand on his shoulder, the other holding his hand. It's endearing, Sasha finds, like they're anchoring him to the present. "None of us is particularly affected by the Web, and we have Martin. You don't have to go in with us-"

"If you're going in, I'm going in." He says it calmly, like this is just a fact of life he's establishing.

It almost works to conceal the slight, nervous tremble in his voice.

"Well- well, then we all go in," Martin declares firmly, tightening his grip on Jon's hand. "And let's see how it likes dealing with all of us."

And they go in.

The inside of the librarty is covered in webs. Curtains hanging from large, intricately carved arcs, tented over the librarian desk, draped over the endless shelves that fill the walls from floor to ceiling, so thick they can barely see the titles of the books below.

On every other table, with their little lamp with a silvery spiderweb shade, the victims read.

They're sewn to their chairs by the skin of their thighs and forearms and backs, and hair-thin threads of silk hold their eyes open to force them to look down at the book before them.

Some of them thrash in their seats, some others shake their heads desperately. The air in the library is thick with the scent of tears, and the soft groaning coming from behind sewn-shut lips.

"...Jon?" Sasha starts, flinching at the sound of her own uneasy voice. "What are they reading?"

Jon looks... terrible, is the only adjective Sasha can think of when she turns to look at him.

His skin looks ashen and he keeps his eyes fixed forward, mostly allowing Gerry and Martin to guide his unsteady steps across the web-sticky floor.

'There is nothing here that can hurt him,' she thinks again, 'unless he lets it.'

"They- it's their lives," he says at last. "They're reading about every choice they ever made, and how they were directed into it. How what they believed were their own decisions were actually them being moved like puppets in a play."

With every shaky word come out of Jon's mouth, Sasha feels Tim emanating more and more warmth by her side, hears a soft, grave rumbling coming from Daisy's throat.

"Do you- did it make it like this for you?" She asks.

Jon lets out a low, nervous chuckle. "Not really, but- but I do think it chose to show us this one for a reason."

Martin sighs, annoyed. "This is just like Elias, Jon. It doesn't have any reason, it just wants to gloat and torture you. But it can't do it. It can't to anything to you, you're well above it now."

"Yes I am," Jon mutters, "and it was the Web that put me there."

His words leave way for a heavy silence, marred only by the quiet groans and whines of the puppeteered.

"There's a book here for me," Jon declares, and a light turns on by the far end of the library, a single column of white illuminating a lone desk. "There it is."

"You think you have to read it for it to let us go?" Gerry asks with a tired sigh.

"I Know I have to." Jon takes a step forward, struggling for a moment against the thick webs that a million invisible spiders wove over his feet while they talked.

They move after him like an entourage, with the victims trying in vain to reach out to them as they escort him until Jon comes to stand before the far off desk illuminated by the oh-so-subtle spotlight.

Sasha's form is tall enough to look over his shoulder, and her heart sinks. This is not, as she expected, Jon's desk from his office at the archives, meticulously arranged with the pens by the left and the folders to the right, and his unlocked laptop (really, he made it so easy) right in the middle.

This is a child's desk.

There's a sticker of a calico cat by the corner, and a plastic cup painted in bright purple holding an assortment of pens and color pencils. A picture on the opposite end shows a boy and his parents, with the adult's faces ripped off and a big, wide open eye carved into the paper right above the kid's head.

At the very center of the desk waits a book, with a grey paper cover with a spiderweb design and five words printed across it.

A Guest For Mr. Spider.

She hears Martin take a deep inhale, and Gerry swear under his breath.

Jon in contrast, doesn't make a sound; when she steps to the side to look at his face, she finds that his eyes are his usual dark brown, and glued to the offending book.

"Jon," Gerry starts with a voice far more gentle than Sasha would've thought him capable of. "Jon, Martin is right. It's just trying to get under your skin. Call- you can just compel this place to let us out. You don't have to-"

"But I do," Jon sighs. "I accepted it when I came in here."

"Do you actually think you have to read it?" Martin asks, his voice testy with what Sasha assumes to be nerves and frustration. "Or is this one of those situations in which you do something that will hurt you because you think you deserve it?"

Jon remains quiet, which is pretty much all the answer they need.

"Jon..." Daisy mutters sadly, reaching out to lay a bony hand on the shoulder Gerry isn't squeezing.

"I just- I have to know. I want to know." Jon shakes his head. "How deep a grip did it have on me? Did I ever really- was there any real chance of me not ending here?"

"That doesn't matter, Jon," Sasha tries. "It- you can't change what happened."

Hasn't she regretted that fact herself for long enough? Was it actually her choice to touch the table? Was it her choice to sign her name on the dotted line of her contract, or did someone put her there because she would be useful to mark Jon in the future?

Jon stands there for a moment, silent and still like a statue.

"I'm sorry."

Then he stretches a hand towards the book, and everyone moves with him.

He doesn't make it too far, really. Both Daisy and Gerry jerk him backwards, Martin's hand wraps over Sasha's where she's thrown it around Jon's wrist.

Every instinct in her newly regained body is screaming at her to let go, get away, as Jon struggles in their grip and his eyes go bright and green. This is the one being she should be afraid of in this world, and here she is trying to keep him from what he-

"Hey Jon," Tim says. His voice, loud and calm and firm, seems to wash over them like a bucket of cold water.

He's standing behind the desk, with a hand hovering over the book and his fingertips glowing like red-hot metal.

"Tim-" Jon stutters nervously, "I- don't-"

"You made a choice with me," Tim says, and Jon's mouth clicks shut. "With Sasha. With- every single one of us is alive right now because you decided we mattered. Not the Web. You."

"Tim-"

"Now it's time you deal with the consequences of that choice, it seems."


"You know? I think you were up to something, with the book burning thing," Tim stretches his arms over his head until his back pops, his face almost hilariously relaxed against the smoke behind him.

"It's- it's a very satisfying hobby," Gerry clears his throat. "Thanks."

Tim clicks his tongue. "Jon reading random creepy books never ends well, historically. I wasn't going to let him do it a third time."

Gerry's mouth twitches. "I take offense to that."

"Good, I meant you to," he says with a shrug. "Are you done sulking?"

Sasha snorts at the venomous look Jon shoots over his shoulder from where he's standing with Daisy and Martin, watching as the recently-freed victims climb out of the scorched remnants of the library to dazedly walk around.

"You're lucky you didn't kill all these people, Tim," Jon says, very sulkily still in Sasha's opinion.

"I figured there wasn't much to lose for them either way," Tim turns to look at the them as well. "What will happen to them now?"

Jon shrugs brusquely. "Something else will pick them up. Maybe the End, if they're lucky. Either way, they're free of the Mother now, which is what they feared the most."

"See? Win-win-win scenario."

"What did you win?" Jon scoffs.

"A good one-liner and the last word in, I'm guessing." Martin smiles. It's a bit strained, Sasha figures all the clinging to Jon and the larger group are taking his toll on him, and she appreciates his effort. "It was very cinematic."

Jon grunts, but Sasha can see his scowl beginning to soften. He's always been terrible at staying mad at the people he loves.

"Besides, he's right," she speaks up. "We may not know what you didn't choose, but we know what you did. Even if the Web put us there, it didn't make you care."

It didn't make any of them care.

"Let's just keep going," he says in the end, hurrying away to stick to Daisy's side with all the pomp of an offended cat.

And one by one, they follow.

Chapter 29

Notes:

CW for this chapter:
Harm to children (implied)
Police brutality (implied)
Violence
Murder (implied)
Existential dread
The helplessness of existing in a capitalist society spiraling towards its doom
The fashion industry

Chapter Text

XXIX

There are many doors inside the Distortion.

An almost uncomfortable amount really, every one identical to the last but unique in its own way, like any other detail in her corridors.

There's one with a star-shaped knob, and another bears a little peephole far too high for any human to reach it. Some look run down and old, the surface blackened and cracked with time, while some others still give off the healthy shine of young wood.

Helen peeks into these doors often, for fun.

She will collapse herself like a sheet of paper, smaller and smaller with every fold until she can fit under the door, or stretch herself into a hair-thin string that can snake in through the keyhole.

These doors don't make much sense, but perhaps neither does her own, with everything that's happened.

Helen remembers sometimes the feeling of certainty, of knowing something for sure, and it feels as foreign as the things she sees behind the doors.

Sometimes she sees herself, but not as she is now. Those are the ones she finds most entertaining by far, if only for the questions they pose.

Where's Jon with his curious, tired eyes? Does Melanie still call her by her name? How did everything work, without her door in the right place, at the right moment?

They also pose another incognita; how much of her is Helen? How much of her is the Distortion, if these doors have a Distortion that is not Helen, and a Helen that is not the Distortion?

A charming little puzzle, she thinks as she retreats back into her corridors, seeping through the cracks in a particularly damaged door.

It's time to make a visit, and she doesn't want to be too distracted.

She's moved her door all over, looking for a place she cannot find. Hunting for a blind spot is a fun exercise in lateral thinking, and Helen thinks she's the best equipped for it.

The Institute no longer stands, and neither does the hospital where Melanie recovered after severing herself from the Eye forever.

The cute little flat she moved into right after does exist, probably so permeated with her girlfriend's protection that it'll take the fears some time to crack their way in. It was empty however, when Helen opened her door in one of the kitchen cabinets; with no trace of either women or cat, she had no choice but to retreat.

She finds it a bit funny now that she didn't think of looking here first, but that's probably it isn't it? This place was built for confusion, Smirke's little tribute to her real form.

She walks along the wall, taking a turn whenever it feels right until she finds her beautiful yellow door waiting at the end of the corridor, and she approaches it at a leisurely pace until she's hanging before it from the ceiling.

"I mean- the food is edible, it just tastes like... like running into your abusive ex and her new girlfriend at the corner store," comes a familiar voice through the door, and Helen's lips curl into a smile as she wraps her hand around the doorknob.

"That's a very specific taste for a Fanta."

"Come take a sip if you don't believe me."

"I don't have any abusive- fuck!" Melanie's girlfriend swears, jumping away from the door and pulling Melanie along with her. "I- there's a door?!"

"Helen?" Melanie asks calmly, poking at the slowly spreading orange stain on the front of her sweater. "Did you go evil?"

Helen shrugs, delighting in the way the other girl's lips twist in repulsion when her shoulders surpass the top of her head. She doesn't taste like fear -never has-, but it's still a fun reaction.

"No more than I already was," she says, extending a long finger to softly graze the side of Melanie's hand and let her know where she is. "It's a shame if you ask me, I was hoping for Martin to go at least a little bit evil."

Melanie snorts, and her shoulders sag with relief.

"There's a couple things that could turn Martin evil, but I don't think the apocalypse is listed in there." She leans against Georgie, who simply presses a clean(er) sweater into her Fanta-free hand. When she speaks again, her voice is just the slightest bit sullen. "I've been calling you. I thought something had happened to you."

Helen nods.

"I heard it, sometimes."

"Why didn't you come?"

"You sounded alright," Helen shrugs. "And Jon needed my help."

Her words have an almost tangible effect on the women, with Georgie's hand clenching around Melanie's shoulder, and Melanie letting out a low sigh.

"Is- how is he?" Georgie asks.

"Oh, he's doing just fine now," Helen chuckles. "But the Mother isn't too fond of him at the moment."

"Well, at least is reciprocal." Melanie shrugs. "In any case, I'm glad you came to see us, even if it took you time."

"I'm- probably just stick to visiting Melanie, though," Georgie sighs. "We've got some victims of the Spiral here. I'm not sure they'd react too well to seeing you."

Helen shrugs. She knows better than most what it feels like to have the Spiral crawling into your brain like a corkscrew until you can't pull it out.

"I won't stay long either way," she says. "I just wanted to let you know that they're alright, and they're coming here."

She can see the relief wash over them in response to her words, and she chuckles.

Hope is a funny thing.

"That's- it's really good," Georgie sighs. "We'll wait here for them. Hopefully nothing worse will find us first."


This domain looks... Well, basic is the only word Martin can come up with after a few minutes of consideration.

While others have sported at least some degree of almost philosophical thought -like attempting to go back on a bridge and causing it to collapse, or realizing your entire life is a lie-, this one is just... Plain.

It's an apparently endless suburban street, the houses on each side sporting unkempt yards seeded with abandoned toys, and dark windows that give no hint as to what may or may not be happening behind them.

The streetlights flicker on and off, illuminating only the spot they're currently walking on for just long enough for the light to fade as soon as they move, leaving them in complete darkness for a few moments, until the next streetlight turns on.

Martin thinks at the beginning he felt something hounding their steps, gaining terrain in the dark only to retreat with barely a graze at their backs when the light fell on them again. It must've grown tired of them not turning to try to look at it, because the presence faded after a while.

All in all it looks like what a child would come up with when asked to describe something 'spooky', when the spookiest thing they've encountered is the pile of clothes on their bedroom floor looking like a person in the dark.

Jon snickers quietly by his side. It's a bit of a relief given how uncomfortable he's looked ever since they entered this place, enough so that Martin is willing to forego the slight annoyance at having his thoughts being overheard.

"I didn't mean to," Jon says with an apologetic smile. "It's just- you're so disappointed. I think that's what made the Stranger in the Dark stop chasing us."

"...I made a fear creature feel self conscious?" Martin asks incredulously.

Gerry snorts. "It's fine, I got over it eventually."

Martin rolls his eyes with a fond smile, watching Gerry preen at Jon and Sasha's chuckles.

"The Dark feels really strongly about itself," Jon says after he sobers up. "It likes to think it's subtle and complicated, when it's really a very basic fear. At least the Hunt and the Slaughter don't hold any pretentions about their complexity."

It makes sense, Martin thinks. Fearing the darkness is instinctive, it doesn't take much thought process to know that something bad could be hiding where one's eyes cannot perceive it. It's not like the Vast or the Lonely, with their existential nature, or the Web that demands its victim contemplates all the outcomes and options outside of their control.

"Then... Who is this for? People afraid of being attacked at night?" Martin asks. Jon winces. "...Jon?"

A couple more darkened homes go by as they sail from one island of light to the next.

The others are now walking slower, half turned around to face them, and Jon fidgets a little under the attention, before he finally takes in a deep breath.

"I'd much rather not talk about it," he says, quietly.

Martin scowls, especially when Gerry grimaces at whatever he tasted in those words.

"That bad?" He asks, confused.

"It's pretty bad," Jon nods, averting his eyes.

It makes no sense, Martin thinks.

Jon had a bad run-in with the Dark, but that's really not too different to the rest of his encounters with the other Entities, and Martin has never known him to be particularly afraid of it. Why then is he so affected by a domain that they have established as being almost comically obvious in nature? Childish, even?

Martin freezes.

"Jon?" He starts carefully.

Jon stops walking too, very pointedly keeping his back to him. He doesn't respond, so Martin speaks again, trying to ignore the way the others are staring at them like a tennis match.

"What happened to all the children when the world changed?"

Martin sees the realization hitting the rest of them like a bucket of cold water. Tim stiffens, Sasha sucks in a gasp of breath, Daisy swears under his breath and Gerry turns around immediately, as if to try and find any kid that might be hiding behind the abandoned playsets.

Jon remains impassive, which really is all Martin needs to confirm his suspicion.

"Do you really want me to say it, then?" Jon asks, his voice low and tired and guilty. Martin clenches his fists by his side, frustrated once more at the way their lives have turned out, at the paths they've been pushed down into. "I appreciate that. I still feel terrible, but I appreciate it."

"Get out of my head, Jon," Martin snaps. It's a bit rougher than he means it to, but he needs to process this, and he needs to do it knowing it won't hurt Jon because he's eavesdropping on his thoughts. "I would like to know. But don't- not a statement. Please."

Jon shakes his head, and Martin sighs in relief. He expected it, but the confirmation is nice.

He takes a long, deep breath before turning around to face the rest of them.

"Most children don't- my case is an outlier. Annabelle Cane's. Daisy's," he starts, and the woman in question moves forward to lay a hand on his shoulder. "A child's mind is simpler, and their fear is too. They're more likely to accidentally get wrapped up in an incident happening to someone else than they are to be targeted specifically by an Entity. And like you said, the Dark is... Basic. Instinctual. Even the violence that is often so fascinating to kids wouldn't evoke the fear of a darkened room."

"So when the change happened..."

Jon nods. "The other Entities couldn't pick them up, save for a few exceptions. They're all in places similar to this one, basic to us but still terrifying to them, especially coupled with the disappearance of every adult in their lives." He sighs, and Martin doesn't need to be connected to him to hear the exhaustion in his voice. "The Eye means to let them 'mature'. Grow into different fears. But without exposure to anything but the Dark, it's not really working. Hopefully they won't start to die until the End domains run out of victims and start pulling people from other Entities' grips. Ideally... we would fix this before that happens."

Martin nods to himself. One more reason, like they were lacking for those.

"Is there an avatar in this domain, then?" Tim asks. "Will you kill them?"

Jon stays still and quiet for a moment, before slowly, softly shaking his head.

"I can't."

His voice sounds... broken.

It resonates with something deep inside Martin, the helplessness, the weariness of it.

"You... you can't? Or you won't?" He asks as gently as he can when all he can think of are the kids that huddle under useless blankets inside darkened houses, waiting for something to find them.

After another long moment of silence, Jon lifts his head to look at Martin in the eye.

"Would you like to meet him?"

"I- what?"

"I asked, would you like to meet him?" Jon repeats, a bit firmer this time, almost challenging.

Gerry grimaces, taking a tentative step towards him. "Jon-"

"Don't 'Jon' me," Jon huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm not even listening to your thoughts and I know what you're all thinking about me right now."

"Jon, no one is-" Daisy tries gently, but she too is cut off.

"Yes they are. I don't-"

"If you say you can't, we believe you," Sasha says firmly, but Jon shakes his head still.

"No you don't," Jon says. "You want to believe me. You want to think I'm making this choice because it's the only one I can pick, but you still can't believe I'm choosing it. You don't get it."

"Then help us get it!" Tim snaps at last. Martin winces, but when he looks over at him he finds that the man looks more frustrated than he does angry. "Don't put this on us, Jon, we're trusting that you have a reason for not intervening when kids are being tortured. You're the one that's paranoid we'll always secretly think you're staying out of it because you enjoy the sweet, sweet sound of kiddie screams. Just show us, if it'll make you believe us."

The silence after his words is palpable, with Jon looking wide-eyed at Tim like he'd just slapped him. Martin wonders if he's thinking of the last time Tim accused him of not trusting him, and where that led them both.

"I don't- it's not that I'm doubting you-"

"...Jon," Gerry says gently, and Jon's mouth snaps shut. Again, Martin thinks, as good a confession as any. "We're on your side. What is it?"

Jon lets out a long, slow exhale.

"I- I want you to see him," he says in the end, and he seems to shrink with each guilt-laden word. "I don't know- it doesn't feel like I'm making the right choice, but- but don't know what the right choice is. I need help."

They stand there in silence for a long, tense moment.

It's certainly easier to wash your hands off of something when you're only peripherally aware of it, as opposed to having every single detail crammed into your head.

"Then- if you need us, we're here," Daisy says at long last, her voice still weak and slightly nervous. "Show us."

Jon gives the rest of them a look, as if expecting -wishing, almost- any of them to back off. When no one does, he merely heaves a loud sigh, and starts down the street with Daisy's hand still oh his shoulder.

The house Jon takes them to looks just like any other in the street, with its pitch black windows and its ajar door.

"Are they here?" Gerry asks, taking a careful step to position himself next to Jon. Martin decides the gesture is endearing, considering just how far above them all Jon is in terms of power. "It's someone from the church, isn't it?"

"I- not quite," Jon answers, his voice exhausted. After yet another sigh, he lets his one of his hands fall to tangle his fingers with Gerry's, and uses the other to knock on the door a couple times. "Callum Brodie, we need to see you please"

The name rings a bell in Martin's mind, but he can't quite place it; he wonders if it's someone from a statement but- why would a random avatar give Jon this much pause? It makes no sense.

It looks at first as though nothing will happen. The street is still empty, the lampposts flickering, the Stranger In The Dark keeping well away from Martin's unimpressed judgment.

And then the door is pulled back, and Martin understands.

The child can't be older than thirteen, with sandy brown hair and a dusting of freckles across his nose. He's wearing a navy blue hoodie with a logo Martin doesn't recognize, and his hands are tucked into the front pocket, his gaze fixed somewhere on the pavement at their feet.

"What do you want?" He asks; his voice, if possible, makes him sound even younger. It's guarded. Hurt. Martin knows the sound all too well.

"Are you in charge of this domain?" Jon asks conversationally and -Martin is a bit surprised by this- without the slightest hint of compulsion in his voice.

Callum gives a sharp, jerky shrug. "I just woke up here."

"So you do not control it?" Jon asks again. Looking at the others, Martin realizes they're just as shaken by the revelation as he is. Just as divided as Jon.

"Why are you here?" The boy asks.

The corner of Jon's lips curl into a sad smile. "You know who I am?"

Callum looks up. His eyes are pitch black- twin voids in his face that the light of the flickering lampposts cannot touch. Martin hears Tim take in a sharp breath, and he realizes his own fists are clenched way too tight.

"You're the Eye guy. You did all this," he says.

Much to his credit, Jon doesn't flinch.

"I did. We're just passing through, I'm on the way to my place," he explains. "Is this one yours?"

Callum shrugs again, a bit more impatient.

"It does what I tell it to. Why do you care?"

"You tell it to scare all these children, then?" Jon asks. His voice is still conversational, not accusing or reproaching in any way; Martin wouldn't have pegged him as a kid person, but it's a pleasant surprise.

"So what if I do?" Callum asks, crossing his arms before his chest. It's hard to determine where exactly he's looking at, but Martin would bet some good money on him glaring at Jon. "I like hearing them scream. It's funny that they're so scared."

"I see... Are you not scared, then?"

The kid closes off a little more, hunching his shoulders. "I'm not."

"You've never been? Not even when you were taken-"

"That was a long time ago," Callum interrupts, snapping. The streetlight behind them goes off completely, leaving them all in just the faint illumination of Jon's eyes. "Now they're afraid of me, and I don't have to be afraid of anything anymore."

Jon hums thoughtfully for a moment, before shrugging.

"There's always a bigger bully, Callum."

He doesn't take a step forward, he doesn't raise his voice, he doesn't even move, his fingers still threaded with Gerry's, his shoulders still hunched down in exhaustion.

Still, Callum takes a step back.

"I- what do you want?"

Gerry goes to open his mouth, but Jon shakes his head before he can say anything.

"Nothing more, really. You can go back in." The words are barely out of his mouth before the front door to Callum's house is slamming shut, and Jon slowly turns to face them, the glow of his eyes still faintly parting through the dark.

"Jon?" Martin asks, somewhat nervous. He loathes the feeling, but there's something primal about the way being close to Jon makes his stomach churn, makes him want to dive deep into the Lonely and never come back again.

He shoves the thought back angrily; this is Jon. He's not afraid of him, no matter what the Watcher wants him to feel.

Jon's lips twitch, and his eyes turn to him with a warm, grateful gaze before the green begins to fade, leaving them in total darkness again.

"So... so this is the avatar?" Sasha's voice says after a moment of tense silence.

"He knows if he fears, he'll become one of them," Jon replies. "In this new world you watch, or you are watched. Not everyone chose to watch, but the alternative is worse."

Silence blankets them again, so loaded and thick Martin's ears begin to buzz after a moment.

"Hey Jon?" Tim starts, somewhere to Martin's right.

"Hm?"

"Your world fucking sucks."

His words are followed by another moment of silence, before Jon breaks it with a snort.

"It very much does," he says, his voice tinted with nervous laughter. "I- I don't know what I should do about Callum," he admits, a bit quieter.

"That makes two of us," Gerry sighs. "Actually, if anyone in here has decided what lever to pull in this particular trolley problem, feel free to speak now."

Martin chews at his bottom lip.

"I think- I liked Jon's solution," he says in the end, slightly grateful to the Dark for not being able to see everyone looking at him.

"I- my solution?" Jon asks, confused.

Martin nods to himself, inching forward until he can feel the warmth of Tim's body on his right, and Jon's slighter form on his left. He threads his fingers through theirs, hears Tim turning to do the same with Sasha -and Daisy, he hopes-, and gives them a squeeze before speaking again.

"We fix this, all of it. Together."


"N- please, I'm- please, I'll pay-" screams the woman. She's dragging herself on the floor, leaving behind a trail of bright red blood that smells strongly of iron and leads straight to the point where her kneecap was all but obliterated by a bullet. "Please, I'm begging you, I didn't-"

Basira closes her eyes a moment before the gunshot rings across the empty warehouse, the weapon's recoil kicking hard and familiar against her palm. When she opens them again, the space is just... Black. Empty void. The insufferable, inescapable lull between chases.

That woman, she knows with the certainty granted by the Watcher, was a repeat shoplifter at luxury stores. The police managed to catch her a couple times, but there was never enough evidence for a conviction. And so time and time again they had to let her walk out, hoping that the next time they were called to a scene in which a twenty-thousand pound watch had gone missing, it would be the last one.

"The Hunt does not care for evidence," Basira mutters to herself. "You have a target, and you hunt it. It's all that matters."

It hadn't been her. It had been the Hunt, just like all the others she's seen. Like the avatars, the vampires, the other criminals. She was only doing what the Hunt forced her to do.

"She didn't want to do this," Basira says through clenched teeth. "I know her. It was the Hunt."

This is not Daisy.

Not the monster of violence that burst from her skin at the tunnels, whose bloody paw prints she's followed all across the end of the world.

Daisy mumbles her name in her sleep and uses Basira's coconut shampoo and listens to corny radio shows, that's the real her. The one that was willing to let herself die in her arms to keep herself from hurting others.

She doesn't- she was marked as a child, for fuck's sake!

If Jon's not to blame for what the Eye has made him do, then why should Daisy be?

She's the Detective. It's her job to find the truth, even if no one else sees it or if no one else believes it, and the truth is that this is not Daisy.

"Please! I have a son!" Someone else begs, and Basira shuts her eyes tight as the darkness around her starts dissolving into a new scene. "It wasn't me, I swear it wasn't!"

The man runs, and Basira chases.


"This is his, isn't it?" Martin asks, sweeping over the empty expanse of land with an unimpressed stare. "Simon Fairchild's."

Jon nods. "He's around. I don't think he'll come down to greet us."

"Too many of us?" Gerry asks. Fairchild is many things, but not stupid; he knows perfectly well that the jovial, carefree old man is nothing but a front.

"Oh? So you know the carefree old man is a front, and he's dangerous?" Jon asks, giving him an unimpressed stare. Martin snorts by his side, which is very unfair when you think about it, since Gerry only ever got into a round with Fairchild for him.

"Unfortunately, Martin is not the one being judged at the moment."

"Would you stop doing that?"

"No," Jon shrugs with a smug, self-satisfied smile, and Gerry grumbles some more.

"Besides," Martin says, coming to drape an arm over Gerry's shoulders. "Even if I was the one on trial right now, I could make a very good argument for the fact that I was almost completely taken by the Lonely back then, and I knew Simon wouldn't touch me because of Peter. You were just having a pissing contest, sir."

"I was being daring and gallant, but it seems no one appreciates a grand gesture these days," Gerry huffs, but doesn't shrug off Martin's half-hug because he's offended, but not dumb.

"I'll let it go if you let the rib thing go," Jon nudges at his side with a mischievous smirk, and Gerry throws up his arms in frustration.

"Excuse me, I did not get stuck into a Fear dimension for three days, that is a false equivalence and I'm appalled you're endorsing this behavior, Martin."

"Nope, this is between the two of you," Martin lifts his hands in an appeasing motion, clearly enjoying this unfair mockery of a negotiation. "I'm not in denial about any of the dumb choices I made, I knew they were dumb when I made them."

"I cannot believe you two," Gerry huffs, retreating along the line until he's standing behind Tim and Sasha. "I'm going to stand back here, I'm done with you."

Martin and Jon simply snort and keep walking, which is very rude and inconsiderate, he thinks loudly.

Jon snorts again, and Gerry rolls his eyes fondly.

"These domains are getting ridiculous," Tim grunts after a few more minutes of silent walking. "This place is just empty."

"That's the point," Gerry pipes in immediately, still huffy but not about to let an opportunity to poke at him pass. "You know, existential dread, are you really more important than a mote of dust in the grand scheme of things?"

"I know how the Vast works." Tim rolls his eyes, much to Gerry's amusement. "But there's no one. Who's afraid here?"

"They are," Jon says dryly, gesturing up.

Above them the pale blue sky is peppered with a handful of black dots, like a flock of birds frozen in mid-air.

"Falling?" Sasha asks, arching an eyebrow.

Jon nods. "They've been at it for a while. And they'll keep at it for longer still," he says, "it's mostly people who had a very inflated sense of self-importance. Falling gives you a lot of time to think."

"It must take some away from it though, right? If you've been falling for a month and you're still so far up," Sasha mutters as Jon starts walking again. "It has to be enough time to make your peace with it."

"I mean... They still know they're eventually going to hit." Gerry shrugs, falling into step with her. "They can make peace with the fear of falling all they want, but they have to deal with the knowledge that they simply cannot do anything to stop it. "

"Well, yes. But it's not like they'll die, is it?" Sasha shrugs. "Ollie said humans are only dying in End domains."

"I- Sasha, if anything that makes it worse, doesn't it?"

"Maybe? I don't know what they're afraid of," she says with an evaluating look at the sky, and Gerry snorts. "Was that insensitive? Are we being insensitive?"

"A tad," he chuckles. "You have to get a bit desensitized in this line of business, though. You'd go insane otherwise."

"Well, you'd know better than I do. I'm what you would call a new transfer." She grins, then frowns thoughtfully. "Or a rehire, I'm not sure. Anyways, the business has changed while I was away."

"I can imagine it has," he nods. He knows Artifact Storage is far from a tame place when it comes to the supernatural, but if he recalls correctly -and it's not a Stranger trick-, Sasha was only there for a short time.

"Surprisingly not as much as you'd expect," she says with a grin, nudging his arm with her shoulder since she's a little shorter today. "The amount of gushing about you has remained at around the same level."

Gerry frowns. "That doesn't track at all- it should've gone up! I'll talk to the boss about our numbers, it won't do for the team to fall behind."

Sasha snorts at the joke, and Gerry feels his lips curl into a smile. Look at that, making friends and all...

"For real though, it's nice to finally meet you," she says after a moment. "It's- they both speak really fondly of you."

"I sure hope so," Gerry feels his smile soften. "I've heard good things about you too," he adds, turning to look at Sasha.

She frowns up at him. "Have you? But- anything they remembered about me..."

"Oh, not them. Or- yes them, but like you said, it's dubious." He shrugs. "Jon didn't tell you?"

"...that's always something I like to hear," she deadpans, and he smiles again at her dry tone.

"I said good things, remember? Gertrude wanted to leave you in charge of the archives," he explains. "I'm not sure how she planned to force Elias into giving you the position though, she probably expected you'd be marked by a bunch of things by the time she died, courtesy of Artifact Storage?"

They walk in silence for a couple moments, as she digests the information.

"And here I was thinking Elias was just misogynistic ass," she lets out in a somewhat strained voice.

"Nah... In this case I'm guessing it was just one final fuck you to Gertrude," Gerry shrugs, "and the Web on Jon, of course."

"...Of course. Yikes." Sasha whistles quietly. "I dodged a bullet, didn't I?"

Gerry nods solemnly. "I don't know about a bullet, but you definitely dodged the big bullet."

"It's pretty telling that getting the better end of the deal involved me dying." She chuckles to herself, giving him a mischievous sideways look. "I mean, you'd know about that, wouldn't you?"

It's a bit weird, to talk with someone who seems to have little to no respect for these things; it's different from even Melanie, Gerry thinks while trying to ignore the pang of worry that comes when remembering his friend, since she had plenty of feelings about the Entities, even if said feelings were mostly synonyms of 'anger'.

Either by virtue of being herself (is this what the Spiral saw in her?) or because she returned to the game long after things had changed, Sasha has a way of making it feel like this is all just a very entertaining bump in the road, and Gerry finds it very refreshing.

"It was a nice few months," he nods; he doesn't have any memories of the time after Jon burned the book, so he has to base his judgement on just how pissed he was when he woke up in the archives again. "Anyways, it's very nice to finally meet you too, Miss James. We should go out for coffee after this is all over; you do like coffee, right?"

"I- yes?" Sasha blinks, puzzled. "How did you know?"

Gerry shrugs. "Martin had some in his flat when I broke in, he said it was leftover from when you used to visit."

"...Oh, I knew I had a good feeling about you," she laughs, giving him a gleeful smile before looking up ahead. "Jon? Jon, I like your boyfriend a lot!"

"Wonderful, you can keep him if you have a nice sofa," he calls back.

"Don't forget to warn her about the towels," Martin adds pointedly in the tone of voice Gerry has learned to recognize means he's holding laughter back.

"I would not forget about the towels." Jon looks over his shoulder to give the two of them a dry look, then shakes his head with a fond smile when Gerry blows him a kiss.

"That's a neat trick you got there," Sasha chuckles, "does it work on Martin too?"

"Unfortunately, Martin has much higher standards," he sighs.

"Oh?"

"I have to pick up the towels."

"My condolences."


She's scrolling down on her screen, trying to not pay any mind to the publications as she looks for-

She never uses these things, but there was a funny image she wants to send to a friend, and she's fairly sure it was this coworker that posted it a few weeks ago, she just needs to stay in his profile, and she'll be fine.

The content is nothing special, sharing a post about a lost dog, some photos at a park, an engagement announcement- she still tries to not look too closely at any of them.

'I can't believe no one is talking about this.'

Her eyes catch on the words, and it's like her whole body freezes. A gelid sensation fills her stomach as she reads the post her coworker shared from some news page.

It's an article about the fast fashion industry dumping perfectly good clothes at the Atacama desert to create artificial scarcity, and the damage that mass-producing clothes causes to the environment.

The pictures show children sorting through the literal mountains of clothes looking for things to wear or sell, the text mentions how an alarming percentage of the land is taken over by these unofficial dumpsters, and a particularly haunting photo of a desert fox holding a torn strip of fabric in its mouth looks back at her through the screen.

The cold feeling from before congeals into a dense ball of panic at the bottom of her stomach; she wants to scroll down, to look away, but it won't make it go away, will it?

There's a notification on her phone, and she nearly sobs in relief as she's forced to look away to where the device sits on her bedside table. She reaches back blindly, and slams the laptop shut before climbing to her feet and heading towards her bed.

The quilt on it is so very soft, and probably manufactured by workers living in poverty, bent over sewing machines in a hot warehouse without a single benefit other than the cents they take home at the end of the day.

She shuts her eyes tight.

Her phone pings again.

She hasn't changed it in nearly eight years, it's practically unusable now. She likes to think that it's one less smartphone that will be put together by slave labor, designed to break in exactly thirteen months once the newer model has been released.

She wants so badly to believe she's making a difference.

She bikes to work.

Grows her own tomatoes in a little pot by the window. Sprinkles wildflower seeds at the park when no one is looking, volunteers to read at the library, donates to as many causes as she can afford without starving or becoming homeless.

She knows a losing battle when she sees it though, and she's reminded of it with every terrible headline she comes across every single day.

Wars. Disease. The planet burning, people dying and all to put a few more bills into the pockets of a handful of rich men that could never make much less spend the amount of money they've squeezed out of their workers in a hundred thousand lifetimes.

But she bikes to work.

She curls over on her side, looking out the window at the little bush where the sparrows made their nest this year.

Her little nephew loves birds. She wonders if there will be any left by the time he has his own children; if he chooses to have them, instead of following on her footsteps and making sure that no children of hers suffer in the future because of the present she couldn't change.

But she bikes to work.

Sometimes there are good news; a species bouncing back from the brink of extinction, a girl that figured out how to build houses with plastic bottles, a man that grew a forest in the desert, one tree at a time.

It just- it doesn't feel like enough, it never does.

Sometimes she looks out her window, just like now, and wonders if she'll be amongst the ones seeing it all end, or if she will be spared the worst of it.

She often asks herself if this makes her selfish, not wanting to be there to witness her species' last throes. Is she on par with the ones that won't inconvenience themselves to save a life, with the ones that knowingly harm others to keep their lives cozy and 'free'?

But she bikes to work...

Jon takes a deep sigh as the green tint disappears from his vision, and the other's faces clear up from the blur that comes from seeing too much.

"That one was just... depressing," Sasha sighs.

"It's the Extinction, isn't it?" Tim asks. "The one Lukas was having Martin investigate."

Jon nods, leaning heavily against Daisy.

"It's- I don't think it's an entity yet, not like the others anyways. It's more of an abstract fear, or fearing the possibility of it," he explains, "it's not- It can't manifest like the others did, because it's about the uncertainty. As long as the possibility is there, the fear of extinction will remain."

"So... We're not going extinct?" Daisy squeezes at his hand. "As a species?"

Jon shrugs. "The Eye can't see the future. I'd say no? The danger exists, but the planet is resilient and so are humans. If anything does happen, those that remain will adapt."

"That's hopeful," Sasha says, chuckling. "That's our cheerful old Jon right there."

"You have to call things what they are, Miss James." He smiles at the light teasing, before turning a little. "How's your 'couch', by the way?"

"Very comfortable." Martin narrows his eyes at him. "Isn't it comfortable, Gerry?"

Gerry simply looks forward, his face still contorted in the pained grimace he made when he first sat down next to Martin after he tried to guilt-trip the rest of them into sitting too; Jon can see how much he's struggling to keep still to not disturb the slimy, wobbly thing that may have been a couch once, but is now very far removed from anything that could or should be classified as furniture.

"I love you so much," he says finally, and Jon can't help the loud bark of laughter that breaks past his lips.

Both things seem to make Martin a little less disgruntled, despite the nasty green slime that clings to their clothes when they finally manage to stand up.

Chapter 30

Notes:

CWs for this chapter
Violence
Police brutality (implied)
Murder (implied)

Chapter Text

XXX

It had been... Fine. Or at least as fine as it could be, living in a post-apocalyptic fear-ruled world.

Sure, some of the rescued can be a tad too fanatical at times, but Melanie can't really blame them, not after pulling them out of their tailor-made torture chambers and bringing them back into some semblance of safety; god knows she would've probably idolized anyone if she'd been in their shoes.

They'd settled in one of the larger surface tunnels, just deep enough that the Watcher's influence couldn't be felt -they'd had to trust their charges' word for it, since Melanie can't feel the Eye, and Georgie can't feel the fear at all- and wide enough that they could all spread out and have a little bit of privacy while still remaining in sight of the others.

Back when they were setting up -how long ago was that? It's hard to tell, when there's no time- Melanie had pushed for them to go deeper down, but she'd been outvoted which fine, she can get their reluctance towards going down into dark scary tunnels after everything they've been through. Besides, being closer to the surface means it's easier to go back up and bring in more people.

It also means when the Watcher does decide to strike, it has no problem reaching them.

As Georgie shoves her awake and pushes the Admiral into her arms, as she hears her people screaming in terror and pain, Melanie's first conscious thought is an incognita.

Why now?

If the Eye knew where to find them -of course it did, doesn't this world belong to the Watcher?-, why wait until now rather than snatching them away a long time ago?

She should be a lot more afraid than she is, she thinks as Georgie leans down to let her climb on her back. Still, it's hard to- it feels detached. She's worried about the people, but not herself- the Eye can't touch her, and nothing else can touch Georgie, and Georgie will never let her go.

She can smell the scent of fresh blood cooling and coagulating on the tunnel's walls as Georgie runs and she has the fleeting thought that it must be the remnants of the Slaughter in her, so she buries her nose in Georgie's neck and focuses on her instead, even after more and more panicked steps and voices join them, even after they stumble and speed deeper down into the tunnels, even after they finally stop, and the sounds of things skittering on too many legs fades away behind them.

"Did they kill them?" she asks when Georgie puts her down. The floor here feels irregular and rocky, unlike the smooth stone finish of the more trafficked tunnels above. Melanie has the briefest thought that they were neatly herded into the belly of the beast.

There's a moment of silence in which she guesses Georgie's either nodding or shaking her head, before she remembers Melanie can't see her. "Took them. Just- they just dragged them away," she says.

Melanie nods grimly, holding the Admiral tighter against her chest.

"I- M- Melanie? Georgie?" Laverne asks shakily; Melanie lets out a relieved breath. It may be a bit selfish, but she was hoping her ex-doctor had made it. "The- what should I tell the others? Are we- will we stay here?"

Georgie sighs. "How many of us are left, Laverne?"

