Work Text:
Make up magic spells; we wear them like protective shells
Landmines on the battlefield; find the one safe way
And stay alive
Just stay alive
Just stay alive
Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1 by The Mountain Goats
The tension hasn’t left the room. The air in the tunnels is always a little heavy, but now that it's filled with conflict and anxiety on top of that, it’s not going to clear easily. This is because the group has agreed to go with Annabelle Cane’s plan to banish the fears from their dimension. Four out five of their members agreed that this was the best plan. Jon was their dissenting vote, but he’s stopped arguing about it. Now all parties are in agreement.
The girls have gone into an adjoining room, and Martin can hear them swapping stories about different places that they’d been before the world went to shit. Martin doesn’t have much to add to a conversation like that, but he’s sitting at the same spot where they all discussed how to end the apocalypse, and trying to churn out a poem that’s been eating at his brain for the last few days.
It’s a play on W.B. Yeat’s Second Coming for their own circumstances, but he’s been struggling to find the right words. Jon has been working on his own sheet of paper beside him, frantically writing and then erasing over and over again. Jon lets out a frustrated little noise, and then erases yet another line of text. He grabs the sheet and crumples it into a ball in his hand.
“What did that paper ever do to you?” Martin asks.
“It didn’t help me, for sure,” Jon mutters. He brings the paper to the corner with the rubbish bin and tosses it in. Then, he comes back over to Martin, where Martin expects him to settle back into his seat. Instead, Jon places a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m feeling tired,” Jon says. This isn’t entirely surprising, given they’re somewhere that he’s cut off from the Eye. Then there's whatever he’s been trying and failing to write for half an hour.
“I’m sorry,” Martin says, “would you like a cuppa?” Martin hasn’t been able to offer tea since they left Salesa’s, so he’s delighted that it’s an option.
“I’m alright. I’m just going to go lie down,” Jon says.
“Can I come?” Martin asks, hoping that it sounds sweet and not clingy, “We haven’t gotten to be in a bed together since we got back.” Jon likes to wrap around Martin's back like a determined koala and latch on tightly. It’s adorable.
“No,” Jon says firmly, “you should keep writing, or… I don’t know. Talk with the others. Don’t miss out on my account.”
“Jonathan Sims passing up on… cuddles? In an actual bed?” Martin asks.
“You’ve missed getting to talk to people,” Jon tells him, "you should take advantage of it.”
“Come on,” Martin says, rolling his eyes, “we’ll have nothing but time after we finish this.” Jon’s smile cracks for a moment.
Martin frowns as he asks, "Are you alright?” Something seems off with his boyfriend. Very, very off.
“Of course,” Jon says stiffly, “I just- I need to sleep right now. So if I’ve got you there, I’ll just keep saying things and staying awake and- well. Vicious cycle, you know.” Jon shrugs at the end, trying to show “you know how it is”: but Martin very much doesn’t “know how it is”. That isn’t how things work at all. Talking all night might be a problem for some people, but it’s never been a problem for Jon. Whenever they've been somewhere that Jon can sleep, his boyfriend has never had much trouble saying when he’s done talking and just stopping himself.
This isn’t right.
The idea had been forming slowly in Martin’s brain, but now he feels it growing from a few little waves into a hurricane. Martin feels something sick settle in his stomach as the understanding blossoms. Jon isn’t going to stick with this plan. And Martin can’t let Jon out of his sight right now because his boyfriend is going to go pull his own plan. The literally apocalyptic one!
“Just- just wait a second,” Martin says, trying to buy himself enough time to formulate a response. He doesn’t want Jon to leave, but he also doesn’t want to let Jon know that Martin’s figured him out. Martin still has the strategic advantage here if Jon thinks he’s just being clingy.
“I just want to sleep, Martin,” Jon says, sounding confused.
“Not yet,” Martin says.
Jon grimaces. “I can’t? Sleep yet?” He doesn’t look very impressed by that attempt.
“I mean, uh,” Martin says, “I just- I really need to show you something. I just remembered it.”
Jon looks at him in confusion. “Can’t it wait?”
Martin shakes his head vehemently. “No! It’s a “right now” kind of problem!” He hears Jon sigh. Martin starts walking down the hall, looking for the only other person that he could trust to try to keep Jon in place for a little bit.
“Georgie!” Martin calls out, “Georgie!”
“Yeah?” she asks, poking her head out from the room over.
“Can you hang with Jon for a second?” he asks, “I need to go find something to show him.”
“Sure?” Georgie asks. She looks even more confused than Jon is.
“That really isn’t necessary,” Jon says, “I was just going to lie down-” Martin looks desperately at Georgie, trying to convey how important this is with just his eyes.
“You don’t want to fall asleep before Martin gets this done,” Georgie agrees, thank god.
“I don’t know-”
“Have I ever shown you the shrine?” Georgie asks a little frantically. Martin can see the moment the curiosity takes hold of his boyfriend.
“Why do you have a shrine?” Jon asks.
“We are a cult, you know,” Georgie says, “the others thought that it was important that we build one.”
“Did they create relics? Holy items?” Jon asks. Even free of the Eye’s influence, Jon’s still possessed by the spirit of curiosity. It’s so endearing that Martin almost wants to go to the shrine with them to watch Jon’s reaction. Almost.
Georgie gestures down the hallway. “I guess you’ll just have to see.”
“You’ll show me when you’re done?” Jon asks.
“Of course,” Martin promises.
As soon as Georgie and Jon are far enough out of sight, Martin pops into the room where Basira and Melanie are sitting, looking very confused at their table.
“Well,” Martin says awkwardly, taking a spot at the table beside Basira, “I guess we’re all here now.”
“Without Georgie?” Melanie asks.
“And without Jon,” Basira adds cautiously.
“Georgie said that she was taking Jon to the shrine?” Martin says, “whatever that means.”
“Why are you here?” Basira asks cautiously. Martin takes a deep breath. He wants to make sure that he explains this properly.
Melanie beats him to it. “Martin thinks that Jon’s going to do something stupid.”
