Jon laughs. “I like how you had to check, though. Because you know your Archivist would say the same thing. He left you, Martin. In a place that wants you hurt, wants you dead. He left you alone mere days after you were overcome in The Lonely. He can see the yellow door. He’s an avatar of The Eye, you fool, he can see anything he wants. But he knows the risks, and he’d prefer you take them.”
Martin clenched his fists. “That’s fine. I’d prefer I take them, too.” And he would have. Jon hadn’t needed to lie to get Martin to do whatever he wanted.
“Of course you would,” Jon says, rolling his eyes. “Ever the martyr. I always knew I’d get caught. Subtlety isn’t really my thing. I just regret that I won’t be able to see what happens after this, how he flinches from you, the look on your face as he leaves whatever room you enter. That doubt, that mistrust. You should leave, you know. After he’s dealt with me. He won’t want you around, but he won’t push you away, not again. You’re both filled with so much delicious guilt.”
“I might,” Martin says, honestly. “Jon needs people, but he might not need me. I get that. I don’t need you to tell me.”
“Well, it’s been fun,” Jon says. “Would you like a little reward?” He shrugs out of his shirt and opens his pants. “There’s still plenty of time. And he’ll never know. Even if I tell him, he’ll think I’m lying.”
Martin shudders. “No. Thank you.” He turns away, only to face a mirror that shows Jon wrapping a hand around his cock and his eyes fluttering shut as he moans. “Stop it!” He tries to turn, to move, but he’s surrounded by mirrors, all angled to show the same thing. The moaning intensifies, and Martin hears his name. It sounds exactly like Jon.
“Get me off, sweet thing, and I’ll stop,” Jon says. “Touch me, darling. Taste me, sweetheart. Oh, Martin, I want you so badly…”
“Shut up!” Martin’s body responds to the sounds of Jon touching himself and begging for him, but his mind concocts visions of him giving a blowjob to a knife. “I’m not falling for this.”
“Such mistrust,” Jon purrs. “I don’t want to hurt you, love. I just want to fuck your face a little.” He laughs and it’s such a pleasant, happy sound. “Tell you what. You kneel down for me, and I’ll feed you my prick. No action on your part, just acceptance. That way, I can’t trick you into doing anything to hurt yourself. Deal?”
Martin knows he should refuse. This isn’t even Jon. But his body is thrumming with desire and, if he agrees, maybe it’ll leave him in peace. Just a moment of peace. “Alright.” He kneels in front of Jon, face level with Jon’s lovely cock. “Okay.” He opens his mouth and closes his eyes.
The hand in his hair is gentle, and the weight of the cock drags slowly across his tongue, not too far. It’s not tentative, but it is careful. Loving, almost. Martin feels a tear escape his eye and run down his face.
“Lovely,” Jon croons, brushing the tear away with his thumb. “You’re wasted on him. Such a lovely, good boy, with such a lovely, receptive mouth… Never to be put to your proper use.” He moves in and Martin closes his lips around him, moving his tongue. “Ah, yes. Just lovely.” The hand in his hair tenses, holds his head still as Jon starts to fuck his mouth. “Imagine how horrified Jon would be if you actually did this to him?” Martin’s stomach curls, but he doesn’t stop sucking. “Imaging him begging you to stop – oh, wait! We don’t have to imagine it. And you have the recording, so you know it’s real.” Jon’s fingers dig into his scalp, and Martin opens his throat as Jon’s thrusts press against his throat. “You got off on that, didn’t you? I could give you that if you wanted, I could cry and struggle and you could hold me down…” It’s too much, too horrible, and Martin pulls back. Or tries to. The hand holding him in place remains firm, and much stronger than Martin had expected. “Don’t stop now, sweetie. We’re having so much fun.”
This had been a mistake. Martin gags around the cock in his throat, trying desperately to get away. Jon laughs and thrusts, still just on the right side of uncomfortable, still objectively as good as he’d been before. Tears are falling freely over Martin’s cheeks now, mingling with the drool that Jon’s cock pushes out with every thrust, but they fall ignored. Martin feels a pressure against his own cock and sees Jon’s foot sliding between his knees, rubbing it.
“Here’s a deal. I’ll come when you do. All you have to do to end this is let go.”
