Chapter Text
Maybe we’ll end up somewhere else.
The Panopticon crumbles. Jon bleeds and bleeds and bleeds in Martin’s arms.
There’s a feeling like nothing Martin is capable of describing; something beyond the scope of the language he as at his disposal. All he has is this: the world pulls itself apart around him.
Something ends. Something starts again.
Then Martin wakes up.
It feels like — and Martin’s really only guessing here, because he’s only ever seen this on TV and movies and never actually lived it himself — coughing up water after nearly drowning, desperately choking down grateful lungfuls of air after your body’s been somewhere inhospitable to human life. He’s somewhere bright and faraway, and then.
And then.
Martin opens his eyes into darkness, heart beating out of his chest, adrenaline raging behind his skin and sending his whole body tingling.
Where is he? It’s dark, and he’s alone, and— when he sits up, something scratchy and stiff falls off his shoulders and into his lap. A… blanket? It’s dark, and he’s alone, and… in bed? Not a very comfortable bed, but. Martin’s used to that, so that doesn’t exactly spark anything useful. Doesn’t help him narrow down where he is or what’s happening.
He stretches out his hands in front of his face, blinks, and slowly lets the world come into focus around his shaking fingers. No blood. That’s… that should be a good sign, but there’s no Jon, either, so even that just makes his heart pick up even faster, skipping in his throat on hummingbird wings.
Okay, okay. Hold it together. Don’t panic yet.
He looks around, squinting into the claustrophobic dark. It takes him a minute— he hasn’t been here in so long, he almost doesn’t recognize the place— but eventually it clicks. It looks different than it did when he was here last, stewing in a dark corner the night before the Flesh attacked and he accepted Peter’s stupid, stupid offer. But the fear-tinged hours he spent in this particular room will never leave him entirely, etched into his brain in uncomfortable clarity: He’s back in document storage.
Somehow, impossibly, he’s back on the old cot he used to sleep on. And by old, he means old-old, because — through the dim light, peaking in through the dingy window in the door from somewhere far off in the Archives, he can see things that haven’t been here for ages.
A pile of clothes peaking out of a rolling suitcase, half-open on the floor at the end of the cot. A stack of old file boxes Martin used to use as a makeshift nightstand. A jumper that vanished more than two years ago — before he moved into the flat he and Jon spent one haggard night at before fleeing to Scotland — hung over the back of a chair. This is document storage as it was while he was living here in the months between his imprisonment in his flat and the siege on the Institute by Jane Prentiss.
Martin knocks the blankets aside, finding his glasses, shoving them onto his face, and pushing to his feet so fast he gives himself a head rush. He leans one hand against the cold, concrete wall, takes a handful of long, slow breathes until he feels steady on his feet. There’s something off. Martin can’t pinpoint what it is, but his body feels… different, in a way he can’t name; there’s a lightness he hasn’t really felt since… god, since before the Lonely, really.
But that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is. Is figuring out what happened to Jon. If he’s alive, Martin has to find him. Then maybe he can figure out where he is and what happened after the Panopticon fell, but.
All of that can be dealt with when Martin knows if he killed the love of his life or not.
He stumbles through the room, manages to stub his toe on the corner of a filing cabinet and flips the lights on as he goes. He yanks the door open, and he’s not sure if he’s relieved or horrified to see the Archives. Four desks, heaps of clutter, and then —
Martin doesn’t get the chance to look around, because that’s the moment the door at the other end of the room flies open, and, and.
There he is.
He looks so different. Martin just saw him, yet it somehow feels like they haven't seen each other in years. Martin could swear he’s looking at the fresh-faced and terrified Head Archivist he met in 2015, like the years have just… melted off of him. Shirt disheveled, hair messy but cut short, skin un-Marked, eyes round and wild in his perfect, unharmed face.
“Jon,” Martin breathes.
“Martin.”
They meet in the middle.
Jon’s arms are almost painfully tight around Martin’s neck, but Martin’s sure his are the same where he’s squeezing Jon’s middle, fists balled up in the fabric of his once-neat button down. Jon’s stammering into Martin’s neck, unintelligible monosyllabic expressions of something; shock or grief or relief or all of the above. Martin wants to soothe him but doesn’t even know where to start. His throat is so gummed up he can barely even breathe, is fairly certain if he opens his mouth right now he’ll just start crying.
When they finally break apart, they don’t go far. Jon’s hands stay locked on Martin’s arms, and Martin presses one palm flat against Jon’s chest, right over his heart.
“Jon,” he croaks. With his free hand, he gestures to the room around them. “Wh-what happened?”