Martin frowns. "How did you-"
Melanie interrupts him to say, “That’s why you just sent Georgie to distract him, right?” She sits down beside him and stares intently.
“Not something stupid, per say,” Martin says. Melanie’s stare turns into a glare.
“Ah yes, because it’s a perfectly reasonable thing," Melanie says, "That’s why you sent him away and then called a meeting..” She goes right back to glaring the moment the bitter words have left her mouth.
“Okay, yes! It’s something stupid,” Martin admits.
“Ha!” Melanie says, poking at Martin with her cane under the table, “I called it.”
Martin just lets out a frustrated little groan. “I think that he’s going to go with his own idea.”
“The one where he becomes god and then kills everyone?” Basira asks skeptically.
“Obviously!” Martin says, gesturing wildly.
“That idiot!” Melanie says, going to rub circles into her forehead. Basira groans. Martin lets out a frustrated sound too. He’s too frustrated to argue that point: Martin thinks Jon is acting like an idiot too. Maybe he doesn’t love it when Melanie says it, but she’s not exactly wrong.
“Well?” Basira asks, “What are we going to do about it?”
Martin takes a deep breath. “I thought it through, and I. Uh. I'll send you all off early and try to stall him. Then. I guess I’ll figure it out when we get to the top.” Martin waits for responses, but there’s nothing. It’s like an open mic night for crickets.
“Well?” Martin asks cautiously.
“That is a terrible plan,” Basira says.
“Oh yes!” Melanie says, “Let’s put Martin up in the eyeball god tower with his demigod boyfriend! I’m sure he’ll figure it out! Won’t get overpowered, for sure!” Martin glares at her.
“Martin won’t get beguiled either,” Melanie adds, “no beguiling what. so. ever.”
“Is that really what we’re going with?” Martin hisses, “beguiling?” Like Jon’s some sort of magical seductress from a fantasy series and not an awkward asexual man who’s accidentally pissed off more people than they can count.
“I don’t know what you two get up to!” Melanie hisses. Martin feels himself flush, but he’s not entirely sure if it’s from embarrassment or anger. He closes his mouth, unsure of what might come out if he allows himself to speak.
Basira silences them both with the coldest glare he’s ever seen from her. “Are we going to keep yelling at each other, or are we going to make a plan?”
“I have a plan,” Martin mutters.
“A bad one!” Melanie says, gesturing wildly.
“It’s not a bad plan,” Martin defends defensively.
“Oh yes,” Melanie says, “because it outlines exactly how you’re going to stop him. Are you going to kiss it better, Martin? Is that what we’re banking our chances at saving the world on?"
“Well maybe it’s true love’s kiss,” Martin says, “you ever thought of that?” And then he turns bright red in embarrassment. Did he really just say that out loud? In front of other people? Basira holds out a hand, and glares at the both of them, daring them to speak. Neither of them does.
“I don’t want us to leave this up to chance, understood?” Basira tells them. Melanie nods. Martin doesn’t, because he’s not entirely sure that he agrees with her.
“Understood?” she prompts again, sending Martin a withering glare. Martin sighs. If he wants Basira’s help, then he might just have to accept the way that it comes. He nods.
“Thank you,” Basira says, allowing her look to soften a bit, “I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page, alright? None of us want Jon to do this.” And Basira’s right, Martin doesn’t want Jon to do this anymore than she and Melanie do. As long as all of them live through this and fix their world, then Martin doesn’t much care how they get there.
“Let’s just talk logistics, alright?” Basira says, “What is our goal here?”
“Are you… being serious right now?” Martin asks.
“Look. I’ve been a team leader on a lot of projects,” Basira says, “so yes. I am being serious. We are going to sit here until we figure out a plan from the ground up. We start with a goal.” Then, Basira gestures expectantly.
“We want to get rid of the fears,” Martin says, rolling his eyes.
“We have a plan that we’ve already settled on for that part,” Basira says, “what new factors do we need to account for?”
“We have to stop Jon from sending that plan tits up,” Melanie adds, raising her hand sarcastically like a schoolgirl waiting for her turn.
“So we need to think about how to make the plan work and keep Jon from ruining it,” Basira summarizes. Martin and Melanie nod.
Basira bites her lip thoughtfully, then says, “I feel like I need a whiteboard or something.” Melanie stands up and walks around the room, opening the door to a cabinet behind Martin. She reaches into it and grabs a pad of paper and a red pen.
“There,” Melanie says, setting it in front of Basira.
Basira writes the following text:
Goal: to banish The Fears from our dimension.
Problem: Jon
Resources: Basira, Melanie, Martin, Georgie, the tunnels, handcuffs, explosives
“Do we have any other resources that we want to list?” Basira asks, holding up the sheet of paper for the other two to look at.
“Do we really want to list handcuffs?” Martin asks, grimacing.
Melanie opens her mouth to make a joke, but Basira starts speaking quickly enough to silence her. “I don’t think that Jon will cooperate with us just because he feels guilty or embarrassed that we figured out his plan.”
“So what do you think he’ll do?” Melanie asks instead.
“Run off ahead to do what he’s planning to,” Basira says, “If we want to stop him, I think we’ll have to physically restrain him.”
“With… handcuffs?” Martin asks cautiously, “are you sure that’s necessary?”
“Have you ever tried to restrain someone before, Martin?” Basira asks. Martin’s suddenly hit by a flashback of the first time he suggested putting his mother in a care home, and she’d elbowed him in the nose so hard that it bled. He didn’t even have his arms around her or anything, he was just standing in proximity to her chair and mentioned it and-
Well.
It had been unpleasant. He’d ended up with a lot more injuries than that while getting her where she needed to be for help, a lot of the time spent against her kicking and screaming.
“No comment,” Martin mutters. He sees Basira’s point well enough now.
“I didn’t survive so long at the Met doing things by halves,” Basira says, “we need to think about utility first.”
“I know,” Martin says, “it’s just-” He doesn’t want to do that. He’s afraid of what things might look like with Jon on the other side of this. He’s going to lose a lot of Jon’s trust. Maybe all of it.