Martin can’t. Somewhere between the horror of what he’d done and the horror of what he’s doing, his cock has softened and lies flaccid between his legs. The direct stimulation of not-Jon’s foot should be doing something, but it’s not enough. Any thoughts Martin tries to bring to mind to help turns to shame as he remembers what he did to Jon. He can’t even remember how he got turned on enough to kneel for this thing in the first place.
The sound of the door opening has to be another trick. Martin makes another attempt at escape, wrenching his head back, only for the hand holding him down to shift impossibly until it’s cupping the back of his head and pulling his hair at the same time. He opens wider and reflexively swallows, and feels the stretch of a cock breaching his throat. It’s easier than it should be, somehow, and Martin takes it with nothing more than a renewed wave of tears.
“Martin,” he hears as if from a distance. “What is in front of you?”
He can’t speak, his mouth is full of cock. Except that it isn’t, and it’s easy to answer, and he has to answer. “Nothing.”
And, just like that, he’s kneeling on the floor with a sore throat and aching scalp, face drenched in snot and tears, alone.
Not quite alone. Jon is standing in the doorway, looking at him. Martin looks over at the clock which still reads noon, except that it’s three o’clock now and he’s not even surprised. “I’m sorry,” is all he can think of to say.
Jon opens his mouth, then closes it and brings out another tape recorder. He turns away and speaks softly into it before sliding it over to where Martin is kneeling. It turns into snakes, again. Martin doesn’t care, and presses play.
“Did you remove the hinges?”
Martin shakes his head, and records his own answer. “Not yet. It… it distracted me. I can do it now, if you like.”
“Alright. I’ll be on the couch, watching.”
It’s comforting to know that the Jon Martin sees walk towards the couch and sit down is the real one. It means all Martin has to do not to hurt him is stay away. The floor is still knives, though, which might yet be a problem. Martin takes out the tools he needs and tries to stand in front of the door, but the moment he steps on a knife, he feels the sharpness of the blade.
Jon is looking at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything. I tried so hard to keep everyone safe, and it was all for nothing. The Extinction is still out there, waiting to destroy everything, and nothing I’ve done has changed any of that. You had to rescue me from my own bad decisions and I just know this is all going just as Elias wanted. We’re hiding out in Scotland, Daisy’s lost and Basira is putting herself at risk looking for her. We have no idea where Melanie is or even if she’s safe. Elias… Jonah Magnus is somewhere out there, plotting who knows what, and The Spiral is here and it made me hurt you in the last way I’d ever want to hurt you, and now you hate me, naturally. Also, the floor in front of the yellow door is knives and it hurts to step on them.”
“What does the floor in front of the yellow door look like?” Jon asks eventually, after a long pause.
Martin looks down. “Like a normal floor. Thanks, Jon.” He takes the opportunity to remove the hinges. The door remains in place, but it suddenly looks ominous, threatening.
“You don’t have to do this,” Jon says, but it’s not the Jon on the couch. “Madness isn’t all bad. Delusions can be far better than the real world. I can give you so much, Martin. I can give you him, any way you want him, willing and eager. You’ll never be alone. Do you want Tim back? Sasha? Do you want your mother to love you, to thank you for all the care you’ve given her? I can give you all that. You’ll never be alone again, I promise.”
“Fuck you,” Martin mutters.
He feels Jon’s hands on him and turns. Jon’s naked, unashamed and open. “It’s been so hard, my love. I know. You keep trying and trying, and it’s never good enough. I can make things easy. You’ll never have to try again, never have to fail and deal with his disappointment. Every time he looks at you, it’ll be with love. I want that for you, just that. So much love…”
“Martin, where is the yellow door?”
That came from the Jon on the couch. Martin doesn’t turn away from the Jon holding him, beseeching him. “It’s still against the wall, but the hinges have been removed.”
The naked Jon kisses him and strokes his hair. “I will love you back, Martin. Every ounce of love you’ve offered throughout the years, I will return to you. Everything you’ve ever wanted, I’ll give it to you. I’ll never, ever leave you alone.”
“Liar,” Martin says, but there’s a fondness there. Even if this isn’t Jon, even if it’s saying everything he wants to hear in Jon’s voice, he’s not able to be truly mad at it. It’s his own fault, after all, for having these weaknesses.
“Perhaps,” Jon says, kissing Martin’s lips. “Perhaps it makes you feel better, thinking that I’m lying. It makes it easier not to agree to my deal, no matter how honest I’ve been with you. But perhaps you’ll change your mind, after he hates you, after he abandons you again. Call for me, love. I’ll come to you and I’ll give you everything.” He disappears.