Jon shakes his head, mouth opening and closing a few times before he finds any words. “I-I don’t know,” he admits, and there’s a world behind those words. Martin can’t tell if it’s regret or wonder or both. “I don’t— I’m just as confused as you are.”
“Okay. Um. That’s… probably good, yeah?”
“Probably.” Jon’s voice shakes. He leans into Martin.
“Okay.” Martin’s grip on him tightens; half protective, half reassurance. “It’s okay.”
Martin looks around. He already saw his old things in document storage, but he can’t quite make that fit in his mind until he starts to see the other pieces of the puzzle: a mug on one of the desks that Tim used to use every day. A fuzzy cardigan draped over the back of a chair that belongs to a woman who’s face Martin can’t remember right now.
Tim and Sasha’s things are here. There’s a fire extinguisher not two feet from where Martin’s standing.
Jon has no scars.
“We’re in… the Archive,” Martin says slowly, “how it was… in twenty-sixteen.”
“That’s… what I thought when I saw my office,” Jon admits, although he doesn’t sound pleased about it. And then, with slightly more levity and a faint, rueful smile: “It hasn’t been this tidy in years.”
Martin giggles. Actually giggles, which doesn’t feel right after everything, but he can’t help it right now. Everything is — overwhelming? Confusing. He doesn’t know what else to do. “Speak for yourself. Document storage is a mess.”
Jon takes Martin’s hands, swings them between their bodies. “That does not surprise me. I remember what our bedroom in Scotland looked like.”
“Hey,” Martin complains, “I didn’t make that mess alone. That was you, too.”
Jon nods, sighs fondly. “Yes, I suppose it was…”
He looks up at Martin, and Martin looks back down at him. Neither of them are usually particularly keen on eye contact, but it feels deeply reassuring right now, just to be able to look like this.
“So…” Martin finally says. “What now?”
“What now,” Jon repeats, seeming just as lost as Martin feels.
Martin bites the inside of his cheek. “Um. Here, how ‘bout I make us a proper cup of tea and we just… sit somewhere and try and figure this out?”
Jon’s eyes go wide, too reverent for just a cup of tea, Martin thinks, but then he’s being kissed about it so he decides to let it slide. When Jon pulls away, the smile he gives Martin is soft enough he could just melt. “Please,” Jon says, “that sounds… wonderful.”
—
Jon finds his phone in the pocket of a rumpled blazer hung over the back of his office chair, but it doesn’t really help clear anything up. It tells them that it’s 2016, flashing a date in late July that Martin’s already lived through. It doesn’t make any sense, but when Martin finds his phone, it tells him the same. He even digs up his clunky old laptop, but it agrees.
July 18th, 2016.
Eleven days before Jane Prentiss attacked the Institute.
A solid two-and-a-half years before the end of the world.
In the end, they wind up on the cot in document storage to regroup. Clutching mugs of warm tea in unsteady hands, they sit pressed together from shoulder to thigh, leaning back against the wall on the little bed. They talk their way in circles around it, but it doesn’t stop sounding absolutely absurd. Is it some weird glitch? Some strange vision they’re getting to see before they die, claimed by the fears before they can be buried in the rubble of the Panopticon?
Or, is it… Is it maybe…
“… I mean, it wouldn’t be too strange,” Jon says, although he doesn’t sound like he believes it. “In Anya Villette’s statement, when she came through the crack at Hilltop Road, it spat her out two weeks in the past.”
“Okay, but there’s a difference between two weeks and two years,” Martin argues. “A-and. And this isn’t, like, some alternate London.”
Jon sighs, deep and haggard. “Right.”
“I read that statement, too. This is different,” Martin goes on, “there wasn’t even an Institute in her world. We haven’t come out somewhere new, we’ve just… lost time.”
“Well,” Jon hums, brow furrowed in familiar consternation. “I think. Hm.”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe, instead of spitting us out somewhere else…” He gestures with his left hand, like he’s trying to pull the right words out of the air. “That… the crack. Brought us… back. Here. Before it all.”
Yeah. Martin was afraid he was going to say something like that. “You realize how insane that sounds?”
Jon raises an eyebrow. “Okay, Martin, go ahead and tell me what part of the last three years of our lives hasn’t been completely insane?”
“I—” Martin pulls up short, frowning. “Hm. That. May be a good point.”
Jon only looks a little smug. “Anyway, I think… Maybe we shouldn’t question it too much?”
Martin looks at him, astounded. “Since when do you not question something?”
“Even I can learn my lesson if I’m bludgeoned over the head with it hard enough,” Jon tells him sourly, although the corners of his mouth tick upwards. “And, anyway, I-I think… I think this could be—” And then voice is cautious and bordering on something that almost sounds like optimism— “Good? I-if it really is— If we really did— We can… maybe we can… fix things.”