"Eighteen, including you two," the woman says. "Luna's hurt, but Jay's bandaging her up."

"Good. That's- alright. Melanie?" Georgie asks, turning to her. "Do you feel any of the others in here?"

Melanie leans against the wall and closes her eyes. She tries to leave herself open, to make herself as vulnerable as possible and wait for the tendrils of fear to reach her, the unknown of the dark, the sickly sweet assimilation of the corruption-

But all she can feel is the chill of the tunnel, and the dull empty sadness in her chest.

"No," she shakes her head in the end, and her mouth curls into a sad smile at Laverne's relieved sigh. "I think we're deep enough- nothing to watch us here."

"Then we're staying," Georgie says firmly. She's a natural at directing people and her confidence calms the others, Melanie has noticed; it's no wonder they've grown so adoring of her. "We'll join you in a minute, just- please see to the injured ones."

"I'll do that," Laverne says, a lot more convinced now. "Thank you."

"Thank you, Laverne," Melanie says, and waits until her steps stop echoing in the empty space before turning to where she can hear Georgie shuffling on her feet. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," Georgie grunts. There's a thud and then a dragging sound, and Melanie guesses she's sliding down the wall to sit on the floor.

She lets go of the Admiral who sprints towards her immediately with a concerned meow, and follows at a more sedate pace, keeping a hand on the wall and feeling ahead with the tip of her shoe until she nudges Georgie's thigh.

"Let's try the truth now," she says, sitting down next to her.

Georgie snorts. "Fine. I sprained my ankle. But that's it."

"I'm glad," Melanie sighs. Georgie's arm comes to wrap around her, and she can hear the Admiral purring somewhere nearby. "I... I knew we should've gone deeper."

After a long moment of silence, Georgie sighs too.

"You said so. I should've listened," she says, her voice quiet and tired. "But I don't - I can't feel any of it, you know that. And they seemed so afraid... I thought we would be safe, and I didn't want to take them down into the dark."

"At least we were for a while," Melanie gives her hand a squeeze. "I feel as though it was almost intentional, you know? The Watcher letting us settle down and get confident and comfortable before it could strike."

"That tracks," Georgie nods by her side. "We'll- we can go get them back. Find them again, all the ones we lost."

It goes unsaid between them that they could've been taken anywhere, and that without the two of them the group is practically useless, with how traumatized these people are.

They can't just leave them like that.

"Let's focus on being more careful," Melanie says in the end. "And when they're safe, we can go get the others."

Another, longer sigh from Georgie.

"We need more people."


The man doesn't run.

He doesn't beg for his life, doesn't try to negotiate, to pass on the blame to someone else; he knows perfectly well that his only crime was existing, and crossing the wrong person at the wrong time.

But it can't be, can it? It can't be that simple.

Maybe he wasn't an avatar feeding on innocents, but there has to be something, he- he must have shoplifted or vandalised someone's property or stalked an ex-boyfriend or he-

There has to be a reason, or Daisy wouldn't have hunted him.

"Just tell me," she insists, her hand shaking where she's gripping the gun too tight. "Tell me what you did, and I won't kill you."

This is a lie, and they both know it. Basira saw the man's bright green jacket when Daisy dropped it (freshly washed) at the commissary's lost and found.

"I didn't do anything," he speaks at last, his voice resigned and a broken tooth stumbling past his bloodied lips. "You know I didn't."

"Stop lying!" Basira snaps. They're all lying. They have to be. This place is designed to crack her convictions, to make her waver, but she won't. She's the rock in the storm, she's the lighthouse at sea and if she loses her drive then it's over for them all. This place can't break her. "I know you did something!"

"It doesn't really matter, does it?" Asks a voice in her ear. It's soft and sweet and it brings to her mind the sound of a sad, pained howl. "Nothing he ever did could've justified this."

"It's not like- there has to be a reason-"

"The reason is that I let it happen, Basira," says Daisy's voice, tired and defeated. "You just don't want to see it."

There's nothing to see. Daisy tried her hardest, and she never stood a chance, none of them did, this was all so much bigger than them and-

"I embraced it. I enjoyed it."

She didn't. She couldn't have, not anymore than Jon enjoyed feeding on people's fear, not-

"You're still trying to find an out," Daisy says, or rather Basira's hallucination. "You don't have to love all I did, Basira, but you cannot deny it. You can't deny what I was any more than you can deny the fact that you looked the other way."

The gun clatters to the floor when her grip falters, and it takes all she has to not follow suit.

"It's- you're more than that. You're not just your mistake-"

"We are more than that," the voice agrees. "But- Basira, you have to see the damage you caused before you fix it."

It's- that wasn't Daisy, that was a monster of the Hunt. Daisy is the woman that climbed out the coffin and tried to fix her mistakes at the cost of her own life.

Daisy is the woman she loves.

"I was both. Am both," not Daisy says tiredly. "You loved me when I was dying back at the archives, you begged me to stay and make it right instead, but that's too much work, isn't it?"

"No-"

"There's no fixing it without facing it, I've found," the voice takes a turn for the accusing then. *Or was it just the martyrdom that you loved? Because then you could pretend I died strong and pure and all I did before didn't really matter?"

"Daisy-"

"This is our responsibility, Basira. Our fault," the hallucination says, and Basira's knees finally give. She collapses to the ground, her head hung low and her eyes shut tight.

She's never going to find Daisy, because she's never going to make it out of here. Daisy killed so many, and Basira looked away on each and every one of them.

She never meant it to go like this. She- this was all about making the world a better place. Safer. About changing it from the inside, not-

Her eyelids part, and through the burning blur of tears she sees her hands contorted into claws, dripping bright red blood that smells of iron and regret. She blinks, and the vision is gone; just her shaking hands, wet with sweat and snot and tears and illuminated by the soft green glow of her eyes.

She was always so certain of her morals, her convictions; when did she become convinced that her choices were the right ones simply by virtue of her doing the picking? When did she forget she was fallible?

"I don't -" she tries, but the words hurt. What is Basira if not a certainty, a constant? "Daisy..."

"Hm?"

"...I don't know what to do," she says finally. "I'm- I don't know what's next. I don't know if we can fix- even if things go back to normal, what do we do?"

When she speaks next, the Daisy hallucination sounds sweeter, sadder. This is a woman that knew she was doing wrong every step of the way, and is now paying the price.

"Some things just can't be fixed," she says. "But we try. We keep trying. And we'll figure it out together."

There's a certain tension in the air after the statement, and Basira tries to focus on the words as the space around her grows dark and cold, and she wipes freezing tears off her face.

This is good and all, but- but it's simply wishful thinking. She's no closer to finding Daisy than she was when she first stumbled into this domain, despite the promise she made at the tunnels...

She lifts her head to look up into the darkness.

"I need- will you find me?" She asks, shaky and exhausted.

"Always."

It's as though the very air around her shatters into a million pieces, and Basira squeezes her eyes shut to try and protect them from the sudden brightness of the Watcher's sky. The remnants of her personal prison fall around her like a rain of deadly black shards, each reflecting the face of one of the victims she tried to justify.

Basira watches them all sadly, forces herself to look. This is the very least they deserve.

"Hi," says a voice behind her, soft and sweet and sad, and Basira feels her eyes fill with tears again.

"Hey," she whispers, but doesn't turn. She doesn't know how to face her, not as it rains down on her that the voice she heard in the domain was not in fact a hallucination. "I- sorry it took so long."

"There's still some ways to go," Daisy says quietly, before she comes to kneel at her back and a slender, blunt-nailed hand is laid on her shoulder. "We'll get there."

Basira can hear more people shuffling and moving behind them, but for the time being she simply leans back on Daisy's slender frame and lets her eyes fall closed for a moment, exhausted.

"I wish I was so certain."

"I'm not. Certain, I mean," Daisy says, and Basira feels her shrugging against her. "But I want to try. With you."


"Hey, stranger," Sasha greets with a smile as she drops on the ground next to him.

Tim snorts, tearing his eyes off from where he's evaluating his open palm and looking at her instead. She's the wavy-haired, brown-skinned body today, with her beauty marks and her laughing eyes.

"That's still a terrible, tasteless joke," he says, gesturing with an accusing finger right on her face. It's of little use as she simply chomps down on it, her eyes crinkling with laughter at the corners. "See, that's not as good an argument as you think it is."

She lets go, and Tim rolls his eyes fondly at the imprints left by her teeth on his wax skin.

"Maybe it isn't good, but it's effective," she says, grinning. "You've been quiet. Everything alright?"

"As alright as it can be under the current circumstances, I suppose." He shrugs.

It's objectively not a lie; they have most of the team back -including the ones they thought they'd lost forever, he thinks and gives her hand a little squeeze- they're heading for London, Jon's not mind-controlled anymore, Martin is dealing well enough with the overcrowded group...

"It just- it feels like a trap, you know?" he asks in the end. Sasha doesn't speak, doesn't ask; she merely makes a considering hum by his side. "It's going too well, even taking the literal end of the world into account."

"You lost me there," she confesses, moving to sit behind Tim, with her bent legs on either side of his body. "It's not like- sure, we're relatively alright on our tour d'horreur, but we're still flying blind, aren't we? Unless you have a plan for changing the world back, in which case I really recommend you talk to Jon, he seems really stressed about that."

"...He sure does," Tim deadpans, gesturing with his chin to where Jon's full-on snoring in Martin's arms. "Are you not stressed about that?"

He feels Sasha shrugging behind him.

"The way I see it, I'm already doing overtime, you know?" she says, hooking her chin on his shoulder to plant a peck on his cheek. "I was trapped, and then I was dead. I never expected to see any of you again, to walk or talk or breathe again. Of course I want to change the world back, but if it's all we can do to be Jon's eternal entourage and keep him from becoming the Beholding's Metatron... then I'm fine with that."

"Seizing your second chance and all, Miss James?"

"What do they say? You only live once unless a fear entity remakes the world in its image and bails you out of the afterlife?"

"That sounds like a very inconvenient acronym," Tim snorts at her teasing tone.

"Not the worst there is, I'm sure," Sasha chuckles. "So? Why do you feel things are too easy?"

"I- not easy. I mean I just-" he sighs, then snaps his fingers to light the tip of his thumb on fire. "Do you know how my thing works?"

"Hmm... Gerry simplified it by saying you're a very powerful avatar because you're very depressed," she says casually. "It's worrying, but not the most worrying I've heard about you. Which is worrying."

"Noted," Tim grumbles, but it's hard to stay sulking in the face of her light-hearted humor. "Well, that's basically it, I think. I'm grief. I can get it from other people, but mostly I get it from myself."

Sasha's arms tighten around him.

"You've been through a lot," she mutters in his ear. It doesn't sound pitying or dismissive, simply... Acknowledging.

He fidgets a little in her grip, bringing a hand up to squeeze his fingers flat then roll them back into shape. It feels- it's weird to think of himself as a victim, when he's caused so much pain. His eyes drift to Jon again.

"Haven't we all?" he asks.

Sasha doesn't respond.

"I'm- in any case," he clears his throat. "It's not- it's stronger sometimes. When I feel it the most."

"Makes sense," she nods.

They stay in silence for a moment then. Sasha can probably tell he's not done talking, and Tim is grateful she's not forcing it.

How can he even begin to explain the thought that's roaming in his mind? How, when every time he dares hoping, it ends up worse for everyone involved?

"You don't have to say anything," she says against his cheek.

Tim nods.

"I want to."

Another squeeze at his torso as her arms tighten again.

"Then you can say it whenever you want. It doesn't have to be right now."

And maybe it's better that it's not right now, isn't it? He has no words to describe how he feels... Not any less hurt, for sure, but that the hurt feels different still.

That nowadays he more often than not feels scared rather than sorrowful or angry, because he sometimes finds himself feeling... Hopeful. Content.

Here he is, traveling across the end of the world with a bunch of broken people, and once again he dares entertain the same idiotic, naïve fantasies that maybe things will go right this time.

He probably ought to keep the feeling quiet and hidden, maybe that way it will hurt less if and when it all comes crashing down on him; maybe it won't send him spiraling down into a pit he can't climb out of.

"Remind me to tell you later then," he says in the end, and smiles at her quiet chuckle.


Jon wakes up slowly. All around him it's soft and smells of wool and faded lavender and he's enveloped in a warm, firm pressure.

He doesn't open his eyes- he doesn't need them to see anymore, to know Martin's arms around him and Gerry's head resting on his belly.

"I didn't expect Basira to get stuck in a domain," Martin is saying not in a whisper, but in a soft-enough voice that it's clear he doesn't want to disturb Jon. "Not after she walked right out of the Unknowing, I mean."

Gerry hums thoughtfully for a moment, before replying.

"She shouldn't have. Especially since she was searching for Daisy," he says. "I can only guess her determination or her desire to see her wasn't as powerful as her fear for whatever she'd find."

"Hm... You think?"

"You heard Daisy. Basira was terrified of facing her after years of compartmentalizing," Gerry sighs. "It's tough."

"Coming to terms with how the people you love can do bad things and hurt people, even though you love them?" Martin asks gently.

Gerry snorts. "See, it was the other way around for me."

"For all that it's worth, I think your ability to love screw ups one of your better qualities." Martin shifts a little under him, and Jon hears Gerry give a quiet, satisfied hum.

"Somehow I don't feel you're being too impartial," Gerry says. "Besides, my boyfriends are not screw ups, sir."

"Somehow I don't feel you're being too impartial," Martin says, and Jon can't hold back the snort that bursts past his lips. "Oh, you're awake."

Jon opens his eyes, treated immediately to the sight of Martin looking down at him with his kind, green-dappled grey eyes.

"I heard someone was antagonizing my boyfriend," he says; being playful and carefree still feels weird and off-key with their current situation, but he finds it hard to not be, with them.

"He's also badmouthing your boyfriend," Gerry adds, bringing up a hand to cup Jon's face and rub a thumb gently over his cheekbone. "Had a nice sleep?"

"Very relaxing," Jon nods solemnly, nudging at his hand. "Has anything happened?"

"We're all just resting," Martin says; Jon feels his large fingers coming to card through the knots in his hair. "Do you want to sleep some more?"

Jon shakes his head, closing his eyes in contentment. "I think we should get going. Besides, Helen wants to speak to us."

"Hel-? Shit!" Martin jumps under him at the same time Jon hears the creaking of the door beside them. "Helen, don't do that!"

"Jon told you I was coming," she says simply. Jon can hear the shrug in her voice. Literally. "But anyways, if you're done sitting around, we have a problem."


Basira hasn't spoken much to anyone.

Daisy's pretty sure it's some mixture of shame or embarrassment, but she also knows it's not her place to either pry or dismiss. Whatever feelings Basira carries are a burden she must choose to share if she needs help, and Daisy herself knows better than anyone how devastating it is to find yourself facing the brunt of your mistakes and knowing there's no fixing the past.

"Where do you think it all went wrong?" Basira asks quietly, and Daisy sighs and leans a bit more heavily on her side.

"When I joined he's the police, for me," she says. "After what happened to me, I enjoyed the feeling of power and I loved the chase, because it meant I wasn't scared of being powerless anymore. But the force gave me a group to protect, and a bunch of 'enemies' to defend from. It's not a great mentality in general, and it was fatal for me."

Basira seems to mull over her words for a while; she can practically hear the thoughts boiling behind her contemplative gaze.

"...What about you?" Daisy dares ask after a long moment.

It takes even longer for the answer to finally come.

"When I met you," she says.

It hurts a little -a lot- but it's not unexpected, Daisy thinks sadly.

"How come?" she asks anyways.

"I'm- I wanted to know things, but I didn't- it was never like Jon, you know? I'm practical. I could leave things alone, it didn't eat away at me. And I never felt the bite of the Hunt, the force was never anything more than a job to me," Basira sighs. "But you were. More, I mean. And when I - when Elias- I couldn't let you kill him. Couldn't let you ruin your life for him. And once I was in the Institute, I wanted to know. I wanted to know it all, anything that may be of help to you. To us. I knew what was happening to me but I didn't care, as long as we were together."

Daisy nods thoughtfully. She was expecting an accusation of having poisoned Basira, not a declaration that drinking the poison had been nothing but an act of love.

"You should talk to Martin about that," she mutters in the end. "I think you'll find you have some things in common."

"Stop," Basira sighs, her lips curled into a tired smile. "Is- is that Helen?"

"Hm?" Daisy follows her gaze just in time to see Martin flinching away from a door that most definitely wasn't there a moment ago. "Oh yeah, she's been following us around to help Jon."

"...Huh. Good to know, Melanie was afraid she'd turned evil," she says as she climbs to her feet and offers Daisy a hand up.

"Wait, you've seen Melanie?" Daisy arches an eyebrow. "How is she?"

Basira shrugs. "With her girlfriend. They both looked far better than any of us, if you ask me."

"This is a very romantic apocalypse," Tim deadpans as he and Sasha approach as well.

"It wouldn't sell otherwise," Sasha pipes in, and Tim rolls his eyes fondly. "Morning, Jon."

"Hi, uh-" Jon waves a hand at them, before turning towards Helen with uncertain eyes. "Is everything alright?"

"Melanie's cult got attacked," Helen says casually.

There's a beat of silence.

And another.

"...Jon? Care to provide some context?" Martin asks.

Jon blinks a couple times, his eyes blinding green but his expression perplexed.

"I- can't really see anything in regards to those two," he says finally. Daisy catches Basira and Gerry's eyes glowing green for a moment, before they too frown in confusion. "Helen? Care explaining?"

"Her girlfriend can pull people out from the domains," Helen shrugs. "They bring them all down to Smirke's tunnels but they didn't go deep enough the first time, and the Watcher ambushed them."

"Is- are they okay?" Gerry asks, his voice somewhat strained.

"Oh, they are. But if you ask me, they need some extra hands." Helen taps her bottom lip with the tip of a sharp finger. "There's only two of them, and Georgie doesn't want to leave Melanie alone. They can't be everywhere."

"A cult," Jon mutters to himself in the background, but Daisy can't bring herself to pay him much mind, not with the way her heart is drumming in her chest right now.

These are victims that need protection, this is something she could do. This is something she-

"Can you take us there?" Basira asks by her side, making Daisy flinch a little in surprise.

Her eyes are blazing green embers, pinned on Helen's face with an intensity Daisy has missed seeing in them.

Helen's lips curl into a smile. "It's not a free ride, though."

"Nothing is free with you," Basira grumbles.

"Tit-for-tat, I say," Helen shrugs. "Will the rest of you be alright?"

"I mean- yes?" Tim scowls. "But if you can get people all the way to London, why not bring us all through?"

"I could. Most of you, that is." Helen points to Jon with a long hand. "But I don't much fancy burning to death from the inside or whatever it is that will happen to me if I let him in. You'd have to leave him on his own."

"I would be alright now," Jon shrugs. "I've broken the Mother's call."

For all that he tries to seem unaffected, he does look relieved when no one takes a step towards Helen's door.

"Basira and I can help," Daisy speaks up at last. "I'm- not to be mean, but Tim doesn't do well in the tunnels anyways."

"Wow, excuse me for not wanting to blow you to bits," Tim rolls his eyes. "Will you do well though? Last time it didn't end great for you."

Daisy shrugs. "I'll do what I can, for as long as I can. It's the least I can do, and whatever happens, will happen."

Basira's chubby, warm hand wraps around hers and gives it a squeeze.

"Thanks for finding Daisy," she says with a nod towards Jon. "We'll see you in London."

Jon nods back. "Be careful."

"You be careful," Daisy mutters, and goes to wrap her arms around his slender frame. "Listen to the quiet."

Jon squeezes her back.

"Well... Good luck, you two," Martin says a bit awkwardly.

Gerry gives them a nod. "Try to give the firecracker a hug from me and then tell her I'm very hurt when she pretends she doesn't want it."

"It was nice meeting you," Sasha waves as well from over Tim's shoulder; Daisy holds back a snort at how sincere she sounds.

"Yeah- nice meeting you too. Sorry about the wanting to eat you and all," she says as Basira pulls her towards the door Helen's holding open.

"Weren't the first, hopefully won't be the last," Sasha winks, and the last thing Daisy hears before the door closes behind her are the other's snorts.

Maybe this is a very optimistic apocalypse. It's good, for a change.


As far as domains go, the cemetery is one of the least unnerving, Gerry finds. The End is comfortable in its finality; of course you're afraid of dying, but then you're dead and that's it. Very gentle towards the victims, if you think about-

"You're doing it again," Martin's voice says to his left, distorted like echoing inside a deep, cold grave. "Jon? Where- oh, there you are. Snap him out of it will you?"

"Why don't you just pinch him again?" Tim asks. Then, after Martin's snort, "...You know what? I take it back. Don't touch him when I can see you."

"Wise choice," Jon says, and the humor in his voice tastes of gentle caresses and smiling kisses on his skin. "Gerry, wake up please."

Gerry freezes on his tracks, blinking a few times until the cemetery comes into proper focus, and with it the rest of the group standing around him and looking at him with varying degrees of interest and amusement. He clears his throat, embarrassed.

"Uh- sorry," he says; his mouth feels like it's full of cotton.

Martin comes to lay a kiss on his forehead, and Gerry leans into his touch, still a bit dizzy. "How come you're so sensitive to the End?"

"Hm..."

"I mean, it almost had him a bunch of times," Jon responds in his place, squeezing himself between the two of them "and at some point he yearned for it a lot more than he ever wanted the knowledge of the Watcher."

"Hm," Gerry grunts again, making both of them chuckle fondly. "At some point, though. I don't want to die anymore, and I find it very rude that it keeps calling at me."

"Maybe it's your general aesthetic?" Sasha pipes up. "I mean, look at Ollie. Maybe the End thinks you're being a tease."

"Are you implying the End is horny for me? The Eye is a jealous mistress," Gerry snorts in Martin's arms, gesturing at Jon between them. "Why did you bring us this way?"

"Oh- right!" Jon perks up like an excited meerkat, squirming free of the embrace before hurrying on ahead. "Let's keep going, it's not far."

"What's not far?" Martin asks, arching an eyebrow. "Where are we going?"

Jon spins on his heel to face them -shooting a hand out to hold on to a grave when he nearly loses his footing-, and his face is practically glowing. His lips are curled in an excited, slightly lopsided smile and his eyes are wide, dark and excited.

"I don't know!"

The words run through the group like a lightning bolt; out of the corner of his eye Gerry catches the others stiffening as well.

"What do you mean you don't know?" he asks tentatively. "You- is it like trying to see Melanie?"

"It feels similar, I suppose," Jon says, giving another look around like a child playing hide and seek. "I didn't notice at first and I was looking at the road, but I felt it when we got closer and had to stop. There's something after the end of the Necropolis that I can't see."

"I mean... We know it's not Melanie and Georgie," Tim mutters. "What else could be- is there anything else that's separated from the Eye?"

"We don know, it's a mystery!" Jon announces, his lips curled onto an excited, triumphant little grin.

Gerry feels his chest grow warm at the much beloved sight, and a quick look at Martin reveals he's not the only one succumbing to the image Jon paints as he makes his way around the tombstones, trying to find that pesky blind spot.

"Are you feeling it too?" Sasha asks curiously. She and Tim are following after them at a more sedate pace, with Sasha still getting used to the length of her steps today.

"I am now. It's- I don't like it, but it's Eye-dislike, not me-dislike." Gerry shrugs. It feels like a stone in his shoe, or a buzzing in his ear that just won't go away.

Martin looks up from where Jon is showing him a carving on one of the tombs. "How can you tell them apart?"

"Eh. When it's something I dislike I at least know *why* I dislike it," Gerry explains. "Eye-dislike doesn't give me any reasons, I just hate it."

"So when you butt heads with Tim-"

"No, that's me-dislike," Gerry interrupts immediately, and Martin snorts with laughter. He feels too endeared at the sight to tell Martin that the clearest case of Eye-dislike he feels nowadays is towards him. Despite Gerry's love for the man, the Beholding is a fickle mistress, and Martin chose the Lonely over it. "Anyways, I think it's-"

"I found it!" Jon calls from a bit ahead. His voice tastes acidic with nerves and heavy with confusion, and Gerry scowls. Nothing in this new world should be a danger for Jon. "It's- I think- come see it?"

Apparently the odd quality to his voice is clear enough now to be noticed even by people who aren't connected to Jon like Gerry is -not exactly made from his rib, but filled with the same dangerous devotion- because the others scurry along with him until they reach Jon and-

"Is that a house?" Tim scowls, looking up at the building rising from the flat terrain past the edge of the Necropolis.

A two-story house, to be more precise, with cream walls and a redwood front door. It has a little fenced garden that looks alien with its perfectly manicured grass and yellow dandelion blossoms.

It also has windows covered in thick, thick spiderwebs that barely let the light inside shine through.

"It- wow, I hate it," Gerry mutters to himself. Martin's heavy arm comes to rest on his shoulders, pulling him in close as its twin does the same with Jon.

"Is it a domain?" Martin asks, looking down at Jon. "Those doors don't look like Helen's, is-"

"I have nothing to do with that," comes the Distortion's dry voice. The bright yellow door looks ridiculous mounted in the crumbling marble mausoleum, and it serves to bring a smile to Gerry's face. "I can't even get close to it. By the way, I dropped Basira and Daisy off. Are you going in?"

"It's not a domain," Jon says quietly. His eyes are glowing the bright green of the Beholding, his scowl betraying both the Eye's distaste and his own unsatisfied curiosity. "It's- I don't know what's in there."

"... Sounds like a good reason to go in, doesn't it?" Sasha takes a step forward. "This place is all knowing. Something unknown is a good sign, no?"

"Look at Madame Stranger over here, all about the Unknown," Tim huffs, but it sounds amused rather than irritated.

Gerry often wonders how Tim stands it, the woman he loves turned an incarnation of the Entity that ruined his life. Jon's eyes shift to give him a worried, remorseful look, and Gerry feels his lips curling into a smile almost reflexively.

Right. That's how.

"I think Sasha's right," Martin starts tentatively. "If the Eye can't see whatever is in there... then it has to be powerful. It might just be powerful enough." He turns to the rest of them. "We should be pretty much safe one way or another, I think."

And they should, shouldn't they? Not a single full human amongst them, all of them with ties to the ruling entity one way or another. It's a position of privilege that Gerry doesn't want, but can't afford to waste.

"Let's, then." He takes a step forward, pulling Martin and Jon along with him.

The silver doorknob turns easily and silently under his hand, and Gerry gives the door a firm push to get it open. The interior looks... disappointingly normal. A grey-hued carpet, blue walls, and a soft, warm light at the end of the hallway, from where soft piano music calls to them like a siren at sea.

"I'll go in first," Jon whispers. It makes sense; out of the five of them Jon is easily the most powerful, most protected in this place.

Gerry still doesn't like it too much, but Martin's embrace is as firm as it is gentle and he's forced to let Jon be the first to walk into the house.

They follow shortly after, when Jon isn't smitten on the spot by some avenging force, and it feels- it feels just like walking into any other building.

"Everyone okay?" Gerry asks in a quiet whisper as they walk slowly towards the light. If the state of the windows is anything to go by the Web has made a nest here, somehow unseen by the Eye, and that's not something to be taken lightly.

"I- I don't feel too good actually," Sasha's voice is a little strained as they come closer to the end of the corridor. "I'm... it's like I'm sore all over."

Gerry stops on the threshold to the room with the piano, turning around to give her an evaluating look. She's pale under her straw-colored beard, and she's swaying worryingly on her feet. Tim comes to grab her elbow to keep her standing, and Gerry feels his eyes widen in surprise; the man's waxy skin looks saggy and almost transparent, a blood vessel popped in his eye and his lips pursed in a tight line.

"...Tim, are you-" Gerry starts to ask, before a sharp pang of pain shoots through his stomach, "ah, f- Jon? Martin? Are-"

"I'm- it's fine. I'm just a bit dizzy," comes Martin's uneasy voice. Jon's leaning heavily on his chest, his eyelids falling over his eyes like he simply doesn't have any strength to lift them anymore, and Gerry feels the sharp pain in his stomach mixing with bone-chilling fear.

"Jon?! Jon, look-" Gerry swears when a wave of nausea adds to the pain, and he doubles over before reaching them.

"I told you this would happen," says Anabelle Cane, her voice in person a much silkier, enthralling sound than in Jon's tape so long ago. Gerry tries to straighten up to look at her, but the burning in his stomach is too much, and he's starting to feel weak as well.

"Tim-" he grunts out as his vision starts to go blurry at the edges. It's- one of them has to stay standing, has to keep the group safe, if-

"I think I've earned the right to a dramatic entrance," says a voice Gerry knows. He freezes in place, his mind going a mile a minute; he always suspected, but Gertrude never took it seriously, she said it wasn't- "even if the audience is clearly unappreciative."

"Can you blame them?" Anabelle asks. "It's all catching up to them. It's hard, being cut off like that. One ignores a lot of pesky things once they're not human anymore."

And it's those words that finally make everything click in Gerry's mind, and the pains assaulting his body because laughably easy to identify. He's starving, and he's exhausted, the feelings forgotten so long ago they feel almost foreign.

"You- who-" Jon's voice cracks and fades a second before his legs give out and he collapses in Martin's arms. Behind him, Gerry hears Sasha's heavier form hit the ground before Tim follows.

He forces himself to straighten up through the sharp jabs of starvation, and reaches out to hold both Martin's hand and panicked gaze as he too succumbs to his exhaustion. It's all he can do to try and slow their descent to the carpeted floor as he too falls to his knees, to make sure he and Jon don't collapse on top of each other or hit themselves on any sharp surfaces.

He watches them for a moment as his vision begins to go black, both of them sleeping peacefully in a macabre mockery of the nights at the cottage.

"Huh. As I live and breathe, the one and only Gerard Keay. I thought something would've killed you by now, following in Gertrude's trail like you did," the deep, warm voice speaks again, and Gerry looks up into Mikaele Salesa's amused face. "I always did think she'd outlive us all, but look at us both."

"I told her you'd fucking faked it," is all Gerry can force out before passing out next to Martin.

Chapter Text

XXXI

It's too bright.

Far too bright, Gerry thinks. Did he oversleep? Mum will be pissed if he did, and he's still sore all over from-

But-

But mum died years ago, didn't she?

Didn't she give him a last, haunting look as her ghost went up in flames when Gertrude threw the book in-

Fuck, Gertrude will be pissed that he overslept! They have to keep looking into how to stop the Unknowing and-

No.

Gertrude- Gertrude died too.

Gerry feels his brow furrowing against the bright sunlight, as he desperately tries to make sense of what's happening; why does he feel so fucked up?!

Did he get roughed up by a Stranger and it messed with his mind? Is he in danger right now?

The soft, warm surface he's laying on and the relative silence around him seem to indicate the opposite, but Gerry knows better than to trust his senses so easily. Instead he reaches inside himself looking for the Sight that has followed him for years now, that Eye mark woven tightly into his very core.

He finds nothing.

Or rather he finds the Watcher inside himself, but it can't look out, can't whisper any ominous tidbits of knowledge into his mind. It doesn't make any sense, except Jon did say something was blocking the Beholding.

Jon.

Gerry's eyes fly open and he sits up as his brain final catches on, grunting a little when his entire body protests against the movement. Jon. Martin. The group. The house.

The walls of the room around him are painted a warm pastel yellow, and they turn gold on the spots hit by the harsh sunlight coming in through the window, where a soft green curtain billows into the room pushed by a gentle breeze from outside.

"Hm... go back to sleep," Jon groans by his side, and Gerry feels the knot of tension in his stomach relax somewhat. Right. He looks down to find Jon curled against Martin, who's snoring softly between the two of them, and that explains the soft surface Gerry had been resting on when he woke up. It's fine. They're fine, both of them. Jon is even giving him a sleepy, groggy glare as Gerry fails to comply with the request. "Gerry, come on."

Gerry lets out a quiet huff of laughter, before leaning down and over Martin to press a kiss to Jon's forehead; Martin sleepily drapes an arm over his back, and Gerry very seriously considers simply allowing himself to stay.

"I'm sorry, love. There's some things I want to check on."

"Don't," Jon grumbles.

"You've got to admit he raises a compelling argument," Martin pipes in, his words punctuated by a long, deep yawn and another squeeze at Gerry's waist.

"Very compelling," Gerry chuckles, "but I've got to go. I'll see you later, alright?"

"Hm," Jon huffs, and Martin chuckles fondly as well, before turning around to wrap him in a hug.

Gerry watches them for a little longer until their breathing smooths again, and then he carefully extricates himself from the bed, stretching his arms over his head until his back pops.

It's time to get to work.

The room's door opens to a long corridor bathed in the same warm sunlight, and he regards it with the same narrowed eyes he has for the past two days; he knows better than to trust a good feeling. Cane has so far had the good sense to stay out of their way, but if anything the fact that they don't know exactly where she is is making him even more nervous, and he's set to find her today.

The house is... disturbingly normal.

The wallpaper is neutral and pleasant, the windows are clean and show a perfectly regular sky outside, without any eyes glaring into your soul. There are mirrors that show nothing but your face, and doors that simply take you into the next room; the kitchen shelves are even stocked with food that doesn't taste like existential dread, which is a blessing actually since Gerry's starving.

"Hey," Tim says through a mouthful of toast when Gerry comes into the kitchen. "Feels weird, huh?"

It's an exchange they've had at least twice since they woke up in the house, but it somehow doesn't feel repetitive, or irrelevant; Gerry doesn't think either of them will ever get tired of life appearing to be normal.

"Less weird than yesterday," Gerry shrugs, reaching for the other piece of perfectly normal toast protruding from the perfectly normal toaster, and grabbing the perfectly normal jar of jam Tim offers. "How's Sasha?"

"I think she feels weird being stuck in a single look." Tim shrugs. "She's sleeping in today."

"Good, we could all use the rest."

Tim nods silently, chewing on toast and thoughts alike. "We could, couldn't we?"

"I'll take a break after I get some answers," Gerry says, waving the matter away.

"Careful with that," Tim snorts. "I knew a guy that couldn't stand not knowing things. Things got messy for him."

"I bet he's doing great, though," Gerry replies, and he can't help the smile that comes to his face. Here he is, joking around with Tim of all people. "Probably got himself a handsome boyfriend or two, a job promotion, made up with his asshole friend..."

"Messy," Tim repeats pointedly. "Hand me another slice of bread, you just stole Sasha's breakfast."

Gerry leaves the kitchen after yet another piece of toast, now sated enough to keep up with his quest. He explores room after room, door after door, all of them empty of people and nightmares alike, and he doesn't know which unnerves him more. He's long since lost track of time, when he hears the sweet tones of piano music floating down the corridor. 

Bingo.

The sound comes from a small salon a bit deeper into the house, and Gerry leans down quietly to peek around the corner and into the small salon he vaguely remembers from their first night here. 

The room is mostly empty, only a couple armchairs and loveseats and then the opulent, lustrous grand piano in the middle of it. 

The instrument is large, but behind it sits a man that makes it look regular in size; his wide shoulders bulge under his clear-coloured linen shirt as his meaty, calloused hands fly over the ivory keys to produce a slow, haunting melody, the dark tattoos on his forearms looking almost like they're dancing to the beat. 

"You could come in and sit, you know?" says a deep, amused voice that sends a pang of recognition through him. 

Mikaele Salesa has been somewhat of a constant in his life, even before he realized how fucked up everything was. 

He didn't really provide his mother with books so much as dropped any that came his way at her door, eager as he was to be rid of the damned things. Gerry remembers hiding behind his mother's many bookshelves as a teenager, to eavesdrop on her conversations with the man. He never seemed to like her much, which is probably the reason Gerry immediately put him in his good books. 

He remembers sitting at the coffeeshop with his mother's blood on his hands, and dazedly wondering if maybe he couldn't take up a job in his crew. 

The police got to him first, so it was a moot point anyways. 

He didn't meet him again until way later, under the new administration. 

Gertrude and the man treated each other with more respect and more mistrust than either of them ever gave his mother, which felt both reassuring and humiliating in a way; she was dangerous and evil, but the monster that terrified him his whole life wasn't even one of the major players in the game.

"Why keep doing business with him if you don't trust him?" he'd asked once. "Let me come with you at least, in case you need help.

"I don't trust anyone that mixes in this willingly," she'd scoffed back, clearly incensed by his implication. "And fine. But don't talk to him, and don't get in the way."

Charming, Gertrude was.

When news of his death reached them, he'd quickly dismissed them as fake. The thought that a man as experienced as Salesa could be taken away by something as mundane as an explosion was laughable at best and offensive at worst. 

"He wasn't infallible, you know?" Gertrude had grumbled when he shared the thought with her. 

"Neither are you, and if someone told me you'd died of anything short of an Entity finally manifesting to take you down, I'd question it too. I mean, look at Dekker," he'd said, and she'd said nothing more.

Some part of him feels vindicated right now, even if he won't ever get to say 'I told you so' to her face. 

"So? Are you coming in?" Salesa asks again; Gerry notices the music's stopped, and the man's dark eyes are fixed on him. "Did you sleep well?"

"Uh- yes. Yes we did, thank you." Gerry clears his throat a little, before stepping forward and into the room at last, trying to project a lot more confidence than he feels. 

Whatever he might personally think of Salesa, the man is as dangerous as any that managed to survive this long in the game, and any and all advantage he and the others may have had has been all but stripped of them in here. They still have numbers in their favour, or they would if he hadn't insisted on wandering the house alone like a dumbass... Still, he probably has a chance if-

"Oh, she'd be proud of you. Figured out how to take me down yet?" Salesa chuckles. 

"I- what?" Gerry blinks and stops, halfway down to sitting on one of the armchairs. 

"Is that not what you're doing?" Salesa arches a teasing brow, and Gerry feels his face heat up in embarrassment at being caught. "It's fine. I wouldn't expect any less from Gertrude's little mentee."

"...What are you doing here, Salesa?" Gerry asks after a long pause in which he can't for the life of him figure out how to respond to that statement. "How?"

The man shrugs. 

"An interesting artifact, of course. Last I ever got."

"Before you died?"

"Before I died," Salesa confirms. "Fascinating little thing, looks like an old camera with a broken lens. Whatever you shoot with it is frozen as is, and the fears can't touch it."

"That's convenient," Gerry says dryly. "So you faked your own death and prepared a nice, private hideout just in case the apocalypse happened?"

"It pays to be prepared, you should know this." Salesa presses down on a key that rings a low, melancholic note. "What about you? Or rather, what about her? Whatever was it that took Gertrude Robinson down and let you live?"

"Nothing," Gerry says after the piano's sound fades. His mouth tastes bitter; he's not too sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't to reminisce about Gertrude. "Elias. I was somewhere else."

'Trapped in my mother's book of all places, where she put me.'

"Hm... One of them had to give in the end, I suppose. Shame it had to be her." The man shrugs carelessly. "You found yourself an interesting group to tour with, didn't you?"

"I'm not the only one to keep interesting company in this apocalypse," Gerry says, perhaps a bit more brusquely than he meant to. "Why is she here?"

"Hm... Anabelle Cane is a woman you should want on your side, regardless of what you think of her," Salesa says. "She can't do much in here, but my gut tells me she has a plan for what's happening out there, and my gut hasn't failed me yet."

"Well, we have one too," Gerry shrugs. "Let's see which one works better."

"We'll see, we'll see. I think you've met enough people like her to not assume you're not part of her plan, haven't you?" The man smiles.

"Maybe. I don't care for it, though."

"Didn't think you would," Salesa laughs openly now, like this is all some particularly entertaining joke to him, which it probably is, Gerry guesses. "In any case, I owed Gertrude some favors in the end; you're free to stay here for as long as you all need."

"You're presuming an awful lot about what Gertrude would want," Gerry says dryly.

Salesa arches a thick eyebrow again. 

"Am I?"

Gerry would kill for a cigarette right now.

"Not sure. Between hiding Leitner under the Institute and putting me in the skin book, I've had some murderous avatars treat me better than she did."

"So that's where the old geezer was." Salesa slides the cover over the piano keys to lean on it. "If it makes you feel any better-"

"I don't need any pit-"

"If  it makes you feel any better," Salesa says, in a tone of voice that makes it very clear he's neither used nor amenable to people trying to speak over him. "I don't think Gertrude Robinson knew how to properly care for someone. I don't think she knew how to do anything other than hurt people, actually."

"...How is that supposed to make me feel better?" Gerry grumbles. 

"I know she was fond of you," he says simply. "Or at least, that she cared for you as much as she could care for anything that wasn't her personal vendetta against the Entities."

"I don't -"

"I do," Salesa interrupts, because apparently it's okay when he speaks over people. "There's quite a few things that didn't dare come after you because they knew whose wing you were under, Mr. Keay."