Martin was planning on never letting Jon know that he suspected that Jon would go Avenging Archivist on them. Martin would just swoop in and make sure that he beat Jon to all the steps of the plan, and if he had to use any force he’d act shocked and horrified that Jon was going against the agreement. He would defend his actions as motivated by fear, and then, well, Jon would be so relieved that actually the world is a place that they can live in now that he’d forgive Martin’s moment of poor judgment.
Jon was the one who was being deceptive, after all. Martin would just be the one sticking to their agreed upon plan. Martin wasn’t supposed to have to admit to any deception. Now, he’s not sure what Jon will think of him on the other side of this, after he’s plotted behind his back and physically restrained Jon from doing what he wanted to.
He lets out a sigh. “Jon is going to be really angry.” That’s not even getting into how scared he’ll be. Jon still hasn’t told him about whatever that Web encounter he had as a child was. Is the trust between Martin and Jon so fragile that this can shatter it? It might be. Martin really doesn’t know. He feels the uncertainty of that settle like a stone in his stomach.
“Look,” Melanie says, “this isn’t any different than when he and Basira took that slaughter bullet out of me without my permission. It’s for his own good.”
“I thought that you hated that?” Martin asks cautiously.
“I did. But if they didn’t do that, then I’d probably have a domain of my own here where I’m brutally killing people with knives.” Her face turns red, and she crosses her arms over her chest. “Don’t tell him I said that.”
“You didn’t want them to do that, though,” Martin says. The alright outcome doesn’t mean that Melanie’s trust wasn’t violated.
“Can we really afford to ask for consent right now?” Basira asks, raising an eyebrow. And Martin… doesn’t know. Is it too much of a risk to ask?
Because if Jon says yes, and they decide to do what they need to and he’s suddenly back on their side and they really get this done… that means that Martin gets everything that he wants. They all live. Jon doesn’t resent him for taking his choice away and sabotaging his chance to destroy the dread powers.
But what are the chances of that, really? Is Martin really ready to live with the consequences if it goes poorly and he’s left with the choice of either begging Jon to shuffle him quickly to an End domain or spending a small eternity in the Tower? However long it takes for Jon to starve out the powers, watching Jon snuff out every person who used to live on this planet before the reaper comes for them too?
Is it worth that, just to make sure that Jon doesn’t hate him on the other side of this? Because if Martin’s being honest, Jon already violated their agreement when he decided to go against the group vote and follow through with his plan anyway.
Is Martin enforcing the agreement (with actual force) really any worse than Jon breaking it in the first place? Martin just wants them all to live. He wants to find out what being with Jon looks like when they’re not the Archivist and his plus one.
Martin takes a deep breath, and tries to make eye contact with Melanie’s dark glasses. It doesn’t mean much to her, but eye contact still means a lot to him. “If I asked for consent, do you think he’d give it?”
“I know that he wouldn’t,” Melanie says. And Melanie… well. More than anyone in this room, Melanie would know. Martin and Basira are both something close to avatars, but Melanie was more than that, once upon a time. She saw the slippery slope and grabbed a sled.
Martin glances from Melanie back to Basira. He meets her eyes instead. It actually means something to Basira when he does that.
“Fine,” Martin concedes, “we can use the handcuffs.” Basira nods in agreement. They’re all on the same page again.
Melanie grins widely and says, “Kinky.”
“Okay, nope!” Martin says, “I changed my mind. No handcuffs just because of that comment-”
“Will both of you calm down,” Basira says, rubbing at her forehead, “this is about the fate of the world, alright?”
“Alright,” Martin agrees. Basira turns her patented glare towards Melanie.
Melanie lets out a frustrated little breath, then cracks under the pressure. “Fine. I’ll be serious.” Basira smiles a little.
Then Melanie adds, “Put Jon’s lighter onto the resources list, you know, since we’re using it to blow up the Archives.”
“Good point,” Basira says, writing Web Lighter next to explosives.
“Anything else?” Basira asks. Neither Martin nor Melanie says anything. Basira rips off the paper she used to write their list and sets it on the table. Then, she shoves the blank pad into Martin’s hands.
Basira places the pen down in front of him. “Can you draw us a map of the Panopticon?”
“What?” Martin asks.
Basira looks at him like he’s insane, “Because you’re the only one who’s been up there. We need to see it to plan this.”
“Why are you just asking now?” Martin asks.
“When we thought you and Jon were on the same page, it wasn’t such a big deal. But now?” Basira shrugs at the end. Martin sighs, but he draws her a slapdash map of the stairs leading up to the Panopticon, Rosie’s office, and the Panopticon itself.
Basira can’t really tell that, though. When she looks at the map, she can just tell why Martin’s hobby is poetry and not drawing.
“Uh,” Basira says, looking at a map that looks like… boxes? A rectangle? And a big circle with an eye in it? She tries to be as diplomatic as possible as she asks, “Can you walk us through this?”
Martin sets the paper down on the table. Melanie looks over her shoulder.
“Look,” Martin says, pointing to the little boxes stacked on top of each other, “there’s a fuckton of stairs.” Then he points to the rectangle at the top of them. “That’s Rosie’s office at the top of them.”
“What do you mean by Rosie’s office?” Basira asks.
“Rosie is stuck up there. She still thinks that she’s Jonah Magnus’s secretary. She has a little office right outside the entrance to the… well. Whatever you call the room that the body’s floating around in.”
“What can you tell us about the office?” Basira asks.
“It’s really freaky,” Martin says, “it’s like- it feels like the Institute did, back before the world collapsed. This office isn’t the same as the old front office, but it’s got the same type of stone walls and I think that Rosie’s got the same desk. And all the windows…. You can see all of Greater London through them.” At least the parts that still exist.
“Well,” Melanie says, grimacing, “that’s unpleasant.” Basira finds herself agreeing. It doesn’t sound like the worst domain she’s encountered, but she thinks that if she had to spend an entire apocalypse as Elias’s secretary she’d try to kill him even more times than Melanie already has.