His voice gets smaller and smaller as he goes. Martin sets his tea on the floor out of harm’s way and wraps his arm around Jon’s shoulders, pulling him close. Jon makes a startled sound, but then he settles against Martin, head falling against his chest.
“Hey,” Martin says, “I love you, you know?”
“I know,” Jon sighs out against Martin’s neck. “I love you.”
“Okay,” Martin agrees, “maybe we don’t question it.”
Jon tips his head back to look up at Martin. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Martin nods. “Maybe we just… Live, and see what happens.”
Jon’s eyes unfocus, looking somewhere out into the middle distance, lips slightly parted in something like wonder. “Just, live,” he repeats, quiet and awestruck. “I-I would… Yes. I would like that.”
Martin tightens his arm around Jon. “Me, too.”
There’s a moment of calm, contemplative quiet. Jon sips his tea. Martin’s thoughts wander, thumb rubbing idly at Jon’s shoulder, soothing both of them.
It’s impossible to even think about how long it’s been since the two of them had a proper rest, a proper chance at life. At this point being still feels almost alien to him. He doesn’t know what to do with it; his thoughts still seem stuck in that wasteland he’s never going to be entirely sure how they left behind.
Funny, how after everything, the threat of Prentiss alone feels like a relief. He never thought he’d miss the worms.
And with that, Martin’s the one to break their peaceful silence. “Hey, Jon?”
“Hm?”
“I-if it’s July, twenty-sixteen, that means…” Martin frowns. “Does that mean Jane’s back there? Right now? She’d be in the tunnels, building h-her… worm army.”
“Oh, god—” And just like that, their peace shatters around them. Jon bolts up, pushes away from Martin, eyes going wide.
“Woah, okay,” Martin holds out a hand, takes Jon’s cup and sets it on the floor next to his own so it doesn’t spill. “She’s not gonna come breaking through the wall this second. We’re okay.”
Jon seems to relax by a fraction; at least enough for Martin to lay his hands on his shoulders, even if he’s still tense beneath them. “We can’t just— we can’t let her— We have to do something, right?”
Martin bites his lip. He thinks about the day the worms attacked; the day they’d lost Sasha, and— in a more roundabout way— Tim, too.
Martin swallows against a lump trying to form in his throat. “What would we even… do?”
“I-I don’t know. We, er…” He takes a deep breath, sighs. “I suppose... We have time to figure it out, though.”
“Yeah.” Martin slumps back against the cot. Tentatively, Jon settles back against him, loops his arm over his chest. “We do.”
—
This is what they come up with: Bring Martin’s things outside. Come back to knock a hole in the wall — around where Tim broke through from the tunnels to save them during Jane’s attack — in document storage, the furthest nook of the Archives, so they have plenty of time to make their escape without the worms blocking them like they did last time. Make a mad dash for the boiler room to set off the CO2 manually and douse the worms while the building is empty and no one can get hurt. Then run like hell back to Jon’s and hide out there.
Not sure how their… re-arrival might change things, they figure they should get it over with as soon as possible; the idea of letting Jonah get even one Mark on Jon is absolutely intolerable. They’ll do it tonight, even though it's nearing 4:00 in the morning, and then go from there.
It goes — better than most of their plans go, Martin will give them that.
But it all kind of breaks down at the boiler room. Out in the hall, huddled around the door, Jon goes very still. Fingers going white-knuckled on the doorknob, his whole body goes tense as a taught rubberband. “The door’s locked.”
Martin feels all the blood drain from his face. “What?”
“Was that not clear, Martin? The door is—” Jon gives the handle a violent jiggle, yanking on the door as hard as he can— “locked.”
“Shit,” Martin breathes. Somewhere, two floors below them, there are going to be hoards of worms pouring into the building any second now. He thinks he’s imagining it, but he swears he can almost hear the wriggling. He takes Jon’s place, gives the door his own yank. It doesn’t even budge. “Shit! What do we do?”
“I don’t know,” Jon answers, desperate, “I don’t know.”
“Shit, uh.” Martins shakes his hands. Not a good shake, a nervous, almost violent one. “Okay, okay. Is there, can we just— pull the fire alarm? Will that do it?”
“No.” Jon tangles his fingers in his short hair. “The, the— on the tape, Elias said it won’t go off without an actual fire. He had to pull the manual release, i-in this room.”
“And I-I don’t suppose you know how to pick locks?”
Jon shakes his head. “I don’t— maybe Elias has a key in his office? Oh, Christ, but that’ll be locked, too—”
“Okay, okay.” Martin puts his hands on Jon’s shoulders, turns him towards himself, hoping to snap him out of what looks like it's winding up to be an impressive panic spiral. “We’ll manage, okay? We’ll...” He fades out, looks somewhere past Jon’s shoulder.