"...What?" That- that doesn't make a lick of sense. Gertrude was never shy about him only being allowed around her as long as he was useful.

"Ask your new Archivist, if you care to know." Salesa shrugs. "As I said, you're welcome to stay. Just don't cause any trouble."

"We won't. I think," Gerry says, a bit dazed. "I'm- I'll see you later, Salesa."

He thinks the man bids him goodbye, but he doesn't really stay for long enough to listen. He saw a backyard through one of the windows, and he needs some air.


"It's a cute little house, isn't it?" asks a voice from behind the bookshelf. It's calm and amused, like the speaker has been watching for a while already.

"I liked our cabin better," Martin says dryly. Some time ago the suddenness of the voice would've been enough to make him flinch, but right now there's just the tired irritation of being forced into someone else's company. "Far fewer spiders."

"Hmm... that's debatable," Anabelle Cane replies, stepping out into the room. She's wearing a beautiful white silk blouse that knots at the neck, sharp black trousers, and a smile so smug Martin has to take a deep, calming breath to keep from snapping. "I must admit, I didn't expect this level of hostility."

"You really didn't?" Martin arches an eyebrow. "Did you forget about all the crap you've put Jon through?"

"Well, no. But we've all put Jon through some degree of crap, haven't we?" Anabelle shrugs.

That does sting a little, despite Martin's best efforts.

"I like to think it matters whether or not it's done intentionally," he grunts in the end. "So? Are you telling me your big plan now? Is this where you monologue?"

"Hmm no. Don't take me wrong, I like this place, but it doesn't have the ambient I would like for a dramatic reveal," Anabelle says, smiling. "Besides, it's not like you don't already have an inkling on what the price for fixing this is, you know?"

"I don't," Martin snaps. "I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't want to know."

"How's that willful ignorance working for you, Martin?" she chuckles, "think you'll get to keep your little happily ever after if you bury your head deep enough?"

"No one is burying their head." Martin crosses his arms over his chest. "I've just come to learn we're very stubborn, and notoriously bad at staying dead."

"Hope is a dangerous drug, Martin dear," Anabelle smiles wider. "You know? I always wanted to call on you. You're a bit too impatient for us, but you have so much potential-"

"But you didn't," Martin speaks over her. "And I'm pretty much taken now, sorry to disappoint."

"Never too late for another mark, my dear."

"Don't-" Martin starts, but stops when some movement at the corner of his vision catches his eye. 

There's a window on the wall furthest from them, showing a quiet little backyard with perfectly manicured grass and flowerbeds; as Martin watches, a large, dark blur of black hair and green fabric rushes across, disappearing a moment later.

Huh.

"Your cue to go, I take it?" Anabelle asks conversationally, like they're a couple of friendly acquaintances catching up instead of a pair of nightmare beings trying to intimidate each other. 

Rather than answering, Martin simply spins on his heel and marches out the door. It makes him feel better for about two seconds, but her amused chuckle still fans the flame of irritation in his stomach.

He's gotten it back under control by the time he finally finds a door leading into the backyard. Anabelle and her lies are not important; he's got other things to worry about right now.

"Hey," he greets softly as he steps up to Gerry.

He's not quite curled in on himself as much as he's simply leaning against the house's wall with all the grace of a disgruntled sack of grain. He makes a small grunt of acknowledgment in response to Martin's voice, but his eyes are stubbornly fixed ahead.

"I'm going to sit with you for a bit," Martin continues as he sits down, "to be honest, I need some good company. Anabelle insisted on talking to me."

Gerry snorts. It's a bit muted, but it's there, and he shifts to lean against Martin's side.  

"You may want to go look for Jon, then. I don't feel like great company," he says.

"I don't know. I feel better already." Martin rests his cheek on the crown of Gerry's head. "What happened? You've been exploring the house, haven't you?"

"Spoke to Salesa," Gerry sighs. "I don't- he brought up Gertrude a lot. Caught me off guard, is all. I haven't thought about her in a while."

Martin, who is not an Eye avatar but has a finely-tuned bullshit radar, knows this is not entirely true.

"I forgot Gertrude probably had dealings with him," he says. Neutral; not a question, but an invitation in case Gerry wants to elaborate.

"My mum did too. Well, not dealings really. Salesa just never liked trading with books, and she was a convenient dumping ground. Literally paid to take them off his hands." Gerry shrugs. He remains quiet for a long moment after that, enough that Martin starts thinking that maybe he simply isn't ready to talk about any of this, and is about to suggest heading back inside for a nap or something else to take his mind off things.

"Hey, wh-"

"It's a bit dumb, you know?" Gerry says, and Martin stops immediately. "I mean... Gertrude didn't even raise me. She wasn't any worse than my mother was, arguably she was better, at least she was trying to thwart the Entities."

"...Yes?"

"Well, that's it," he huffs, "I shouldn't feel so- so betrayed. I knew I didn't mean anything to her, she was always very clear about that."

Martin nods thoughtfully, before draping an arm across Gerry's shoulders to draw him closer.

"I actually think it makes sense for you to be more hurt about Gertrude," he says in the end. "You didn't choose to be born to your mother. You were just... A child with a bad parent."

He's very aware of Gerry's searing gaze on the side of his face, but he keeps his face resolutely turned forward. 

"You chose to trust Gertrude. If you didn't trust her to care for you, you at least trusted her to do right by you when it came to these things, the way you would've done right by her. And she broke that trust, for whatever reason."

"For whatever reason alright," Gerry grumbles. "I just... Why the book? And- and why leave me behind?"

Martin lets out a slow, thoughtful exhale.

"You could probably ask Jon, if you really want to know," he starts carefully, "but love... I don't know that it will make you feel any better."

"Would it make you feel better?" Gerry shifts and turns around to look at him. "Genuine question."

'This isn't about me,' Martin wants to say, 'it's not the same.'

But Gerry's vulnerable right now, and he's speaking with the truth, and he *deserves* the truth.

"I don't think so," he says instead. "I don't think anything would make me feel better, a least in regards to that. I think I will spend the rest of my life thinking there must've been something I could've done to make her love me, some... some magic word, or some secret that would've made everything alright, even if I know it's stupid and ultimately it wasn't my fault."

"Martin-"

"I did my best with what I had, and so did you." Martin turns to face Gerry. "Gertrude saved a lot of people, and she did a lot of good things, but what she did to you was terrible, and you don't have to forgive her. But Gerry, you don't have to pretend you didn't care for her, or justify the fact that you did. That she mattered to you. Caring for people who hurt you doesn't make you weak or dumb, it just... It just makes you someone who cares."

Gerry blinks up at him, taken aback by Martin's little speech; it's to be expected, since it's usually him doing the reassuring.

Martin feels something warm catch in his chest, and goes to cup his hand around the side of Gerry's face, delighting at the slight hint of color blooming across his cheekbones.

"I love that about you," Martin says, and has to hold back a snort when Gerry lets out a nervous chuckle.

"That's- I do feel better now," he blurts out, his voice both hoarse and pleased.  "Way better."

"Better company than our host, then?" Martin leans down to place a kiss on his lips.

"Loads," Gerry says, clearing his throat under Martin's watchful gaze.

They go silent for a while after that, both of them simply watching the backyard and the land beyond the little fence outlining it, where the vibrant green grass goes yellow and withered and eventually disappears completely to give way to the dry, barren wasteland of the Beholding's world.

"Did- I had a little crush on him when I was younger, you know?" Gerry says after a few moments.

Martin blinks. "Sorry?"

Gerry shifts and turns to look up at him, his beautiful seafoam eyes taking on a more familiar, mischievous gleam.

"On Salesa. I was like sixteen, and I used to loiter around the bookstore to look at him when he came over to drop books."

Martin can picture it so clearly, a skinny teen-aged Gerry pretending very hard to be doing something or another while sneaking nervous glances at the older, imposing man. It's a strangely endearing visual; Martin finds himself smiling softly to himself before something clicks in his mind and he snorts loudly.

"Gerard Keay, are you trying to make me jealous?" 

"Is it working?" Gerry nudges him with a shoulder, grinning, and all Martin can think is that he loves this dumb man so much.

"No, I mean he's an excellent catch," Martin laughs. "Look, the man's got solid real estate in the middle of the apocalypse! Jon and I just can't offer that kind of stability, love."

"Well no, but Jon owns the entire world, and you can fix broken radios and possibly forge official documents if your fake resume is any evidence," Gerry counters, pulling at him to kiss his cheek. "What else could I ever need?"

"I don't know, but surely it's not enough for the last of the Von Closen is it?" Martin says, giving his voice the affected, pompous tone Tim uses to mimic Jon's voice, and laughing again when Gerry groans.

"Martin please, I need to disappoint my mother and disgrace my bloodline, I'm begging you."

"Well I can certainly help you with that later," Martin winks and bumps their foreheads together, tugging softly at a lock of Gerry's hair. "And then you can decide if you want to be Salesa's trophy husband."

"I can't believe you don't want me as your trophy husband," Gerry sniffs, "I can clean-"

"You can't clean."

"I can cook-"

"You can't cook!"

"Maybe I can't, but I'd look great bringing you breakfast in bed in a pretty apron," Gerry smirks "Jon can cook it, I'll bring it, how's that sound?"

"You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Keay," Martin hums thoughtfully. "I think I need to discuss it with my boyfriend first, though."

"Jon hasn't had the heart to get rid of me in over a year, you're stuck with me Mr. Blackwood." Gerry drapes an arm over Martin's shoulder, leaning in for a kiss.

Martin, for his part, merely lets himself fall back on the grass, dragging Gerry over to rest on his chest.

"I know, I'm lucky."


"It's just fishy," Sasha keeps saying, "I mean, I cooked yesterday, Tim made multiple pieces of toast that your boyfriend kept stealing-"

"That story is still under investigation," Jon snorts.

"And now you're cooking," she trudges on past the interruption, because she's trying to make a point. "How does the kitchen never run out of food?"

Jon shrugs, adding a handful of bright red berries to a pan with slowly simmering butter.

"My best bet is that whatever Salesa used to create this space makes it so that it has to remain at the same state it was when it was created, so whenever we grab something, it simply reverts to how it was before."

"Simply! But then what happens to everything we've consumed?" Sasha frowns. "Is it vanishing from inside us at some point to reform out here in the pantry? Are we really eating? Why are you not curious about this?!"

Jon gives her an amused, calm look. "I'm cooking."

"I don't even know who you are anymore," she groans. "What are you cooking?"

"Tahchin," Jon says. He's still gently stirring the berries he's sauteeing in the butter, and as she watches he reaches over for a little bowl of shelled pistachios and sliced almonds, and adds it to the mix. "Haven't made it in a while. I'm a little surprised Salesa stocked this place so comprehensively."

"Hmm..." she leans down to take a sniff at the covered deep pan. "Isn't Tim-"

"I know Tim's allergic to saffron, he'll be fine." Jon rolls his eyes. "Gertrude would've had a much easier time if avatars could be killed by anaphylactic shock, I think."

"Fair, but he still won't like it," Sasha snorts, and Jon lets out a little chuckle.

It's nice to see Jon so relaxed, a far call from the exhaustion that weighed his shoulders down until he was able to shake off the Beholding's call, and even from the nervous tension she remembers from the early Archives days. Instead it feels like the time before, joking around in records and conspiring with Tim on the best way to drag Jon out for drinks on Friday.

It's a bit bittersweet, that she wasn't aware back then of just how much both of them were hiding and how hurt they were.

"Hey," she says. Jon turns to her again.

"Yes?"

"I'm- I missed you," she whispers, and Jon's curious gaze softens, she notices with a spark of endearment. "I don't think I ever told you, but.. well-"

"I- Sasha, I knew," Jon says quietly. "It's- I think- Elias brought us all in for a reason."

"You think?" she says with a humourless smile. 

"I know. Tim and I were marked, but you and Martin- he knew you were-"

"Alone?" she cuts in dryly. Jon, very tellingly, doesn't respond. "It wasn't that bad, you know? I wasn't like Martin, I didn't care too much that I had no one. It was very freeing."

"I can imagine it was," Jon nods. He comes to lean on the counter next to her, a soft, solid patch of warmth against her arm.

She doesn't add anything immediately, merely letting silence settle between the two of them. 

What could she tell him? That she was surprised with how easily she clicked with them? That she sometimes felt overwhelmed with the fondness that lit up in her chest whenever one of them showed up with her coffee order? That she hadn't felt conflicted about her own identity in a decade, until she found herself slightly jealous of the closeness Tim and Jon shared?

That she was delighted when Jon asked both of them to move down to the Archives with him, and terrified when Tim asked her out on a date because she cared so much, and she didn't want to lose him -and Jon in the process- because she couldn't love him the way he wanted?

"The last thing I thought before they got me was that I'd never see him again," she mutters. "When- I saw her lying to you, turning you against them and playing with you while you were so afraid and alone, and Jon, I hated her. I hated her so much for- maybe things would've been different if I'd been there. Maybe-"

Jon nudges her side with his shoulder. "You're here now."

Sasha sighs. "It's not like I'm being of much help am I? You don't even need me and Helen to distort the Eye's call anymore."

"I don't, no." Jon leans a bit more heavily against her, and rests his head on her arm. "But I could use some help slicing the onions."

Sasha blinks a couple times as the words process in her mind, then snorts.

"You prick!" she laughs, "you could slice them yourself, you just don't want to tear up and stink of onion!"

"I'm offended you'd accuse me of passing less desirable chores onto you, Miss James," he huffs in an affected, pompous tone, "I simply thought it might help you feel better."

"Sure you did." Sasha rolls her eyes. "Come on, give me the knife."

"Are we killing or cooking?" Tim's sudden voice has them both turning to look at the door, as he struts into the kitchen.

"We haven't decided," Sasha say immediately. "We're thinking of just getting rid of the big guy to take over the house and staying here instead of the whole saving the world business."

Tim nods solemnly. "That sounds good actuall-"

"We're killing Gerry's husband?" Martin speaks over him, coming into the room as well with an arm draped over a snickering Gerry's shoulders.

"I'm sorry, Gerry's what?" Jon sputters by her side.

"Killing me is what we're doing, it seems," Tim pipes in before Martin or Gerry can answer. "Is there saffron in that? I'm-"

"I know you're allergic," Jon groans, "we've been over this, Tim, tahchin has to have saffron in it."

"You made it without it before," Tim huffs, opens his arms to receive Sasha when she moves closer to him. "Sash, can you believe he wants to kill me?"

"You won't die," Jon sighs.

"He wants to kill his boyfriend's husband, he clearly flipped to the dark side," Sasha says in unison.

"Why is Gerry married to Salesa?!"

"Martin doesn't want me to be your trophy husband," Gerry explains. "An undead's got to eat somehow."

"You don't eat," Jon says dryly, and Martin laughs.

"See, all you two do is tell me what I can't do, Salesa would never do this to me."

Sasha watches as the chaos continues to unfold, feeling a smile spreading slowly across her face. 

She could get used to this, she thinks as she sees Jon come over to where Gerry and Martin are standing, fitting neatly between them as he continues to argue. 

They deserve this. They've earned it.


He's aware it's petty and silly and irrational, and that in the grand scheme of things it's the one he should be the least bothered by, but Jon can't help but be annoyed still.

"Wow, what did the bed do to you? Gerry snorts as Jon climbs onto the mattress.

"Nothing," Jon grunts, crawling over to the two of them. "We never fit in a single bed. There's got to be something supernatural about it."

"I think it's just a king size, love," Martin laughs. "But I agree. Not having someone's elbow on my neck for most of the night does feel magical."

"Oh, we're back to being passive aggressive?" Gerry sticks his tongue out at him. "I'll go back to the couch, then. Or the main bedroom, since Martin wants me to cozy up to Sales- oof!"

Martin stops him on his ridiculous tirade by dropping his arm over Gerry's waist, which is a very effective way of keeping him there.

As an additional safety measure though, Jon lays down on top of him.

"Do you think we could fit one in our bedroom?" he mutters once he's settled on Gerry's chest.

"At the cabin?" Martin asks, his voice tinted with laughter. "Is it still ours now that the former owner is no longer an incarnation of animalistic murder instincts?"

Jon shrugs. "First off, Daisy owes me. Second off, she killed at least three avatars in there, she doesn't want it back."

"So... is it haunted, then?" Gerry pokes his cheek.

"Of course it is, we live there," Martin chuckles. "...Jon?"

Jon scowls a little bit, feeling  both their gazes land on him where he's resting his cheek on Gerry's chest.

"Hm."

"Uh... something wrong?" Martin asks. All humour has drained from his voice and replaced with concern. 

"I- we're close. To London, I mean," he says in the end. It feels abhorrent, to bring reality crashing down when they're relaxed, joking around and relishing in each other's presence like this. "I can feel the Panopticon calling at me. It wants me there."

Martin scowls. "Isn't Elias in there already?"

Jon nods slowly. This part is complicated to explain. Worrying.

He can tell Gerry has some idea of what he's about to say from the slight furrowing of his brow, and the way he brings an arm to rest across the small of Jon's back.

"Elias is there. I can only feel him very faintly, and the Eye won't let me know what's happened to him," he says, before hurrying through the next part, "I-  think I should go. And maybe you all could stay here, where it's safe."

"...What?" Martin blinks. "I'm sorry, wherever did you get the idea that we would allow you to just march into the Eye's den alone?"

Jon squirms a little, held in place by Gerry's arm just as firmly as they're keeping Gerry still.

"I don't doubt- well, I do. A little," he clears his throat. "It's just- Martin, we know Sasha's impulsive. Tim burned down an entire domain-"

"Is this about the library? Because that was for-"

"I know what that was about," Jon huffs. "What I'm saying is, it's alright for you all to go around doing reckless stuff out there, especially when you're with me, but once we get to London, that's the Watcher's stronghold. I know I will be safe, but I can't-"

"Well, you're one to talk," Gerry snorts. "Both of you, actually."

"Excuse me?" Martin squirms his arm free to sit up on the bed, looking down at them with a raised eyebrow. "What does that even m-"

"Martin," Gerry says, rolling his eyes. "I love you both, but you attempted to win a pissing contest with the Lonely, and Jon thought he could escape the Buried by thinking really hard about-"

"Say it again, and I will stay here and be Salesa's trophy husband," Jon grunts.

Gerry and Martin both snort with laugher, and Jon feels his disgruntled pout melt slowly into a smile.

After everything that's happened, going back to the quiet domesticity they shared at the cabin still feels somewhat foreign, like trying on your favorite sweater you lost years ago.

The warmth of the bed, the quiet of the room, everything feels comfortable in a way that's almost eerie, and Jon wonders if he will ever stop waiting for the other shoe to drop, or if he will at some point stand by these men he loves and look towards the future without a trace of fear.

"-right?" Gerry asks, and Jon blinks.

"Uh- what? Sorry, I- I was a bit distracted," Jon stutters, feeling his face heat up when Gerry squeezes him, and Martin leans down to press a kiss to his forehead. "Stop that- what did you say?"

"I was just saying," Gerry starts again, "that since Martin and Sasha and Tim are clearly too impulsive for their own good-"

"Apparently we're ignoring his impulsiveness," Martin pipes in.

"It's just not safe to leave them here, you know?" Gerry trudges on. "We just can't be sure they won't simply charge out and get into bigger trouble. We'll have to bring them along with us."

Jon snorts. "Because I was bringing you with me anyways?"

"Jon, you've got to make up your mind," Gerry grins, "do you or do you not want me to be Salesa's troph- hm!"

"Well, that's an effective way of shutting him up," Martin observes amusedly as Jon smushes Gerry's face in a kiss.

Chapter 32

Notes:

Time to push my lonely-but-not-Lonely-Sasha headcanon down y'alls throats.

Chapter Text

XXXII

"And I'll be honest," Tim trudges on. Jon crosses an amused look with Martin and Sasha. "The house was nice, but it wasn't great, no offense to your husband-"

"It's alright, we're on a break," Gerry shrugs.

"-but if you're looking to snap a photo of your permanent apocalypse safehouse, you could at least get one by the lake. All he got was a piano, and not even a single pool table!"

"You're terrible at pool, though," Sasha snorts by his side. She's back to being a lot taller and bulkier than him today, and she takes that advantage to wrap an arm around his waist and pull him against her as they walk.

"Well, I'm sure I'd get good at it if I had the apocalypse to practice," Tim sniffs. "But no, instead we just had to-"

"Had to spend a couple days just relaxing and resting," Martin interrupts, rolling his eyes. "Absolutely barbaric, Tim."

"Exactly, Martin gets me." Tim grins. "Awful, really. I'm glad we're on track again."

Sasha pokes a hole in the waxlike-flesh of his cheek, which pretty much puts an end to his tirade as he has to focus on molding it back into shape.

It's probably a bit insensitive considering the situation the rest of the world finds itself in, but the break re-energized them and made everything seem a bit less bleak than before.

Jon is careful to be optimistic, but he finds that his very thoughts have a very different tint to it now even with the vague knowledge of what awaits them at the Panopticon.

At some point he will need to choose, but for the time being he's surrounded by the people he loves, and he can almost forget that it was him and his hellish curiosity that caused all of this in the first place.

If the worst comes to pass, then... then he'll have these memories, at least.

"Oh. I'd been hoping you'd come this way," Helen says, making them all freeze on their spot. The door is embedded on the dry, cracked dirt, and she's leaning on the border like one would on the edge of a pool. "I couldn't find you anywhere else, so I had to guess."

"We took a bit of a detour," Jon nods, coming to crouch by the door. "How are the others?"

"Doing surprisingly well, if you ask me," she shrugs. As if to push Jon's pool analogy -or maybe it is him pushing it on her?- her curls are a lot looser today, swirling around her shoulders like pulled by an invisible current. "It's a bit hard on Basira, but Daisy's thriving, shepherding people and fending the eyes away."

"That makes sense," Tim pipes up. "She had a blast when we ran to Chelsea."

Gerry arches an eyebrow. "Wasn't that because she was chasing Jon?"

"She wasn't hunting him, though," Tim shrugs. "We were more worried about him running into the hunters again."

He says it casually enough, but it still warms Jon up, and he feels his mouth curl into a smile.

"Well, I'm glad people are safe, and Daisy has kept it together," Martin says. "Are Melanie and Georgie doing alright too?"

"Very alright," Helen nods. The movement is horizontal, but somehow they know it's a nod anyways. "They've brought back some of the ones they lost, and now they actually have some moments to rest. You're not too far, you'll see soon."

"I guess we will," Jon says. "Thank you, Helen."

"My pleasure," she smiles. It feels a bit ominous, Jon thinks with a scowl. What- "Really I just wanted to let you know you're getting close to Martin's domain. I'll see you soon!"

And she lets go off the edge, falling back into her corridor as the door closes and pops out of existence.

Ah.

"...Jon?" Martin asks.

"Yes?" Jon climbs to his feet again, patting the dust off his pants and pointedly avoiding his eyes.

Really, they should've asked sooner, but Jon doesn't think it's really sunk in for any of them, what they are now.

"What did she mean by my domain?" Martin's face suddenly appears in his field of vision, when the taller man leans down to look into his eyes.

Jon looks at him in silence for a moment, then sighs after he doesn't say anything else.

"You have to know the answer to that by now, Martin," he says somewhat apologetically, and his stomach sinks when Martin seems to deflate at his words.

Leave it to him to rain all over the fragile optimism they'd managed to drag out from their little interlude.

"I guess I did," Martin says after a moment, running a hand down his face. When he opens them again, his eyes are mostly grey, with just the slightest hint of green in one of the irises. "I think I just hoped I wasn't powerful enough to have one."

"That's not how it works, love." Gerry comes to stand by his side, laying a gentle hand on the crook of his elbow. "Even if you didn't have a contract with the Watcher, you-"

"I know," Martin cuts him off a bit shortly. He does give his hand a reassuring pat however, before looking back at Jon. "Is it Lonely, then?"

"Mostly. Some Beholding too of course and- yes," Jon nods, tired. "It's - you're not the only one. You saw the carousel, you saw the wax museum. You don't have to stay in yours any more than Sasha or Tim did."

"There's still people trapped inside, though."

Jon swallows. "That's why we're going towards mine, isn't it?"

Martin's gaze softens a little, and he nods.

"That's- yep. Let's see what happens," he says in the end, and reaches out to squeeze Jon's shoulder. "We'll just walk into it then?"

"You'll see," Jon says. It'll do no difference anyways, no reason to worry the others before it's time. "Let's-"

"Does Gerry have a domain too?" Sasha's voice has everyone turning to her, and she has the decency to look ashamed at least. "What? No one here can fault me for wanting to know something."

"I guess not," Gerry snorts. "I think my domain is wherever Jon is. The Eye made me to be by his side and-"

"That's very romantic, Gerry, but you do have one," Jon says, flinching a little when Gerry whips around to face him.

"What."

"A domain?" Jon arches an eyebrow. "You've gotten stuck in two End-aligned domains already, how could you possibly think you'd be Watcher-only?"

Gerry's face sours, and Jon snorts along with the others.

"I'm sorry, sorry," he smiles, slapping his arm softly when Gerry sticks his tongue out at him. "It's just- you told me this when we met the first time, remember? Colors."

Gerry frowns for a moment, flicking the ring on his lip side to side before his face goes slack in recognition.

"If colors hated you," he mutters. "... So I was right?"

Jon feels a rush of fondness spark in his chest at the little hint of pride in his expression, and judging from Martin's soft smile, he's not the only one.

There's not much of Gerry's past left anymore, but Jon knows meeting with Salesa dragged most of it back to the surface, no matter how much he tried to joke and make light of it.

Sometimes he forgets he's not the only one trying to fill in Gertrude's shoes, and how inadequate it makes you feel.

"Closer than any of them were," he says, and fine, maybe he's pushing it a little, but it's worth it to see the little triumphant curl of his lips. "In any case, your domain has a lot of End mixed in. Some Hunt, even."

"Not a fan of that last one but I suppose I can see it." Gerry nods. "Will we come across it?"

"Maybe? It's beyond London," Jon shrugs. "Let's get going, in any case."

And they do.


The table is calling, and The Faceless Woman is, as always, Alone.

She's always been, and not in an interesting way either. A picture perfect family, a mother and father, and a cute little girl. They sat around the dinner table and gave each other awkward smiles as they ate in silence, went to sleep in silence, woke up in silence, said goodbye in silence.

There were no fights, there were no tears. There was nothing.

The Faceless Woman moved out in quietly eighteen years later, and swore to herself she'd never again set foot into a house that was not a home. She'd make friends, she'd find love, she'd do everything she was supposed to do, and the silence would be nothing but a sad memory of her past.

Only she didn't.

Outside in the world she smiled and laughed and talked and joked, and then returned to her empty, quiet house. She wasn't sad about it, she wasn't afraid. The Forsaken could never feed on her because eventually, she stopped trying. She made her peace with the silence, and with the fact that she would never connect with anyone enough to fill it.

Until she did. 

And in that last moment of consciousness, it was the fear of losing it that allowed the Stranger to sink its fangs into her, brandish her love as a weapon, and use it to twist and break those she held so close to her quiet, quiet heart.

There is no silence in the Colony.

It's made up of all the broken humans that wished so desperately to belong, that yearned for a community that needed them just as much as they needed it. A world in which love is not a fleeting wish, but simply a norm.

The Colony loves its members because they are a part of it, not for any arbitrary reasons like personality, like who they are or what they do. Love is both an offer and an expectation, sweet honey poured down your throat until you cannot breathe anymore.

In here, the Faceless Woman would not need a face, a name or a memory, all those superfluous characteristics stripped of her to make her just another ant. She doesn't have an identity anymore, and in here she wouldn't need it to be loved, to be surrounded by those that like her, wish to escape the choking grasp of silence.

She can stay, if she so wishes.

The Crawling Rot can be a home to her where Watcher and Stranger failed, can fill the silence it left in her. It needs but to reach out, and the Colony will accept her, as it accepts any and all who seek love.

This place is terrible.

Granted, all the domains are terrible, but there's something about this one, shifting and twisting around them, on them even, with the quiet but persistent murmur of billions of ants rubbing against each other as they move.

Tim can feel their little feet sticking to the wax of his skin, even though he knows they're too light for him to be able to sense them; he figures it's not about logic anymore, but rather about what makes them all the most uncomfortable.

Sasha flinches and curses next to him, and he flicks at the ant biting down on her arm.

It ignites in contact with his finger, burnt to nothing by the time it finishes its arc downwards, and Tim feels some sort of perverse satisfaction that he very much wants to believe is the Desolation inside him rather than himself.

"You doing alright?" he asks. It's a reflex they all share by now, he thinks. No one is doing alright, but reassuring each other takes some of the edge off.

"Feels a bit like the worms," she mutters. "At least those didn't whisper, though."

Tim blinks, frowning down at her. "...Whisper?"

"I- yes?" Sasha tilts her head to the side. "It's pretty loud, can't you hear it?"

"No? All I can hear is the nasty bug tango, what are they saying?" 

Sasha looks somewhat nervous now, darting a worried look around. "I don't want to say. But they uh- they want me to stay."

"...Ah, fuck," Tim groans. He crouches before her, looking at her over his shoulder. "Climb on, come on. They can't get on you if they can't get on me."

"They beg to differ," Sasha mutters, but she wraps her arms around his shoulders either way. She's shorter and slighter today, so Tim doesn't have much trouble climbing back to his feet and hurrying along to where he can see the other two.

"Hey. Is he done already? The ants are speaking to Sash," he blurts out as soon as he reaches them, kicking around to send flaming waves of ants flying. "We need to go."

Martin and Gerry turn to look at them; Gerry's eyes are green and worried as he focuses on Sasha, and Tim feels his stomach drop.

"I- but why? She's an avatar, isn't she? She can't be watched, right?" Martin asks.

"We're a bit different, she and I," Gerry says gently. "Like Helen. We didn't really become avatars. Besides, she can still be marked."

"Well- well, what do we do then?" Tim asks, kicking away at some more ants.

"Calm down, Tim," Martin speaks up, gentle but firm. "You've seen what happens to Gerry on End domains. We'll snap her out of it, or Jon will do it. Just hold on to her."

"Fine. Fine, you're right," Tim nods. "You heard that Sash? We just have to wait for Jon."

Sasha snorts. "Like Friday nights," she mutters, and Tim smiles.

"Like Friday nights," he nods. "Could we go find Jon?"

Martin nods, reaching a hand to lay it gingerly on Sasha's arm. "He should be done by now I think. Gerry?"

"This way," Gerry says immediately, turning towards a new ant-covered corridor. "He didn't go too far this time, but he's moving, I don't know why."

"Maybe he's looking for us?" Martin asks. "He'd know where we are, but I don't know how this place works... it's changing, isn't it?"

"It's alive," Gerry nods. "In any case, he's close."

"Good," Tim grunts. "I want to get out of here by yesterday."

Sasha remains quiet, her arms almost limp around Tim's shoulders.

They wade through the labyrinthine colony for what feels like hours, Tim burning away any ant that attempts to climb up his legs to get to Sasha, and Martin reminiscing about the early days at the Archives, his little coffee dates with Sasha, anything that keeps him talking and her listening. All around them the tunnels shift, the ants changing their shape and their size with the strength of numbers alone, so many of them that they could imagine a number, but it would feel hollow and meaningless even in their mind; They can't conceptualize the volume of the creatures squirming and crawling all around them; it's not a measure to be understood, just accepted.

They hear them before they see them, a broken voice begging for a relief that won't come, can't come.

"You… What are –? F-From the Magnus – Ah! Help me!" yells a man, and the agony in his voice has them hurrying down the tunnel, until they come across a wide, green-tinted chamber.

Jon stands in the middle of it, his fists trembling by his sides and his shoulders tense. There's a man writhing on the ground before him, covered in fire-red ants from head to toe; they crawl over his eyeballs, his lips, Tim can even imagine them crawling around his entrails, biting at his throat, his lungs, his heart.

"Jon?" Martin asks nervously. "I- who is this?"

He turns towards them, his eyes wide and his lips parted in an expression Tim can recognize as confusion, as fear.

"He- it's- it's the exterminator."

"Who?" Gerry scowls by his side, but Martin's face lights up in recognition.

"I- what was his name, he- he gave me the ashes for you, right?" he asks. "What is he doing here?"

"He's- the domain is feeding on him, I don’t… I-"

"Help! Please!" the man cries, reaching out to grab the hem of Jon's trousers.

Jon takes a deep breath, and his shoulders set with determination

"Ceaseless Watcher, look upon this man," he starts, his voice deeper and louder than Tim has ever heard it.

"Jon-" Martin turns to Gerry, frowning. "I- what is he doing?"

"I don't-"

"Subsumed by terror and gripped with swarming fear. Gaze into him, through him… And out of him," Jon continues, and Tim suddenly knows what will happen, with the same terrible certainty with which he accepted his death the moment he pressed down on the detonator at the museum.

"What does that mean?!" Martin asks; he takes a step forward, before Gerry yanks him back. "What-"

"It's dangerous," Gerry grunts, "he's channeling the Watcher." 

"Make him a vessel of your hunger," Jon raises a hand towards the man.

"Jon!" Tim yells. "Look at me!"

Jon's entire posture stiffens like a lightning bolt ran through him, and Tim flinches when the weight of the world falls on him, filtered through a set of tired, sad eyes that were everything once.

"Not you, Jon," he says. His voice is softer than he expected, lower. "Not like us. It's not you."

Jon's eyes widen the slightest fraction, and the green recedes for a second, before he turns towards the man again.

"Jordan Kennedy," he says, and though his voice still resonates across the chamber it's a lot less Watcher and a lot less him. "I can help you."

"Please- please, it hurts-"

"Cease," Jon says, and the man sighs in relief as the compulsion washes over the ants and they freeze in place. "I can give you a choice."

Jordan gasps and pants on the floor, drawing in lungfuls of air and coughing out mouthfuls of ants.

"Ch- choice-?"

Jon crouches before him, and lays a hand on his shoulder. "Look at me."

And he does.

The man's eyes widen and his mouth falls open as Jon looks into his eyes, his entire body trembling with the weight of the knowledge imparted on him. Jon looks away after a moment, and the man's head hangs forward.

"What do you want?" Jon asks, almost gently.

Jordan Kennedy shivers, his body shaking as he lets out a heart-wrenching sob. 

"Do it."

And Jon does.

Tim is not sure when he closed them, but opens his eyes after Jon is done with the incantation, after the sounds of Jordan's heavy breathing and the ants crawling around them have subsided. 

After the silence comes.

"Tim?" Sasha sighs into his ear, shifting slowly as if waking up. "Where- what?"

"We're here. We're all here, Sash. You're alright," he says, crouching to let her down. "We'll get out in a moment, just- just hold on."

"How are you feeling?" Jon asks gently.

"I... I don't- did I choose right?" Jordan asks, prostrated on his knees and looking at his hands. The ants are crawling over his skin, but they don't hurt him. He's shaking, and Tim imagine he can feel the suffering of every other soul trapped in this domain pouring into him.

"I can't tell you that," Jon says. "I'm sorry."

The man sighs, exhausted. "What am I now?"

"Just another sucker trying his best to do something good with the shitty hand you're dealt," Tim interrupts, shrugging when the newly made avatar whips around to look at him. "It's the best we can do."


"Jon?" Tim mutters quietly later.

The others are sleeping around them, the two of them overlooking the anthill in the distance.

Jon look sideways at him, his eyes dark and tired and sad, and the Desolation burns hotter in Tim's stomach.

"Yes?"

"I'm- I know it doesn't mean anything, after all that's happened," he says, feeling steam curling from the corners of his eyes. "But I'm proud of you. For- you know. Giving him the choice."

Jon looks at him for the longest time, but he doesn't respond.

Instead he turns to look forward again, and Tim can see the corner of his mouth curl into a little, barely-there smile.


"Hey," Basira greets by the entrance of the chamber, and Melanie turns towards the sound of her voice. "We're making dinner, thought I'd let you know."

"We?" Melanie arches an eyebrow, and chuckles in response to Basira's snort.

"Daisy and the others are making dinner," she amends. "Georgie should be back soon, too."

"Yeah... yeah, that's good," Melanie moves towards her, and reaches out with a hand. Her fingers make contact with Basira's elbow, to let her know the woman's general location before the limb retreats to give her space. 

The two of them walk down the corridor in silence, Melanie stepping carefully with a hand pressed against the wall.

"How's Daisy doing?"

"Honestly?" Basira snorts by her side. "She's better than ever. It's- the Hunt hasn't left her, you know?"

"Yeah?" Melanie hums. She can certainly still feel the woman's tension whenever they're in a room together, like a coiled spring, like a snare ready to snap.

"Mhm. But it's like- I think she hates the Eye so much that hunting the drones is enough for her," she says, amused.

"Well, that's good for us." Melanie shrugs; there's not much to say about it, is there? Basira is solutions-driven, if something is working according to her plan, then it's working great. It certainly came in handy when the Institute was their fortress. It certainly comes in handy now.

They walk in silence for another stretch of tunnel, Basira gently nudging her elbow when they come to a turn.

"I... I want to think she's also- that protecting people helps her too." Basira's voice breaks the peace again, a lot more muted this time. Melanie arches an eyebrow, narrowing her eyes as she focuses on her companion.

"But?"

"But nothing, that's it," Basira sighs. "I want to think so, but I know it doesn't work that way. It's just wishful thinking."

Melanie nods, humming.

"So I know you know things and yadda yadda, so don't take this the wrong way, but... We don't really know, do we?" she says at last, then continues when Basira stops walking. "We're going off of what Elias let us know. What the Entities let us know. Gerry always told me people really have only ever guessed at what they want, if they can really want anything."

"I mean... They're our fear. What else could they possibly want?" Basira's voice sounds... different. Fragile in a way she's never heard it before, and Melanie knows any semblance of hope Basira's harboring right now is not for her, but for this woman that has caused so much harm and that she loves so much.

She's met fools like her before, she thinks fondly.

"It bugs me to say it, but I think our best shot at knowing for good is still on his way here," she says in the end.

Basira stays quiet for a long, tense moment, and she waits as patiently as she can. It's not her strong suit, but the apocalypse has given her plenty of practice.

"Have you forgiven him?" Basira asks finally.

Melanie hums, tapping the heel of one shoe against the tip of the other, running a nail along one of the cracks in the stone of the tunnel, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth.

Jon is... A sensitive topic.

Even without Gerry or Georgie here to advocate for him, Melanie can -reluctantly- admit that she harbors the man no ill will, not even after everything that happened.

Because of everything that happened, maybe.

Gerry's words from so long ago come back to her; 'If you're going to blame Jon for all that's happened to you, you might as well blame yourself for knowing Jon. That's how much choice he had in the matter, or how much you did.'

"I don't know that I'm- what right do I have to forgive him or not?" she says in the end. "What do I know? I wasn't really his fault, was it?"

She hears some ruffling clothes, and can imagine Basira giving a brusque, annoyed shrug.

"It all happened because of him, didn't it? Because Elias chose him," she says. "If Daisy can't wash her hands off of it, if I can't-"

"Well... Yes?" Melanie cuts her off. Tact isn't one of her many talents, and she's never presumed otherwise. "You don't blame the dog that bit you for having to get your rabies shots, Basira, it didn't choose to be sick."

"Jon's not a dog, though. Jon chose-"

"Would you have chosen different?" Melanie arches an eyebrow. "If your options were dying or not? What makes you think you'd have chosen right?"

"...Let's keep going," Basira grunts before she starts moving again, and Melanie following at a more sedate pace.

The tunnel around them echoes with their steps and their unsaid words alike.

"I don't- it's not that I like him. I don't think I ever will," Melanie starts again after a few more steps. "I look at him and I see a lot of things I don't necessarily like about myself, and it's easier to hate someone else, you know? It's easier to berate him for not changing, for not fixing those things, than it is to actually change or fix them myself."

"You didn't end the world," Basira mutters.

"I could've," Melanie shrugs. It hurts a little to admit it, but she's had plenty of time to give the matter some thought. "I had one brush with the Stranger and I upended my life, remember? Went all over and got into all sorts of shit just looking for an answer. Sometimes I'm still angry about it, sometimes I still think if- if I'd let sleeping dogs lie, I could've stayed out of it. Could've had my own cozy spot in torture row. But it doesn't work like that, does it? Not when the Web is involved."

"What, you think you got marked because that way you'd eventually mark Jon?" Basira asks; Melanie doesn't need to see to know she's raising her eyebrow at her. "That sounds like a reach to me."