“Past there is the big eyeball room,” Martin says, pointing to the circular room with a little eyeball in the middle.
“The eyeball is Elias- or, uh. Jonah Magnus? Whatever. He’s just up there floating as some conduit of fear. When we walked in, he kinda floated down like a tractor beam was setting him down in a sci-fi movie.”
“Why do you think it set him down then?” Basira asks.
“The Eye wants Jon to be its pupil, so I think that it set Magnus down so that Jon could kill him and take his place.”
“If it just wanted Jon in there, why didn’t it try to keep you out? You’d think it could have used Rosie to make sure you couldn’t get in.” If Basira were an eldritch fear entity, she thinks that she’d use all of her resources to keep threats away from any vulnerability. She’d have not only Rosie, but a whole host of those weird little archivist skeletons keeping everyone who wasn’t her chosen Archivist out of the Tower.
“The Eye thinks of me as an extension of Jon, so,” Martin says. He shrugs instead of finishing the sentence. Another example of Martin’s thriving self-esteem.
“Do you think it would think of me as an extension of Jon?” Basira asks. Martin leans back in his chair, looking thoughtful.
“Maybe?”
Melanie frowns. “Why would it think of Basira as an extension of Jon?”
Martin starts stammering, “uh, well, you know-”
Basira cuts him off before he exhausts his vocabulary of filler phrases, “Because of the assistant thing. Not all of us gouged out our eyes, Mel.”
Melanie smiles. “If keeping my eyesight means that some evil fear god thinks of me as just… something of Jon’s, then I am glad to be rid of it.”
Basira respects Melanie’s resolve, but she knows that she couldn’t have done the same thing. It was hard enough for Basira to say no to the Hunt, even after she’d promised Daisy that she would put her partner down if she had to. Basira would never be able to disable two of her assets at once just to be free.
Martin looks thoughtful. “You know, I think it’s possible that it wouldn’t try to keep you out. Jon said that the Eye likes you the way it likes me. Because we, uh. Both belong to it?” Martin grimaces as he finishes that sentence.
“Never been so glad I took my eyes out,” Melanie mutters. Basira, however, doesn’t even let Martin’s comment phase her. It’s just a piece of information to Basira; something to utilize in their planning.
“Honestly?” Martin says, “I think the only reason the Eye would try to keep you out of the Tower would be if it knew what you were planning. And the Ceaseless Watcher? Well. It knows a lot, but it doesn’t always know what to do with that knowledge, you know? It’s like one of those kids that knows all the types of dinosaurs but doesn't know anything about how to go digging for bones.”
“So you’re saying it would take a lot for our godly voyeur to figure out what we’re planning?” Basira says.
“Yes,” Martin agrees, “I think it would take a lot for the Beholding to catch on. Honestly, I’m not even sure if Jon knew what was happening the Eye would know to protect itself. It’s not keen on safety when it can have fear.” Basira sees Martin grimace a little bit at that last bit, and she thinks that he’s not too keen on the idea of the Eye feeding on Jon’s fear in a situation they'll be putting him into.
“How would we know if it figured us out?” Basira asks.
“Things start attacking us, I suppose,” Martin says.
Basira hums. Then, she leans forward onto her hands. “How would we stop that from happening?”
“I have no idea,” Martin admits. Alright. Well. At least he’s honest. Maybe it can’t figure out that it needs to protect itself if it can’t hook up directly to Jon’s brain.
If Basira and Martin went without him, would that keep their secret safe?
Basira takes a stab in the dark. “Someone has to kill Elias for this plan to work. And you said he’s floating up there like some eye-covered disco ball, right?”
Martin giggles. It sounds a little manic. “Disco ball?”
“I just meant that he’s floating near the ceiling.”
“Yes,” Martin says, between giggles, trying to regain his composure, “something like that.”
“And then he was lowered to the ground when you and Jon came into the room?”
He finally calms down his laughter. “Yes.”
“Do you think that it would lower Elias without Jon there being?”
“There’s no way,” Martin says, “it might like us, but it’s not making itself vulnerable without its precious Archivist.”
“Looks like handcuffing Jon to one of the desks down here and doing it ourselves is off the table,” Basira says sadly. She was fond of that idea. It would have been a lot less complicated if they could just have Jon locked up here like some princess in a tower. Martin gasps like one of the old conservative ladies at Basira's mosque growing up.
“We need to consider everything, Martin,” Basira scolds.
Martin glares at her. "Do we? Every single thing?"
Basira lets out a frustrated sigh. "Do you want Jon to kill everyone and then himself?” Martin doesn’t say anything.
“Do you?” Basira prompts.
“Fine,” Martin mutters. Basira takes a deep breath, and tries to reset her brain. Where was she again?
Oh yes, the map. “So Rosie’s office is the rectangle?”
“Yes.”
“What furniture is in there? I know you mentioned Rosie’s old desk.”
“There’s also a waiting room chair or two,” Martin says.
“Do you think that Jonah will come down if we keep Jon in Rosie’s office instead of bringing him into the room with us?” Basira asks.
“No,” Martin says, “Jonah didn’t start to come down until we were halfway into the room.”
Basira frowns, “So it looks like we have to let Jon in the room.”
“Yes,” Martin says. Basira leans onto her hand, and rubs thoughtfully at her chin. Whatever idea she’s cooking up, Martin's not sure if he can keep up with it.
Basira purses her lips. “How does Jon smite people?”
“He uses his Archivist voice,” Martin says, “calls on the Ceaseless Watcher, turns them to ash. The works.”
“Okay,” Basira says, “so we need some type of gag, too”
“A gag?” Martin nearly squeaks.
“I wasn’t sure that we’d need one if he could just compel us,” Basira concedes, “but if that’s how he smites people….”
“Jon isn’t going to smite us,” Martin says adamantly.
“I don’t think he’d smite you or me, but he might smite Jonah Magnus. And then Jon takes his place, same as if he stabbed him or shot him.”