Jon’s eyebrows knit together. “Martin?”
Martin’s eyes snap back to Jon’s. “Do you still have the lighter?”
“Wh— the lighter?”
Christ. That thing really is slippery. “The bloody Web lighter, Jon. The one we— The one Breekon and Hope brought you.”
“The— oh.” Jon fishes around in his pockets, surprise wiping the panic off his face for a quick moment. A second later, he pulls out the shiny gold zippo. “I do.”
“Great.” Martin snatches it, and takes off down the hallway.
“Martin? Hey! Martin!” Jon calls after him.
Martin skids to a stop, turns back. “Just, stay there, okay? I-I’ll be right back. Get outside, and get ready to run, okay?”
“What?” Jon’s eyes are wide. “What?! No! No, you can’t just— No!”
“Jon, please. I’ll be okay, I promise.”
“You can’t possibly promise that!”
“Tough. I’m doing it anyway, okay?” Martin insists. “Just… trust me on this?”
Jon stands, rooted to the spot, spine straight as a metal rod. Finally, he snaps into motion. He crosses over to Martin, stands on his toes, pulls Martin down by the collar of his shirt, and kisses him, desperate and deep.
When he pulls back, he lets out a shuddering breath, hands framing Martin’s face, eyes searching his face. “Come back to me, okay?”
Martin nods, kisses him again for good measure. “Always. Where you go, I go, right?”
“That’s the deal,” Jon agrees.
“That’s the deal.”
Reluctantly, Jon lets him go. It hurts to tear his eyes away, but Martin has to hurry, so he takes off down the hall and round the corner back to the stairwell, lighter clutched tight in his sweaty palm. The dull lights of the Institute at night feel much more sinister now that he’s alone again, shadows sucking at his heels, every unfamiliar noise amplified in his ears against his adrenaline-fueled heartbeat.
The Archives are, blessedly, empty when Martin reaches them. He can hear the sounds coming from document storage that tell him that room is decidedly off limits, but that’s okay. Thankfully, the whole Archive is a hot mess, stacks and stacks of boxes piled just about anywhere there’s a free space. He could kiss Gertrude for the way she left this place just about now.
Martin grabs a box, tosses the thin cardboard lid aside, dumps all the papers out onto the dingy carpet. It’s not enough — Martin empties another box, and then another, and another, until he’s got a decent sized pile of old, yellowing paper.
It’s still not enough, but Martin can hear the writhing getting louder. He doesn’t want to look up and see if any of the worms are breaching into this room. With his time running out, he kicks over a few stacks of boxes, watches statements spill and flutter across the room. There's something viscerally satisfying about getting to wreck the place up a little bit. It would be nice of he had Gertrude’s petrol, but he doesn’t have time to get down into the tunnels, even if he could manage to get past Prentiss and her little army.
It’s okay — this whole place is a tinderbox. Jon had been very insistent on not even bringing ignition sources down here back in the early days for this exact reason.
One wrong move, and the whole place goes up.
It’s almost ironic how things turned out, really.
Martin stoops, takes a paper from the mountain at his feet. Statement of Darren Harlow, he can’t help but read, Regarding: a failed psychology experiment at the University of Surrey.
Martin remembers that one. An experiment on fear. It’s a little sad now, to think about what happened to Annabelle; he thinks, in another life, where things were kinder to the both of them, he really would’ve found kinship with her.
Still, it’s fitting, he thinks. This time, the Web doesn’t get them. He sets the corner of the page alight, watches flame lick up until it’s well and truly let, before he drops it, lets the flames settle and dance over onto the surrounded statements.
He stands, takes a cautious step back. Watches the fire spread. He doesn’t turn to go until he’s sure it’s caught properly; until he feels the heat on his face, warming his arms and his chest and making his neck start to sweat. As much as he might love to, he can’t stand here and watch the whole Archive burn. He should get out before Eli—Jonah Sees, before Jane gets a chance to get him. He has a promise to keep, after all. He drops the still-lit zippo at his feet, and runs just as the first flashes of silvery flesh starts pouring into the room.
Martin shoves the big double doors open, sees Jon’s wide-eyed, frantic face waiting for him on the sidewalk just as the fire alarms start blaring from inside the Institute.
Jon’s breath catches. He shifts Martin’s bags to one hand and holds out the other. “Martin!”
“Jon!” Martin takes it, stumbling into him.
“Did it— it worked?”
“I-I think so,” he says. “I think— it caught, anyway. Hopefully…”
“Yes.” Jon nods. “Let’s get out of here?”
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Martin agrees.
Together, they take off towards… home.