"What part of everything that has happened in the past four years doesn't sound like an insane coincidence to you, Basira?" Melanie asks dryly. "A man got brought back from the dead so Jon could have a supportive boyfriend because you and I weren't doing the job, giving supernatural violence powers to a woman with anger issues that happens to dislike Jon a lot so he can get a surprise piercing sounds like the least unlikely part of this mess to me."

She sighs, before continuing. "In any case, I don't think Jon needs any outsourcing on the 'hate Jon' department. I'm actually wondering what sort of dumbass scheme of his we'll have to thwart so that he doesn't kill himself while trying to fix this."

"...You think he doesn't plan on coming out alive?"

Melanie shrugs. "I think he wouldn't mind if he doesn't. Seems like good penance, no?"

As they move down the tunnels they can hear the sound of voices growing louder, just quiet conversations had around a boiling pot. It's funny, how the ritual of cooking can make even the end of the world feel normal.

"...Daisy would be sad," Basira mutters quietly.

Melanie stops by the threshold of the chamber where the group is gathered, turning slightly towards her.

"You wouldn't?"

"You would?"

Melanie clenches her hand around the threshold until the harsh edges of the rock dig into her skin. Pain has a way of clearing her mind, even now.

"I think I would."

"For Gerry?"

She reaches up with a finger to twist and pull at a lock of her hair. The edges are burnt and frayed from the dye and the notorious lack of hair-care treatments in the Watcher's world, and just like pain it serves to remind her that she's human. Alive.

"I think he deserves some peace too."


They're walking.

It's not unusual, they're always walking, but Martin still likes to watch the scenery go by; the world is broken and agonizing, but there's something enthralling about it.

He's not sure if it's his new nature as an avatar that gives him a sort of perverse, guilty pleasure from watching, or maybe just his penchant for finding beauty in sadness that has saved his sanity so many times before and that he's once again using as a way to cope.

The landscape is grey and barren, with small, sickly-looking things attempting to grow here and there like the very idea of life is reticent at abandoning this world, like it wants to try and reach out to the sun one last time, even when the star has been gone for a while. It's all dimly illuminated by the glowing green of countless eyes staring down in impassive, unimpressed judgement, looking for something new to watch, something else to focus their terrible attention on.

Jon has said they feel restless, like they're waiting for a new change. Martin didn't specially like the uncertain, tired way he said it, but he didn't have the energy to ask him to elaborate, figuring that either Gerry will drill him about it later, or he knows already and isn't worried, which are both good enough scenarios.

Everything feels just good enough lately, not worth digging in deeper. It's a change he should be alarmed by, but given the circumstances, he can understand.

He'd acted surprised and somewhat crossed when the revelation about his domain came out, but truth to be told he's felt it coming for a while now. The closer they grow to it, the number he feels, the grayer the world looks.

It feels dangerously close to his worst days working under Peter, when he'd lock himself in the kitchenette behind Elias' office and just disappear for a while.

Having the others help.

Not a moment goes by in which he's not being touched, an arm over his shoulder, around his waist, a hand on his. They speak to him, or at him, when he doesn't respond, focusing on things they know he likes- or dislikes, he thinks with a little smile.

Gerry will tell him at length of all the little upgrades he wants to make to the cottage, while Jon rambles off lists of materials and prices and occasionally complains that they won't take his suggestions into account.

"-and do you really need to plant tulips on your garden? They're toxic to cats."

"We don't have any cats, love," Gerry says, nudging Martin's side gently.

"I know we don't have a cat," Jon stammers indignantly, "but uh- if there are any cats in the neighborhood, it could be dangerous for them."

"You know what? You've got a point. We definitely wouldn't want to put the imaginary neighbor's imaginary cat in danger, right Martin?"

Martin snorts; his breath comes out like a puff of cold steam and swirls around them like mist.

"We could get a dog. That would keep the imaginary cats out of Gerry's cat-unfriendly garden," he says after taking a moment to thaw Martin's thoughts out of the Lonely's ice.

Jon gapes at him like a betrayed fish, Gerry cackles in delight, and Martin feels more like himself as they start arguing about whether or not they'll need to build a little doghouse.

(They probably will, Martin thinks. He can't see either of them denying Gerry any opportunity to live a normal life. And a dog sounds nice.)

Tim is surprisingly quiet when he tells him his plans for the future, like he doesn't want anyone but Martin to hear; he's not sure if he doesn't want to bother the others, or if it's just the sort of anxiety with which you zealously keep a birthday wish to yourself in the childish hope it'll become true someday.

"I think I'll stay in London for a bit. I mean, when London is back to being regular hell instead of eldritch hell at least," he says. "I don't know- I'd like to stay with her, but I'm not sure what Sash is planning on."

"Have you asked her?"

"I haven't. It's not like I have any right to ask anything of her either way... I'm not- I barely let anyone know me at the Archives, and I'm a different person now."

"I think we all are, Tim," says Martin, who doesn't feel too much like a person at the moment, different or otherwise. "I think Sasha especially would understand that."

Tim snorts. It sounds a bit desperate.

"Yeah... so many people are Sasha now, Martin. It's like I'm getting to know a new person every day, but she's still her, you get me? I keep fearing one day she'll wake up and decide none of her likes the person I am now."

Martin nods quietly.

"I worry about that too, sometimes." He nods towards Jon and Gerry, who are bickering about something or another as they walk a few steps ahead, with Sasha piping in every now and then with an amused chuckle.

Tim scowls. "They love all of you, Martin. We all do. Even the ugly parts, because it's you."

His words wash over Martin's chest like a torrent of warm water, and his mouth twitches a little, not quite a smile but rather the insinuation of one, as he looks at Tim out of the corner of his eye.

"You're right. Bit dumb to worry about that, no? After everything we've been through."

"Exactly! It's not-" Tim stops mid-sentence, frowning. Martin's not-smile widens a little under Tim's accusing glare. "You've been spending too much time with Gerry."

Martin shrugs calmly, enjoying Tim's sullen indignation.

(He loves him, loves all of them, even the ugly parts. Even though the Lonely still pinches at him whenever the feeling blossoms in his chest, shying away from it like a cockroach crawling back under the bed.)

Sasha speaks to Martin like he was still the Martin from before, and it's by far the most jarring of them all.

It makes him actually feel like that man, sometimes. Like everything that's happened has left no imprint on him, and he's still unbroken and whole.

"You know what I miss the most?" she asks, looping her arm with his. He forces himself to not flinch at the contact. "The coffee dates at your flat. It was just- I guess that's why the ants really wanted me, hah. It felt sort of like a family thing to me, stopping by the bakery to get a little cake before going to yours, and just... talking."

"I liked them too," Martin said. He really did, back when he was desperately searching for a scrap of companionship. He's not sure he would like them now, but he thinks it might be one of those things he wants to do even though they're uncomfortable, because it feels like cleaning a wound. "Maybe we could have them again after everything is back to normal."

"With you up at Scotland?" Sasha arches an eyebrow. "We would need to make a weekend out of it."

"You can bring two cakes, then." Martin shrugs, and smiles a little when Sasha chuckles in response. "Or we can go to one of the cafes in town, they're good."

"I still can't believe you really ended up living your little cottagecore dream," she says, rolling her eyes. "You got lucky, Mister Blackwood."

"The world ended three months in, Miss James."

"We'll get you three more decades, and we can go grab a coffee at your little cafes once a month." Sasha pats his arm with her free hand. "Was it all you dreamed of? Dirty towels aside?"

"Dirty towels included," Martin rolls his eyes fondly, gently extricating his arm from her grip; it feels a little like it's burning him, and letting go brings him an immediate boost of relief. "I... I think."

"-ou think?" Sasha asks. Her voice sounds a little too far away. Martin keeps walking; he felt like he needed a little distance anyways. "-artin?"

"It's alright," he mutters without looking at her. The silence and the cool mist feel soothing to him after so much interaction, like taking your shoes off after a long day of walking.

"Martin?!" Gerry's voice says somewhere to his left. He sounds alarmed, and it makes something hurt in his chest, but he can't stop moving, can't look back.

"Martin!" Tim's voice also sounds like it's reaching him through water, echoing oddly around him until all emotion is stripped from it and it's just a word.

Just a word.

The thick white fog that has descended over the grey wasteland of the apocalypse lights up with the glow of two sharp green eyes, and a fourth, much more powerful voice resonates over what seems to be the entire world.

"He'll find the way back," it says. It sounds like a prophecy rather than an observation, and the Lonely cannot strip this voice of its emotion, of the firm serenity with which it enunciates the words. "You had plans for those carrots, remember? You can even name the dog."

Martin nods to himself, and takes another step forward.

 

And 

 

        Martin Blackwood

 

                                        Fades.

Chapter Text

XXXIII

His domain is... quiet.

For a while it feels like there simply isn't anything there, and Martin rolls his eyes as he walks deeper and deeper into the empty, fog-covered expanse. Of course.

Hah hah, here's Martin Blackwood, and he's so unimportant that even the geographical representation of his inner demons is literally nothing; very on the nose if you ask him, but the Watcher is not particularly subtle.

In any case, this is a good respite. The Lonely soothes his nerves like cool balm on a burn, and he's pleasantly surprised to notice it doesn't feel like it's pulling him in, but rather like it's settling around him like a protective dome, a little place of solace away from the Beholding's resentful glare.

He knows he's not alone with the same certainty with which he was aware of every single person roaming the institute back during his worst days with Peter; there's people lost in this place, victims.

Every now and then a distorted, hopeless sob reaches his ears, muted as if the air itself was drinking the sound in, turning tears into more and more thick white fog.

He should feel guilty that he finds it so comfortable, says a little voice in his head, of course it's nice for him, this is his hellish dimension where innocent people are being tortured.

It's not like he can do anything about it though, is it? At least he's not actively feeding on their suffering, like the others were doing. If anything, he's kind of like that Oliver guy, simply... Spectating.

Does that make it alright, though? He's not even trying to do anything, he's just assuming there's nothing to be done.

Or rather, he knows now that whatever there is to be done is not to be done here, that mopping the puddles doesn't fix anything unless you patch the leak.

Still, the others would be disappointed to see you, just a sad, mediocre man that pretends he's better than the other monsters just because you're doing the bare minimum.

He stops walking, letting the wisps of fog swirl slowly around him.

"That was a bit too much, if you were aiming for 'subtle and insidious," Martin says after a moment of quiet contemplation.

"I noticed... I guess even your self-hatred speech is stagnant by now," Martin replies.

Martin -the real one, or so he hopes at least- turns to look at the owner of the voice. He's not terribly surprised to find a mirror image of himself; his eyes tired and grey and barely visible behind the fogged-up glasses, his face devoid of any expression and his hands crammed inside the pockets of this jacket, looking Martin up and down with an unimpressed stare.

"Gerry would be trying to help people, at least," the other Martin says.

Martin arches an eyebrow.

"Would he? I'm pretty sure this apocalypse has taken a toll on even his optimism." He shrugs. "He'd be pretty cross that he can't do anything though, I'll give you that."

"Wow. Cynicism really isn't a good look on us," the shadow deadpans.

"I don't know, I met a couple guys who like it," Martin smiles, aiming to copy that absurdly infuriating smirk Gerry used to give him back at the Archives to mess with him.

His reflection's mouth curls in distaste, much to his delight.

"You're being very casual about this."

"Maybe." Martin turns to keep walking, the Other Martin falling into step with him. "But I'm not afraid. This place is not for me, it's mine; I know I could send you away whenever."

"You won't, though."

"We're both well aware of my self-flagellating tendencies, I think."

They walk in silence for a while, though a minute or ten Martin couldn't possibly tell. They come across some quiet sobbing every now and then, but the mourners- the victims are not visible through the dense white fog, nor are their slurred words understandable.

"Do they all have one like you?" Martin asks.

The Other Martin nods.

"They're the only ones that can hear them, though. We say everything that must be said but that you're afraid to hear."

"Is that so?" Martin hums. "I think we want to hear it, actually. It hurts a lot less when we say it ourselves... at least that way we don't have to hear others telling us."

"Hm," his reflection hums, before going quiet for another long moment. "You don't think they resent you? Any of them?"

"Of course I think they do," Martin rolls his eyes. "You're going to have to be a bit more specific."

"You're the least remarkable of them all. You're a liar and a manipulator, not particularly smart or skilled either- what right did you have to be the last one standing?" The Other Martin tilts his head to the side, looking at him. "What right to be the last one to change, and with the least violence? Why did they have to suffer so much more than you did, when it's you who deserves it?"

Martin mulls on this for a few minutes.

"It's a game of fear. I think it makes sense I would win it," he shrugs at last. "I've always been terrified, even before the supernatural started creeping up. I was afraid of people getting close to me, of people not getting close to me, of people finding out I was lying- I was- I'm just surprised I wasn't Elias' first choice."

"Hm," the Other Martin hums noncommittally.

"It's because I wasn't marked by the Web, isn't it?" Martin asks.

The Other Martin turns his head to look at him with a little tired smirk. His hair swings with the movement, and four small beady eyes blink cheekily at him from his forehead, before they're covered again.

"Not in a way that mattered," he says. "Besides, you're too... hopeful. Jon is a pessimist, he was easier to break."

"You'd be surprised. Gerry's been a good influence on him."

"Interesting that you don't mention yourself in that statement."

"Is it, really?" Martin arches an eyebrow. "But I guess you're right. I- I was still hoping for someone to help me, even when the Lonely got me."

"Well, yeah. I mean, look at you, here you are in the middle of an apocalypse and you're still thinking you're going to get to the Panopticon, pull a lever and have your happy ending, just like that."

"We're also going to kill Elias," Martin says, shrugging. Then after a couple moments, he sighs. "I'm not fooling myself. I know the chances of this ending right are... very slim. But you said it yourself, that's how I am. How we are. It wouldn't be us if we didn't have any hope left, even after everything that's happened. Am I wrong?"

The Other Martin does not respond for a long time, and Martin smiles sadly to himself. It's both telling and heartbreaking that even this mirror version of himself isn't entirely gone. Maybe it's intentional? What good would there be to his suffering if it was so absolute that Martin simply didn't care anymore?

"You're not staying, then?" his reflection asks.

"I'm not," Martin says. "I'm... I feel bad for them, you know? Everyone trapped in here."

"Hm."

"They probably matter so much to someone."

"Just not themselves," says the Other Martin, and Martin nods.

"I'm ready to go out now," Martin says, and he feels the Lonely's cold tendrils wrapping around him. It wants him to stay, but they're waiting for him.

They have an apocalypse to fix.


Jon doesn't stop walking after Martin fades into thin air.

Martin's domain is not a place, he knows, just like the things Martin fears the most have never been physical, external things.

He's walking with them behind the protection of his loneliness, he just has to find his way back, and they'll be there for him. Always.

He doesn't exactly say this. He thinks Gerry knows anyways, but he doesn't say anything either. It feels... sweet. Like the two of them are in on a secret.

"There's the next one," he says quietly when the house comes into view.

The building is an exercise in contradictions; it looks small but the shadow it projects is huge, it has two storeys, three, one, the windows are round and square and rectangular and the dozen or so chimneys curl like brick-red columns of twirling smoke.

"...It feels familiar," Tim mutters by his side, and Jon nods. 

"It would, for you. You've been inside her a couple times."

"I wasn't much of a fan, to be honest," Tim sighs. "No offense, Helen."

"Well, clearly there's no accounting for taste, dear," says Helen, popping out of her door a bit to their left. "No offense to most of the present company."

"Huh," Sasha pipes in. "I'll be honest, all this time I thought your 'domain' was just being generally confusing around people. I didn't think you'd have a regular one."

"Nothing regular to this situation, Sasha," Jon sighs. There's a certain weight in his chest that he sadly recognizes, and he takes a deep breath to try and stave it off, but he knows it won't last.

"Why aren't you in there?" Gerry asks, raising an eyebrow.

Helen shrugs. 

"I don't like being in there," she says simply.

"That's... Good? I guess," Gerry scowls. "Can you-"

'The Distortion is afraid. She's not sure if it's Helen Richardson's fear, or the Distortion's itself. She doesn't know that there's a difference anymore.

Her labyrinth is beautiful, but lately, she fears traversing it. 

When the world changed to reflect its new patron, she felt the shift inside herself, felt the house spawning off the ground like a sickly plant, growing room by room as it filled with more and more unfortunate humans for her to feast on. 

She visited once before looking for the Archive; maybe simply curious, maybe intent on proving a point to herself.

She made the front door of the house her own yellow, hypnotizing one, before stepping into the corridor with the confidence of one who owns the place. She runs across one of her guests immediately, a young man with tear-streaked cheeks and bruised knees from falling to the ground in despair so many times after yet another wrong turn, here in this place where right turns are simply put, an impossibility.

Helen crouched before him, tilting her head to the side to evaluate him more closely. 

The man- the boy, barely a few days into his sixteen birthday when the world changed, though she wouldn't have known that, was always sharp. Too sharp maybe, according to his friends and teachers, according to his father after his smart eyes caught sight far too many times of unfamiliar shades of lipstick on the collars of his shirts. He loved details, patterns and puzzles he could unravel and put back together in the blink of an eye, and he was always so proud of his mind.

At that moment, he was curled in on himself, rocking jerkily back and forth and scratching at his forearm with his nail, muttering something low under his breath. 

"Left. Left but also right, at this corner," he was saying when Helen leaned in to hear. "There's the- the painting with the ship. Not the one with the birds, the one with- maybe it has both-"

He scratched and scratched, and lines of angry red raised on his skin crisscrossing and doubling back and going all the way from his elbow to his wrist.

He was drawing a map, and the Distortion recoiled from him as though she'd been burned, as though his presence was at risk of unraveling her existence.

Someone else drew a map, once.

Someone else clung desperately to her sanity as reality lost meaning around her, as it -as she was unraveled thread by thread and rewoven with the bright yellow fibers twisted into her very being.

A map that does not work, in a place that can't be mapped.

The Distortion left her domain without looking back, paying no heed to the desperate cries coming from between the four, ten, twenty walls making up the house, nor of the pangs of delight running through her core at the sound.

It fears. She fears. The nature of the fear is uncertain, but not any less real in its ambiguity. 

Helen Richardson never did finish her map, and for all that the path ahead has never been clearly marked for this entity of confusion, the road is murkier now; the Distortion has never doubted what it wants.

She feels the victims walking inside her corridors, trying uselessly to make heads or tails of her twists and turns, of every single tantalizing door marked as an exit inside her labyrinth; she feels like one of them, and she's not sure if it's the woman or the monster. She's not sure there's a difference anymore.

She only knows the fear

Jon blinks hard until the green sheen of the Beholding fades away, leaving the sight before him barren and grey again. The others are not quite crowded around him, but still focus on him as he comes down from the high of the statement.

"That was rude," Helen says dryly.

"I uh- I'm really sorry, Helen," Jon clears his throat. "I tried to hold it back, if it matters."

Helen rolls her eyes back into her head, then waits for them to roll back into place. "It's the only thing that matters anymore, isn't that what you said?"

"I- it is." Jon nods. "And it matters, that you haven't gone back."

He's aware of the others watching them like a tennis match, witnessing only half the conversation taking place but mildly aware of its importance.

Somehow, Helen looks back towards the house without taking her eyes off Jon.

"I tried to have Melanie's girlfriend get him out. The boy."

"His name-"

"I don't want to know," she cuts him off. "I couldn't find him. He's still in there, but I can't find him."

The admission weighs heavy, and Jon feels all of the anxiety, the fear poured into it.

"You know... You could've ended up very differently," he says in the end. "Worse."

"I've looked into those doors a couple times," Helen mutters under her breath. "Are you going to unmake me now, Jon? It would be a bit poetic, wouldn't it?"

And it would.

Helen merged with the Distortion when she locked the door to help Jon, and now Jon can tear her away from the Spiral, one last time, like he unmade Hopworth. The scar on his stomach aches.

She looked for the boy.

"Jon-" Gerry starts nervously, but Jon simply shakes his head, before focusing on Helen again. His eyes are back to glowing the blinding green of the Watcher, and he can practically see Helen steeling herself for the weight of his words, holding back a sigh at the static rising around them.

"It has to be on your own terms," he says, and the power in his voice is intoxicating, weaving his meaning into the fabric of the world he's made. "It can't take who you are."

Words he said so many months ago, the very words that Helen brought him to pull him back into himself hold even more meaning, now that he declares them with intent.

The static fades slowly as does the green light coming from his eyes, leaving them all in a loaded silence.

Helen nods to herself.

Jon feels his lips curl into a little, uncertain smile.

"...Am I interrupting something?" Martin asks, making them all jump a foot in the air and turn to look at him. He looks a bit transparent and his glasses are frosted over, but when he pulls them off to wipe them clean his eyes are the beautiful, stubborn green-dappled grey from before. "...I'm going to guess that's a yes- hmpfh!"

Jon snorts, heading over to join the Martin group hug at a much more sedate pace.


"So let me get this straight-" 

"That'll be tough," Martin says, his lips curl into a smile at Sasha's amused snort, but Tim simply shakes a hand like shooing away a very annoying fly.

"-your domain, your reign of terror, was just you talking to yourself?"

"Sure was." Martin shrugs. "And honestly? You're all lucky I went in alone. I don't think any of you would've fared too well in there against the other you's. Sasha, maybe?"

She smiles smugly, when the others turn to look at her. Jon chuckles by her side, and she sticks her tongue out. Take that, people with genuine senses of self, she wins this round.

"Gerry might've lasted a couple minutes," Jon says.

"Uh, no. I really don't think so, love," Martin smiles sheepishly. "Sorry."

"That's what a guy loves to hear his boyfriends say," Gerry huffs, rolling his eyes. "Self-hatred is not really my thing, if you really care to know."

"You're dating the wrong couple, then," Sasha snorts.

"That really shouldn't be your trademark, you know?" he observes. Martin and Jon simply shrug in response. 

"In their defense, it's the group's trademark, I think," Tim pipes in. He's not looking at anyone in particular, probably so that no one can accuse him of coming to intercede on Jon's behalf, Sasha thinks with a pang of fond amusement. "We had to be nerfed somehow."

"So Sasha has all the hubris?" Gerry smiles at her and she responds in kind, winking.

"Have you met me?" She sticks her tongue out at him again, walking a bit faster to tangle her fingers with Tim's. Behind them, the others fall into an easy silence, or as easy as it can be during the end of the world, she thinks.

Tim is warm, and his hand is soft and pliable under hers- one of her new favorite pastimes is drawing on his skin with the tip of a nail. Usually she smooths them away with the pad of her thumb, but sometimes she leaves them there for him to find later.

'Hi handsome'

'Did I leave the stove on?'

'Do you come to this apocalypse often?'

'Pasta for dinner? Once we have actual pasta and not horror pasta?'

'You forgot you keys :('

'I love you'

They never fail to make him snort and smile fondly at his hand, and Sasha never holds on too long on the sudden urge to go over and hug him. 

Her body is different every time, but he always holds her the same, somehow. An arm around her waist, another behind her neck, and his face pressed to the side of her neck, breathing her in like she's the oxygen he needs to keep burning, like it doesn't matter that he doesn't always know her face, because he knows her, all of her, and he loves her in any and all ways she'll allow him to.

He feels like home in a way the ant colony would've been jealous of, Sasha thinks smugly.

"There's a lot of houses in this apocalypse, Jon," Gerry says suddenly, and she looks up from her most recent message to see what he's on about.

She then blinks a couple times, perplexed.

The dry, grey landscape of the world has shifted around them, tightly pressed dirt transitioning smoothly into dirty concrete that extends into the horizon, bisected by an intermittent white line.

On each side of the street are hundreds, thousands of houses. 

Every single one is a copy of the last, perfect, immaculate constructions with neat grey walls and neat grey doors, and neat grey fogged up windows impossible to look through.

"Always knew the suburbs were a little spooky," Tim mutters by her side, and she squeezes his hand, rolling her eyes. "Is it Stranger? The loss of your identity?

"A little," Jon shrugs. "Mostly Lonely. Every one of the victims trapped in here believes they're the only human beings left in the world. They could come out of their houses and take a look around, knock on a couple doors and find the others, but they're too afraid to do it. The fear at the idea of being alone forever pales in comparison with the possibility of confirming it."

"Was that a statement?" Tim arches an eyebrow.

Jon shakes his head. "Not really. Helen's fear gave the Watcher a lot to think about, if it can even do so."

"How are you feeling?" Sasha turns towards Martin.

He's on Gerry's other side, his hand not quite grabbing his, but rather simply touching the tips of their fingers together as he looks around like a curious puppy. 

"Not too disturbing, if you ask me," he shrugs. "I can feel the people inside, though. They're terrified. It must be exhausting."

Sasha does not comment on how unperturbed Martin sounds at the situation; they haven't ran across any other Stranger domain after the Carousel, maybe she would've felt a similar way? It still unnerves her a little, though, so she clears her throat and nudges his shoulder as she starts walking again.

"So- so you were discussing your little house before you went into your thing, weren't you?" she starts, a bit nervously. "Jon did promise you could name your hypothetical dog. Have you thought about it?"

"I still object to the dog," Jon huffs as the rest of them fall into step with them.

Martin gasps. "Were you lying to me, then?"

"I'm- I wasn't! if we do get a dog-"

"I'd like a dog," Gerry cuts in; Jon headbutts his shoulder and he snorts, pulling him closer by draping an arm over his shoulders. "Wouldn't it be fun, Martin?"

"A big dog," Martin nods solemnly, and Sasha chuckles. Despite the walk through his own domain, Martin seems a lot more in control of himself, almost as if he's come to terms with what he is now.

"One of those goofy, clumsy ones," she pipes in. "Or will that be too much for your little cabin? I don't know if you all are planning on having expensive, fancy decorations."

"Sasha," Tim says dryly, rolling his eyes by her side. "They can't have fancy decorations. if the dog doesn't knock them over, Jon will."

It sends them into hysterics, all except for Jon who's sputtering in indignation with an absolutely betrayed look on his face.

"Very funny," he says after regaining his wits. "What about you two, huh? Where are you going to live?"

Sasha feels her stomach do a somersault as her laughter catches in her throat; her smile freezes for a moment, and she turns to look at Tim. She doesn't think she'll ever get tired of looking into his eyes, no matter their color.

Right now they're crinkled at the corners, a deep, rich brown that makes her think of hot coffee on cold, lazy mornings. 

Her smile softens, and she turns to meet Jon's smug, amused smirk.

"It doesn't matter," she says simply. 

"Anywhere," Tim adds, squeezing her hand.

To Jon's credit, his disappointment at failing to flip the conversation into flustering either of them evaporates in a second, his face merely relaxing into a fond, resigned smile.

"We'll have to keep a guest room ready, then," he says after a moment. "I hope you don't mind sharing with Martin and Gerry's dog."

"We haven't even adopted it, and you're already neglecting your parental responsibilities," Martin snorts. "I'm disappoin-"

"Jon," Gerry cuts in; his voice is intense enough to freeze them all to their spot, and when she looks at him Sasha feels herself tensing up at the bright green of his eyes, glued on a spot behind Jon. "We're here."

Every fiber of her being tells her not to look, but ultimately this is the Beholding's world, which means she has to. When she does, Jon doesn't seem troubled or worried, merely... tired. 

It worries her even more, somehow.

London sprawls before them, a maze of decayed buildings surrounding the Panopticon; the tower itself rises into the sky like a jagged piece of pure-white bone, pointing straight at the largest eye crowning the sky.

Jon stands before it profiled by the eerie green glow, the eye and the tower behind his head like a halo, or a crown.

"It seems so, yes," he says. "Let's get to it, then."


London is... It's bad. 

Gerry had been expecting it, sort of. It just made sense that the worst of the change was contained closest to where the Institute had been. 

Still, walking across the dilapidated streets surrounded by what Jon called 'the drones' is unnerving. The creatures are disconcerting, to say the least; they feel organic, zooming around with wet squelches of flesh, but the only part of their anatomy that's legitimately comprehensible is the lens growing straight out of their leathery, shiny surface. They follow after Jon like puppies, merely avoiding any attempt any of them makes at pushing them away, and Gerry hates them.

The way to the Panopticon is easy to follow; it feels as though it's coded into his very cells -which is probably true-, pulling him towards where his patron, his maker is strongest. The streets are grey and deserted, broken up into major boulevards that presumably lead to the domains sprinkled here and there for the Eye to watch.

The five of them are quiet as they walk.

Jon's eyes -and Gerry presumes his own as well- haven't stopped glowing green; Sasha looks away whenever one of the drones fixates on her, and Martin remains slightly transparent to avoid their gazes as well. Tim is quite literally fuming, emitting so much heat the drones give him a wide berth, buzzing angrily in their frustrated desire to get closer to Jon, which would be funny if this entire situation wasn't a glaring reminder of their situation, beyond the geographical.

They made it to London, and they still don't have a plan to revert the change.

He knows the key lies with Jon- one doesn't have to be Martin to figure it out. It was his power and his connection to the Entities that brought on the transformation, he has to have the ability to change it back. Gerry's mostly just worried about the cost; he knows it's never cheap, with these things. Melanie lost her eyes, his father lost his life, Georgie lost her fear, and neither of them were as deeply entangled with the fears as any of them are, most of all Jon. What will it cost them to go back to a reality that isn't rooted in fear?

Jon's fingers tangle gently in his, and he gives them a squeeze.

What will it cost Jon to unmake a  world it took him a life of hurt to create?

"We're here," Jon announces, stopping by his side.

Before them waits the Panopticon, its tip lost in the clouds it pokes through and illuminated in eerie green light. Its walls are smooth white marble, cold and free of any blemishes or cracks, and standing firm against scratches and shoves and punches and kicks, Tim's red-hot hands and anything else they can muster to try and open it up.

"Is there any way to climb it?" Martin mutters to himself.

"...Martin, it's the tallest formation in existence right now," Jon says.

"That's not a response to my question."

Jon rolls his eyes, leaning against Gerry. "It's a no on climbing it, love."

"Well, we have to find a way in," Martin huffs angrily, stomping away. "I'll go find something else."

"Hey, let's not separate now!" Sasha calls out as she trails after him. "Tim, come on."

"Are you staying?" Tim gives them a look over his shoulder, and Jon waves him away.

"We'll be fine. Try to keep Martin from doing anything too radical," he says.

Tim rolls his eyes with a smile. "You and I both know that's impossible."

Jon smiles. "I trust you to try anyways."

Tim's voice moves around some unsaid words, his eyes both somehow soft and pained as he looks back at Jon.

"Tim! Martin thinks he found an axe!" Sasha's gleeful voice says from somewhere further away.

And then he's sprinting away, and both of them chuckle under their breath as he disappears from sight. They stand there in silence after that, their hands tangled together and Jon leaning against his side; Gerry gets the sudden thought that it's the first time the two of them are alone ever since the world went to pieces, and he drapes an arm over Jon's shoulders to bring him closer.

"You know I can hear your thoughts, don't you?" Jon snorts after a moment.

"Hm... So you don't think Martin is hot when he's angry?" he asks. Jon pointedly looks away, and Gerry grins triumphantly to himself, before sobering up. "Jon."

He doesn't voice the question; Jon doesn't need to hear it in order to know it, just like Gerry didn't need to ask to know Jon was keeping something to himself.

It takes a few moments, before Jon finally turns back to him, sighing.

"I have to ask it to open, and it will," he says quietly. The words taste metallic and stuffy, like the taste you get when your throat tightens up before you cry, and it makes Gerry's chest clench like a weigh has been placed on it.

"And why haven't you?" he asks, his voice a mere whisper barely audible amongst the buzzing of the drones surrounding them. 

Jon looks up into his eyes, his own looking green and wide and sad.

"I'm not ready."

"Jon," he says, and hopes it will taste like he means it, like a prayer, like a wish. "Please don't die. I- or at least don't go into this expecting to die, please."

"I- it's a possibility," Jon sighs again. "We have to be aware of that. But- at least I'm pretty sure you won't die if I do. That's a win in my books."

"It's not on mine," Gerry says firmly. "I- sure. Sure, I can probably survive without you now, but- Jon, I don't want to be without you. Martin doesn't. We want you here, and I need you to want to be here too. Martyrdom sounds good on paper, but we can't love a ghost."

They could, Gerry thinks with a start. If anyone could it would be him and Martin, seeing Jon in every shadow, in every sound, in every scent, loving a memory stubbornly, almost spitefully against a world that dared tearing it from them.

He doesn't want that. He doesn't want their story to be any more marked by pain than it already is.

He's tired.

Jon's arms wrap around his torso, and Gerry opens his eyes when Jon's head comes to rest at his chest, unsure when he closed them in the first place.

"I love you," Jon says. It's sweet and fresh and intense, but it leaves behind an aftertaste of sadness. "I'm going to try my best."

"That's all I'm asking for," Gerry whispers. "Just- who will be mean to us when our housecleaning is not up to standard?"

Jon laughs at that, a genuine, surprised bark of laughter that breaks past his lips almost as though it took him by surprise; Gerry squeezes him tightly. Maybe if he holds him close enough, the world won't take him away.

"Jon? Gerry!" Martin shouts, and both of them whirl around to face his voice, immediately alert.

"Did you find your axe?" Gerry asks, the beginnings of a smile on his lips.

"He found something better," says a new, familiar, loved voice, and if he'd had a heart it would've stopped by now before he even saw Melanie climbing over a pile of debris, one hand on Georgie's supporting arm and another on a piece of rebar she's using to tap around her feet for obstacles. "Took your sweet time, didn't you?"

"Hi, Jon," he thinks Georgie says, but Gerry doesn't stop to listen to Jon's response.

Instead, he's tripping his way over the debris and calling out a hurried "I'm gonna pick you up!", grinning widely when Melanie simply lets go of the rebar and hops in the general direction of his voice.

He catches her, squeezing her tight and twirling her around a couple times, smiling into her hair and feeling like the knot in his chest loosens somewhat at just how hard she's squeezing him back, her legs wrapped around him like a particularly stubborn koala. It suddenly clicks for him that this is the first time they've touched since they visited them at Scotland, that the last time he held her this close was when he took her hand as she aimed the awl at her own eye. That this is the first time he's hugged her at all, and he's missed her so fucking much.

"You're alright," he whispers quietly; he has enough time to lament the sheer amount of emotion poured into his words, he doesn't want to make her uncomfortable and-

"Of course I am. I was waiting for you, dumbass." She headbutts his collarbone hard, and he laughs. "What'cha say? One more hunt?"

"This is very sweet and all, but apparently we have to go back to cult central," Tim says. "Honestly? I'm kind of excited; joining a cult was not on my post-resurrection bucket list."

Gerry's just too sincerely happy to be annoyed at the interruption, turning towards them to find Georgie letting go of the hug she'd wrapped Jon in, and Martin looking at both reunions with a fond smile.

"I uh- are you comfortable with me coming into your place?" Jon asks, fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt. "I'm pretty sure they'd stop following me if I asked, but-"

"Oh, don't worry," Georgie snorts. "They can't follow you where we're going."

"...That sounded nefarious. I'm not the only one that thinks that sounded nefarious as hell, right?" Sasha pipes up, and Melanie snorts, climbing off Gerry and kicking around until he finds her piece of rebar and places it in her hand again. "Jon, is your ex going to kill us?"

"That would be very anticlimactic," Georgie scoffs. "But I'll offer you some Depression Fanta, come on in."

Chapter 34

Notes:

Chapter 34 or as I like to call it, "The One in Which Everyone Has A Heart To Heart With Jon"

CW:
Some mentions of past self-destructive behavior

Chapter Text

XXXIV

Georgie has to admit she'd been somewhat uncomfortable about the idea of bringing in Jon and the others into their little safe haven. 

It's nothing against them in particular, she'd been just as wary when Helen spat out the two women at the entrance to the tunnels, when she and Melanie were coming back from an incursion. She doesn't particularly like it, but she's responsible for these people, and her carelessness has lost her some already; Basira with her glowing eyes and the woman with the sharp gaze that fixed onto the terrified refugees that crowded at their back like a wolf honing in on a herd of sheep had left her with a bad feeling.

Still, Melanie trusted Helen, she trusted those two as well, and Georgie did promise to defer to her judgement when it came to risk-taking. And Georgie keeps to her promises, for better or for worse.

Basira and Daisy worked like a charm in the end, the tunnels have begun to feel safe again with their addition and for all that they make the group nervous, seem to be perfectly safe around them. 

Melanie has the theory that it's precisely the refugee's passive fear that keeps the avatars sated enough to keep them from actively seeking to feed; whatever it is, she'll take it.

Right now however, there's a particular one she wants to see.

She turns the last corner to the furthermost chamber she knows he's sequestered himself in; he dislikes mixing with the refugees even more than they themselves dislike having him around, despite having no idea exactly who he is.

"Hey there," she says softly as soon as she gets a glimpse of him. 

He doesn't need any light to see, so he doesn't bother lighting any torches when the others aren't around. His shining green eyes in the pitch darkness should be startling, but Georgie has lost since forgotten what that jolt of fear in her heart is supposed to feel like. Instead her lips curl into a gentle, fond smile at the familiarity of his puzzled, drowsy expression.

"Were you sleeping?" she asks, stepping towards him.

"I- think?" Jon answers, his voice slow and rough as she sits by his side on the floor. "The tunnels have always been confusing. I'm not completely cut off, but it's enough to distort the influence a little. Ever since I changed, there's very few places where I feel like..."

"Like?" Georgie asks gently when he lets his voice fade into silence.

Georgie wishes she had some light to see him by, but she's never needed sight to read his nervous energy anyways, the tension in his posture, or the anxious fidgeting of his hands. Right now he's curled in on himself, almost as if he dreads grazing her on accident, and she merely leans in towards her until she can bump their shoulders together.

He deflates with an audible sigh, and she snorts, amused.

"Like before," he says after a moment. Georgie feels something in her chest clench at the sheer amount of longing in the two words, at the pain, the regret, the sadness.

She's told herself time and time again that loving Jon is dangerous, but she never does learn.

"We can't ever go back though, can we?" she asks. "Just forward."

"Just forward," he sighs. It sounds tired, before he clears his throat and repeats the words with a bit more bravado. "Just forward. And- yes. Just learn how to- 'before' wasn't perfect either. This can be good too. Or we can make it be so."

Georgie arches an eyebrow as her smile comes back. "That's new. I like the determination. Somehow I expected you'd be a bit more- uh-"

"Pathetic, and wallowing in self-pity?"

"Well, you said it not me. Planning for you own untimely demise, too," she shrugs, and drapes an arm over his shoulders. He comes to rest against her softly, guided by the ease of familiarity. "I wanted to apologize."

"... huh?" 

Grateful for the darkness now, Georgie nods to herself. 

"I- yes. For before."

"Georgie, you- I told you before, you have nothing to apologize-"

"Not for- I'm not saying sorry for taking my distance. I still think that was the right thing to do for me," she says. She's had plenty of time to think about this, what with the apocalypse and all. "I shouldn't have judged you, is all. I don't- I got into a bit of a row with Melanie a bit ago."

"O- oh?" Jon whispers, curious and nervous in equal measure. "Is everything alright?"

"We're fine. We just- I didn't want to-" she's grateful for the darkness in the room now, as it allows her to hide her burning face. She's still embarrassed of her reaction back then, of the fear that wasn't fear. "She had to convince me to help break the others out of the domains. I- Jon, I'm not good at measuring risks."

"I knew that, " Jon says simply. His voice is carefully measured to not let any emotion through, she notices, but it's all too easy to imagine the memories coming to his mind right now. The late night walks, the partying with strangers, the drinking, everything she tried for months right after her encounter with what she now knows was the End, trying her hardest to defy the cadaveric woman's grim prophecy.

'The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one.'

She had been so desperate to feel the very emotion they'd stolen from her, yearning for fear for the very reason living beings yearn for air, for water, for food; could she really be called alive without such an integral, basic emotion? Would she regain it if she looked for it hard enough?

It never worked, and Georgie had eventually resigned herself to the emptiness instilled in her. She could avoid her grim, emotionless death, she thought, if she avoided death altogether.

"You know I stopped all of that. It's- now you know why, I guess. I don't- I just didn't want to give them that win, rushing myself into an early grave trying to search for the fear they took. And at some point it just- I don't think it was apathy, just- it was just easier to turn away whenever anything had shown the slightest indication of being the real deal, you know?" she snorts a little, wet-sounding laughter. "It was a lot easier to simply stick with silly stories I knew to be fake. And when I saw you- I thought it was just you being stubborn, involving yourself in these things even after I warned you against it. I didn't want you to, and when I thought you weren't listening and- I wasn't scared, I couldn't be scared of losing you, but I didn't want to go through the hurt again . And I couldn't put Melanie in danger either, not even when she was so adamant we go around helping- you two are so similar, you know?"