Martin sighs. “Fine. We can- we can have a gag. I guess. Just... for the end bit.” He doesn’t sound happy about it, but he sounds like he’s accepted the idea.
“I have a joke that I want to make,” Melanie says, “but I am restraining myself.” Martin rolls his eyes and starts slow-clapping.
“A true hero for our time,” Martin says sarcastically.
“He gets it!” Melanie says, gesturing towards the sound.
Basira looks sternly between the two of them. “Can we get back on topic, please?” Melanie nods sheepishly. Martin just shrugs, which Basira takes as assent.
“Okay,” Basira starts, “so I’m going with Jon and Martin to the Tower. That means that Melanie and Georgie are on archive duty with no backup.” She turns her gaze and makes eye contact with Melanie directly. “Can you handle it?”
“Of course,” Melanie says, rolling her eyes, “can you two handle an angry Archivist?”
“Yeah,” Basira says, “I think we can. There’s still a lot of factors, but having a plan helps.”
“Do you know when you’re going to cuff him?” Melanie asks cautiously, “because that timing changes things.”
“I’d, uh,” Martin says, “I’d prefer not to plan that part out.”
Basira shakes her head. “We need to plan for everything.” Then she turns her eyes to Melanie, “When are you suggesting?”
Melanie says, “I think that the best bet is to use the cuffs once you’re inside the Eye room. If you get him there without him figuring out anything’s up, then there’s no chance the Entity Upstairs figures out what’s going on before you get there.”
Basira pursues her lips, and rubs her chin for a moment. “I agree.” She looks over to Martin for confirmation.
“I guess,” Martin says, “that means we have an unwilling Jon for the least amount of time. I think it would be easiest.” If Jon’s desperate enough, he can still dig his fingernails deeply into someone’s flesh- bite them hard enough to make them bleed, headbutt them underneath their chin. Walking him up all of the stairs of the Tower like that could be difficult.
Martin’s decided that this is the best path to take, so he needs to prepare for any eventuality.
“Who’s going to cuff him?” Melanie asks. Martin points to Basira as she points to him.
Martin sputters. “I don’t- I don’t know why I would need to-”
“You’re the one that he trusts the most,” Basira says, “that means you’re the only one who could get as physically close as we need without it raising any alarms.” Martin grimaces.
“You might even be able to get him cuffed before he realizes that anything’s wrong,” Basira adds.
“I don’t like that idea,” Martin says, looking sick to his stomach.
Melanie smiles as she tells him, “You can just switch from holding hands to cuffing hands. Then Basira kills our ballsack of a boss. Simple.”
“Why doesn’t Basira cuff Jon and I kill our ballsack of a boss,” Martin says, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Martin,” Basira says, “I’m going to ask this very gently. Have you ever killed anyone?”
“I don’t know how that’s relevant,” he replies, crossing his arms over his chest.
Basira raises a hand to her forehead and rubs. She doesn’t look up as she asks, “Have you?” Martin doesn’t respond immediately. He pauses a moment to think.
“No, I haven’t killed anyone. But don’t you dare start on about how that makes me… I don’t know, innocent?” Basira can hear the frustration dripping from his words. He doesn’t want them not to take him seriously just because he’s the only one in this room with hands that aren’t bloodstained, even just with other avatar’s blood. It’s gotten a lot harder to tell what blood might be “righteous” and “good” to have dripping from her fingers recently. Basira thinks that maybe none of it was ever righteous; that’s why she has to keep Martin out of this.
“I don’t want to imply that you’re… less for not having done it. I just mean that you don’t know what it’s like.”
“Oh, silly little Martin doesn’t know what it’s like to kill someone,” Martin mocks, “He’s so naive! So-”
“That’s not it,” Basira says firmly, “I just- I don’t want that for you, alright? The guilt sits with you, Martin. It sits… right on your chest? And you either deal with it or become so inhuman that you don’t have to.” That’s why Daisy became what she did. She had been holding that beast in for so long, becoming more and more a hunter with every “righteous” kill. Basira had that in her too. She could have become that, if she let herself fall over the edge with her partner. Now she’ll just feel like she’s always tittering over it: alone.
Basira lets her hands fall down to the table and forces herself to make eye contact with Martin. “I don’t want you to have to do that if you haven’t already.”
“You know what else “sits with you”?” Martin asks, putting air quotes around the phrase, “Handcuffing your boyfriend so he can’t make his own choices!” Melanie reaches out to him and takes his hand. She squeezes lightly. Basira thinks it’s supposed to be comforting. Probably.
“Jon’s going to be angry about this no matter which role you play, Martin,” Melanie says. It’s gentle, for Melanie. But it must still feel like a punch to the gut.
“I know,” Martin says, “I just- I don’t know, I just think that Jon will find the handcuffing harder to forgive.” Basira sighs. She should have known that Martin would be less worried about being able to forgive himself than making sure that Jon could forgive him.
“He’s going to be angry at you regardless,” Melanie says firmly. Martin looks at Melanie in confusion. Then he turns to Basira, as if expecting her to disagree.
“If Jon doesn’t just lie down and die with shame because we know he was going to betray us,” Basira says, “then yeah. He’s going to be pissed at you.”
“Jon is going to direct most of his anger at you,” Melanie says, “it doesn’t matter what part you play.”
“And why would that be?” Martin asks. He still doesn’t sound sold on this idea.
“Because you’re his partner,” Melanie says, “any type of betrayal is going to hurt more, coming from you. Like I know that Georgie will be angry at me for this.”
Martin nearly cringes back into his seat. “Alright,” he says, seeming like he’s trying to disappear into the crevices of his chair, “I still don’t want to, though.”
“Why does it matter so much?” Melanie asks.
“I don’t know, okay!” Martin says, grabbing a handful of his hair and tugging.
“I just-” he lets out a frustrated sigh, “I didn’t have “plot against my boyfriend” on my apocalypse bingo card, alright? It was always us together. We’re a team.”
“You haven’t been a team since he decided to change the plan,” Basira says. There were plenty of examples she could call on from Martin himself, but she thinks she’ll have more luck if she places the blame on Jon.
“I just didn’t want him to know that we planned this,” Martin says, “alright?” He seems to fold in on himself protectively, like whatever lies in the middle is fragile. Basira doesn’t know what to say that won’t shatter him.
Melanie has far fewer concerns. She just takes her sledge hammer to it. “That’s really stupid. You get that, right?”
“It’s not stupid!” Martin says, “I just-” He’s balling his hands into fists, and he takes a few deep breaths. Basira isn’t about to disturb him during that. She’s glad that Melanie had the good sense not to either.
Martin seems like he’s calmed down marginally when he says, “I didn’t want him to… hate me?”
Basira thinks for a moment on the best way to respond. She hopes that it’s neither callous nor cloying. “Honestly?” Basira tells him, “you might not get that unless you let him do what he wants. He’s not acting rationally right now.”
“He wasn’t supposed to know,” Martin whispers. Basira sighs. She really doesn’t know how to respond to that. Luckily (or unluckily) Melanie has a response locked and loaded.
“You think it would be better if he never knew you were manipulating him?” Melanie asks, her lips curling in disgust.
“Yes, actually!” Martin declares. Melanie looks frustrated enough that Basira doesn’t think she should let her keep talking.
“Come on,” Martin says, “you both know how much he hates being manipulated-”
Basira cuts in to ask, “Is this about whatever Annabelle Cane said? About Jon being marked for this?” Martin nods.
“Lots of people are marked by the entities,” Basira responds, “It doesn’t mean that much.”
“Even when they’re kids?” Martin asks. That's... a fair point. Basira worked on a lot of sectioned cases, but only the Callum Brody one ever involved a child.
“No,” Basira admits, “that’s not as common.” Other than Callum Brody (and apparently Jonathan Sims) she’s never heard of children catching the interest of the entities or their agents.
Martin forces himself to nod. “I still don’t even know what happened. He never told me… and now he’s- He’s going to hate me for doing this- forcing him.” His voice gets caught at the end, like his throat’s constricting, and the tears start to fall from his eyes. Basira really isn’t good at dealing with tears. Her terrible bedside manner was one of the reasons that she and Daisy were called in for more cases where the victims were corpses than living people.
Melanie might be worse, though. “So we should just let Jon destroy the world to deal with his trauma?”
“I don’t know!” Martin snaps.
“I’m sorry,” Basira says. That’s something that you say to someone when they’re grieving- when the world’s being unfair to them. Martin shouldn’t have to make this choice. Jon should have stuck with what the group decided. Jonah Magnus shouldn’t have turned the poor man into the gate between the worlds. Basira shouldn’t have had to kill Daisy. Tim shouldn’t have died. The entities never should have existed in the first place.
But the world has never been fair, has it? At least since the Hunt took its first breath through its first hunter and left the rest of them chasing and hurting each other for a whiff of power.
“Sometimes you have to take people’s choices away from them,” Melanie says firmly. This is not exactly something Basira expected to hear from her.
“Really?” Basira asks.
“Yeah. You and Jon didn’t give me the option to commit more murder when they pulled that bullet out of me. You just did it. And I know it was right because I’m here trying to save the world instead of killing people for fun.” She takes a deep, slow breath before she continues. “Now I’m not going to let Jon destroy everything we’ve worked for just so that he can get some catharsis.” Basira has heard Melanie get intense before, but it’s never been like this: compassionate, desperate for meaning, forgiving, almost. She’s made peace with what Basira and Jon did to her. Basira doesn’t know what to do with forgiveness.
She doesn’t know if Martin knows what to do with it, either.
“Are you?” Melanie challenges.
Martin tries to shake his head. Then, Basira would bet he remembers that Melanie can’t hear him because he says, “No, I’m not.”
“Good,” Basira says, “Then let’s save the fucking world.”
Melanie reaches up, trying to find his shoulder.
“God, you’re tall,” she mutters. A lot of that is just that Melanie’s close to five feet tall, and Martin’s even more than six. Melanie gives him a friendly punch to the side.
“I’m going to go gather the supplies,” Basira says, “you two work out what you’re going to say to Jon and Georgie. I’ll be back in five.”
Basira hopes that by the time she gets back, they’ll have everything worked out. Martin and Melanie are certainly a volatile pair.
When she returns back, Martin and Melanie have met up again with Jon and Georgie
“So you’re going with Jon and Martin now?” Georgie asks, looking a bit perplexed.
“We decided we needed more firepower up on the Tower,” Basira says. Which isn’t a lie, exactly. Basira catches a glimpse of Jon slinking behind them.
Melanie gently elbows her girlfriend. "Let's go. I think they're starting." Georgie looks confused for a moment, but she breaks off with Melanie toward the archives.
Basira makes her way over to catch the fleeing Jon, but Martin beats her to it.
“Where are you going?” Martin asks, grabbing their escapee by the hand before he can get any further.
“I’m just going to scout ahead,” Jon says, rolling his eyes, “if I get out of the tunnels then I can see again.” Martin and Basira lock eyes. Then, her eyes jolt towards his pocket where he’s keeping the cuffs.Jon is making a run for it, and if they don’t seal this now, then they won’t have a chance. It might become a fire fight.
“Just- just wait a second,” Martin says, using his left hand to rub gentle circles into Jon’s hand. Soothing circles. The kind of circles that don’t make Jon run like a rabbit who realizes he’s about to get caught in a trap. He pulls the cuffs out quickly, and snaps one around Jon’s right wrist. The handcuffs click.
Jon’s eyes widen in confusion. “What’s going on?”
“We knew what you were going to do,” Martin says.
“What do you mean?” Jon asks, starting to pull at the cuff like his skinny arm would just slide through.
“Come on, Jon,” Martin says, “I know that you weren’t going to stick to the plan. I saw it in your eyes.”
“Martin-”
“You were going to martyr yourself,” Martin says.