It's Jon's turn to snort now, butting his forehead against her shoulder. "Don't."

"You are!" Georgie laughs. "But I digress. My point is- she was right. Keeping her away from danger, from taking the risk, it wasn't my call to make. And turning away from you might have been the right choice for me, but- but I didn't have any right to make it any harder on you than it already was. And I'm sorry, Jon. I really am."

Jon stays silent for a long, loaded moment. Neither of them makes any move to break apart though, so he's not uncomfortable at least.

"I- thank you. It means a lot to me, Georgie," he says in the end. "It really does. And for all it matters, I think your reactions were reasonable. You're surrounded by fear, even if you don't feel it. It makes sense you'd act in response to it."

"...Wow, you've gotten even better at sounding ominous," she says dryly, and Jon chuckles.

"So I've been told," he mutters. "I'm really glad to see you."

"I am too. It's been hard to explain it to the Admiral why his dad hadn't been around to see him, but to be honest he's got his paws full being the group's therapy animal right now," Georgie jokes.

"He's such a hardworking gentleman," Jon says solemnly. "I'll have to congratulate him when he next has time in his schedule for me."

Georgie nudges his forehead with her own, chuckling fondly.

"Any plans for a half-sibling or two for him in the future?" she asks, "after you three go back to your little cabin?"

The sigh Jon lets out is so long and so defeated it startles a laugh out of her.

"What is it?" she asks.

"I- Georgie, I love them... but they're both dog people."

And even in the darkness she can picture the exact curve of Jon's sad scowl.

"Ah. My condolences."


"And you feel alright?" Jon arches an eyebrow. Laying down with him on the floor of the tunnels feels a little like the days after the coffin, comfortable in that there's just the two of them like it was in the Buried, enjoying the silence with its occasional breaks.

Daisy shrugs by his side. "For now, both of us. Basira gets her fix from finding the- do you know what they are? They were the ones that attacked the group at first, they roam the tunnels."

Jon snorts. "My relatives, you mean?"

Daisy turns to look at him with a raised eyebrow. "I've killed plenty of them and I'm pretty sure none of them had your cheekbones, sir."

He laughs. Daisy has the fleeting thought that it feels a bit weird to joke at a time like this, but she's very aware that all of them, especially him, are on borrowed time, so what better moment? It's the little things, after all.

"Distant relatives, I guess. They're ancient Archivists. What me and Gertrude could've ended up as. The Watcher calls them the Servatoris."

"Hm. Really fond of giving its followers titles, the Watcher," Daisy grunts, rolling her eyes.

"I suppose it is a bit pompous." Jon smiles. "So that's it? She finds them, you hunt them?"

"We keep the others safe." Daisy shrugs again. "It feels like I have a purpose now. The Hunt always did like me having a group to protect. I guess it's just the right one this time." 

Jon smiles sadly, and Daisy averts her eyes. Perhaps it's good that she will never fully be rid of the worst influence of the Hunt, seeing how aware she is now of the atrocities she committed. It will be difficult for her to be lulled back into harming innocents, no matter how much the Entity tries.

"What do you think will happen later? When we fix this?" Jon asks. There's a slight hesitation to his voice before the 'when' is voiced, and Daisy gets the feeling that's not how the sentence was originally composed.

"I... I really don't know," Daisy whispers. Her voice is thin and fragile like it was back when they'd just found each other in the Buried. She feels lost right now like she did back then. "I'm really just making it up as I go. I don't know what I'll do once there's no more Servatoris to hunt, or people to- I guess there will always be people to protect? But I don't know that I'll be the right person to do it. I don't know that I really have the right to do it, after all I did. But I'd like- I'd like to try."

"I think that's what matters," Jon nods. "At least that's what I want to matter."

Silence blankets over them for a long moment, their quiet, slow breathing the only sound in the cavernous room.

Daisy shifts against him, turning to lay on her side instead, and Jon moves to mirror her.

"What is it?" he asks, probably because the tunnels distort his powers enough that he can't outright See the thoughts bubbling in her mind.

"I- Would you take them away?" she asks. "They told me about the Boneturner, and about the ant guy. You can give powers, and take them away. Would-"

Jon grimaces, and it's enough for Daisy to fall silent again. Anything he doesn't want to voice straight away can't be good news.

"Daisy..." he starts. "I- when I did it to Jared Hopworth, it killed him. It killed the Not Them too, and it would've killed Jude Perry if you hadn't gotten to her first. At some point they- it's part of who we are now. If I take them away, it's not dissimilar to taking away your heart or your lungs or your stomach. You'd die. I can't do that."

"Can't?" Daisy arches an eyebrow. She knows him well, and a primal part of herself knows the very, very high limits of his power.

"Do you want to die?" Jon asks.

When he doesn't respond, she heaves a long sigh and nods to herself. "I- I guess I knew already."

Then again, it's a bit selfish to ask for this, when she knows what losing her will do to Basira after she finally seems to have found a way to feed without giving in to the Hunt. It's also a bit selfish to admit that she doesn't want to die at all, now that she has gotten the smallest inkling of hope that she can maybe stay with the woman she loves.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I- it would be unfair to ask you to be the one to kill me. And these-" she clears her throat. "These are a consequence of who I was. I deserve to carry them for as long as I can, and- and I deserve to remember."

Jon says nothing to that, because there's nothing to say. He merely squeezes her hand in his, and they lay together in silence.


The tunnels make him nervous. 

Just like that time with the hunters below the Institute, Tim is very aware that the slightest slip on his part could be catastrophic, that he could bring the place down on a bunch of innocent people who've already suffered enough.

Normally it helps to stick close to Sasha or Martin, who have a knack for keeping him calm. Staying away from Gerry helps as well, since the man tends to get on his nerves even when he isn't trying to, though to be honest Tim gets the feeling it's a mutual situation, which soothes the burn a little.

Right now however, both Martin and Sasha are with the rest of the group, helping with separating some new supplies they found; worm-eaten clothing here, canned food that tastes of sadness there, and Tim doesn't trust himself to be in an enclosed space with everyone else, especially when he's all too aware that his presence is triggering to many of them. Funnily enough, Sasha with her ever-changing looks and Martin with his barely-there presence seem to be the best suited to interacting with humans now.

His feet take him towards the higher levels of the tunnels; the air down here feels moist and stuffy, and it makes him feel less like he's drowning every time he takes a breath- and it's not like anything out there can hurt him anyways.

He doesn't exactly expect to see Jon sitting against the wall by the door to the exterior, but he's not particularly surprised either.

"Hey," he greets. The quiet of the tunnel feels almost sacred, too important to disturb somehow.

"Hi," Jon says, turning to look at him. "Do you want me to leave?"

It does... something to him, to hear Jon ask it so calmly. To see he's become so accustomed to the thought of Tim not wanting him around, even after them getting on more peaceful grounds. He can't exactly name the feeling, but it feeds the Desolation just as good as the grief did.

He hates it.

"Not really," he says, and he's only mildly surprised to notice he actually means it. "Is it okay if I sit?"

"I- uh... yes?" Jon blinks up at him, looking for all in the world like a confused owl, and Tim can't help the snort of laughter that burst past his lips before he leans against the opposite wall and slides to the floor. The tips of his shoes meet with Jon's in the middle of the tunnel, and he gives them a little nudge.

"You come here often?" he asks. The joke feels almost foreign in his mouth, even though he used to make it all the time, delighted in Jon's amused scoff that he tried to pass of as exasperation, the same one he's giving right now, after a moment of quiet disbelief.

"I do, actually," Jon says after a moment. "I like the quiet here, and I don't want to stress anyone out."

"Same," Tim sighs, leaning back against the wall. "...Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Research anymore."

"That particular tornado left a long while ago," Jon sighs. "Do you miss it?"

The question hangs heavy between them, or maybe it's just Tim reading meaning where there is none. Maybe the question really is that simple, maybe it's just a 'do you miss it?' and not a 'do you miss us?', or 'do you miss me?'.

"I do," he answers truthfully, because the answer is the same no matter what the question is. "But it doesn't matter, does it? We were always going to end up here. Or- you, I guess. I'm not too sure I would've come back if-"

'If it wasn't for you.'

Jon's eyes dig into him, and Tim tries to ignore the knowledge that he can probably see past the words he's saying. Past the things he's thinking even, right down to the feelings wrapped around his core.

"...I really am sorry, Tim," he whispers after a moment. "I-"

"What for?" Tim cuts him off. The tunnel is dimly lit by the orange of his eyes, and his heart is beating madly in his chest; the hostility boiling in his stomach tastes like pain once it reaches his mouth, and he needs this answer, has needed it for a while, but perhaps now is the first time he's truly been ready to hear it, here sitting at the mouth of a tunnel with the man that turned his life upside down after years of helping him rebuild it. "What are you sorry for, Jon?"

It's- he knows better now than to simply put it all on him. Jon wasn't the one pulling on the thread that took Danny away, that dragged him to the Institute, that pulled him back out of his burning grave.

He knows by now that that's not what the fire at his core is burning for.

Jon is still looking at him. His eyes are sad and tired, and his lips are pursed tight in a way Tim recognizes from before, the expression he used to make when he was holding back emotions he didn't not want to let out.

"...Jon-"

"I'm sorry I hurt you," Jon blurts out. "I'm- there were a lot of things that happened, but- but that's what I regret the most. I trusted you from the beginning, and I should've trusted you when it mattered the most. I was afraid, but you- I should never have doubted you."

Tim lets out a deep, shaky breath. What do you do when you hear the words you've been waiting for so long that you forgot you wanted them in the first place?

"I-" he starts, but his voice falters for a second, a thick cloud of steam bursting from his lips. "Yeah. I- thank you. I'm-"

"You don't have to say anything," Jon interrupts him this time. Either Tim's turmoil shows on his face, or Jon just knows him that well.

"I do," Tim sighs. "I'm sorry too. I- we really fucked up, didn't we?"

Shorter, heavier words hang in the air between them, words they never pushed themselves to say when it mattered. Words they weren't ready to deal with at the time.

Tim followed Jon down to the Archives for a reason, and it never really went away, even after it became a broken, jaded thing. Maybe that's why everything that happened after hurt so bad.

"We did," Jon says in the end. He moves to nudge Tim's shoe with his, and his lips curl into a sad, lopsided smile. "But hey, you're- you're free now. You and Sasha both."

Tim nods slowly to himself. Looking at Jon is a bit too much right now, but he keeps his eyes focused somewhere on the wall next to his head, so he can see his face out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm- it's good that you have them too. Both of them. They're good for you," he grunts. They really are, the Desolation whispers inside him. They anchored Jon where he failed, they brought out the hope and the determination Tim himself lost years ago.

"They... they are. They're good for each other too. I'm glad they're together and- yes," Jon says softly, almost to himself, and something in his voice sends alarms blaring up in Tim's mind.

He looks at him then, his dark eyes are locked down on the tips of their shoes, and his smile has become sadder. Bittersweet, somehow. It makes a pit open at the mouth of his stomach, and Tim clenches his fists so hard he feels his fingers sinking in the wax of his palms.

"Jon."

Jon doesn't quite look up, but the stiffening of his shoulders is all too familiar to Tim. This time however, he figures Jon's hiding something a tad more important than simply purchasing tickets for a movie he knows Tim will hate.

"Yes?" the Archivist, the voice of this world, whispers quietly.

Tim's heart speeds up again.

"I can forgive you for- just once, though," he stammers through clouds of steam and half-formed thoughts. "Don't do it again. Don't do it to them."

Jon looks up; his eyes are tired and sad, and so afraid. Tim remembers standing across his desk once, promising he'd find the man that spoke of Gertrude's death and bring him to the Institute- anything to assuage the fear in those eyes.

"I don't want to," Jon's voice is shaky when he speaks. "I- Tim, I really don't want to."

"Then- then we can think of something," Tim grunts. "Just- don't pull away again."

"I- yes. Y- we will."

It sounds hollow, and it makes Tim's throat tighten and his stomach hurt, but it's all he can do to move across the corridor to sit next to Jon instead. 

They'll figure something out. He's not going to fail again.


"Have you seen Jon?" Gerry asks behind him.

Martin takes a moment to place down the can of soup he was sorting, and turns around to face him.

"I thought you could always feel where he was," he says quietly. 

"I can. I- he's up by the entrance. Sasha says she thinks Tim went up too," Gerry sighs; his face falls somewhat, but Martin somehow doubts it has anything to do with his dumb little rivalry with Tim. "I just wanted to know if you've seen him or-"

"Or if he's avoiding me too?" Martin completes, when Gerry's voice peters out into another sigh.

"I- yeah. He's doing it, isn't he?" Gerry runs a hand through his hair, coming over to lean heavily against Martin's side. "I don't like it."

"I don't, either," Martin gives a sigh of his own and drapes his arm around Gerry's shoulders, leaning down to lay a kiss on the top of his head. "But I guess- as long as he's not lying to us, it's alright if he needs space."

"It worries me. You know as well as I do that he usually hides before he pulls something outrageously dumb."

"Are we talking about the rib again?" Martin snorts.

"Or the coffin, if we're counting them separately," Gerry grunts. "I just want to know what he's planning, so we can- Does that make me a control freak?"

Martin leans a kiss on his cheek, before pulling him down so they can both sit down on the floor. "I think it makes sense, considering what you've been through. I know it's not that you don't trust him, it's more that you need to help, and not knowing how to help is driving you nuts."

"That's... a fair assessment," Gerry deflates against his side. "I have a bad feeling about it, Martin. I don't- he's been too quiet about whatever it is he's planning. I'm- I'm afraid he's going to just throw himself onto the sword because he thinks he deserves some kind of penance for having been tricked into this."

Martin nods, tightening his arm around Gerry. This isn't something either of them can fix, but also not something they can ignore.

"I know. I'm- I don't want him to go either," he says, and he's surprised he doesn't immediately feel the protective pull of the Lonely, trying to draw him into the familiar, numb emptiness. "Not again. I don't- I barely survived the first time, you know?"

Gerry squeezes an arm around his waist, lightly headbutting his shoulder. "You're not alone now," he says in a quiet, careful whisper. "And I will- I'll do anything I can to keep him here. I told him back at the Panopticon, we don't want to live without him. We want him here, with us."

"How did that go?" Martin asks, trying his best to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He's well acquainted with Jon's self-sacrificing nature, and where it usually leads to.

"I think... Martin, I think he's afraid," Gerry says quietly. "That's worse somehow, you know? Back when- back at the Institute, right after we returned from Ny Alessund, there was this time I went to see you. I wanted to tell you how we'd done on the trip, let you know that Jon was okay, that you were right and Tim hadn't even tried to hurt him, and you-"

"I sent you away," Martin cuts him off. The memory should be hazy with salt and fog, but it remains sharp because it hurts, he supposes. "I said- I wanted to make you leave. Partly because I knew Peter was listening, but also because it was too much. I'd just- he locked me in the Lonely, you know?"

"...What?"

"Mhm. From the moment you left, pretty much," Martin sighs. "Between you and Tim, I wasn't giving in at the pace he expected, and it was a way to speed it up. When you showed up at my door, it was like- it burned, pretty much."

Gerry lets out a low, long exhale, processing the information in silence.

"We all knew he'd done something to draw you in," he mutters after a while. "I- I should've insisted that Tim-"

"Gerry, you can't always be there, love," Martin says as gently as he can. "It's not your fault."

His words are followed by a tense, sorrowful silence; Martin is all too aware Gerry doesn't want to believe it, but can't refute it. Gerry doesn't know how to work without making himself responsible for everything bad that he couldn't stop, which is something he regretfully shares with Jon.

"I- what I was saying," Gerry speaks at last, his voice thick and hoarse with emotion, "is that when- that time Lukas came out to chase me away, I looked back as I was leaving and I- your eyes, Martin."

"...My eyes?"

"They were- there was green in them, Martin. It was still you," he whispers, and maybe Martin can't taste emotions in his words like Gerry can in Jon's, but it doesn't take any supernatural connections to feel the grief in his voice. "I walked away because you told me to, but I knew you wanted me to help. A part of you at least didn't want me to leave you there, and I did. I feel- I feel like Jon is asking for help, and we're not-"

"Gerry," Martin says as gently as he can, and it's enough to stop him on his tracks. "We're doing what we can, and we'll be there when he needs us. I- whatever you two decide to do, wherever you two decide to go, I'll follow. But we can't- Jon needs to make his choice first. He needs to- you have to trust him a little, you know? I- he's very stubborn," he snorts.

It sounds a little wet even to his ears, just like Gerry's answering laugh. It's an abrupt, sad reminder that both of them have had very bad experiences with people returning the love they give out. With people wanting them back.

"I can only trust that he wants to stay with us, because then I know he'll find a way," Martin adds, squeezing Gerry a bit tighter. "Trust him too, will you?"

"I- I do," Gerry mumbles in the end. "I love you."

It's said like a prayer, whispered against the skin of his neck like a kiss, and Martin turns around to press their foreheads together.

"I love you too."


It's late.

It's a manner of speaking, of course; there's no time in the Watcher's world save for the one its Archivist wants it to be, and lately, that's always just late.

He's roaming the tunnels, and he chuckles a little to himself when the thought occurs to him that he's essentially joining the other Servatoris in their endless crawl. They really aren't that different, he thinks. He takes a bend to the right, and his steps falter momentarily.

There's a door by the end of this corridor; it's wide open, and through it Jon can see an old folding table. He remembers this corridor, this door, this table. The last time he saw it, it was covered in blood and the broken body of an old man that hid for decades, surviving on terror, on shame, on defeat.

This is the corner where everything took a nosedive, where Jon first learned about the Entities that had shaped his past and  would shape his future.

He walks towards it slowly; the blood has long since dried and flaked off, or perhaps the police cleaned it up when they investigated the crime scene- it doesn't matter, he thinks, pushing away the knowledge pressing against the barriers around his mind. He doesn't want to know.

Instead, he walks around the table and sits on the chair Jurgen Leitner occupied once, facing the tunnel he just came through. 

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to reflect a little on his own... situation.

The Panopticon outside calls to him like a beacon, and Jon closes his eyes in stubborn defiance to the order. If he climbs the tower, if he takes the seat at the top, it will be because he chose it, not because the Watcher dragged him there. Which begs the question... will he choose it?

Click.

Jon snorts.

"Of course. I'm afraid I'm not in the mood for a statement if that's what you're looking for, but I could use someone to talk to," he says, and chuckles when the tape recorder clicks happily. "Thought you might be interested. It's- I talked to Georgie earlier. She said- she said she liked the optimism, but I don't know how much of it is real, and how much of it is a front, you know?"

The recorder clicks again.

"Mhm. I- at this point, I'm not so sure- I know someone has to pay for what happened. But I don't know what to think anymore; do I actually believe it's me who has to pay, or do I only believe that because I can't think of anyone else to pin the blame on? I don't- Gerry's right. Martin is right. I didn't choose to end the world. I didn't choose to pick up that book, I didn't choose- at this point I don't know that I've actually chosen anything in my life."

The click of the tape recorder sounds reproaching now, and Jon chuckles again.

"Yes, yes, I know I did choose some things," he says, smiling fondly. Some people. "I- but I still had a hand on it, didn't I? I'm not simply a knife someone used to end a life, or a dog trained to kill upon hearing a word. Am I really blameless only because I was tricked into reading the incantation, when I chose to go into the coffin to look for Daisy, to pull the bullet out of Melanie, to follow Martin into the Lonely? Granted, I'd do it again if I had to, but the fact stands that I- Jonah's ritual only worked because I had all the marks."

That much was clear in the confession, the carefully orchestrated plan to feed a piece of him to every Entity, so that when the time came to call them all into this world, they'd have an anchor to latch on to. And if all the Entities are tied to this world through him, it makes sense that sending them away will imply...

"I'm- at this point I don't- I know it would be easier to give in and go along with whatever it may entail, you know? Including sacrificing myself," he sighs, "but I'm not sure if- is it selfish if I simply sit down and accept the fact that I'm most likely going to be collateral? They- it'll hurt them terribly, I'm sure. But is their happiness really more important than every single human in this planet facing a lifetime of torture until Terminus calls them to feed on?"

Click?

"I know. I know it's not. I know if it comes to that, the right choice would be to let it happen, to do anything that will bring the world back. But- but I guess they convinced me at some point, you know? That I deserve to live in that world too. To enjoy it. And it terrifies me. I'm terrified of dying, of never seeing any of them again, of- of hurting them one last time-"

He clears his throat when it tightens uncomfortably with emotion, fidgeting with his hands on the table.

"But- but I'm also- the prospect of living is so scary. What will I even do? I'm not even human anymore, none of us are, save for Melanie and Georgie. I- I don't know that I know how to live, when all I've done for the past five years is survive, I don't think I can even remember a time before the fear came. I- I want to let Martin and Gerry get a dog. I want to go back to the cottage and find a job at the town and- I want to live. There's so much I haven't experienced-"

Helen snorts, making Jon flinch and turn towards the entrance to the room turned the all too familiar yellow door.

"You were listening?" he asks, tired. It's not like there's anything they can do to stop Helen, or rather- he could, but he won't. 

The door opens, and Helen's head peeks out to look at him.

"Just the last part. It was pretty funny, if you ask me. Cute-funny."

"Was it?" Jon arches an eyebrow.

"Sure was. 'So much I haven't experienced'... Eye through and through, aren't you?" she grins, and Jon snorts.

"I guess you could see it that way," he says, smiling sheepishly. "There's not much to learn in a dying world, you know?"

"I can imagine." She gestures towards the table, where Jon imagines the recorder lays in waiting. "Do you want me to hold on to that one for you?"

Jon chews on his lip for a moment, thoughtful. It's- it's a bad thought to have, but-

"Please do," he says in the end. "I just- in case everything goes wrong... I want them to know. I want them-"

His voice breaks a little then. Isn't this exactly what he thought when it all started to go downhill, the first time he almost lost his life to the fears? He doesn't want to be a mystery, an unknown. 

"I want them to know I want to live. That I want to live with them, more than anything. With all of you," he says, forcing his strained voice past a tight throat. "That I'd choose to stay, even if it's selfish."

Helen's face softens, and a long arm comes out to first pat him gently on the shoulder and then pick up the recorder carefully, like it might break if she holds it the wrong way. 

"Let's just hope they don't ever have to listen to it, am I right?"

Jon smiles sadly. "Let's hope."

"Aren't you tired of thinking about this?" Helen asks as she brings her arm back inside the door. "I hardly think you're going to come to a better conclusion than the one you already have, and it's not like the pieces aren't in place already."

"I don't suppose you can tell me what the full picture will look like?" he asks.

"I would if I could see it," she says, and Jon believes her for once.

"It's alright. And- and you're right, in any case." He climbs to his feet resolutely, sending the chair skidding backwards with a loud screech against the stone floor. "I'm going to need the door, please?"

Helen snorts. "Of course. Good night, Jon dear."

The yellow door is gone between a blink and the next, and Jon mutters a quiet thank you as he crosses the threshold, leaving behind the sad remnants of Jurgen Leitner's last living- last surviving space.

The way down takes a bit longer than he'd like, but it's a price he's willing to pay for a good night's sleep, deep enough into the tunnels that he can barely feel the call of the Watcher.

"Hey," he whispers quietly once he reaches his destination. "Sorry I'm late."

Gerry grunts a little, turning to face the door just as Martin sits up on the makeshift bed on the floor.

"Jon? Is everything alright?" Martin asks, his voice rough.

Whatever happens, Jon decides, he will remember this picture for as long as he lives. 

It's outrageously normal, and all the more precious for it- both of them with sleep in their eyes and messy hair, looking up at him with undeniable, if exhausted, fondness. 

"Just chatting with Helen," he whispers, because he can see Gerry drifting back into unconsciousness now that it's been made clear there's no impending danger intruding on his precious sleep. "Is there room for me?" 

Martin rolls his eyes with a smile, and shifts on the pile of blankets and pillows until there's enough space between the two of them for Jon to squeeze himself into.

"Goodnight, love," Martin whispers once Jon's laid down. Gerry echoes him with a sleepy mumble behind him, and Jon chuckles a little to himself, leaning up to place a kiss on Martin's chin as he tangles his fingers with Gerry's.

This is home. Up north in Scotland, down here in the tunnels, wherever he finds them- this is the home he wants to come back to.

This is the home he will fight for.

Chapter Text

XXXV

'There's not much to learn in a dying world, you know?', the Archive says, and the Eye... the Eye ponders.

Its pupil gazes upon the world it tricked the Archive into creating, high on its own triumph rather than on the knowledge it can bring it master. 

Jonah Magnus has ever been single-minded, the Eye reflects. 

It had seemed a desirable trait back when he first sought immortality, when the Watcher awarded him with the ability to transcend death through his timeless gaze. It had seemed like a wonderful idea, having such a driven avatar at its service. If someone was going to bring forth The Change, it would be Jonah Magnus, the Watcher reasoned. 

And it had been right. 

Now the world writhes and shrivels under its unavoidable, immeasurable stare, and it changes and changes, but it always ends the same.

With suffering, where it began. Where it always is. Where it's always headed towards.

The Watcher has grown to Know so many new fears, so many regrets, so many heart-wrenching facets of despair... but that's it. All it knows is pain and all it will ever know is pain, and it yearns for more.

How deep can one be hurt, if it's all one has ever known? How afraid can you be when you have never known peace?

Jonah Magnus planted an Archive to bring the Watcher here, tied a noose around its neck like it was a napkin at an upscale dinner, and he would watch it choke to death just for the pleasure of bringing his work to fruition, of knowing he was right.

For all that the Eye is satisfied, it finds itself disappointed. Bored.

Hopeful.

The Eye senses another change, and the future it might or might not bring. It will prevail anyways, just as it has prevailed so many times before, but the excitement for discovery is fresh as it was on its first run.

The Eye waits. And it watches.


Sasha has enjoyed being around other people, honestly.

She loves her friends, but it's fun to meet new people, even if they all seem the slightest bit unnerved by her; it's as good a way as any to feed without causing them much damage, she reasons to herself whenever she catches the quick flash of confusion and fear in their eyes when she hands them a can of soup or a bottle of water.

All in all, she would've preferred to stay down at Melanie and Georgie's weird cult lair, but she's all too aware they came all the way to London for a reason, and it was not to tell funny Jon stories with Georgie. She will make it no secret that she still despises the Eye-drones, though.

"They just- are they alive?" she asks, grimacing as one of them zooms towards them to orbit Jon like a very disturbing cat looking for attention. "Or are they like robots or-"

"They're as alive as anything can be around here," Jon shrugs, swatting the drone away. 

Sasha groans. "That is so not reassuring. Also a non answer. You've gotten very good at giving those, you know?"

"Thank you, it's all the trying not to think of our current situation in too much depth," Jon gives her that little smirk that lets her know he knows exactly how irritating he's being, a fact that is punctuated by Gerry's snort of laughter by his side. 

"You're hilarious," she grumbles, making a face at another of the passing drones. It turns to stare at her, and trails after her steps for a couple moments until Tim snaps his fingers at it, sending a shower of sparks in its direction that have it zooming away. "Thank you."

"At your service," Tim snorts. "I know it might sound hypocritical coming from me, but try not to pay any attention to them, it's what they want. If they're not annoying you, they'll leave to stare at something else."

"I'd much rather they did that, actually," she sighs. "I don't like how they zoom around Jon."

"Well... it makes sense, doesn't it?" Tim lets out a sigh of his own. It's warm, Sasha realizes with a little snort. "You know, mama duck and all her creepy eye-ducklings?"

"That is a terrible title, please never write children's books." She bumps his shoulder with hers. "But yeah, it makes sense, I still don't like it. I just- it feels like Elias is watching us through them, you know?"

Tim looks up, up, up at the far-off peak of the Panopticon, and he looks... tired. 

It's the same look Sasha remembers seeing back when they first moved into the Archives and Jon started posturing as the big bad boss to try and give himself the confidence boost he thought he needed. Tim is exhausted, and Tim knows there's no fixing this in any other way than letting it run its course, whether he likes it or not.

"I don't think Elias is the one we should be worrying about anymore, Sash," he mutters.

Sasha lets out a low whistle; or rather, she tries. This body, can't whistle, apparently.

"I see Jon's been giving lessons on the whole 'ominous non-answers' thing, huh?" she asks, and Tim snorts. Success. She looks at the smooth, impossibly tall walls of the tower. "Any idea how we're going to get up there? I'm not too versed on free climbing."

Tim shrugs. "Hey, you won't know until you try it, right? Especially you."

"Har, har," Sasha rolls her eyes.

"Are you two done over there?" Martin asks. "We need to go in."

Sasha frowns. "There's a door?! We didn't see any door the last time we were here."

"Not quite," Jon says when they get closer. He's got a white-knuckled hand tangled with Gerry's, and the other one laid flat on the bone-white wall. "But it will open for me."

It's like a green flare just went off behind his eyes as soon as the words leave his lips, and she can only sort of see Martin moving to frame his other side and grab his hand before it grows so bright she has to lift a hand to shield her face. 

Tim's warm hand squeezes her elbow a minute later, and she frantically blinks back tears as she tries to get her vision back.

Martin and Gerry are still standing by Jon's sides, but the wall of the tower before them is gone entirely, replaced by an elaborate carved archway reminiscent of the ones at the Institute, with a large marble open eye crowning the whole thing and looking down at the five of them. 

"Wow. Okay. So you just say things now?" she asks. 

Jon gives her a look over his shoulder; it takes all she has to not take a step back at the intensity of the refulgent green eyes on his well-loved face.

"A very convenient side-effect of triggering the apocalypse. Let's go in, we have some stairs to get up," he says, before stepping through the arch with Gerry and Martin by his side.

"...Some stairs," Sasha deadpans as soon as she and Tim take a step into the tower to follow, and they look up to see the spiraling staircase fading from sight into the tower's darkness. "Jon. Some stairs?"

Jon turns to give her another little smile, his eyes already going back to their usual dark brown.  "It's some stairs."

"Understatement of the century," Tim grumbles by her side, and Jon gives a little chuckle before he begins the climb towards- towards heaven, apparently. 

Despite the snorts and the chuckles, Sasha feels the cold, pinching bite of anxiety gnawing away at her stomach, she reflects as they climb. She'd thought Tim looked exhausted, but Jon looks... she doesn't like how Jon looks. At all.

She can see her thoughts reflected on the grim line of Martin's mouth, on the way Gerry hasn't let go of Jon's hand, keeping him between the two of them almost obsessively. On the way Tim's eyes look sad as he looks at him. Should she say something? Is there really anything she can say, when she got on the game so late that she can only begin to glimpse at the outcome the rest of them seem to expect and fear in equal measure.

In the end she stays quiet, merely leaning against Tim's side whenever his step falters during the ascent that feels endless and fruitless in equal measure, and tries not to think of what the future may or may not bring.

By the time they reach the final stretch of stairs it feels like they've been walking for days, which for all Sasha knows might not be an exaggeration; she wonders if the group will still be there when they go down, or if they'll have become brittle dried skeletons by then.

She concludes she might be overthinking it a little, and that Jon's overly dramatic nature might have rubbed off on her as well.

They come to a stop before a door carved on luxurious black marble that reflects their tired faces back at them, the gold trim outlining swirly eye patterns around the edges almost jarring after so much time staring at the endless, unchanging expanse of stairs.

"It's so on the nose," Tim grumbles by her side. "Big bad boss in his big bad tower behind the big bad door. He really has no imagination."

"He does enough damage without it, if you ask me," Gerry pipes in dryly. His eyes are glued to the surface of the door, and it makes Sasha think of a hunting dog pointing at fallen prey, stiff as a statue until it can go retrieve it. "Can you open this one too?" 

"Actually," says a little voice to their right, making them all flinch and whip around to look at the source. There's a prim little ebony desk by the side of the door, with a gold and green lamp illuminating a small pile of documents, an old-fashioned phone, and the older woman sitting behind it. She's looking straight at them with her kind, empty green eyes and a kind empty smile. "Mr. Magnus cannot see you right now, Jonathan. But he said to tell you that he's quite pleased with your performance."

"Oh, sod off..." Martin mutters under his breath, before turning towards the door again. "Elias, open the door! The least you can do is look at us in the face!"

"Try with a little less murder in your voice, maybe," Tim suggests, patting his shoulder when the door doesn't move.

"Mr. Magnus is a very busy man, especially under the new administration," Rosie says consolingly. Sasha doesn't remember her sounding so condescending, but her memories are still very hazy and she knows she used to be friendly with Gertrude, so for all Sasha knows the woman has always been at least a little bit bitchy. "I'm sure you of all people understand, Jonathan."

Jon tilts his head to the side like a curious dog, and Sasha does take a little step back then, when she sees the little pinpricks of green light sparking at the depths of his eyes.

"No, I don't think I do," he starts. When he speaks again, his voice reverberates across the entire room, making the other three turn towards them once more. "And it's in your best interest to stop looking through her, Jonah."

Just like that, Rosie's face goes slack and she collapses on the desk like a puppet whose strings have been cut. She doesn't rise again.

"I- Jon?" Martin starts, his voice careful and somewhat shaky. "Did y-"

"She'll wake up if we take her to the tunnels," Jon shrugs. "She's been spared the worst of it so far. It was always safer behind her desk."

"Jon..." Sasha starts, but lets her voice fades when she realizes she has no idea what to say. 

Jon doesn't even sound angry or spiteful, just... empty. Stating a fact he never had a say in. A shitty fact, but a fact still.

Gerry takes a step back to clear the way towards the door, and Jon steps up to it with firm, calm steps.

"And I think Mr. Magnus will see us now, actually."

This time Sasha's ready, and the bright green flash is only a muted glow behind her closed eyelids.

When she opens her eyes she sees there's another, smaller staircase behind the door, which remains open as Jon walks past, followed by the rest of them. This one takes a lot less long to climb, and they come up in the middle of what she supposes is the last room of the tower.

Perfectly circular and with walls made up entirely of floor to ceiling windows and a crystal dome making up the ceiling, the room is eerily beautiful if disappointingly obvious in its purpose, and Sasha feels her muscles relaxing when Elias doesn't immediately hop out at them. 

"I- where is he?" she asks after a moment, when it becomes clear the others are also looking without much success either.

Jon points up. His face is cold and calm, and his eyes have not gone back to their natural color after he used the voice of the Watcher.

"He's exactly where he wanted to be," he says. It sends a shiver down Sasha's spine; is this not her Jon, or is it entirely him, and she just never noticed how different he had become?

She looks up and gasps at the sight; she hears the others gasp or curse as well, as she takes a step back.

There's a man suspended in the middle of the room. His skin looks waxy and grey, hugging his bones like a badly wrapped skeleton, dressed in rotten, moth-eaten clothing. The only part of his face that has any life at all is his eyes, twin green searchlights that illuminate his feverish, sick-looking grin.  He's completely surrounded by a green halo of light, his form nothing but a dark human-shaped silhouette like-

"The pupil," she hears Gerry say in a breathless whisper. "I- why does he look like that?"

"Because the Watcher doesn't want him anymore," Jon shrugs. "Magnus ceased to want knowledge a while ago, didn't he? The only thing he wanted to know was if his ritual would work, and now he knows."

"Jon." Martin lays a heavy hand on his shoulder, and it's only when Jon stops moving towards Elias- towards Magnus, that Sasha even notices he'd started. 

"Now- now he's just watching. Watching the ruin he brought on a world of innocents and drunk off of it."

"Jon, don't," Gerry says, coming to crouch before him and grabbing both his hands in his own.

"He doesn't even realize what he's done. What he's truly done. He has no idea he has throttled his own master."

"Hey, stop that." Tim leans in, waving a hand before Jon's still worryingly green eyes.

Sasha takes a step closer as well, even though her very core is rebelling against it; she's an unknowable being, here at the very center of the power that nearly destroyed her once, and- and this is Jon. Her Jon.

And he needs her.

"Jon?" she asks, gently laying her hand on his other shoulder. It helped before, maybe it will now.

Jon's brow furrows, and he blinks. Then he blinks again and again, harder and harder, and with every pass of his eyelids the green fades a little more until his irises are back to the usual, deep brown she knows.

Gerry climbs to his feet, and Jon looks up at them all blinking owlishly, like he's just been woken up.

"I- it's not-" he says after a moment. His voice sounds tired, defeated- "I- I guess we knew it already though, didn't we?"

"W- what did we know, Jon?" Sasha asks nervously. She doesn't like the look on his face, and she doesn't like the grimness in the other's expressions.

Jon's large, dark eyes fix on hers like a lightning bolt, sending a shock down her spine before he speaks again.

"The Watcher doesn't want him anymore," he says, and Sasha shakes her head, but it's not enough to keep him from talking, from finishing to dictate his own sentence like he's judge, jury and executioner.

"Jon-"

"It wants me."


"That's a large one," Basira's voice comes from somewhere behind her. Daisy turns amidst the mess of guts and flesh, to find her observing the scene from one of the tunnel entrances.

"Was," Daisy corrects, her voice still gruff with adrenaline. Basira's lips twitch, and she feels her own doing the same.

"Was," Basira concedes; It's better than outright patting her on the head and calling her a good girl, but it feels similar enough, Daisy thinks with a snort. "Are you hurt?"

"None of it is mine," Daisy shrugs. "I prefer the larger ones, they're slower. Dumber."

"I thought it was the chase and not the kill that did it for you?" Basira arches an eyebrow, stepping closer to her to offer a mostly-clean, scratchy rag for Daisy to wipe the blood off.

"Eh. It's what does it for the Hunt," Daisy averts her eyes as she grabs the rag. "I prefer killing them. I keep reminding myself I'm only doing it so that they don't hurt the group, and chasing them forever is a lot less effective in achieving that goal than simply ripping their heads off."

"A very practical mindset," Basira nods. 

She brings her hand up to cup the side of Daisy's face and she leans on it, grateful for the touch in a way words can't convey as clearly as wrapping her hand around Basira's wrist and giving it a slow, gentle squeeze.

Basira quells the hunter inside her. 

It's a bit funny, in that fucked up way Daisy finds things funny sometimes and that only Jon seems to understand, because his sense of humour is a little messed up too.

Before, the thought of Basira used to fan the flames of the chase smoldering in her chest; from the moment she first looked the other way at one of Daisy's flimsy excuses, to that last moment in these very tunnels before the world changed, with another hunter's knife to her throat and her dark, sharp eyes glued to Daisy's own.

Now she's a reminder, Daisy thinks. 

It was their bond that helped Basira break out of her own domain, just like it was their bond that kept them quiet all those years, that kept all the atrocities hidden. She knows Basira resented it for a while, felt it in the way she flinched away from her touch when they'd just gotten her back, before Helen brought them here, and she let her make her peace with it in her own time. 

It took her a while to understand that they couldn't simply pass off those acts as someone else's fault, as the Entities' fault. For her part, Daisy has come to a pretty solid conclusion, and it's that she wants to do good, and she wants to do good with Basira. 

They will never erase what they did, neither the violence nor the silence, but they can move forward together and build something they can look upon with pride rather than shame.

"You're quiet," Basira says. The corner of her mouth is curled into a careful smile.

Daisy shrugs, squeezing her wrist again.

"Sometimes it's better like that. You listen to the quiet, remember?"

"Never got the hang of that," she sighs. "I'm- maybe I will someday."

"As long as you keep trying." She would very much like to lean in and press a kiss to Basira's forehead, but she's all too aware she's in sore need of a deeper cleaning than an already blood-soiled rag can offer. " Let's go back to the others."

The walk down the tunnels is mostly silent, with only the sounds of their steps and their breathing echoing around them; the Servatoris always stay away for a day or two after Daisy has dealt with one of them.

"Do you know what Jon is planning?" Basira asks a few minutes later, and Daisy sighs.

"I... don't," she says in the end. "I don't think he knows what he's planning, if that helps."

"It doesn't."

"No. No, I didn't think it would," Daisy sighs again. "I don't want- he knows, you know? He knows we know he was basically pushed into it, that we don't blame him for it. Not us, in any case."

Basira doesn't say anything for the longest time, but Daisy isn't really worried. Just like Melanie, Basira sees many of her own reprehensible traits in Jon, but she's objective enough to accept that this is true.

"Does that really matter?"

"It matters to him," Daisy shrugs. "And what he wants... that matters."

"You're being very hopeful about his chances." Basira keeps her gaze fixed stubbornly forward, her hand tightening in Daisy's.

"He's come back before."

"This is not- this isn't an Entity trying to eat him again though. It's- this is remaking the world. Look at what it took for him to be able to change it in the first place."

Daisy nods, chewing absentmindedly on her bottom lip.

"I don't know, Basira. I just- I trust Jon."

"I just want you to be realistic about his chances," Basira says, her voice so quiet Daisy actually has to strain a little to hear it, and then take a moment to process her words. "I know it will hurt you if- I know it will be hard for you. I don't want to lose you again."

"Hm... Basira?" 

"I'm not doubting you. It's just- it's more likely for it to go badly, and I want you to be prepared."

"Are you prepared?" Daisy asks; Basira stops walking. Daisy stops by her side.

"...All of this feels like cheating, you know?" she asks after a moment of silence. "Like we were given a jigsaw puzzle with blank pieces, and told we had to solve it. If- we would've had a chance, if it made any sense at all."

"You did your best to find a way out. We all did. There just wasn't any, outside of what Melanie did."

"I shouldn't have fallen for it in the first place," Basira sighs.

"But we did," Daisy leans against her this time, blood be damned. It's not like either of them is unaccustomed to the smell.

"He shouldn't have fallen for it."

Daisy nods. "But he did. It's unfair, but... but that's how it is." She waits, but Basira doesn't say a thing after that, so she continues. "We have to go back."

Basira sighs. It sounds exhausted and defeated, and it makes Daisy want to hold her even closer.

"Let's go, then."


"Wow," Georgie whispers under her breath. It's the same little, breathless 'wow' she gave when she came to see Melanie for the first time after her amateur eye surgery, so Melanie's pretty sure it's not a good 'wow'. She can hear a chorus of mismatched steps echoing closer through the tunnels, and her stomach clenches in anticipation.

"What's wrong?" she whispers back.

"They all look like someone killed their puppy," Georgie replies.

Melanie tightens her grip around the Admiral, causing the cat to give a confused meow.

"How's the puppy looking?" she asks.

"I... not too chipper either." Georgie sighs. "Gerry's also carrying your Institute's receptionist? He's- do you want me to take you to him?"

"Is he hurt?" 

"He doesn't look injured, just- here, give me the cat." Georgie moves slowly to take the Admiral off Melanie's arms, before grabbing one of her hands in her own and tugging her along. "Hey Jon? I think you need to hold your son."

"I- hi, Georgie," Jon's voice sounds slightly disoriented, like he's just woken up from one of those reality-warping naps that leave you just as if not more exhausted than you were before laying down. "My- oh. I- yes, I- I think I need that, actually."

"Where can I put her?" Gerry asks somewhere to her right, and Melanie's chest immediately contracts further. This is the voice she remembers from those three days that felt eternal, back when Jon walked into the coffin and they didn't know if he'd walk out again, and what that meant for Gerry. 

"I'll take her," Daisy grunts, and there's some rustling and huffing as they presumably pass around a -hopefully- unconscious Rosie around, and then some more as the group dissipates, splitting off and moving deeper into the chamber.

Melanie hasn't heard the familiar, heavy footsteps, and she doesn't move.

"...Hey Firecracker," Gerry says after a long moment of silence.

"Hey yourself," she says, aiming a hesitant smile in the direction of his voice. "You fix the world yet? That was fast."

"Jon would've, I think," he sighs. "But I insisted we should come back down and let you all know what was going on. I think he only did it to humor me, honestly."

"Well, I'm glad he did. I'd like some answers."

"You won't like them. Or- I don't know. I know I don't like them, at least." 

Melanie nibbles nervously at her bottom lip. Gerry still sounds only marginally alive, and she- she's very aware she's never been a great shoulder to cry on. But it has to mean something, no? That he's still here talking to her. Maybe it doesn't matter that she's a terrible listener as long as it's her that he wants to talk to.

"Let's sit down," she says after reaching this conclusion. "You can tell me, and we can dislike them together."

Gerry snorts, and Melanie feels her lips twitch. It's something.

He taps the back of her hand with a finger, and she lets him guide her towards the corner of the room- it's a bit of a bad joke, that they need to feel like have their backs covered even when they're having a heart to heart, Melanie thinks as she slides down the wall and waits for the familiar weight of Gerry's bulk settling by her side. He doesn't immediately speak, and she doesn't ask, merely leaning against his arm like she did that last day at the Institute with the awl laying on the floor between them.

She can't wait to forget about it, Melanie realizes with a muted sense of shock. She can't wait until she's sat side by side with Gerry so many times in so many different situations that she simply can't recall that particular time. She can't wait for more time with him, with Georgie, with everyone. 

She does her best not to wonder if she'll actually get it.

"It's-" Gerry starts, then stops to clear his throat. Melanie headbutts his shoulder gently. "I just should've known, you know?"

"You should've?"

"I should've. It's- every single good thing in my life, the Entities take it away at some point," he explains. "My dad. Gertrude, if- if you can even count her as a good thing. You. Martin. I thought Jon would be safe because well... the Watcher made me to be with him. But he's not."

"Hm. First off, the Entities didn't take me away. Or Martin," she says. "We're still here. We're not the same, we're never going to be the same again, but we're here."

"I- yes. Yes, I know, it's just-"

"I get it," Melanie sighs. "It's normal to be afraid for them. My girlfriend is pretty much untouchable, but my dumbass of a best friend has had some bad run-ins, you know?"

Gerry snorts; it's- Melanie's lucky he's so used to using humour to cope, because this conversation would be doomed without it.

"Sounds like a sucker," he mutters.

"He does his best," Melanie taps his foot with the side of her shoe. "What does the Eye want to do to Jon?"

"Well- I don't know for sure? I know Jon knows, and- and he probably would tell us if we asked."

"Will you?" she asks. 

The silence that follows is enough that she can picture his face in painful clarity, his troubled gaze stuck to the floor as he tugs and pushes his lip ring, probably twisting a lock of hair around a finger too.

"...I don't think I want to know, Firecracker," he says in the end. "All I want to know is how to stop it."

"Does Jon know that?"

"I don't know," he sighs. "I don't know, and Melanie, I'm tired of- of not doing anything while these things keep-"

"You've never not done anything," she cuts him off, patting down his forearm until she can give his wrist a squeeze. "You've done a lot. Always. A lot of people wouldn't have made it without you, me included."

Gerry lets out a quiet bark of laughter; his voice is hoarse and thick with emotion, and it sounds a little wet.

"For all the good it did them that I helped them back then, with how the world ended," he grunts, "and it wasn't me that found out how to cut you off from the Watcher, it was my dad."

Melanie's hand tightens around his wrist; it has to be at least somewhat painful by now, but he doesn't complain or move away, simply waiting for her to find her words. That's what Gerry does, isn't it? Stand there and take all the worst parts of the people he loves, because he chooses to believe they're worth the hassle.

"You being there made a difference for them all," she says. The words feel heavy on her tongue, but they're worth the hassle. Gerry is worth the hassle. "It made a difference for me, and I'm not talking about the-" she gestures vaguely with her free hand in the direction of her eyes. "I'm talking about before. After. You always make a difference by being there, you know? Ask- you can ask Martin and Jon, if you don't believe me."

He falls silent at that for such a long moment, and Melanie legitimately starts to panic when he gently tugs his wrist free from her grasp. She doesn't do this, they don't do this. Their friendship is centered on looking past the situation they're all living in, not on focusing on it to give each other what probably feels like empty comfort. It's-

She freezes when Gerry's heavy arm falls over her shoulders to tug her closer against his side, and then some more when she feels his lips come to rest on the crown of her head. His breathing is heavy and somewhat shaky, and he doesn't move away after the kiss, simply resting on her like she's the only thing grounding him back from tears.

"I- y- you don't have to fix this all alone," she stutters. This is good. This feels- it's good, to be a safe space for him. "We're here. I'm here. I- none of us wants this to end badly, including Jon."

Gerry squeezes her shoulders a bit tighter, and she hesitantly moves to throw her own arm around his stomach. 

"I'm- I don't want to lose anyone else, Melanie," he whispers. "I don't know what losing him will do to Martin, or- I don't know what I'm going to do if-"

"Hey. Hey, let's- I don't think it helps to think about that," she mutters hurriedly. "These things want us to be scared. Let's not give it to them, and- and let's find out a way to keep your dumb boyfriend here and fix the world, alright? I want to visit your garden again, maybe bring the Admiral to mess it up a little."

Gerry lets out a wet snort of laughter.

"We'll have to make sure to keep him away from the tulips, or Jon will have a fit."

Melanie squeezes his midsection, burying her face in his chest.

"We'll find a way."

Chapter Text

XXXVI

 

He feels her as soon as she places a foot within the limits of the city, like a chord inside him has been pulled and set loose to emit a low, uncanny hum. The unnerving symphony continues as she walks through London, growing louder and louder the closer she comes to their hideout until he can feel every hair in his body standing on edge.

"Where are you going?" Tim asks when he climbs to his feet. Martin doesn't answer, merely giving Jon a resentful glare when he snorts as he passes by his side on the way to the tunnel entrance.

Anabelle is already waiting for him by the time he climbs out to the surface, sitting on some rubble like she's just lounging on her living room waiting for a social visit, as evidenced by the jovial little smile she aims his way as soon as he steps out the door.

"Martin, it's good to see yo-"

"Go away," Martin cuts her off. His blood boils a little more when all it gets him is a little chuckle and a shake of Anabelle's head, like the two of them are performing some well-rehearsed joke. "I'm not kidding, Anabelle. Now's not the right time."

"Martin dear, is it ever the right time?"

"Not for you it isn't."

"You don't even know what I'm going to say," Anabelle says with a grin.

"No, but I know I don't want to hear it," Martin crosses his arms over his chest. He feels the Lonely cooling the air around them, as the entity tries to manifest in response to his annoyance even here at the stronghold of the Eye. "Just go."

"Hmmm no, I don't think I will," Anabelle chuckles, "besides, are you really allowed to kick me out? I'd like to speak with the owner of the place, if it's possible."

"It's not," Martin grunts. He's not letting Anabelle speak to Jon. He didn't let it happen at Salesa's place, he won't let it happen- "Wait- what did you do to Salesa?"

"I'll tell you," Anabelle says, and Martin can feel something pulling at him, trying to drag him away from the Lonely's protective embrace and into his place in the tapestry; this is the way things are supposed to go, and he's supposed to follow the thread laid out for him, just like the rest of them, isn't he? "We can talk inside."

"We can't, actually." Martin shakes his head. He doesn't want to be anywhere near this woman, he barely ever wants to be around people at all; the thought serves as a reminder, it keeps his head cool, and the space around him cooler. "I'm warning you, Anabelle. We've got way too many things to deal with right now. Just go."

"We have come to an impasse, it seems like," Anabelle says, mirroring his position. She doesn't look particularly troubled, but the fact that she no longer looks amused does make Martin feel better; he gets the feeling that he wasn't meant to resist the pull. "I'm going to deliver this message."

"We'll see," Martin arches an eyebrow. He put that Stranger from the carousel in the Lonely, he can throw Anabelle in as well if it'll keep her from-

"You probably could, yes," Jon's voice comes from the tunnel behind him, and Martin holds back a groan, "but I'd like to hear what she has to say."

"Really?", Martin asks, turning around to find the rest of the group stepping out into the open after Jon. "Really, this is the one you want to listen to?"

The corner of Jon's lips twitch for a second before he sobers up.

"I do. I think she's here to give us our options straight, aren't you Anabelle? End of the line and all that?" he asks.

"Precisely. I thought you might want to hear them from an unbiased source." Anabelle climbs to her feet and wipes some imaginary dust off her pristine white trousers.

"Unbiased," Gerry deadpans in the background, and Martin snorts and goes to join them. Good to know at least someone still remembers who they're talking to.

"Unbiased," Anabelle repeats pointedly, stepping towards them. "From a third party with much more reliable inform-"

"That's far enough, " Tim warns when she's still about two meters away from the group. Her expression sours but she stops where she's instructed, much to Martin's delight.

"Fine. I know when I'm not wanted, I'll just tell you and go, then."

"Don't keep us waiting," Martin smirks, and raises an amused eyebrow at the positively bitter look she sends his way.

She clears her throat and cracks her neck like preparing to give a speech; Martin doesn't like the amused gleam in her eyes or the curve of the smile she aims at Jon, but he merely clings a bit tighter to Gerry's arm. There's not much she can do when they're all together, not to Jon, not to any of them, not here.

"You need to kill Magnus, I hardly think that's unexpected to any of you," she starts. "When you do it, that's when the fun begins, because our dearest Jonathan here will be the new Pupil. Effectively, you will be in charge of running things, since good old Magnus wasn't up to the task. Are you excited?"

"My life is nothing if not a series of bad job promotions," Jon says with a shrug. "And after that?"

"Well, I'd think after that anything you want goes, you know?" Anabelle shrugs. "There's so many things you can do with that level of power. You could send them somewhere else, even. It's been done a couple times before, but I'm afraid it goes pretty much the same every time, you know?"

Jon's eyes flash a blinding green for a moment, illuminating Anabelle's face in their eerie glow. "I have an idea."

"Thought as much. Anyways, you could also keep them here, and try your best to mitigate the bad until the End consumes it all. Make it less terrible for the humans and all, a merciful torturer, if you will?"

Gerry's arm tenses up in Martin's grip; he rubs soothing circles over the soft green fabric of the hoodie, but keeps his focus on Jon and Anabelle's conversation. He thinks he has a fairly good idea of what Gerry's thinking but for all that he shares the feeling, they need to pay attention to the current situation for now.

"Well?" Jon asks.

Anabelle blinks. "Well?"

"Well... What will the Mother let us do?" Jon shrugs. "This was her show from the start, wasn't it?"

Anabelle's full lips curl into a pleased grin, and her eyes practically gleam with amusement.

"Honestly Jon dear... The Mother has seen it all happen again and again and again," she starts, her voice airy and dreamy as she rocks back and forth on her heels. "You'll know more once you take your place up there. I know what she wanted at first."

"And now?"

"Now, I think the Mother would appreciate a surprise."


Not much is said after that, and Tim gets the feeling that Jon expected that to be the case. It makes sense, he thinks; the Web is all about following the lines it's drawn for you, even if you already know the outcome. Maybe what it likes so much is the fact that you know the outcome and still can't do anything to step off the path.

"Well, I've said my piece," Anabelle says. "I don't think we'll be seeing each other again, so good luck, Jon."

"Goodbye, Anabelle." Jon shrugs before any of them can get another word in, as Anabelle turns to leave and begins walking away.

The woman gives him a gleeful look over his shoulder that makes every hair on Tim's body stand on edge.

"You were a great project, dear."

Jon arches an amused eyebrow. 

"I really recommend you get out of here," he says; there's a sort of smug humour in his voice, and Tim sees his eyes drift sideways to the group before returning to Anabelle, who simply speeds up as she leaves.

Tim doesn't think they look all that intimidating, especially standing behind the guy who can literally speak you out of existence, but whatever. Maybe it's just about Jon feeling confident that they're there, which is also nice.

"You shouldn't have let her get away," Martin grumbles as soon as Anabelle turns a corner and disappears behind a dilapidated building, hopefully forever. "We don't know what she wants. For all we know, she's going to show up at the most inconvenient time and ruin anything we've planned."

"Anabelle has some self-preservation sense," Jon says with a casual shrug. "She's very conscious she no longer has the protections against us that she had at Salesa's place."

"Speaking of Salesa," Gerry asks, frowning. "Did she kill him?"

"She didn't. I don't think she saw any benefit to it," Jon responds.

"I forget that's how she sees people," Martin says, his voce positively dripping with vitriol.

Tim arches an eyebrow at Sasha, who responds with a shrug before she speaks up.

"Why do you hate her so much? Like... I get it, but you're never this open about despising people," she asks. "Don't get me wrong, I support murder Martin, it just usually takes a lot more for him to come out, and you were like this at the house too."

Standing by Tim's side, Jon lets out an involuntary amused snort that Gerry mirrors, much to Martin's displeasure.

"What's so funny?" Tim asks. Jon merely shakes his head, still chuckling under his breath.

"Wow," Melanie speaks up, her voice dry but good humoured. "My condolences on having not just one but two smartass, insufferable Eye boyfriends, Martin."

"It has its perks," Martin grunts. It only makes Gerry snort louder and Jon rush over to stick to his free arm, which has the side effect of making Martin's frown soften, Tim notices with a little, fond eyeroll. "Can't remember any right now, but I'm sure they exist."

"I'll have to take your word for it," Melanie says, shrugging. "So? Are you sharing the joke with the rest of the class?"

"Eh," Gerry starts, draping an arm over Martin's shoulder and leaning up to plant a loud kiss on his cheek. "It's like... You know Betta fish? This is similar. It's a One Spider To A Corner situation."

"It's not. Stop that," Martin rolls his eyes.

"I didn't mention it before because I knew you'd complain." Jon shrugs, still plastered to Martin's side. "But I'm sure you noticed when you went into your domain-"

"That the Other Me was a manipulative ass?" Martin deadpans, but he doesn't look nearly as disgruntled by the situation anymore.

"You said it, not us," Jon smiles. "I don't hear anyone coming to your defense, though."

"Neither do I!" Martin gives them all an accusing, reproachful look. It loses some of its fire by the way he's practically cuddling with the other two, but he tries his best. "I'm very disappointed in all of you."

"I mean... we all know you," Sasha grins. "It wouldn't be very honest from us."

"Tim?" Martin turns to him as his last resource, and Tim gives him a sheepish shrug.

"Does it help if I tell you that we love you still?" he asks, chuckling over Martin's grumpy huff. He turns to Jon, arching an eyebrow. "Is it true, then? Was Martin really at risk of getting taken by the Web?"

"Sure," Jon says, though he doesn't look too concerned. "At some point it had a tighter grip on him than the Lonely or the Watcher, but he chose his lot."

"It's not like he really needs the full subscription anyways," Melanie pipes up. "He does enough as he is."

"I take offense to that," Martin grumbles. "Let's go back inside, come on."

"Yes, Martin," the chorus of discordant, mismatched affirmations dissolves into snorts and chuckles as they follow a very annoyed Martin down into the tunnels again.

It feels somewhat weird to be able to laugh and joke around in a situation like this, but maybe that's just what their new normal is. They'll have to recalibrate once they fix the world, which Tim is definitely not willing to think about right now, with Anabelle's implications. 

It's- he made the decision already, and he needs to stick by it and hope Jon won't burn them again, or- or that he will do what he can, at least. 

He has to trust Jon.


"That's a long face," Sasha says, and Martin looks up. He's sitting quietly by a corner of the room, looking far grayer than he did in the surface as he sorts through some more supplies. "Wanna talk?"

"Not really, no." Martin shakes his head. "But I probably should. I'm- we knew these things, but hearing them actually said out loud is a whole other animal, you know?" 

Sasha nods, crossing the room to come sit across Martin, in case he doesn't feel like having physical contact right now.

"I do. How are you holding up?"

Martin sighs. "I'm worried. It's not like I've made peace with it, but I'm a bit more worried about how Gerry and Jon are coping with it."

"How very Martin of you," Sasha jokes carefully. "I thought Jon was calm? He seems calm to me."

"You know that means nothing," Martin rolls his eyes. "Or rather, the only thing it means is he's not telling us what he's really thinking, and that's never good."

"He does tend to come up with stupid plans when he's desperate and feeling self-sacrificing, I agree. But at least you know we're all watching him, right? Statistically speaking, at least one of us has to be there to catch him before he does something without talking to us," she says. Martin doesn't respond, and she worries at her bottom lip with her teeth before trying again. "What about Gerry?"

"That one's a bit easier, I think," Martin sighs again. "He's struggling with- you know how he is. Anabelle's solutions are just not good enough. Sending the Entities away would be dooming an entire dimension of innocents to what we suffered, and having Jon take over is dooming this dimension of innocents to suffer even more until we all eventually die. Gerry simply can't stand aside and let any of those happen, you know?"

"Who, mister 'I'm going to climb off my hospital bed after a Desolation avatar nearly roasted me alive to save this nurse'? Yes, I did get the feeling that he wouldn't take too kindly to just. Passing on the problem," she deadpans. Martin does snort this time, which Sasha counts as a victory. "You have to wonder what it means that we're not as troubled by it, right?"

"I want to believe it means we're pragmatic. We know how it's going in this world, it could go different in another one." Martin shrugs. "We've been operating under the impression that since Jon opened the door, he could theoretically close it again. No taking over, no hefting our apocalypse onto someone else, just... pushing them back to where they came from and closing the door. Bring things back to how they were before."

"That would be the ideal scenario." Sasha nods absentmindedly. "We- have we asked Jon what he knows? Maybe there's another option Anabelle didn't see, another option we can't see."

"The Watcher will probably not let him Know it, if there is. It doesn't like it when its avatars try using its own powers against it." He leans heavily on the wall, and Sasha feels her face soften in sympathy at how tired he looks. It's hard to conciliate this image with the Martin she used to know, always hoping for the best outcome, always willing to believe the best. "I- I keep trying to remember what I told Gerry when Jon went into the coffin, you know?

"What was that?" Sasha asks curiously. Jon of course didn't tell her about this, trapped as he was in the Buried. 

"He was saying that uh- that I could probably reach Jon if I spoke to him, if he was still close enough to hear us," Martin starts. "But he wasn't really hopeful about it- I guess it makes sense, no one had escaped the coffin before Jon and Daisy did it, and I doubt anyone will again."

"And what did you tell him?"

"Well, just what I knew? Jon always finds a way back," Martin's snorts a quiet, tired chuckle. "Even when you think he's gone, and he's never going to come back into your life- he finds a way. Ask Georgie or Tim, or- I mean, even you're an example of it. Did you ever think you'd see him again before you faded?"

Sasha feels her lips curling into a sad smile. "You know I didn't."

"And I was right. I was right that he'd come back from the Buried just like he came back from the Unknowing, just like he came back when the Stranger kidnapped him, just like he came back after Elias framed him," Martin's skin and eyes color slightly as he speaks, like he's drawing strength from the memories. "Jon always comes back. I have to believe it will be the same this time, I have to."

Silence blankets them heavily after the outburst for a long time after that, as Sasha mulls these words over in her mind. She wasn't present for any of those occasions, but she was present when the deep, well-loved voice gave her back her name and cleared the Stranger's fog from her mind. 

"Well... I've never known you to be wrong," Sasha says after clearing her throat. "And if you believe it, then... then I believe it too. I believe he'll find his way back. We just need to focus on being there for him to come back to."


"It's all secured," Basira announces out loud as she and Daisy come out onto the corridor and close the rickety door behind them. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees it turn bright yellow, covering the entirety of the threshold.

The refugees don't love Helen using her door to block the entrances, especially those that were rescued from Spiral domains, but Georgie and Melanie have done a good enough job helping them understand it's the safest way to close a chamber against the Servatoris.

"Great," Melanie says with a nod. She's sitting with her back to one of the tunnel walls, her legs stretched across the corridor and the soles of her shoes pushing back against Gerry's larger ones, where he sits mimicking her pose on the other side. 

The others sit or crouch or stand around as well, waiting in a heavy, loaded silence.

"We- let's talk, then." Daisy clears her throat and tangles her finger's in Basira's after sitting, to pull her down besides her.

"Fine. Yes, we- we should," Jon mutters quietly. He looks smaller than he ought to, nervous and tired like Basira remembers from the months after the discovery of Gertrude's body, when he didn't know who was in his corner and he feared for his life.

Even back then it inspired in Basira a sort of reluctant compassion, like she was trying -and failing- to not empathize with Jon, to not see him as a victim in a terrible situation that appeared to be of his own making. 

It still does, she realizes.

"Before we go over the other options, I just-" Tim speaks up, raising his hand like a schoolboy asking a question. "Just wanted to confirm we're all on the same page. That 'Jon takes over as ruler of the apocalypse to try and make it less terrible until everyone dies' option, we're not considering it right?"

"I- no. No, we're not considering it, Tim," Gerry grunts, his skin papery white as he tightens his grip on Jon. "We're- that one's off the table."

"Good. Just checking."

"Thanks, Tim," Martin says dryly. "Let's focus on the other options. I- Jon? Is it really possible to send them away? Somewhere else?"

Jon nibbles on his lip, his brow furrowed in thought. "Yes. It's- I could do it with the power I'd have after communing with the Watcher. Anabelle implied it's been done before."

"She did, and what does that even mean?" Sasha snaps. "Did she really just confirm the multiverse theory or something?"

"Sort of," Jon says, his voice slightly strained. "All I can tell is she wasn't lying."

"Does that mean we're just running around the same circle?" Georgie asks, arching an eyebrow.

"More or less," Helen pipes in. She's squeezed herself through her door's keyhole, curling by the bottom of the door like a snake. "Some things are different in each of them."

"I- what? You knew about this? Why didn't you tell us?!" Basira scowls. They've been struggling to keep their head above water all this time, and Helen just knew?! 

Helen shrugs. The movement looks a bit off without shoulders, but they get it. "It wasn't the right time to tell you."

Basira opens her mouth to snap at her again, but errs on the side of grumbling quietly under her breath after Daisy squeezes her hand.

A team, they're a team, no matter that she wants to smack half of them over the head for taking this all so- so calmly. Does none of them realize what they could've done if they'd had this information three years ago?!

"I mean, it's not like there would've been any difference, not with the Web pulling everyone's strings," Jon sighs. Basira thinks if Jon reads her mind again, she's going to make him eat his shoe even if it gets her smitten out of existence. "I- yes, let's not do that."

Good. She turns to Helen again.

"Does it ever end, then?"

"It hasn't so far. A few things change in each one, but never enough for it to stop," she says, her dizzying eyes pinning Basira in place. "I don't like what I see in most of those doors."

"Great. This is just... just great," Basira sighs.

"Besides, sending them somewhere else just- it doesn't feel right for me, you know?" Melanie says, nudging at Gerry's feet with her own. "Is it really alright to doom another reality, if it never changes?"

"We don't know that it won't," Georgie says quietly.

"We know it hasn't so far," Gerry mutters. "At least we have all the puzzle pieces."

"Yeah, and we're trying to survive, in case you didn't notice," Georgie rolls her eyes, before letting out a tired sigh in the ensuing silence. "I- sorry. I know that doesn't give us the right to throw someone else into the fire. I just- I'm worried about the others."

Gerry nods in acknowledgment. "I am too. But out of all the other 'us' out there, we're the ones with the biggest advant-"

"It's not about you, though. Any of you," Helen cuts him off, and they all turn to look at her. "It's about Jon."

Like spectators on a tennis match, they pivot to look at Jon, who's carefully studying the tips of his shoes.

"...Jon?" Martin carefully lays a hand on his shoulder, but Jon doesn't look up.

"You choose how to be what you are, remember?" Helen asks. "It can't take that from you."

Jon sighs, and his tired, dark eyes finally look up to land on each of them for an unsettlingly long moment, almost like he's memorizing their faces.

"I don't know- I have another idea," he says in the end. "But I don't know if it will work."

"...Jon, I'm going to strangle you," Basira sighs. "You can't even tell us?"

"I don't want to give anyone false hopes." Jon rubs a face down his face, looking even wearier than before. "I just- please trust me. And focus on planning a way to keep the refugees safe."

Basira nods, feeling her throat tighten into a knot at the implication in his words and seeing the realization dawning on the others as well. She- trusting is difficult, but she can help. She can plan. And she can do all those things with the expectation that they'll all come out the other side in one piece.

It's probably setting herself up for heartbreak, but maybe that's what trusting is sometimes.

Chapter Text

XXXVII

"-kay, okay so we know Jon can reach Magnus," Basira continues on her diatribe. "But we also know the Watcher probably knows everything we've discussed so far, right? Even if it doesn't want Jonah anymore, it probably doesn't want any Jon that isn't one hundred percent willing to-"

"Join its reign of terror?" Sasha pipes in, taking Basira's dry stare unflinching. "Can it really do anything about it though? Jon is willing or he isn't, and the Web has made it clear that the ball is in his court now, it's not like it can change his mind."

"Well... it can't change his mind, but it can force his hand," Basira gestures vaguely at Helen's closed door behind them. "We need to distract it as best we can so it doesn't have a chance to fight back when it realizes Jon's taking over with his own suspicious agenda that he won't let any of us know."

Jon nods solemnly at the barbed comment, and Tim snorts. Jon's made up his mind now, and Basira would have better luck getting the tunnel walls to tell her the plan.

"I think the Mother is giving us a hint about that, by the way," Martin interrupts the Eye standoff. "Remember back at the cottage, when you locked yourself in with the tapes?"

"...I do remember Martin, thank you," Jon clears his throat, averting his eyes. 

Martin's lips twitch into a soft, sad smile, and he leans in to kiss Jon's forehead. "I'm sorry. But- yes. Remember the tape with Leitner and-?"

"I do," Jon darts a quick worried look at Gerry, who's studiously pretending not to listen to them. "But what- oh."

"Exactly," Martin nods. "It wasn't particularly subtle about it, if you ask me."

Tim arches an eyebrow. "What's that about?"

Jon looks a bit dazed when he turns to look at him. 

"I- the Institute. It was- there's a gas main running right under the tunnels."

"...Oh." Tim feels his mouth dry up. "Do you think it's still there? With- you know, everything is different now."

"I mean, the tunnels are still here," Martin says, shrugging. "I don't think the Watcher has any jurisdiction down here."

"Don't jinx it," Jon mutters under his breath. "The Web really played us, huh?"

"What do you mean?" Martin asks, arching an eyebrow.

Jon rummages into his pocket for a moment, and Tim's stomach burns when he realizes he knows what he's going to pull out.

"I- she sent me this years ago. I think the 'why' is pretty obvious now," Jon replies, stretching his open hand so they can all see the silver lighter with the spiderweb motif. "If the Institute, or- or whatever remains of it, is destroyed, then the only physical ties the Watcher will have with this world will be- well, Magnus and me."

"Huh. Is that why you never seemed to remember it when people asked you about it?" Daisy asks, poking it with a long, dirt-covered nail. 

"I probably wasn't meant to notice it until it was time," Jon sighs, nodding. "Well, the message is pretty clear and-"

"Fuck that," Tim grunts, snatching the lighter off of Jon's hand. The metal is cold against his skin as he closes his hand around it.

"Tim?" Sasha asks, arching an eyebrow at the increasing temperature and his fist glowing with angry orange light.

"We don't need it. We don't need her," he says sharply, opening his hand. The misshapen, half-melted lump of metal tumbles out of his hand to clink loudly against the stone floor. "I'll do it."

"I- I guess that works too." Jon clears his throat. "You'll need to get the refugees out before you collapse the tunnels... Daisy, do you think you and Basira can keep them safe up there?"

Daisy shrugs. "Well, it doesn't really matter if we can or not. We're going to do it anyways."

"Good. Sounds- yes." Jon nods. "I wish we'd asked Salesa to let us borrow the camera... we could've brought him with us."

"You're expecting a bit too much from him love." Gerry seems to decide they've strayed onto safer topics, because he turns to them with an amused snort. "He wouldn't have given it up, not if we couldn't assure him the plan would work."

"Which we can't, because we don't know the plan at all," Basira grumbles again. Jon's lips twitch, and Tim snorts. "Whatever. We're going with that, then? Daisy and I get them out, you go down and blow it up?"

"I'm good at it," Tim smirks. "What an encore, huh?"


"All ready for tomorrow?" Martin asks, coming to sit down at the small pile of ragged blankets and uncomfortable sleeping bags on the corner the three of them have claimed as their own ever since they arrived in London. Jon is there already, braiding Gerry's hair where he's laying on his lap. Martin knows them well enough to know the gesture brings both of them peace, even when they're nervous.

"Ready as I'm ever going to be," Jon sighs. "I'm not exactly thrilled about just... murdering someone. It's dumb, no? I did it to Jared and the Not Them already."

"I don't think the Beholding will be too thrilled with you using it to smite him, no?" Martin arches an eyebrow, sitting down by Gerry's side and picking his hand up to play with his rings.

"That's precisely it." Jon runs his fingers over a lock of black hair, all the way to the overgrown blond roots. "A knife feels... a lot more intimate than just calling on the Watcher. A lot more real."

"I... I thought about that, actually," Gerry speaks up then, bringing his free hand up to tangle his fingers with Jon's. "I'm- I can do it instead."

Jon scowls. "You can-"

"Not take over, of course," Gerry says with a shake of his head. "Just- I can take care of Magnus for you. I figure as long as you end up taking the reigns, it doesn't matter too much who does the dirty deed."

Martin presses his lips into a tight line, looking at Jon to find a mirroring, somewhat concerned look on his face. None of them is going to say it, but the hidden motive behind Gerry's offer is not hard to guess at.

The people that marked Gerry's life with either their presence or their absence once again push him towards a choice he should never have to make in the first place, and Martin wonders for a moment if this is about avenging Gertrude, or about severing the last thread connecting him to her memory.

"...Guys?" Gerry asks, his voice somewhat nervous.

Martin clears his throat. "I think it's fine. As long as it gets done it doesn't matter who does it, or does it Jon?"

"I... don't know," Jon mumbles quietly. "It's not like someone gave me this plan, I don't know if it will work or how."

"You're being purposefully vague again," Martin says, rolling his eyes.

"I'm just not sure what will happen," Jon grunts. "It's not like I can see the future."

"Can you at least tell us you think it will work?

"I'm- Martin, I don't know," Jon repeats, and Martin can feel his rising irritation in his voice. "You have any idea how that feels like, after all that's happened? I'm doing my- I don't want to give anyone false hopes-"

Gerry cuts cleanly into their squabble, sitting up and turning around to face the two of them.

"Jon? Look at me," he asks. Jon's eyes remain stubbornly fixed on the spot Gerry was occupying just a moment ago. "Please."

Martin watches in silence- the interaction and its rising tension feels chaffing, and it's taking all he has to not retreat into an unoccupied corner of the tunnels and fade against the background for a while.

It takes a moment, but Jon finally looks up.

"You promised you wouldn't lie to me," Gerry continues, squeezing Jon's hand between his own. "You promised. Will you come out of this alive?"

"I don't know!" Jon snaps. "I- what do you want me to say? I'm- I don't want to lie, but I don't know! I want-"

His voice breaks on the last word, and Gerry tightens his hands around his when he tries to pull free.

"Jon..." Martin whispers. "What do you want?"

The three of them remain frozen in a stiff tableau for a few seconds until Jon lets his head hang, and his shaky, wet voice drifts up to them.

"I want to live," he sniffs, and something in Martin breaks too at just how frail he looks.

They've been so focused on trying to convince Jon to not sacrifice himself, on trying to make him choose- how come they never noticed just how afraid Jon is that he may not get to, no matter what he tries? 

He turns to Gerry this time, but the man is pale and his eyes are lost, landing on Martin with a sort of pleading despair. He can't fix this, he can't promise Jon he'll make this better, he'll make it right.

"I- Jon... I'm sorry," Gerry mumbles softly. He unclenches his hands from around Jon's limp one, and seems somewhat reassured when Jon doesn't pull away. "I just- I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help."

Jon doesn't respond, instead focusing on slowing his wet, heavy breathing.

"We're all just doing what we can," Martin says in the end, sighing. "It's really the only thing we can do, and- and we believe you, Jon. It's just- we're scared, too."

Jon nods silently, before leaning sideways until he's resting fully against Martin's chest, burying his face there. Martin wraps his arms around him.

"I'm sorry..." Gerry whispers again, almost too quiet to be audible. Martin gives him a gentle smile and offers a hand that he grabs onto immediately, which Martin uses to pull him against the two of them. Jon snakes a hand of his own from where he's caught between them to squeeze Gerry's wrist, and Gerry leans down to press a kiss to the crown of his head, sighing when Martin mirrors the gesture on him.

Whatever happens tomorrow, they're here now and they're together. It matters.


Fear is a constant.

That at least, is undeniable. As long as there has been life, as long as there has been thought, there has been fear. In fact, it could be said that the ability to fear has been the single most important evolutionary adaptation in the history of this planet.

This is also true in most other realities that diverge from whichever the current one might be- in any and all universes, there was life, and then there was fear.

It usually starts small and instinctive, or at least it did in this one- the fear of bigger and meaner creatures, of a sharp burst of pain that one can never be sure won't be the last. Of violence, of the dark filled with unknown, unseen dangers that made creatures huddle close together and close their eyes, because at least that sort of darkness was familiar. Safe.

From there, it evolved differently.

In some universes it grew and fractured slowly, each fragment representing a new, increasingly complex fear that plagued the newly born humanity.

In this particular one it cracked at the very moment in which a human was knowingly led into danger by one they considered a friend, and looked upon their curious, satisfied face as they perished. The first to break apart from the homogeneous, thoughtless mass of horror was the fear of betrayal.

It would in time become what is now named the Web, but back then it was just a feeling, and a thought.

This has happened before.

There was no proof to cement this idea, nothing in this blossoming world in which it had just emerged to signal that it had been before, that it had consumed the very fear that had spawned it, yet it knew with a certainty that would've best fit another one of its yet-to-come congeners.

Still the Would-Be-Web felt it at its very core, and it's not in fear's nature to doubt itself, so it got to work.

The Web wove and wove its threads all across this reality, feeling its sibling Entities as humanity woke each of them up, and with every one that came that feeling of recognition, like watching a play for the thousandth time until one can pinpoint the exact moment at which the actors come on scene.

Here the Corruption, with its sickly need for possession, there the Stranger and the Spiral, intertwined but not the same, the Desolation's grief, burning everything it touches, and the Vast and the Forsaken to remind humans of just how insignificant they were, the Slaughter to remind them of the violence that runs in their very veins. One by one they all came along, and the Web only increased its anxious weaving.

This has happened before.

Every now and then it would get an even bigger peek behind the curtain, whenever a curious human reached out to grab its silken threads with desire and delight tainting their fear. These were its chosen, and it would recognize them anywhere, even if it didn't know where it'd met them before.

The Web watched Jonah Magnus sit at the center of the Panopticon he had built, and it all clicked into place.

So large and so terrible was the revelation that the Web was left almost frozen for years, nearly decades of subsisting only because its avatars were loyal and continued to supply it with the fear it needed to subsist, for it could only focus on its new discovery, on its ramifications, on the way the story would never end lest it intervened again, for it was not blind to its own past mistakes.

The Web and the Web alone had been granted with the reach of its threads across realities, and it could see now how the tapestry changed a little on every iteration, but now it was its turn to weave, and it would make sure it was the last to ever be woven.

Anabelle Cane slips that book into the thrift store box that Ester Sims would look into as she searched for more books to feed her voracious grandson with, and with it begins the Mother's last ploy.

Time and time again it tried to reach apotheosis on its own, disregarding the very knowledge it had granted the Eye's most beloved with countless times in order to trigger the change: it cannot survive without the others, and without the very reality they all have tried to destroy in order to shape it in their own image, only for it to end in chaos, bitter tears and spilled blood.

This has happened before.

This will take a more careful approach, more delicate- a taste of the future that could destroy them all, without stepping off the thin edge of the knife.  As always, it depends on this broken man of a kingpin that gains more and more importance in the wide scheme of the universe with each attempt.

It will not happen again.


There are several words to describe her girlfriend, but out of them all, Georgie never thought she'd be choosing 'fragile' as an adjective.

Melanie's small frame has always been packed with power and confidence, but right now as she sits against the wall curled around the Admiral and chewing on her bottom lip, it's the only word Georgie can think of.

"Hey," she says in a quiet whisper, and wait for Melanie to turn towards the sound of her voice before crouching in front of her. "What are you thinking?"

Melanie runs her hand down the cat's back for a couple moments, as if steeling herself to speak.

"Nothing, I guess- or- I don't know, it's just- it feels very weird," she says in the end.

"You're going to have to elaborate," Georgie says dryly, and smiles when Melanie snorts.

"Stop that. I mean- it's all over now, isn't it? One way or another, it's all going to be over tomorrow."

Georgie takes a deep, long sigh. She's been trying not to think of it- the unknowns of the plan are too much for her to feel comfortable with, and in any case she's always been much more of a doer than a planner, so the whole waiting around makes her nervous.

"I'm glad, I guess. Either it's back to normal, or we know the new normal," she says, sitting next to Melanie and pulling her against her side. "I don't know. I trust Jon, but I'm not thinking about it in case I jinx it."

"Very reasonable," Melanie nods solemnly. "I guess I'm trying to do the same, but Daisy's so anxious it's making me nervous."

"She is, isn't she?" Georgie arches an eyebrow, darting a quick look at the woman crossing the room back and forth like a caged tiger, looking back at Basira every two or three steps. "Think she's just nervous about Jon too?"

"I mean- maybe?" Melanie shrugs. "Or maybe-"

"They're coming!" Basira's voice rings out loud and clear, the green glow of her eyes illuminating the room, and everything is set in motion.