“And everyone else,” Basira mutters. He takes the other one, and debates for a moment between cuffing Jon’s hands together and cuffing Jon to him.
“Basira?” Martin pleads. Basira lets out a frustrated noise.
“If you cuff him to yourself, maybe he can’t get away, but he’s still got a free hand.” Her eyes jolt to Jon’s mouth. It doesn’t take Martin long to realize that she’s alluding to the possibility of Jon striking back with compulsion and using the distraction to free himself. At the very least they won't be able to gag him, and then he could even smite Magnus before Basira has a chance to take the bastard out.
Jon starts struggling against Martin’s hold in earnest now, breaking his free hand out of Martin’s grasp. Then, he slams his elbow squarely into Martin’s chin. Martin’s bleeding in his mouth. His teeth hurt. Honestly? He thinks Jon might have knocked a few of them loose.
Martin wraps his right hand over Jon’s free wrist, slamming it down beside him. Basira comes up beside him, and shoves Jon’s cuffed hand down on the other side. She grabs the other cuff, and Martin guides Jon’s free hand towards the open mouth. Against all the force that Jon can muster, Martin shoves his wrist into the cuff. Basira snaps it shut.
“Will you be able to keep him back when we get to Magnus, or will I need to?” Basira asks. Basira is probably stronger than Martin. At the very least, she’s actually been trained at physically restraining people. There are still so many flights of stairs left.
“I don’t know,” Martin admits.
Basira laughs. “At least you’re honest.”
Jon stares at them with wide, betrayed eyes. “Why would you do this?” Martin opens his mouth, to try to soothe, explain, vindicate, but Basira just glares them both down.
“You know why,” she says. Then, she directs all of them up the stairs. Jon grumbles, but Martin gently leads him up.
It’s half an hour of grumbling and walking and fighting before something eventful happens. Jon just drops to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
“Fuck,” Jon mutters. Martin looks down, and sees that he jammed his fingers into the wall while sitting down. He wasn't supposed to do that, but Martin's not going to focus on that right now.
“Are you alright?” Martin asks.
“I’m handcuffed, so no,” Jon tells him, “I am not alright.”
“Jon,” Martin scolds.
“You are dragging me up infinite flights of stairs to go- go unleash the fears onto innocent people!” Jon shouts.
“No,” Martin says, “I’m saving all of our lives.” If Jon gets his way, every single person in their dimension will die a horrible death and never return to their lives. There will be no more poetry, no more walks down the beach, no more tea breaks or bad dates or children playing at the park. Every single thing, both good and bad, will end.
“By damning the others!” Jon hisses. Maybe Martin should care about these hypothetical people, living in parallel worlds untouched by the fears. Maybe he should feel terrible at the thought of tainting those spaces and faces by passing on their suffering.
He doesn’t, though. Their world has suffered through these hideous, hungry creatures for centuries. It’s time they pass the problem off to someone else.
“Oh no,” Martin says, “how tragic. They might have to deal with an ounce of what we’ve been through.” Jon stops dead in his tracks, sagging against Martin’s hold and down to the floor. He glares up at them like he’s the one being wronged here.
Basira lets out a frustrated breath of air. “I should have known this would happen.” If Jon’s going to do this for the rest of the way…. Basira and Martin will be carrying twelve stones or so of deadweight up flight after flight of stairs.
“Oh no, how tragic," Jon says, sending Martin a bitter look as he mocks his words, “You two might have to carry me.”
Martin glares now. “You don’t have to make this such a thing!” If he'd just be a little more mature about it-
Jon cackles at him. “A thing? Resisting my kidnapping is a thing?”
Basira, clearly ignoring them, takes out her radio. “We’ve hit a bit of a snag. Might take longer than expected.”
“Oh!” Jon says, “my kidnapping is a snag! Even better!” Basira does a commendable job of ignoring him as he makes her way up a few more steps to have a more private conversation with the others. Martin probably needs a more private conversation right now, too. He doesn’t want to be a dick. He knows this is hard on Jon, but the man doesn’t have to be such an ass about it.
“Will it snag enough to destroy your evil plans?” Jon taunts.
“You were going to kill everyone, Jon!” Martin snaps, “You don’t have the high ground here!”
“Do you really think that we should shove all of this onto other people? Just to save us?” Jon asks. Martin sputters like a tea kettle that’s started to boil over. He doesn’t know how to respond to that nonsense.
Basira, luckily, comes back down then. “It’s not just us, Jon. It’s everyone in the world.”
Something about that response helps Martin get his bearings. “And what’s this “just us” nonsense? Are we not enough?” Martin isn’t sure who he’s offended for most. Their friends? Himself? Jon?
Jon looks the most certain Martin has ever seen him as he says, “No, we aren’t.” And. Well. That feels like he’s been plunged right into the Lonely.
“Jon-”
“We aren’t!” Jon repeats, louder and even more certain.
“Well,” Basira says, “this is just great! Jon’s even more suicidal than we thought.” Jon doesn’t say anything to dispute this.
“You aren’t helping, Basira,” Martin tells her. If she stopped drawing attention to it, maybe it would fade into the background. Maybe Jon would forget and they could go right back to ignoring it.
“Neither is he,” Basira snaps.
“If you’re so worried I’ll muck this up,” Jon tells her, “just kill me. I know you can.”
"I can," she confirms.
Jon smirks at her. "Then do it. I dare you!"
"No," Basira says.
"Why not?" Jon taunts, "don't have the stomach anymore?"
“Maybe I don’t want to kill another friend?” Basira asks, voice getting uncharacteristically emotional.
Jon's look turns contrite. “Oh. Daisy... she... well. She wanted you to."
Basira shakes her head. “I feel like I should have just. Let her be, because then…. Then she’d be coming back to us.” Daisy wasn't good, not really, but how much of that was the fears? If they'd gotten free of them, could she have gotten better? She was trying, at least, before the Hunt ate her alive.
“Daisy knew what she was getting into, when she asked you to kill her,” Jon says. “She was past saving.”