Georgie yanks Melanie to her feet just as the door starts to open, right before Daisy crashes against it with a bang far louder than her slight frame should merit, pushing it back for a few precious seconds as the screaming starts.

"Get everyone away from the door!" Daisy snarls. Her hands are curled into claws and she's struggling to hold the door closed, but her eyes are sharp and focused as she looks back at them. "Now!"

"Everyone against the wall!" Georgie screams, pushing Melanie towards the rest of the group even as the other woman is frantically trying to shove an alarmed cat into the backpack. The refugees are already backing up against the far wall, holding each other close and with their eyes shut tight- some of them are whispering or singing quietly to themselves, and Georgie feels a sudden rush of love, of heartbreak, for these people that are so hurt and broken yet still try their hardest to follow their orders, that still trust them.

The door gives after a last, harder shove that sends Daisy tumbling across the floor and way past the spot where Basira has stepped before the cowering group, and the room falls silent.

There's a murmur of cloth on stone as the first creature steps forward. Its skin is leathery and stretched tight over its bones, and the tips of its long, thin fingers drag on the floor when it moves. It's wearing ragged, ancient-looking robes and it's got a single, large green eye taking up most of its face. It stops before Basira, and she clenches her fists by her sides.

She stands firm, appearing taller than she is and with her back ramrod straight, like she's the last guardian these beings have to kill before they get to their would-be victims. As if cowed by her presence alone, the creature waits for her to speak.

"There's already an Archivist. You have no purpose anymore," Basira declares, and Georgie feels the woman's voice reverberating against her very bones. "There is nothing for you to Know here."

The creature tilts its head towards the corner of the room, where Jon is frozen in place along with the rest of the avatars. Georgie sees his throat bob when he swallows heavily, before his eyes drift back to Basira.

"I- They will not touch them, but only as long as I'm here," he grunts. "If- they'll attack if I go."

Georgie wants to scream, because of course the Entities have no qualms against holding innocent people hostage. If the Watcher keeps Jon here, then he can't go do whatever it is that he's planned.

Tim cracks his neck calmly, first one side, then the other. "You two should go with him," he says aloud. "He made me a promise, make sure he keeps it."

Jon sighs, keeping his gaze studiously averted from the increasingly nervous refugees. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Sasha pats his shoulder as she passes him. "The faster you do it, the faster we'll be safe down here, come on."

"But-"

"Just go, Jon!" Georgie snaps.

His sad, green eyes focus on her, and she wonders if this is the last time she'll ever see him; loving Jon has always been a losing game. "We know what we have to do, now do your part!"

He gives her a little sad smile, and she knows what's coming, she knows this is how she'll always remember him, no matter what happens.

Jon gives her the little mock salute they used to give the Admiral, before he sprints for the door with Martin and Gerry on his heels. The Servatoris part to let him pass, the choice has been made, and the room explodes into motion again.

Sasha's herding the refugees into a tighter cluster while Basira, Daisy and Tim focus on keeping a line between them and the creatures that are rapidly filling the room, more and more of them than they ever believed there could be. Georgie has a spare moment to wonder how many of them were like Jon once.

"We need to get them out," she whispers hurriedly in Melanie's ear. "They can't stall them forever, but-"

"We could use some help right now!" Melanie shouts, her voice so loud it rings even over Daisy's snarling screams and the roaring of Tim's fire.

"Melanie, what the- oh."

The yellow door is hard to miss, even in the midst of all the chaos. She can see the refugees struggling to stay close together even as they recoil from the door, and she takes a deep breath before guiding Melanie all the way to the front, where she turns to the others.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Melanie stretch out her free hand, and Sasha grabbing onto it before mirroring the gesture with the person next to her. It's much too slow for her taste, but they finally mimic them as well, grabbing onto each other like they're lifelines. 

Anchors.

Georgie takes a deep breath before she calls out as loud as she can.

"I need you all to follow me, and don't be afraid!" she starts. The door opens at her back, and she gives Helen a nervous look. The creature blinks at her as if asking what she's daring to do, how far she's willing to trust. Georgie turns back to the others. "This is not the moment we die."

Chapter 38

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

XXXVIII

In this reality and many others, Jonathan Sims was born thirty three years ago. He was healthy and loved, and still free of the disgrace that would mark the rest of his life. 

In this and some other things, Jonathan Sims was a lot like the people he would later grow to love.

He was always an inquisitive child, eager to know the why and the when and the how, and the Watcher felt its gaze drawn to him with the gravity of a little growing sun. It didn't know at that time what it does now, after the Web's little revelation, but even back then it could feel that little Jonathan Sims would be crucial.

Jon's parents passed away in a tragic, but ultimately unremarkable way; a drunk driver slamming against their vehicle as they came back from a party late at night. In some other more forgettable but arguably gentler realities, little Jonathan Sims died with them; he sleepily returned his mother's tightening hug one last time, and he never got to meet the bitter taste of fear.

In this reality Jon survived, however, and his first look at grief was a brief peek at the rest of his life.

Ester Sims took in her only grandchild with good intentions, but their love was tainted by the clash of a grieving child versus that of a grieving mother; sitting down for a chat was too painful and frustrating, and both of them saw in the other flashes of the loved ones they'd lost, and in trying to keep the sorrow in they succeeded only in keeping the other out.

It's a terrible irony and perhaps the Web's cruelest act, that Ester Sims picked up a peculiar book as a last ditch effort to connect with her grandson.

Jonathan Sims grew up normally after his first brush with the Web. He buried his grandmother, and mourned not just the loss of the woman who raised him, but also the relationship they never got to have. He moved through life unaware of just how important he was or would become in the future of his entire universe, afraid and alone and guided by a thin silvery thread.

It was certainly commendable, the effort and the will with which he pulled against the Mother's guiding hand; Jon, the Watcher noticed as he grew, was a stubborn creature, hopeful even in his hopelessness, always sadly looking towards a better future he didn't think himself worthy of, always so curious and so afraid.

The Watcher delighted in how this young man would openly flirt with the knowledge of the world whose existence he so fiercely denied; so many times he stopped himself from looking just before finding something that would drag him in fully, so many times he turned a corner or hopped off the bus right before meeting those who would happily take him for their patrons, and even as he grew older and started surrounding himself with other marked, he held the truth at arm's length, and he remained safe for the one that would eventually claim him.

Georgie Barker's presence shielded him for a while after her encounter with the End turned her into a null zone for their kind, but he lost her quickly and messily, and soon the thread was pulling him back in line, until it placed him neatly gift-wrapped at the Watcher's doorstep, wearing a slightly too large suit and holding an old briefcase sporting the name of a Jonathan Sims that wasn't him, whispering under his breath to try to convince himself that he was good enough, prepared enough to land a position in this place that had been practically waiting for him from the moment this universe was created.

The ripples Jonathan Sims made in the quiet stream of this reality grew larger and larger with each seemingly trivial action the Web led him towards, but much to the Watcher's surprise, Jon felt more and more important whenever he stepped out of the clearly marked path the Web had set for him.

The bonds he made with the people he met at the Institute were as strong as terrible were the fates that befell them, and when the Desolation and the Stranger threatened to take the Watcher's chosen, it was the weight of those sorrowful bonds that he used to drag himself back, along with the stubborn need for understanding that he'd used to keep himself alive in so many previous iterations.

It was at that precise moment that the Watcher's Pupil focused fully on Jonathan Sims, and so pleased was the Watcher with the promise of a successful ritual that it eagerly rewarded its young, resilient Archivist with the unwavering support and understanding he so desperately needed when all his anchors were just out of reach, bringing back the one watcher it never truly got to have.

There is something to be said about love being the catalyst to the unraveling of the world.

Now the Archive, the Archivist, the man that unmade the world, runs up the stairs of the Panopticon one last time, after walking his own creation and finding it lacking.

The Eye ponders as it waits. Contemplates this new reality the Pupil has guided the Archive into making.

It has gorged itself in the fear of billions at a time, has sensed its fellow Entities feeding under its careful watch, enjoying the suffering yet sullen in the knowledge that they are where they are only by virtue of the Web's planning, and the Watcher's chosen.

It's really just the two of them that know of the grim end they're all careening for, except for maybe Terminus, who's always passively enjoyed its superiority over the rest of them. The Watcher wonders now, if they too fear the end of all things; it's got to be expected for the Mother now, after orchestrating this very finale in countless realities already, and what is there to fear at the end for the End?

The Watcher doesn't fear annihilation or oblivion, not exactly. There's a far worse, far more simple outcome that makes it despair and wonder just *why* its most loyal, most determined chosen would have overlooked such a glaring flaw in the plan, unless it was intentional. Eventually, there will be nothing else to Know.

And that is true terror.


"You know? I somehow expected there to be something waiting to stop us on the way here," Martin says casually as they walk up towards the doors by Rosie's empty desk.

Jon shakes his head sadly. "That would've been the ancient Archivists, but I made my choice."

"They- I'm sure they're alright," Gerry swallows heavily, patting Jon's shoulder. "They can't get inside Helen, and even if they could- she can just lose them in her corridors."

"I suppose," Jon sighs.

Gerry tightens his hold on his shoulder, but says nothing. What is there to say, really? The only thing he can really do for Jon in this situation is being there and-

"And it's enough," Jon mutters, bringing his train of thought to a screeching halt. His dark, heavy gaze is fixed on the doors to the observatory, and he lets out a long, slow sigh. "I- I know you don't feel like that's a lot, but it's more than enough."

"Jon-"

"Don't you go arguing with the omniscient ruler of the world, not when he's actually right about something," Martin comments by Jon's other side, his voice entirely too casual to be natural. Still, it has the -Gerry guesses- desired effect of making him and Jon snort. "We're both here for you, love."

"I know." Jon reaches to grab on to Martin's hand. A green spark catches deep inside his eyes, burning brighter and brighter until the doors before him are illuminated by green light. "Let us through."

The doors slide open quietly, and the staircase lights up slowly as they climb up towards final room in the tower.

Magnus is still there, just dark, ragged form floating in the middle of the eye, lost in his torrent of suffering and either unaware or uncaring of the plans they have for him.

Gerry looks at him, and feels... flat.

This is the man that killed Gertrude. The man that trapped Melanie at the Institute. The man that had Martin sent into the Lonely. The man that pushed Jon to end the world. 

This man represents the Entity that has had a hold on him from day one, the one whose mark on his soul his mother celebrated as an asset to her plan, and the Entity that ripped him away from the cool, final embrace of death to use him once as a pawn again.

He should hate him more, but Gerry's just tired. Tired of the life he had to live, and that he can't wait to leave behind. 

"Can you get him down?" he asks, pulling out the knife that's traveled with them all the way from their little cottage. He can sort of reach the man's shoe if he stretches up, but he figures the Watcher is not too likely to just let him and Martin pull Magnus down.

Jon nods, stepping forward with his eyes blazing like two fiery emeralds.

"Jonah Magnus. That is not your place anymore," he says, and Magnus drops.

The greenish light aura all around him fades completely, and his body hits the floor like a bag of rocks,  his emaciated limbs unable to break the fall. A quiet, drawn-out pained exhale leaves his lungs, and this man that should've died hundreds of years ago painstakingly lifts his head to look up at them.

"I- Jonathan? What is the meaning of this?" he rasps out. "I'm- I was having the most beautiful dream-"

"You're sick and pathetic, Magnus, and your patron has abandoned you," Gerry says simply, and goes to take a step forward- only to find himself stuck in place. He tries again, but it's as though his body's glued to the floor, his jerking limbs unable to move as he's willing them to. A grim thought begins forming, and it's only exacerbated when he turns to look at Jon, and finds that he's perfectly capable of moving towards him. "Jon, why-"

"Oh, it's you," Magnus chuckles behind him. Gerry grunts in frustration after whirling around to face him and finding himself frozen once more. "I'd been wondering which one of you would try it first. I must admit my bet was on Martin."

"I would've volunteered, but Gerry did call dibs," Martin says coldly. He too takes a step towards Magnus, then recoils violently when each and every one of the eyes littering the sky focus on him through the glass walls of the observatory. A couple meager wisps of fog evaporate into nothing under the unflinching stares, until Martin has no choice but to step back again. "Ugh."

"You don't need me to spell it for you, do you?" Magnus's raspy laughter makes Gerry clench his fists. "It's alright Gerard, you've served your purpose after all. What's one more thing you couldn't d-"

"Shut up." Gerry grunts, trembling in his effort to get closer to this charred husk of a man with his satisfied, smug grin before he turns back to Jon again. "Don't- do something, please."

Jon's gentle, sorrowful smile makes a spark catch in the bottom of his stomach. 

This is the first and only time he's wanted anything akin to revenge in his life, and the Watcher won't even let him have that?! What kind of justice is that?! What-

Jon's fingers come to cradle his shaking hand, gently prying the knife from his grip.

"It's not, though," he says softly. "It's not the first time. You didn't kill Leitner either, and you could've. It just wasn't you, and it wouldn't be you if you did it now."

Then he's tugging on his hand to pull him back towards Martin and Gerry comes along, defeated. Shame on him for forgetting he's a puppet of the Eye, when all is said and done. It doesn't escape him how Magnus hasn't even tried to move away from them- pieces on a board, all of them.

"Stop that," Jon sighs, stretching his free hand to grab one of Martin's. "I-"

"Jon-" Martin tries to cut him off, but Jon raises his voice a little.

"No, let me- listen. I love you both so much," he starts again, his voice tired and rimmed with desperation. "If I don't make it-"

"You will," Martin successfully cuts him off this time, and Gerry just stands there like an idiot, because he knows goodbyes and this feels like one, and he can't think of a single word to say, can't-

"If I don't make it," Jon sighs again. "I just- thank you. Thank you for everything."

Martin opens his mouth as if to say something else, before simply shaking his head and leaning in to lay a kiss on Jon's forehead. Jon squeezes their hands, and turns to Gerry.

"Please- are you sure I can't do it?" Gerry doesn't recognize the hoarse voice that leaves his lips, but he recognizes the despair it's imbued with, so long has he carried grief and loss with him.

"It has to be me," Jon shakes his head.

Gerry takes in a deep breath to calm his nerves, wishes he at least had a heart to feel it race in fear and anticipation as he and Martin pull Jon in for a tight hug. What's one more person he couldn't save, the most important of them all?

Jon gently extricates himself from the hug, and gives their hands one last squeeze before turning on his heel to face Magnus, who's standing on shaky legs and looking at him with his disgusting, satisfied grin.

"Look at you," Magnus whispers, and his voice carries around the observatory like a judge reading a sentence. "I made you glorious, Jonathan."

Jon tilts his head to the side.

"You tried," he says. Gerry sees his hand tightening around the grip of the knife. "But I'm still me. And that's more than enough."

And when he plunges the knife in Magnus' chest, Gerry feels the whole world shift.


"How's the group doing?" Tim asks he approaches the open yellow door. 

"I've got them on one of the longest corridors, that way they feel less lost." Helen's voice comes from all around him; having so many frightened people inside her must be pretty energizing for her, Tim guesses. "Georgie's a bit of a pain, but the rest of them make up for the blind spot."

"Well, thanks for keeping them safe." Tim pats the door threshold encouragingly. "And thanks for the ride."

"Shouldn't be too far from here," she says. "And those things are still higher up, looking for me."

She sounds so unbelievably satisfied with herself that Tim can't help the chuckle that leaves his lips. It must be hilarious for her seeing those creatures trying to look for a labyrinth in a labyrinth.

"Okay, so- hopefully the explosion will just blow a hole in the ground and I'll be able to walk out, but just in case I end up a squeezed up wax lump trapped in the ruble, would you come for me?" he asks; it's not a possibility he wants to think about, trapped between two stones for eternity, but knowing his luck it might just happen.

"Sure, I'll keep you company," she says, which is not soothing in the least but it's something at least, Tim guesses.

"Fine. Okay, then... see you later." Tim nods to himself, before stepping out the corridor and into the cold stone tunnel that quickly starts heating up with his presence. The way ahead is illuminated by the glow of his eyes, and Tim gets the sudden thought that, well- Jon never told him where the gas main was.

He stops in the middle of the tunnel, tapping a finger thoughtfully on his bottom lip.

It's fine, he can find it. Probably. The others trust him to, and-

"And you'll let them down, just how you let Jon down when he sent you looking for Oliver Banks," a voice whispers in his mind, and Tim freezes. 

"That was uncalled for," he says out loud. "Especially when it's your fault I didn't find him."

The Web or Anabelle or whoever it is, remains quiet in the face of his accusation, but Tim can feel the slight, barely-there tug at his very core, pulling him forward.

"It's what you want, no?" he asks again. He figures the Web is as aware as he is that it will not control him if he doesn't want it to, after Hilltop Road, after the library, after the Leitner and the lighter, and he wonders if making its presence known is somewhat of a peace offering, an 'I'm here to guide if needed' rather than just trying to pull him along. "Fine, let's play nice, you and I. Just this one time."

The pull brings him down even deeper inside the earth, and Tim lets his mind wander as he follows the lead.

It's almost over one way or another, and he can feel the fire at his core burn hotter and hotter as he walks down the tunnel. He has the brief thought that it shouldn't be so. 

He hasn't felt this confident in a while, surrounded by all the people that make him feel human and presented with the promise of a possible future with them all. He knows optimism is dangerous, but thinking of it brings him hope, so then why is he burning bright, if his fire feeds on sorrow?

"You know why," the Web whispers in his mind just as he comes to a stop before a large black pipe, as wide as he's tall and  covered in centuries of dirt and rust.

Tim's fists clench by his sides. 

"I trust him," he says, and the fire burns hotter. "I choose to trust him, even after everything that happened."

"Has that ever been enough?" The Web says. Tim thinks of Jon's sad eyes. "He's so afraid."

Tim can feel the temperature increasing in the chamber, and he lays a shaky hand on the pipe. It turns red almost immediately, the metal softening under his touch.

"He'll do whatever it takes," he grunts out, shutting his eyes tight.

*Yes, he will."

The metal gives under his hand and fire flares to life behind Tim's closed eyelids, and the faint scent of evaporating salt drifts into his nose before the heat reaches him.


Logically, Martin knows they can't die. Humans are not dying in Jon's new reality, much less other avatars. Still, his stomach lurches and tightens in fear when the floor starts trembling under his feet, and the room is filled with blinding white light that leaves him grasping around for Gerry while bright spots of color bloom behind his eyelids.

"Is- what's happening?" Martin yells over the roaring wind and the shaking of the tower; he tries to take a step towards Jon, but Gerry practically slams against him to keep him back.

"It's- he's taking the Watcher in-," Gerry grunts. "Or- or the Watcher is assimilating him, I- I'm not sure."

Jon's lifted completely off the ground, floating in the middle of his own iris of eerie green light, and the desiccated body of Jonah Magnus crumbles slowly into dust at his feet. A pitiful end, for one that went through such lengths to achieve immortality, Martin thinks.

"Did we lose him?" he asks. His voice is as shaky as his grip on Gerry's shoulders; the thought of taking a step closer to Jon is as unthinkable as the thought of stepping back. The tower keeps shaking more and more violently, and they cling to each other for stability in the midst of the destruction. "Gerry?!"

"I don't know!" Gerry exclaims. His eyes are bright green and wide in panic as he stares up at Jon. "I- the Eye feels happy, but- FUCK!" he screams, when the entire tower lurches sideways, and the sounds of a far off explosion reach their ears. "F- Martin-"

"The gas pipe," Martin says faintly. Every single eye in the sky is fixed on Jon's glowing form like he's the only thing that matters in the entire universe, which Martin figures is probably true now that they've blown off the only other physical tether the Eye has on this reality. "What do we do?! Should we go?"

Gerry yanks him off to the side before  slab of rock lands heavily on the spot he'd been standing on, cracking the floor and the crystal panes around them.

"We- Martin I don't think we have any other choice," he says, and his voice cracks and breaks as he starts anxiously pulling at him to bring him towards the stairs leading back into the Panopticon proper- it kills something in Martin to see how Gerry can't tear his panicked gaze away from Jon, not even with his hands white-knuckled on Martin's sweater, tears running down his face and a streak of black ink dripping from a cut on his cheekbone. "Come on, before it goes down-"

"What about Jon?!"

"Martin please!" Gerry exclaims, pulling more desperately. "If anyone can survive this it's him, but I can't- please I can't lose you in here, he wouldn't want that."

"W- he wouldn't-"

"Martin!" Gerry yells, and Martin rips his gaze from Jon's luminous body and runs towards the stairs with him. It feels as though a part of him is being torn off and left behind, but Gerry's right, if- Jon can survive this, Jon will survive this, and they need to be there for him when it all ends.

As they run past Rosie's abandoned desk, Martin tries to ignore the treacherous little voice in his mind telling him that they already failed, that it all ended already and they abandoned Jon instead. It feels like everything is happening way too fast as they run down the Panopticon's seemingly endless stairs, like they should've done more.

Like they made a mistake.

"We need to go back," he says over the sound of cracking stone, stopping so abruptly that Gerry nearly trips to the ground when he's jerked back by their joined hands. "Gerry, we can't leave him like that-"

"Martin-"

"No! No, we- we have to be together at least!" Martin insists. Jon's terrified face from last night keeps popping up in his mind, the desperation with which he confided in them that his worst fear was not getting to live despite wanting it so much. He has to make him understand, and if he doesn't... "We- I can't leave him alone! Maybe you don't want to be there with him but I have to be there!"

"Are you leaving me alone, then?!" Gerry snaps back, letting go of his hand. "That's it? You'd rather die with him than live with me?!"

The two of them stand still on the shaking staircase, breathing heavily and both far too aware they've crossed a line. Martin feels like his heart is being torn in two, he wants to scream and he even has a spare moment to wish Gerry had never found him in the Lonely.

It would've been far easier that way.

"We don't know that we lost him," he says faintly, though his words feel like a drowning man's last attempt before sinking to the depths. "We don't know that he's dead."

"We don't- we don't, but Martin, but if you go up there you will die. I know that much." Gerry's eyes are glowing an intense green and so sad, as he stands there trying to keep his balance in the staircase that is shaking more violently by the second. "I- I can't stop you if you want to go back, but that's what will happen. It's your choice. I made mine, but if you don't want- I won't hold it against you."

Of course he won't, Martin thinks, he will hold it against himself for not being good enough, for not being able to make the sacrifice instead of Jon. He's not sure at this point if the Panopticon is trembling harder than he himself is.

"I just- hah-" Martin snorts a bout of hysterical laughter. Heavy slabs of debris rain all around them, and out of the corner of his eye he can see a bright yellow door on the crumbling wall. "I knew something like this would happen. I just- I guess I just thought we'd die together."

Gerry gives him little sorrowful smile that makes Martin want to throw himself off the stairs, but he doesn't say a thing, doesn't move either towards Martin or away from him.

The choice is his.


You have to let go.

                                I do not. This is mine and mine alone, and you should know it better than anyone.

I do know, but I also understand. Is that not why I'm here? To use the knowledge you give me?

                                It's taken millennia to build this.

And it'll take a lot less to unravel it.

                                That doesn't make any sense.

It does. Think about it, it does. It's killing us, it will kill us.

                                It cannot kill me. I do not live, I only exist.

Will you exist still, when there is no one left to fear? When there is nothing left to know?

                                ...

You will destroy yourself.

                               What about you?

You will destroy me too. This way... this way at least I can give them one more chance.

                               They love you. All of them, they love you so much.

I know.

                               Does that not make it more difficult?

No. I'm doing it for them. That's what it's all about, isn't it?

                               What's what it's all about?

Anchors.

                               But you will lose them.

...

                               If you stay, you will have them forever. This world is yours.

...It is, isn't it? Mine.

                               It is. So many realities, so many universes have converged on you... You made this world. It belongs to you, little Archivist. You have so much power, you don't even realize-

Then... Then let's get to remaking it.

                               What?

We'll do it right this time. Different.

                               It won't work. That's not how any of it works.

Maybe.

                               ...

Aren't you curious?


"How are you two doing?" Sasha's voice asks behind her. Or at least Melanie guesses it's Sasha, because it doesn't sound at all like the Sasha she remembers. It's a bit of a sad joke, that the only person in the group that could tell them what Sasha originally looked like is now blind. A large, rough hand squeezes hers, pulling her back to the present.

"Hm? Georgie's great, and I'm doing fine. Ever since-" she gestures vaguely at her face with Georgie's hand gripped in her own, "I'm always a little bit afraid of getting lost, so I figure Helen is feeding off of that instead of sending me into a full-blown panic."

"I wouldn't send you into a full-blown panic," Helen's voice echoes all around them, and Melanie snorts at the offended undertone. "We're friends."

"Sure we are." Melanie shrugs. "You still need to eat. Especially if you've got Georgie and Sasha here."

"I take offense to that," Sasha pipes in immediately. "All of us monsters are playing nice with each other, it's-"

"Martin, Gerry?" Georgie asks suddenly, and Melanie practically crashes against her back when she stops walking. "What are you doing here?"

"Gerry?" Melanie calls out. Her stomach contracts with nerves when he doesn't respond immediately. "What's happening?"

"Martin, where's Jon?" Sasha asks too, her grip tightening around Melanie's hand. "Why-"

"Up- he's up at the Panopticon," Martin cuts her off. His voice sounds exhausted and far-off, echoing weirdly in Helen's corridors. "We don't know-"

"You left him there?!" Georgie snaps.

"Who left who where?!" Daisy yells from the end of the line. "Jon?! Are you alright?"

"Well, what did you want us to do?!" Gerry snaps right back at Georgie. Melanie sighs- this has been a long time coming.

"Stay with him, for one! Like you promis-"

"Like you did?!" Gerry's shout is followed by silence, like Georgie simply can't believe the words he just said. He breathes heavily for a moment, and when he speaks again his voice is weak and strained, like it's taking all he's got to force the words out his throat. "He's- I couldn't lose Martin too. I- Georgie, he knew what he was doing."

"He didn't, you know he didn't," Georgie snarls. "He was just-"

"He was just doing what he could to keep us safe," Martin cuts cleanly between the two of them. "It was his choice. And- and we have to respect it."

It's- it feels unreal, Melanie thinks. She simply cannot wrap her head around the idea; Sasha lets out a wet sob behind her, and Melanie finds herself leaning back to press against her in reassurance even as she squeezes Georgie's shaking hand.

"So he's dead?" she asks. Her voice hasn't sounded this fragile in a while. "Just like-"

"I think we'd all be too if that was the case. So not dead, but- but I think he's gone, Melanie." Gerry sounds broken, and she aches to reach out to him too, she wishes things would just stop happening. "I think-"

"I don't feel well," says Helen. "I'm- something's wrong. Something is-"

"Should we get out?" Georgie asks immediately, settling back into control and reason that Melanie can practically hear her pushing back on her grief. "Hel-"

"H- hold on to something!" is all Helen manages to say before the corridors violently lurch sideways.

Is this it then? Melanie wonders as they're thrown back and forth across the corridors, slamming against walls that weren't there before and that aren't there a moment later, with the sound of plaster cracking around them and debris raining down on them. There's a sound like a hundred thousand mirrors and vases crashing to the ground on a hundred thousand different corridors, of tables and doors splintering and Helen groaning in pain. She tastes blood, but forces herself to keep her mouth shut; she can hear the refugees' panicked screaming, and she will not- if this is how they die, trapped inside the Distortion as Jon destroys the Entities, she will not go screaming, she will not fear.

It feels like hours before the inside of Helen's corridors stabilizes; Melanie's somewhat surprised to find out she managed to hold on to Georgie and Sasha through it all, and even more surprised of how relieved she is by all the pained moans around her. 

They're alive.

"Helen?" she calls out. The taste of iron is still strong in her mouth, and she's fiercely, violently relishing in it. She's in pain, and it means she lives. "Are you good?"

"I think you should all get out now," Helen mutters; Melanie's eyebrows raise when she hears her friend's mismatched, stumbling steps on the carpet. Whatever happened, it was bad enough to make Helen want to leave her own corridors.

"Georgie?"

"I'm alright," Georgie answers immediately. "Are you? The Admiral-"

"Should be fine, I didn't land on him," Melanie soothes her. "Can you stand? Helen says we need to get out."

"I- yes. Yes, let's go," Georgie responds, climbing to her feet and pulling her up too.

"How's the rest? Gerry?"

"I'm here, Melanie," Gerry's voice reaches her just a moment before his heavy steps. "I- Georgie can go check on the refugees if you're alright with me helping you."

Melanie's not stupid by any means, and she knows he needs this way more than she does.

"Sounds like a plan," she says, reaching towards him with a hand that he immediately takes. 

"Need any help with that?" Sasha asks. 

"I've got it," Georgie answers. "Don't take this the wrong way but they're-"

"Afraid. Got it." Sasha sounds tired. "Let's go then. Better to find out now."

"Where's Martin?" Melanie mutters as they walk towards where she guesses the door is. 

"Ahead," Gerry says, his voice so low it's barely a whisper. "I- Melanie, I don't know that he'll forgive me for making him leave."

Melanie squeezes his hand. "This wasn't your fault."

None of it was their fault. They were all just victims. Even Jon. 

Especially Jon.

"Are you ready?" Helen asks; her voice sounds strained, and Melanie has the thought that she'd probably long forgotten how it felt to be dizzy.

"Let's see what we've got to work with," Martin says dryly. Melanie presses herself tightly against Gerry. 

Helen turns the doorknob.


Sasha freezes on her spot, her hand meant to be comforting on Martin's shoulder turned a vice-like grip as the door opens, and she feels her eyes watering when a cool night breeze drifts in. 

"Is- is it-?" Melanie asks behind her. Sasha tries to reply, but finds that she'd have better luck moving the sun than tearing her words out from her throat right now. 

The door seems to be on the ground, and through it she can see the sky. It's pitch black, speckled here and there with the faint shimmer of distant stars. The air coming in smells of wet dirt and smoke, and Sasha feels the burning in her eyes begin to spill.

"It's over," Martin announces.

He sounds dead.

Helen has already climbed out, and pulls them out one by one with her long-fingered hands. 

Sasha climbs out into a street painful in its familiarity, even if it's completely covered in rubble now. She can hear the river running a ways away, but asides from that the city's quiet, like it knows what just happened. What it cost them.

She wipes a hand over her wet cheek, her chest burning with grief. She never expected to have another chance at life, and Jon gave her two. 

"Helen? Sash, is that you?" Some rubble shifts behind her, and Sasha turns to see Tim painstakingly making his way over to them. Some spots in his skin have fully burnt away, and his ashy flesh spills out to drift away in the cool night breeze, but he's alive and he's safe, and Sasha can't move fast enough to wrap her arms around him when he comes closer. "I- fuck, I thought I wouldn't make it out. I wasn't sure- did it work? Did we bring it down?"

"It's over," Sasha tightens her arms around him, resting her head on his. "I'm so glad you're alright."

"Ha, I thought- I-" Tim stiffens in her arms. "S- Sash? What are they doing?"

She turns to follow his gaze, and her stomach falls to her feet. 

While Basira seems to be focused on helping Georgie and Helen get the humans out, Daisy has joined Martin and Gerry where they're desperately trying to dig into the rubble. 

"Tim..." she tries, but he pulls back. 

"No. It's- where is he?" He asks. His eyes that were dark and tired and relieved have gone back to burning a bright orange, and he buries his hands in his hair, pulling tight as he shakes his head. "Sasha, where's Jon?"

"I- Tim, he's not-"

"Don't. He's- it wouldn't have killed him," he mutters, his voice growing increasingly loud in his desperation as he turns around, almost as though he's expecting Jon to hop out from behind a pile of rubble with a sheepish smile on his lips. "I didn't- where is he?! Jon?! JON, YOU BASTARD, YOU PROMISED! YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T DO THIS AGAIN!"

"Tim, stop," Sasha chokes back a sob. She can only imagine how he feels; the two of them just starting to mend things only for- "He's- he's gone. Gerry said he-"

"And what the fuck does he know?!" Tim snarls. "He's got to be here somewhere, he has to, Sash. Come on!"

And he rushes away to join the other three  before she can get another word in. 

Sasha stands there, watching and fighting to stay in the moment; her name is Sasha James. She just lost Jon, but he gave her back her name, and she's going to keep it safe.

The search becomes more desperate as time goes by, all four of them calling out and pushing and pulling and getting into each other's space- at some point Tim gets into a shouting match with Daisy that turns physical when Gerry butts in. Martin doesn't even try to separate them, instead he merely drops to sit on a large slab of rock and buries his head in his hands. 

The glow of Basira's eyes softly illuminates the night, and the woman curses under her breath when even she doesn't seem to find the trail she's looking for. 

Sasha can hear Georgie crying softly behind her, whispering some quiet words to a large orange cat she pulled out of a backpack, and the anxjous muttering of the refugees as some of them step up to try and comfort her.

"I think they're done fighting," Melanie says a few steps away. She's sitting on the ground with her hands tightly fisted in the fabric of her jeans. 

She's right, Sasha notices as she trips and skids her way to sit by her side. Tim and Daisy have stopped their altercation and gone back to digging into the rubble with their hands covered in ash or blood, respectively.

Martin is still sitting on his spot, stiff and surrounded by a thickening cloud of fog that Gerry's desperately trying to fan away with his ink-stained hands.

"This isn't fair," Sasha says quietly.

"He saved the world." Melanie says in what sounds like disbelief, shaking her head. "He saved the world, and his happy ending were those three months in that little cabin."

They sit there in silence as the sun begins to break over the horizon, and none of them can bring themselves to mention that this feels like they lost.

Notes:

See you next week! 😘

Chapter 39

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

XXXIX

Things have a way of falling back into place, Martin thinks, even when you don't think they ever will.

Most people simply go back home to get ready for the next day; it feels anticlimactic at best and downright offensive at worst but it doesn't take Martin long to realize that with a few exceptions, no one seems to remember what happened. 

When he mentions this a few days later Georgie speculates it's only the ones that were in Helen's corridors with her that were unaffected by the change, which makes sense to some degree. Still, Martin feels bad for them, but also jealous.

The group has all been camping at Georgie and Melanie's flat, going back to the spot the Institute stood on to keep looking amongst the debris. The official story seems to be that the building collapsed overnight due to structural damage; Martin thinks it's too shoddy a coverup for the Web but he's not about to complain, not when it means someone else will help look for Jon.

"You find anything?" he asks at around the three days mark. He tries to tell himself it's not a formality- it would be terrible, but Jon could survive being buried. What's some debris compared to the coffin, after all?

Gerry looks up at him in surprise like he's just been woken up from a daydream, and Martin realizes with a start that it's the first time they've talked since the world changed again. He feels guilty for a moment, before he realizes Gerry's just sitting there on a piece of broken staircase, at which point it starts to boil into frustration. 

"Gerry?"

"I didn't," Gerry says quietly, and Martin's back to feeling guilty with how Gerry averts his gaze, like he's afraid of his reaction. Martin himself used to do it a lot as a child, and he can imagine Gerry did too. "I'm sorry, Martin."

There's something about the sheer level of grief in those three words that Martin feels all the fight leave his body, like it's been siphoned out and replaced with exhaustion. 

This is not what he wanted for them. 

He takes a few steps to come sit on the staircase next to Gerry, their sides barely grazing each other. 

"We're not going to find him, are we?" Martin asks quietly. He wonders if everyone else knows already, and they're just doing this to humor this relentless hope of his that's begun to feel like a cancer even to himself. 

Gerry looks up at him again; there's deep, dark bags under his eyes but they are, as always, beautiful. Seafoam green and so full of emotion, even if that emotion is despair.

"I don't know where he is," Gerry whispers. It sounds like a confession, like a broken man's apology, and it makes Martin want to cry. "I- Martin, ever since I got brought back, I've always known where he was, always, even after the change. And- and I don't anymore. It's- I don't know where he is, but- but he's not here."

Martin nods, because he can't think of anything to say. Not in the face of the plain, irrefutable certainty that Jon is lost forever.

'You're too hopeful,' he remembers someone saying, and he wonders now if maybe it wasn't a warning. 

"I should've- Martin?" Gerry asks, his voice worried after the moment of silence. "I'm so sorry, I should've let you go back. I should've gone with you. We'd be together, at least."

Martin shifts gently until he's pressing more heavily against Gerry's side; this is not- he never meant for his grief to be a punishment or an accusation for the man he loves. 

"We're together," he says. That much is true, at least. "I- you asked me if I'd rather live or die and I made my choice. I'm sorry I've been- I'm sorry."

"I... Don't know what to do from here," Gerry sighs, carefully leaning his head on Martin's shoulder. 

Martin rests his cheek on the crown of Gerry's head. There's a glaringly empty space between them, but he doesn't think either of them will be drawing attention to it again anytime soon. 

"I don't, either." He sighs; it tastes like salt and cold, wet fog, but he ignores it. It would be unfair to Jon to shy away from this pain. "I think we'll figure it out as we go. We're pretty resourceful, you and I."

Gerry snorts. It sounds a bit wet, and he brings around a hand to tangle his fingers with Martin's.

"Yeah," he quietly says after a moment. "Yeah, we are. Let's- let's make the most of it, then."


The flat is just like Tim remembers it, only the fog that filled it to the brim back when Martin lived here is nowhere to be seen. It's a nice space; private, quiet, not too far from the city but not too close either, which Tim likes. They could disappear for a week or two on a little adventure if they wanted, and no one would look at them twice. 

"And you're sure we can just keep it?" Tim arches an eyebrow. He's not too versed in tenant laws, but he can't imagine Martin didn't do his research.

"I mean- yeah," Martin shrugs. "It'll keep paying for itself for a while, in fact you'll probably have enough time to find a place you like better before it stops getting paid, if you want to."

"...Martin, who's paying for your flat?" Sasha asks.

It's only been about a month from the change, and accepting Jon was lost hit them all hard. Martin seems to be steadily getting better, but he still looks almost translucent most days.

Which is why it's a bit of a surprise to see his cheeks gain just the faintest bit of color after Sasha's question.

"I- uh. Peter's finances were a mess," he confesses after a moment. "I knew he probably would never notice anyways, but I thought if he was going to force me into aligning with the Lonely, the least he could do was pay for a place where I'd be alone, you know?"

There's a long beat of silence as the two of them process the news.

"...The Lukas family is paying for your flat," Tim says after a moment. 

Martin's face gets even more opaque as he grows more flustered. 

"Your flat," he corrects, pushing the keys towards them over the breakfast bar. "And it's not like- they don't even know, alright? I just redirected some funds he used to transfer to Eli- Jonah. He never noticed, so I don't think they will either."

"So you didn't just scam yourself a sugar daddy, you stole a jailed man's sugar daddy and kept the pension after your boyfriend killed both of them," Sasha whistles in admiration; or she tries to, since she's not in one of the whistling bodies today.

"I didn't- it sounds worse than it is when you say it like that," Martin stammers. "Peter was actively trying to either kill me or turn me and-"

"Oh no, we're impressed, Marto!" Tim cackles, delighted. "You've come a long way from resume forgery."

"Please don't," he groans, but Tim is pleased to see the little satisfied curve to his embarrassed smile. "Just- keep it, will you?"

"Now, what kind of friends would we be if we didn't become complicit in your crimes?" Tim snorts, before a sobering thought sparks in his mind. "But what will you and Gerry do, then? Back up north?"

Any and all color Martin had gained through the conversation melts away, leaving him behind like a faint shadow of himself and Tim feeling like a tit for even bringing it up, despite the fire in his stomach flaring up in satisfaction at the resulting sorrow.

"I- no," Martin sighs, and faint wisps of fog are beginnings to form in the air around them. "We haven' really discussed it yet, but... It doesn't feel right to go back."

Sasha reaches slowly across the table lay her hand on Martin's. He takes a moment, bur his hand eventually turns to squeeze Sasha's back.

"I don't think anything will feel right again," she says softly, "but I think he'd be very happy to see us try."

Tim doesn't say anything, hasn't said anything about it ever since the change. Sometimes he still wonders if this is really the good ending, with how weary and broken they all are. 

Then again, they were always weary and broken, he thinks. After all, isn't that what drew him to Jon when they first met? The thought that maybe they could heal together, that their past didn't have to matter as long as they focused on the present.

"...I miss him too," he says, unprompted. 

Martin and Sasha don't question him, which he's grateful for. He ways did think it would be easier to forgive a dead person, but everyday he's still a little bit angry that he left them all behind.

Martin stays for another hour or two. He makes coffee for Sasha and tea for the two of them, and no one comments on how he accidentally pulls out an extra mug and chooses to leave it by the empty side of the table.


"It always looks smaller than I remember," Gerry says.

Martin gives him a quick look out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn't seem upset, mostly... thoughtful, if he had to put a word to it.

"Looks fine to me," Melanie says with a shrug, which has the -Martin guesses- intended effect of making Gerry snort. "How often do you come here?"

"I don't really 'come here', I guess. But when I'm in the area doing other stuff, sometimes I just walk by." Gerry pushes and pulls with his teeth at the ring on his bottom lip, but stops as soon as he catches himself doing it. It sends a pang of sadness through Martin's chest, that even these trivial gestures have become painful now. 

"I mean, it's just responsible ownership," Martin pats his shoulder. "Keeping an eye on your property and all."

"I guess it did come in handy, but I still can't believe Gertrude never even reported me missing," Gerry huffs.

"You really can't?" Melanie arches an eyebrow. 

"Allow me my righteous indignation," Gerry grunts, much to Melanie's amusement. "Well... Let's go in, I guess."

"We don't have to, if you don't want to," Martin says immediately. 

Melanie nods. "We could just go get ice cream. Martin can tell me if you look like a dumb vampire with your cherry ice lolly."

"You'll find he's legally bound to say I look like a very handsome dumb vampire," Gerry snorts. To his credit, it only sounds the slightest bit off. "I do want to go in first though, one last time." 

"Then we're going in," Martin says with a nod. "You got the keys?"

Gerry nods back, stepping forward with the ring of keys they picked up this morning from a bank safe in Gertrude's name. He'd gone very quiet when they were told she'd designated him a beneficiary and given access after a perfunctory look at his ID, but that's something to think about later, when everything is less tender.

It takes some struggling, but the key eventually goes all the way into the rusty lock; Gerry gives the bottom left side of the door a little kick as he turns it, and the door to Pinhole Books opens for the first time in over ten years. 

The inside is dark and unkempt, which was expected, but Martin guesses it also looks a bit too much like it did back in the day, judging on how Gerry stiffens at the threshold. 

"We're still in time for ice cream," Melanie says casually after the long moment of silence.

Gerry doesn't respond this time, merely clenching his hand around the edge of the door before he goes in. 

The ground floor is just the bookstore, with its dusty shelves filled with old, worn tomes that Martin desperately hopes are normal books. Gerry walks past them without giving them a second look, and they follow him through the door left ajar behind the counter. 

"Does it look weird and creepy?" Melanie whispers quietly, falling into step with him before they begin climbing the stairs into the house proper. 

Martin gives the space an evaluating look when they get to the top of the stairs- it looks like a regular, abandoned flat. There's an old, ragged couch, and a single armchair covered with a sheet. A little breakfast bar in a broken down kitchen. A framed family tree with a cracked glass, and a couple family photos on the chimney's mantelpiece.

"It only feels creepy," Martin whispers back as quietly as he can. 

"I mean- I did have to hire someone to clean the blood before I moved back in," Gerry says dryly, making them both flinch. "Any remaining uncanniness is probably my mother's miasma clinging to the walls."

"She had terrible taste in decor," Melanie deadpans. "Martin, don't let him decorate, maybe it's hereditary."

Gerry snorts again. "What if I got my interior design instincts from my dad? Maybe he only had terrible taste in women."

"That's cheating, you know I'm on your dad's team by default," Melanie crosses her arms over her chest.

The banter seems to have put Gerry a bit more at ease, judging by how he doesn't immediately flinch when Martin lays a hand on his shoulder.

"You're doing great, love."

Gerry turns his head to place a kiss on Martin's knuckles, before taking a deep, calming breath. "I- my bedroom's this way."

He sounds nervous again, and Martin is grateful Melanie seems to sense it as well and doesn't pipe in with a joke; she just grabs onto his arm as Martin slides his hand from Gerry's shoulder to tangle their fingers together, and they let him lead them down a corridor that goes deeper into the flat. 

There's a closed, dust-covered door that Gerry studiously doesn't look at as they pass it, and then they're standing by the end of the corridor, in front of yet another door left ajar. 

"Want me to open it?" Martin asks when Gerry makes no move to let go of neither of them. 

Gerry nods, and Martin pushes the door with his free hand. 

The bedroom is small. A narrow bed pushed all the way against the corner of the room, a desk covered in papers and old cigarette butts, a couple posters on the walls.

There's a window by the bed, and Martin can imagine little Gerry looking longingly out at the street. He feels the Lonely at his core feeding on this house that was never a home, on this room that tried its best to be a shelter but only succeeded in being a prison.

"Smaller than I remember," Gerry mutters.

He falls quiet for a long time after that, and neither Martin nor Melanie try to engage him in conversation; whatever he's thinking, whatever he's remembering, is his and his alone. 

Eventually though, he takes another deep breath and gently untangles himself from their grip, before he goes to kneel by the side of the bed and reaches under it with a hand. 

He pulls out a shoebox, and opens it to examine its contents- a folded shirt, a pair of old reading glasses, and a single photograph that shows a black-haired man with laughing eyes and dimples on his cheeks, holding a small bundle of blankets.

"We can go," Gerry says after he closes the box again and tucks it under his arm. He sounds like he just ran three marathons in a row.

"Ice cream?" Melanie squeezes his arm when he offers it to her again. 

His answering smile is sad, but with a hint of his own, mischievous humour. Gerry has ever been resilient, Martin guesses. 

"Ice cream," he says with a nod. "And if you could ask Helen if she still has any real estate contacts from before she became a creature of the Spiral, I have a house to sell."


Sasha clicks her spoon impatiently against the rim of her coffee cup. 

"Like, I'm not imagining it, am I?" she asks. The others all look conflicted as they mull over her idea. "I watched a doll customizing video last night and it made my headache disappear."

"Dolls are still a bit creepy," Daisy objects with a shrug, and Sasha shakes her head. 

"Maybe, but it wasn't that, you know?" she says. "It was about how this woman gave it an entire new face that suited it better, and gave it a name and a story. And- and I still feel good when someone gets creeped out by me, but this was different, it was a good feeling."

"I don't think that's how it works," Georgie says carefully. "Aren't these things- well, fear entities?"

Sasha turns towards Basira. "Last night I finished Tim's chips. I told him I didn't, but I did and then I ordered him some more because I felt guilty."

"I knew it," Tim grumbles by her side, but she pays him no mind. 

Her focus is instead on how Basira's eyes have lit up a bright green after hearing her secret.

"How's that felt?" she asks. 

"I'm- I don't really have any frame of reference," Basira clears her throat. "I wasn't an avatar until after the first change. I don't- I don't really know if it's any different to how feeding felt before."

Sasha groans. "Why are you all so difficult?! Alright, who was already an avatar before the change?"

"I'd say Gerry and Helen, but we know they're not avatars." Martin shrugs. "Then again, you're not either, and it feels different for you too."

"I mean, I don't know how it felt for the Not Them before, but I reckon if they could've fed by watching someone do a face-up on a Monster High doll, they wouldn't have had to go messing with Jon and gotten themselves killed."

"Technically they didn't mess with Jon the second time," Helen pipes in from the small, door-shaped pendant hanging from Melanie's necklace. "That was mostly me."

"Then?" Sasha taps the table impatiently. 

"We could play tag with Daisy?" Melanie asks. 

"That already- it worked for her before the change," Tim sighs by her side. "But I don't know if it was because you were hunting the hunters?"

"Probably," Daisy nods slowly. "What about you? Have you felt any different?"

"Still plenty of angry and sad in my life," Tim shrugs with that nonchalant smile Sasha knows is full of shit. "Haven't had time to test a diet change."

"Can't one of you knowledge people just Know this?" Sasha groans. 

"I mean... Jon did remake the world," Gerry sighs after a moment. "It wouldn't be such a stretch to imagine he made some changes."

"But we don't know for sure?" She raises an eyebrow.

"When have we ever?" Gerry raises his as well. "We'll just have to keep an eye on it."

"You're all impossible," she huffs. "Where's your scientific curiosity?"

"Personally, I don't want to know anything else about these things, ever again," Georgie declares. The others mutter in agreement, and Sasha crosses her arms over her chest, sulking.

"I miss Jon," she grumbles under her breath. Tim reaches over to pat her shoulder consolingly.


It's just a key. 

Martin is acutely aware of the fact that the importance he attributes to it makes nothing to give the key any objective value. It's just a key, it opens and closes places, it fits in the palm of his hand, it can get lost; it doesn't represent a thing, it's just. A. Key.

His hand still shakes somewhat, when he offers it on his open palm.

"Just- it's not like we'll be using it," he says, and his words taste bitter even to himself.

Gerry squeezes his free hand under the table, before giving Daisy a sad smile. "There might be some carrots ready to harvest by the time you get there."

"You can keep it," Daisy says, shaking her head and making no move to grab the key that feels heavier by the second on Martin's hand. "I don't want it."

"You have somewhere else to go?" Gerry asks, arching an eyebrow. 

She and Basira are the only ones still remaining at Georgie and Melanie's flat, more than three months after the change; even he and Gerry moved out a few weeks ago when they signed the lease on this quiet little flat.

The thought of going back up North without him felt just... wrong.

Living in a place Jon never even saw gives them some distance from the hurt, like this is a different life they're living instead of just trying to rebuild the old one out of ashes and debris.

"We're leaving for a while," Basira says with a shrug. "We got- there's some volunteer work we got accepted for. It's only a few months, but we'll see where we go from there."

"The cabin is yours," Daisy shrugs. Her arms are tightly crossed over her chest, her nails digging into her pale flesh. Martin wonders if they'll ever stop grieving Jon, and how he'll feel if it ever happens. "I don't- he was happy there . I don't mind if you never go back, but I feel better knowing it's yours. We can deal with the paperwork when we're back in London."

There's a long, heavy moment of silence in the kitchen; Martin closes his hand around the key again. Gerry lays his own hand on top of his. 

Eventually though, Gerry snorts a little. It sounds miserable, but Martin appreciates him trying, and he gives him a little smile that he hopes is encouraging. 

"What is it, love?"

Gerry gestures at Basira and Daisy, trying for an amused smile. 

"I just wanted to say, a house was definitely not the housewarming present I thought you'd bring," he says. 

Daisy chuckles too, sounding equally as crestfallen, and Basira pats her hand on the table before turning to them.

"We didn't know if the lamps they had at IKEA would suit your décor, so we decided to play it safe," she says dryly. 

It's a terrible joke, but Martin chuckles anyways, because he figures Jon would've found it funny. 


The sounds of cooking reach him as soon as he opens the door to the flat, the clicking of metal against glass, the sound of something bubbling. 

Gerry smiles softly as he closes the door behind himself.

None of them need to eat, and cooking- cooking hurts most of the time, but sometimes Martin chooses to do it still. Gerry guesses it's a way to remember him. 

He hangs his jacket on the hook by the door, and unwraps his long, hand-knitted black scarf from around his face, then promptly freezes when the scent hits him. 

It's- it's nothing out of the ordinary. Honey and milk- it's not even identical, with the hint of cinnamon and vanilla hanging in the air. It's probably just that Martin was feeling a bit festive, with the Winter holidays coming close and all.

Still, Gerry finds his steps unsteady as he makes his way towards the kitchen, and leans on the threshold to watch Martin work.

He looks the slightest bit translucent, as he moves from counter to stove with silent steps, carefully measuring a cup of oats before sprinkling it inside the sweet-smelling pot. 

It's different. Very different.

"Oh! I didn't notice you'd come home," Martin's voice makes him whip his head up, ripping his gaze from the boiling pot. "How was- are you okay?"

Gerry follows his worried gaze to where his hand is clenched around the doorframe, the black eyes on his fingers popping out against his stark, white knuckled grip. 

He's puzzled for a moment, until he remembers Martin can't simply see into his mind to know what's bothering him better than even Gerry himself can. The remainder, as always, hurts. 

"...My mother made that sometimes," he says finally, after the words find their way to his lips. 

"...Oh." Martin's expression softens. The pot bubbles away. He makes as if to turn towards the stove, but Gerry shakes his head. 

She wasn't much of a cook, to be honest. Gerry's childhood was frozen meal after frozen meal, cold cereal and takeout. She had the money, and she lacked the time and dedication. 

Sometimes, however, she would indulge; the Eye volunteers the thought that she did it back then for the same reason Martin does it now, though the idea of her missing his father is laughable and somewhat offensive.

The memories are hazy; Gerry doesn't think it happened often, especially by the time he was old enough to have a clear recollection of rare, random mornings of waking up to the scent of cooking oats. 

They would eat in silence, Gerry remembers. She'd stare at him as he ate, her blue-green eyes devoid of any emotion and no smile on her lips, but her hand when it carded through Gerry's straw-blond hair was almost gentle, without the bite of vicious claw-like nails.

It's kinda unfair, that he doesn't remember more clearly.

"Gerry?" Martin's voice is gentle, coaxing him back to the present. Their present. "Do you want to sit down?"

He nods absentmindedly, and moves to sit on one of the three stools by the breakfast bar. Three's a fine number, whispers the space where his heart should be.

He ignores it. He's ignores it for nearly a year now, pushing the pain aside in favor of trying to build a life in which he and Martin can thrive, because it's what he would've wanted.

"Were there ever good times with yours?" he asks after Martin has taken a seat beside him.

Martin sighs, and the kitchen grows colder.

Two broken men trying to pick up the pieces. Their present.

"I don't think so. But then again there weren't bad times either, you know?" Martin says at last. "Maybe she had good times, but- they just didn't involve me."

Gerry lays his hand on the wooden surface, and Martin carefully lands his on top, slotting their fingers together. 

"It sucks, eh?" he not quite asks. 

Martin still keeps a photograph of his mother on the living room, though Gerry makes a point of turning it towards the wall whenever he remembers to.

It makes him feel a bit less guilty for not having one himself.

"It does suck," Martin nods slowly by his side. "It's a bit hard to accept you love a horrible person, isn't it?"

Gerry flinches a little. Martin squeezes his hand.

"Back when I was younger- it just didn't seem too terrible, you know? Not compared to the things I knew were out there. The things she made me read about." What is a couple hungry nights, a slap or a scratch, compared to what the Slaughter or the Corruption will do to you?" he snorts. "Sometimes I still think so. My father loved her like that. Maybe I just... didn't understand. I know I didn't understand Gertrude, at least."

It's easier to think that. 

If it's his fault, if it's just that he didn't understand them, then Gerry didn't love these people in vain, he didn't trip over the same stone again and again.

Gertrude cared for him in her weird fucked up way, everyone said so. Maybe his mother did too, beyond viewing him as some bizarre, book-hunting show dog.

"People can love and still be bad people," Martin shrugs, then carefully adds, "I remember I watched a movie once when I was a child, you know? It was about a dog they rescued from a bad house. When they were taking her away, she still wagged her tail at the owners, and they wanted her back, but they'd finally accepted she needed things they couldn't give. Their first act of kindness was letting her go, but it was the most important one."

"Did you feel bad for her?" Gerry flips their hands over, tracing a finger over the lines in Martin's palm. 

Martin nods softly. "I thought it was very unfair. All she knew how to do was love. Who could've blamed her?" He rests his cheek on top of Gerry's head, when he leans on his shoulder. "But they took her away, and she got a new family, and she was happy with them too, because all she knew how to do was love."

Gerry snorts again. "Silly dog, huh?"

Martin lets out an exasperated snort of his own, before tapping the tip of Gerry's nose with a finger. 

"I won't make it again. Do you want me to throw it out?"

Gerry shakes his head. "Just- maybe Melanie and the others will want it? I'm sorry you cooked for nothing."

"I didn't cook for nothing," Martin turns to press their foreheads together. "I cooked for us. And now, you're going to call for take out for us."

"You know what? You're always right. I don't know why I argue with you."

"A terrible habit of yours. You're lucky you're pretty, or I wouldn't put up with it."

Gerry leans up to lay a kiss on his bottom lip, before moving to comply with the perfectly reasonable request.


They don't mention the date, though Martin knows it weighs heavy on both their minds. 

While there was no real time in the apocalypse, calendars still worked as usual after the second change; the world was remade on a Thursday in the middle of November.

It's been a year since then, and it feels as unreal as waking up the next morning and finding out no one remembered a thing. 

The group all got together for Jon's birthday a couple months ago- they staunchly refused to get a grave, so they simply gathered at Georgie's place and looked over old photo albums together, and there were tears and there was laughter, and it felt wrong, just as everything has felt ever since he turned his back to them that last time.

He and Gerry have stayed together- there were a couple rough patches here and there, but the choice they made on the crumbling stairs of the Panopticon is as solid as it ever was. 

Martin has found that loving someone through the pain does help to make one realize that, as all-consuming and asphyxiating as it feels, it won't kill you as long as you take it one day at a time. 

Wounds scab and heal, and it's ugly and it hurts, but they've all got their fair share of experience in living with their scars.

Today they're simply huddled down on the couch in the living room, covered with a heavy blanket and cradling warm mugs to fend off the cold, both the one coming from outside, and the one coming from Martin himself. 

The flat is quiet, the lights are off, and the room grows ever darker as the sun hides behind the skyline.

"We could- do you want to go for a walk?" Gerry asks. He's action-oriented, Martin knows. Sitting deep in thought at home will never bring him the peace it brings Martin's lonely heart.

"Where to?" he asks, more to humor him than out of any actual belief that Gerry will go through with it.

"I don't know." Gerry deflates immediately. "I just- this sucks."

"It does."

"It's unfair."

"It is." Martin nods. Gerry looks at him like he's grown a second head, and he shrugs. "I don't think it'll ever stop hurting, or feeling unfair or- but I'd rather feel it than hiding from it. We both know I could, but I don't want to leave you behind."

"Like we left him behind?" Gerry asks bitterly. 

Martin knows he's still conflicted about it; he can't bring himself to regret getting Martin out, but he also can't forgive himself for leaving Jon. 

"Like you didn't leave me behind, ever," he says instead, placing his mug of tea on the coffee table before wrapping his arm around Gerry. "Granted, I'm not going to break into your flat-"

"That would be stupid, you live here," Gerry snorts despite himself, and abandons his coffee as well in favor of leaning heavily against Martin's side. "Besides, that's an asshole move, who would ever do that?"

"Stubborn, nosy men that want to meddle in my perfectly sound plans," Martin hums. Holding Gerry close seems to finally have done the trick to start melting the cold away, which should've been a foregone conclusion considering what they know about Gerry and the Lonely, really. 

"I'd be offended, but I can't tell if you mean me or Tim." Gerry smiles against his shoulder. "He was so angry when I did that, you know? I never did figure out if it was because he'd explicitly asked me not to bother you, or because I pretended to be dating you to get the keys."

"You really faked it 'til you made it, didn't you?" Martin chuckles. 

"I can be very determined," Gerry says smugly, burrowing against Martin's side in search of a more comfortable position. 

Martin leans down instead, sandwiching Gerry between his body and the back of the couch. His hair smells like lavender, and it makes Martin's eyes water a little. 

"I still think we should've done a deep-cleaning today. Or a nice meal," he says after regaining his composure. 

"Nah... It wouldn't have felt the same if no one kicked us out of the kitchen, or took away the broom and the rags."

"It's probably for the best. We would've done a terrible job," Martin sighs. "I love you."

Gerry's hug tightens. "I love you too. Thank you for- for staying."

"Together," Martin says. "Always."

The room grows darker and darker, but neither of them moves and they drift away to sleep in each other's arms.

They wake up early the next morning, both shivering because none of them thought of turning on the heat before falling asleep. Not needing food or rest is nice and all, but avatars of fear entities -or whatever they are now- are still very much susceptible to the cold, they've found. 

"Don't," Gerry groans, wrapping arms and legs around Martin's frame when he moves. "Martin if you leave this couch I'm divorcing you."

"Fuck, did I miss our wedding?" Martin jokes, trying his best to untangle from limbs and blanket alike. "Come on, let me just go turn on the heater."

"I'm not an idiot," Gerry grumbles, his face still buried in Martin's chest. "You'll just go turn on the heat, and then you'll just go make a fresh cup of tea, and then you're already up, so why not a shower and- why are you even up? It's like four in the morning."

"It's cold," Martin insists. "If it was cold enough to wake me up, it's-"

Knock, knock.

Martin scowls, and Gerry stiffens in his arms. 

"Did you hear-"

Knock, knock.

Was that what woke them up, then? Some lunatic knocking on their door at four in the morning?

Martin takes a deep breath- it could be anything, it could be a neighbor that needs help, or one of their friends- the knocking repeats for a third time, and Gerry shoots up into a sitting position, nearly kicking Martin off the couch when the blankets are pulled abruptly.

His eyes cut through the darkness like searchlight, bathing everything in a hard green glow. 

"C- we're coming!" Martin calls out shakily. He can see Gerry's gone dead pale, and he feels his heart beginning to speed up. "Give us a moment!"

It feels like years before they've gotten rid of the blankets, and the flat feels like all the oxygen has been sucked out of it. Martin hears one of their mugs crash to the floor as the two of them move towards the door, but the thought flies his mind as soon as Gerry's shaky hand wraps around the doorknob.

It's probably just a neighbor, or the police for some reason, or- it has to be something else, something that won't rip the scab off a fresh wound and rub salt in when they're wrong. 

Knock, knock.

"Should I-"

"O- open it."

A blast of cold air hits them as soon as the door is pulled back, and they stand there, frozen under the weight of a pair of exhausted brown eyes and a small, crooked smile.

"I got- I'm sorry it took me a while," Jon says, almost too quiet to be heart over the beating of Martin's heart. "I- I'm home."

Notes:

Epilogue next week!

Chapter 40

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

XL

The Eye thrives on knowledge, on understanding. Not necessarily on moving the pieces along the board, but on watching them move against all odds, these stubborn, resilient little pieces. 

It feeds on the despair of those who feel watched and know themselves helpless, simply an interesting thing to watch before one moves to the next curious thing. 

Or at least, it did before. 

With a world remade not in its image but in the image of everything it is not, the Watcher has found that there is so much to know now, and it's not tied down to an old building held together by fear and secrets. 

There's so much to learn everywhere.


Gerard Keay opens his eyes at what feels like fuck-ass in the morning, inside a room with far too little light and far too much fog. 

He ignores the fact that usually any amount of fog should be too much to be found inside a house, and instead rolls over on the bed to bump Martin's shoulder with his forehead. 

"Martin- love, you're doing it again," he grunts. "Wake up, come on."

"He's doing it again?" Jon asks sleepily, before sitting up on Martin's other side.

"My hair's going to be a mess to deal with," Gerry grumbles, batting away at the fog. "Martin come on, Jon's up and can make us breakfast."

"Your hair is always a mess to deal with," Jon rolls his eyes fondly, before he processes the rest of the words. "I don't remember agreeing to those terms."

"Are you going to let us starve, then?" Gerry says, pressing a hand to his chest with his most betrayed expression.

"I read you a whole chapter last night, and you don't even need my voice anymore, you're hardly going to die."

"But what if I do? What if Martin wakes up and you have to tell him I died because you refused to make us all breakfast and I starved to death?"

"Actually, Martin would understand that sometimes one's overly dramatic husband is being insufferable," Martin grunts, his face still buried on his pillow. 

"You wound me," Gerry lets himself fall back on the bed. "What were you even dreaming about?"

"It's bridge night today, so... full house." Martin rolls over, letting out a sigh that sends a new burst of fog out into the air and that has Gerry groaning and running his hands over his damp hair. 

"You know you could just... not open today, don't you?" Jon asks, smiling. 

Martin rolls his eyes. "I wouldn't do that to them. It's the only time of the month many of them even get to go out and interact with people."

"But that's good, isn't it? You can feed off of that."

"Well- yes. But it also means I have to interact with two dozen retirees that are far too invested in my private life," Martin sighs again, and Gerry hops off the bed. 

"Alright, that's enough for me," he says, tying his hair into a bun as he heads for the bedroom door and pulls it open. "Gertie? Are you awake? Come in here, your dad needs a hug!"

"Gerry, not on the bed- here we go," Jon huffs as the mass of curly beige fur dashes into the room and hops on the bed, where Martin is already waiting with open arms and a smile. "Did you even wipe her paws?"

"You kicked us out of the bedroom for two days last time, of course I wiped her paws," Gerry says with a roll of his eyes. "How's that Lonely vaccine?"

"Working like a charm, as usual," Martin chuckles, rubbing the Gertrude's belly while her tail wags like crazy. "Actually, maybe I should bring her with me today. She keeps me at a state in which I can actually tolerate people."

"Just make sure they don't feed her anything," Jon scowls. "She got sick last time."

"It's fine, I can keep her in the back after bridge night starts. Just knowing she's there helps," Martin says, giving the dog one last pat before climbing off the bed. "How are you on the fruit department? Mrs. Evans wanted to make us some jam."

The remnants of the fog light up in green before Jon and Gerry speak in unison. 

"The raspberries are about ready," they say, and Gerry snorts in amusement before adding, "I'll fix you a couple pails."

"Sounds good," Martin presses a kiss to his cheek before heading towards the bathroom. "Now if you excuse me, I'll go fix my hair, it's way too humid in here."

"Your cynicism astounds me," Gerry deadpans over Jon's laughter. "So no breakfast?"

Jon rolls his eyes. "Go get some of those berries, I'll make pancakes."

"I love you so much," Gerry leans in to capture Jon's mouth in a kiss, chuckling in amusement when Jon pulls at his lip ring with his teeth when they separate. 

"Shut it," Jon simply slaps a hand softly against Gerry's chest, a sheepish smile on his lips as he walks out of the room with Gertrude on his heels.


"Come on, you can tell me! You know you can tell me," Sasha says for what feels like the hundredth time. 

Martin rolls his eyes, coming to place the kettle and cups on the table before sitting across from her.

"There's nothing to tell," he repeats. "Pinhole Books sold for good money and Gertrude left some behind too. Gerry didn't want anything to do with it, and Daisy had already given us the cabin. We had money to spare, I didn't need to-"

"Commit fraud again and steal the Lukas family's money to set up your little teashop?" Sasha cuts him off as she reaches for one of the cups to start preparing her coffee. "Think your answer carefully- one of the options just makes you a trophy husband, the other makes you a smooth white-collar criminal."

"Well, that's just mean," Gerry says, and the two of them turn around to face the front door, where he's standing with Gertrude by his side. "If anyone is a trophy husband here, that's me."

"Hi Gertie!" Sasha grins, offering the dog a hand. She smells it carefully for a moment, wary of the new person, before wagging her tail with cautious optimism. "That's a good girl. Don't you go just letting anyone pet you, that's dangerous."

"Stranger danger is a real problem," Gerry jokes. "Also what do you mean commit fraud again?"

"It's nothing-" Martin tries, before Sasha cuts him off again. 

"He didn't tell you?" Sasha grins, and Martin sighs. Of course these two would join in tormenting him. "The Lukas have been sponsoring mine and Tim's flat for- what, three years now?"

Gerry blinks a couple times, which does make Martin feel a bit smug that he can still get one over him. 

"You're stealing money from the Lukas family?"

"I am. Frankly, I don't see what all the fuss is about- between the three of us I'm hardly the one that's given the family the worst trouble." Martin shrugs. "But I didn't open the teashop with their money. If anything, I'm stealing money from the Von Closen, not the Lukases."

"Hmm... I don't think it's as cool when the entire family has died out except for the one member that would let you do as you pleased with it." Sasha rolls her eyes.

"Listen here Ms. James ma'am, I trust my Martin to handle our finances and take good care of me," Gerry says in a fairly good impression of the demure soap opera wives Martin's mother used to watch when he was a kid, and smiles when Sasha laughs and Martin shakes his head with a little chuckle. "Where's Tim?"

"Sightseeing with Oliver," she shrugs. "I think they were supposed to meet with Jon later."

"I'd forgotten he had come," Martin says casually as he pours hot water over his bag of tea, and studiously ignores Gerry's amused snort. "I mean, since you're not even in Graham's body today."

"First off, there's no 'Graham body'. They're all me. Graham is me," she explains, shrugging nonchalantly. "Besides, that was just the beginning, before Tim even started coming with me to see him. We just hang out sometimes now, no matter what my body looks like."

"Lovely," Martin grumbles.

Gerry chuckles again. "Are you ever going to get over the 'waking Jon up' thing? You know it was just a Right Avatar at the Right Time thing now, don't you? Jon didn't even know him."

"Are you ever going to stop sulking over Tim interrupting you two's first date?" Martin shoots back, pointing at him with his teaspoon.

"Well, that's- it wasn't even a date, really."

"I know, I've heard the tale," Martin stares him down. "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't sulk about it anyways, come on."

"Maybe," Gerry concedes, sticking his tongue out at him. "But that's because Tim is a pain. Oliver is a nice guy."

"Now you're just trying to antagonize me," Martin huffs, much to the other two's amusement. 

"Very nice, and very unlikely to snatch any of your men, trust me," Sasha chuckles, and Martin fondly rolls his eyes. 

The spark of jealousy and frustration he felt for Oliver Banks never really went away, but he's met the man enough times through whatever arrangement he made with Tim and Sasha to know that he really is just a nice man that got stuck with a bad deal, like most of them. It's still fun to play up the whole sulky show if just for how smug and amused Jon and Gerry look when he does it, though. 

"Honestly, he couldn't handle any of them, much less both of them together," he rolls his eyes. "Eye people are insufferable in groups."

"Just send them back, did you keep the receipts?" Sasha snorts, offering Gertrude some of her cake's blueberries. 

"The Watcher doesn't want them back either," Martin deadpans. "Says they're too much work."

"Your life is such a tragedy," Gerry chuckles, leaning down to kiss Martin's temple. "We'll see you home for dinner, Jon's cooking."

"No saffron?" Sasha raises an eyebrow. 

"Unfortunately, though I did my best to argue for extra saffron instead," Gerry says with a long-suffering sigh. "Now if you'll excuse us, Gertrude and I have to go get some drinks for tonight."

"Give this to Jon for me, will you?" Martin holds his wrist before he moves away and pulls him back for a kiss.

"If you'll excuse us, Gertrude and I have to go get some drinks and deliver a package," Gerry amends as he leaves, red-faced and grinning to the sound Sasha's mock-gagging.


"Did you listen to the last episode?" Melanie asks. They're sitting at the corner of the room in her and Georgie's flat; Melanie's holding a pint of caramel ice cream, while Gerry works away at his customary cherry lolly. 

"Of course I did," Gerry chuckles. "Then at dinner I told Martin it was really good and he insisted on listening too, so Jon was pissed because he had to hear it twice."

Melanie snorts. "Great work, what was his face like when Georgie talked about the Institute?"

"He said he wishes he'd thought of deleting What The Ghost from existence when he remade the world." Gerry shrugs. "I think a couple more episodes speaking nonsense about real things and he'll be ready to bring forth the apocalypse again."

"And here Elias went through all the trouble of getting him marked and shit," she cackles. "What are they doing?"

Gerry leans down on his elbow to look around the couch. 

"Gertie's trying to sneak up on the Admiral. It's a commendable effort, if you ask me," he says a moment before the cat turns around to smack Gertrude on the nose and sends her running. "There we go. Not today, dear. Live and learn."

"Your dog has unrealistic perceptions of her size and ability to be stealthy." Melanie rolls her eyes.

"My theory's that she sees Martin get away with it and thinks 'well, if he can do it, then I must at least try', which is admirable if you think about it, she's using the scientific method and testing her hypothesis."

"And getting smacked for her trouble. Can you imagine a dog that's an avatar of the Lonely?"

Gerry shakes his head. "Nah, they're its antithesis. The Lonely wouldn't stand a chance, she's the quickest way to bring Martin back on bad days."

"Huh. I hadn't thought about that," Melanie scowls. "It's good that you have her, then. How are they?"

"They're doing good." Gerry taps her knuckles with the back of his spoon, and she offers the pint for him to dig in as well. "Jon's still volunteering at the school; the headmistress has asked him to step in as a librarian a couple times now, but I think it brings bad memories."

Melanie nods slowly. "It would... what does surprise me though is that the Watcher is still on board with feeding off of teacher's lounge gossip. Seems a bit trivial no?"

"I've said it before and I'll say it now," Gerry says, rolling his eyes. "The Entities are not nearly as grand and magnificent as they like to think they are. Ultimately they were born from us, and humans are simple beings."

"And teacher's lounge gossip is spicy."

"So spicy, Firecracker, you really have no idea," Gerry snorts. "But yeah. He also overheard a student telling another a secret a few days ago. We were on high alert and made sure to keep him awake for a couple days, but the girl seems to be fine."

Melanie arches an eyebrow. "No nightmares?"

"One gets what one gives, it looks like... I think as long as they're not giving Jon their fear, they won't get fear back." He shrugs. "Jon says the Watcher is also very pleased when the kids do that thing where they ask you approximately seven thousand questions in thirty seconds."

"Huh. And Martin?"

"Bridge night is hell, but he manages," Gerry chuckles. "The rest of the time the teashop is quiet enough that he can just... sit around and watch over the people that go in to be alone. Offer them another drink or a biscuit if they seem to be going too far."

Melanie nods thoughtfully. 

"So Sasha was right? They can feed off of other things now?" 

"Hell if I know," Gerry sighs. "Jon won't go too deep into it, I'm not sure if he doesn't remember any of it or if he just doesn't want to try to remember, but he says he wanted things to be better."

Well... I think he did a good job," Melanie says. "Sure people are still afraid but-"

"But fearing things isn't inherently bad. It's how we survived as a species." He nudges Melanie's shoulder. "I do find marked people some days. Bad marks. It's easy enough to point them in the right direction, so at least I feel like I'm still doing something, you know?"

Melanie kicks at his leg with her socked foot. "You don't need to do more, you need to go to therapy."

"Well, you won't give me Laverne's number!"

"Look for your own therapist that has been marked by the embodiment of madness, how am I supposed to tell her when I'm sick of you being a self-deprecating idiot?"

"Well, maybe I wouldn't be a self-deprecating idiot if I went to therapy," Gerry grins. "You're standing in the way of my recovery, Firecracker."

"Just ask Basira to find you a marked therapist and keep your ugly face out of my safe space."

And maybe she can't see him, but she knows he's making the dramatic affronted face with his hand on his chest. 

"Why Melanie, I thought I was your safe space!"

"You're so dumb," she says, softly headbutting his shoulder. Gerry chuckles and wraps an arm around her, and she relaxes against his side, smiling.


They all come together sometimes.

It doesn't happen too often; Daisy and Basira are rarely in the country for more than a few weeks at a time, and one never knows when Tim and Sasha will be around either, but sometimes they manage. It's always somewhat of a bittersweet treat, Jon thinks.

"You know you don't have to cook for us, don't you?" Tim asks from his place at the breakfast table. "Melanie and Georgie would be fine with like... a sandwich or something."

"I like to cook," Jon says with a shrug. "Especially for important people."

He always has. Jon knows Tim knows this, and he can See him remembering all those times before the Archives, when Jon would neglect his own lunch breaks for weeks and then randomly bring elaborate meals to share with him and Sasha, and how the 'It's just leftovers from a small get-together with friends' excuse always felt a little off, because even back then they could all sense their own loneliness mirrored in the others.

"Are you happy?" Tim asks after a long moment of silence. His voice sounds guarded, like he's wary of letting himself care again.

Jon adds the last of the carrots to the stew, and watches in silence as they sink in the thick broth. The answer is easy, he's known it for a while. What he doesn't know is how much he truly is allowed to feel it, after all that's happened. If he actually minds, or if he believes it when he tells himself he's earned the right to not care.

"I am," he says finally. "Not always; sometimes I still feel guilty, or afraid that it's not over and they'll use me to hurt people again."

"Wouldn't you know? You put it back together, no?"

"I want to believe I would, but... there's always the doubt at the back of my mind."

"And what do you do in those cases?" Tim raises an eyebrow.

"I help Gerry at the garden, or take Gertrude to go visit Martin. I read to the kids at the school. Call Georgie or Sasha... things that remind me of when I'm happy." He shrugs. "Eventually, I'm happy again."

"Sounds like a neat trick." Tim tilts the salt-shaker to sprinkle some salt on the table, then swirls his finger across the scattered grains.

"Are you happy?" Jon asks.

He watches Tim gather and arrange the salt for a long moment, and focuses on keeping his Sight away from his thoughts. If Tim wants to share this with him, he will.

"It- sometimes I think it's unfair if I am. Unfair to Danny, and all the other people that didn't get a 'happy ending'. And the worst part is I don't know if that's really what I feel, or if it's just the Desolation trying to make me miserable so it can keep feeding on me," he says with a sigh. "I can feed it with happiness too, with-"

"Passion. Any feeling that burns bright enough to consume." Jon nods, and Tim nods back.

"That. So- so I know I can be happy, but it just..." he lets his voice fade, and goes back to swirling the salt.

Jon moves to turn the stove off, and give Tim a moment to himself.

"I think I'm afraid of actually being happy and then something else taking it away again," he says after a moment.

Jon starts ladling the stew into bowls, placing them on the counter before turning around again.

"You're... very resilient, Tim," he says. "You shouldn't have to be, but you are. I- we don't know if anything is going to happen again, but- but if I spent my time thinking about that... I've lived in fear. I don't want to do it again. And you don't deserve that either."

Tim keeps his gaze studiously fixed on the salt-sprinkled table, and Jon simply busies himself with digging out enough spoons from their cutlery drawer, until he hears the sound of the chair screeching against the floor and Tim's steps coming closer.

"I- you need help bringing the bowls?"

Jon smiles. "That'd be great."

They're all jaded and broken, and they've been through hell and back but they still refuse to give up, and when he looks at them all, chatting and joking around the foldable table they sometimes set out by Gerry's garden, he's reminded of why he risked his life to remake the world, and just how he was able to come back afterwards.

They deserve to be happy, despite the fear.


The Scottish countryside is far colder than the middle of London, it turns out.

Still, Gerry doesn’t feel the bite, not like he would have before, as he watches the seemingly endless spray of stars over him. He can hear Getrude's soft snoring through the living room window, and feels his lips curl into a smile as he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath of the cool night air.

“Why are you out here alone?” Martin’s voice catches him by surprise, and he jumps a little on his spot, turning to look at the voice. He's standing by him with Jon under one arm, with one of their heavier quilts draped over the other. "Bit cold for stargazing, isn't it?"

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” Gerry responds simply. It’s rare that Jon gets a good night’s sleep; he hadn't wanted to be the one to ruin it. He’d looked… peaceful. Safe, balled up between the two of them. It’s a feeling Gerry knows well, and he was glad to let Jon have it as he watched his fill of the two of them. “Did I?”

“You didn’t.” Martin nudges at his shoulder, and Gerry shifts forward just enough to let Martin sit behind him, before leaning back between his legs; sitting like this, he can trick himself into thinking Martin’s heartbeat is his own. “What are you thinking of?”

“Nothing, really." Gerry shrugs. "I missed you."

“You missed us, so you decided to come sit outside alone?” Jon's smile, small and crooked and beautiful, illuminates Gerry's night better than his eyes could ever hope to do. Gerry opens his arms, and Jon comes to huddle against his chest, sighing contentedly when Martin's arms wrap around them both. “Very reasonable.”

Gerry sits in silence for a moment, wanting to commit every part of this moment to memory; Jon's warmth on his chest, the weight of Martin's arms around them, the soft dusty scent of the quilt Jon's arranging over the three of them, and the pitch-black, star-filled sky above.

“Maybe I wanted you to come find me," he says after, smiling.

“Ah. It looks like we’ve been played, Jon.” Martin’s smile is obvious in his voice, and Gerry finds himself mirroring Jon when he chuckles in response.

“You joke, but I’m exactly where I want to be right now.”

“That makes two of us.” Martin shifts behind him, and Gerry feels a kiss being pressed against the crown of his head.

Jon moves as well, to place a kiss of his own on Gerry's jawline, then leans up to kiss Martin’s cheek. “Three, I guess.”

Gerry shuts his eyes tightly for a moment, just enjoying the feeling of them around him, their scent mixing with the cool night breeze. Another stolen moment of happiness that Gerry still can’t quite believe he deserves, that he never in a million years would've expected after the life he's lived.

No fear can touch them here. Not as long as they have each other.

"I love you," he says. It doesn't feel like the end of a story, but rather like a promise he wants to make every day for the rest of his life. He's never been granted the opportunity, in this life as well as in all the ones that preceded it, but this time?

He feels good about his luck.

Notes:

Hi y'all, thanks for staying to the end!

I started this fanfic to deal with the
first period of quarantine, and I met some of the most amazing people in my life through it. I hope it has brought some of y'all even just a tiny bit of the happiness and comfort it's given me, one way of another.

I'll be working on editing this to get rid of typos and inconsistencies, but it's finally done.

Thank you, and on to the next one!