“She wasn’t past the point of saving,” Basira tells him. She waits a moment before she adds the next bit, not quite sure if she wants to admit to the next part. “And neither are you.”
Jon looks shocked. “Why would you think that? After everything that I’ve done, I-” He shakes his head quickly, like he’s trying to send the thought far away. “There’s no way that I could be good again. I don’t think I ever was.”
“Jon,” Martin says gently.
Jon ignores him, turning back to Basira with wide, confused eyes. “Why would you want to save me?”
“Because I care about you,” Basira says. Then, she seems to realize how vulnerable that sounded. “and I don't want you to kill us all."
Jon's bites his lip, looking embarrassed. "I wasn't going to-"
"Don't lie," Basira tells him, "not now."
Jon looks down at his hands. "Fine. You're right. I was going to go off and kill Jonah the moment that I could.” The look on his face sours.
“Thank you for being honest,” Martin says.
He glares, then. “Then what are you going to do about it? Lock me up down here?"
"More... lock you up there," Basira tells him, gesturing with her head higher into the tower.
"And just until we're done," Martin assures him.
“Done sending the entities off to be someone else’s problem?” Jon demands.
Basira stiffens.
“That’s not what we’re doing,” Martin assures him.
“Yes it is,” Jon says.
"Then what are you doing?" Basira asks, "giving them what they want?"
"No," Jon says, looking offended, “I just want to make sure they can’t ever hurt anyone else."
“They’ll hurt everyone here until we’re all dead, Jon,” Martin says.
“And what’s going to happen, after we ship them off to another world? What will they do to those people?” Jon demands.
“It took them centuries to get this powerful here," Basira reasons, "I doubt they'd be causing apocalypses right out the gate."
"Minor hauntings," Martin agrees, "none of the big stuff." Probably.
“But we don't know," Jon says.
"No," Basira admits, "we don't. But we know if we keep them here, the entire world is going to die. I think it's a risk worth taking."
"I can't live with that," Jon tells her. He looks so certain, so angry.
She smiles tightly. "If I can live with killing Daisy.... You can live with this, Archivist." The smile turns a bit more genuine as she realizes something. "You won't even be the Archivist, anymore."
Jon doesn't look as relieved by those words as Martin had hoped. He opens his mouth and whispers, “Who am I if I’m not?”
Martin sits down on the stone right beside him, puts a hand on his shoulder. "You'll just be Jon," Martin promises, as soft and comforting as he can. Jon isn't perfect, but removed from his powers... He's just a person, just like the rest of them. If any of them deserve forgiveness, so does he.
Jon lets out a harsh little laugh. “I’m not sure that I like him very much.”
“Well I do,” Martin says, “and I don’t like you saying cruel things about my boyfriend.” Jon's laughter doesn't stop, but he buries his head in Martin's shoulder and starts to cry.
He cries for a while before they try to move again, and this time, he walks with them again of his own volition. He lets Basira dig her knife into Jonah Magnus, and the fears are torn out of their world in hundreds of directions, like a million tiny black holes opened and sucked them right back in. The pressure of all the world's knowledge on his brain empties so quickly it leaves his ears popping.
The handcuffs come off, and Jon hangs limply between the others as they help him down the steps of the Tower. He feels empty- dirty- guiltier than ever before. The suffering in their world plucked out and shunted onto another. That's a tragedy. All of this is a tragedy.
The people remaining at the ground level of the city that's still wrecked beyond repair, though, don't seem to have gotten the memo. They look relieved and excited in equal measure. The other survivors try to engulf the three of them into their group, promising supplies and safety, but Basira assures them they have their own group waiting just below in the tunnels.
The people look skeptical, but they let them be, meeting up with a different group of survivors to welcome. When they get back, Georgie wraps her arms around Jon in a tearful hug, full of apologies for blaming him for so much and gratitude that he's still alive- that they all are. Melanie thanks him for not blowing up the planet in a way that sounds both joking and genuine.
Jon, however, hasn't stopped crying since halfway up the Tower. This isn't what it's supposed to be like. He's a failed martyr- the one that caused all of this suffering and couldn't end it all. He shouldn't be greeted with compassion. The others don't seem to take his damnable nature into account. They all treat him with more grace and compassion than he's ever been granted before. Martin doesn't remove his arm from its place around Jon's shoulder until Jon explicitly asks. Martin very happily returns the arm to its spot when Jon gets back from the bathroom and asks him to. They stay wrapped around each other for the whole night. Jon tries to feel bad about allowing himself the contact, but he can't manage to. If Jon is going to absolve himself of his sins tomorrow morning, he can indulge for a night longer.
He wakes up as the sun rises, and Jon cries yet again. The fears have been banished from their world, shipped off somewhere else where they can terrorize another population instead of just them and their tortured, damned world. All of these people dead, traumatized, and destroyed, all of it Jon’s fault, and the others wouldn’t even let him die for it! They say that they all deserve to live, but he doesn’t care what any of them think. This wasn’t the right move. It was an unforgivable thing to do, piled on top of his long list of unforgivable crimes.
Maybe there can be a world after this, but he can’t be part of it. He won’t. The others… maybe they can be saved. Maybe they can get better here, without him. He can’t stick around to see it.
But when he tries to sneak off by himself to use the knife he would have used to tear into Jonah Magnus to tear open his own wrists, he’s always blocked. Melanie will trip him with her cane and drag him back, Georgie will scold her girlfriend for her use of force and fuss over Jon to make sure he knows they want him around, Basira will remind him that if he were truly so monstrous, he would not still be there, and Martin will wrap his arms around tightly until Jon lets himself relax, whether or not he should.
The fears are out there, somewhere, terrorizing other people. That guilt eats at him, but a little less each day as they rebuild. His friends keep reminding him that his death won’t undo the damage. It will only damage the people who fought so hard to keep him alive. That means that Jon persists. Through the guilt, through the gore, through the memories, through things improving and people forgiving each other, he persists. Eventually, he’s even persisting by choice.
That's the best anyone can ask for: that he keeps living of his own accord.