Martin can hear the door tearing from the wall. He turns to look at Jon, but he first catches a glimpse of what lies behind the yellow door.
He falls to his knees and vomits out everything he’s had to eat that day, then retches up nothing but bile and spit once that’s out. The space behind the door looks noisy and painful, and he can’t look away from it. Even when he closes his eyes, he can see it and it makes him sick. He retches again.
“You’ve chosen a bad time,” Jon says calmly. “I’ve recently destroyed Peter Lukas within The Lonely, and you’re not within your own domain. This place is steeped in The Hunt, which holds no love for either you or I. We’re on even terms here, save that I have something to protect. You’re never going to touch him again.”
The soundlessly noisy space behind the door gets sharper, more painful. Martin can hear the pain in Jon’s voice as he speaks again. “Why did you come here?”
Martin can’t hear the answer, but it’s not in any language he recognizes, so he wouldn’t have been able to understand it in any case. He feels blood dripping from his ear. Jon laughs.
“We might have dropped our guards, but we’ve never been stronger. Come back, and I won’t be as kind. I might even navigate your labyrinth myself.” He throws the door into the void and Martin chokes on his need to vomit again. Space isn’t right, he feels like he’s being simultaneously pulled and pushed, stretched and squeezed, and the pain in his head is blinding.
And then there’s just a wall. A wall, and Jon.
“Is it gone?” Martin hears himself ask. His voice sounds very wrong, higher-pitched than it should be and oddly nasal. Ah. His nose is bleeding too.
Jon looks at him, makes an aborted attempt to go to him, to comfort him, then stops himself. “I think so. You should… you should go get cleaned up. I’ll put on a kettle or something.”
Right. Because The Spiral might be gone, but that doesn’t change what happened. Martin drags himself up and stumbles into the bathroom, dragging himself into the shower in the hopes that it would clean even the messes he didn’t know about. His entire body felt sore and aching, and the hot water stung where there was no reason for it to sting. He’d heal. It hardly mattered.
His shirt is stained with his blood. He pulls on his pants and goes to the bedroom, pulling another shirt on and hesitating. He has to come out eventually. Jon is out there. They’ll talk about what happened. Martin’s not sure what he’s more afraid of, that Jon won’t forgive him, or that he will. The Spiral’s words have etched themselves into his memory, and he knows that his mere presence is going to be a problem for Jon, at a time when Jon really doesn’t need any more problems.
He should leave.
Jon will make him a cup of tea and they’ll talk. And it won’t matter what Jon says, he’ll be wishing that Martin was gone, or someone else. Martin should take the initiative, and leave.
The tape recorder, the one that recorded their one-sided conversations and then Jon’s rape, sits on the floor of the bedroom. Martin stares at it, irrationally angry, even though it had held the proof they needed that The Spiral was messing with their minds. It hadn’t helped, but it had done what Beholding does, and recorded evidence. Jon could threaten and bluster but, in the end, he was an observer, his powers unable to protect him when they would be better served watching him suffer.
He can’t ask Basira to come out here, not while she has Daisy to look for. Melanie isn’t really an option either, even if she wasn’t recovering from her blinding. Martin recalls Georgie and considers it – she seemed to care about Jon, even if she couldn’t understand what was really going on. None of them can replace him, Martin realizes. He truly is Jon’s only option.
He gathers the tape recorder and slinks out of the bedroom into the kitchen, only to find it empty with a single cup of tea still faintly steaming and a few pages weighed down by the saucer.
Fill: Jon/Martin, Noncon, Spiral made them do it 3/4
Martin clenched his fists. “That’s fine. I’d prefer I take them, too.” And he would have. Jon hadn’t needed to lie to get Martin to do whatever he wanted.
“Of course you would,” Jon says, rolling his eyes. “Ever the martyr. I always knew I’d get caught. Subtlety isn’t really my thing. I just regret that I won’t be able to see what happens after this, how he flinches from you, the look on your face as he leaves whatever room you enter. That doubt, that mistrust. You should leave, you know. After he’s dealt with me. He won’t want you around, but he won’t push you away, not again. You’re both filled with so much delicious guilt.”
“I might,” Martin says, honestly. “Jon needs people, but he might not need me. I get that. I don’t need you to tell me.”
“Well, it’s been fun,” Jon says. “Would you like a little reward?” He shrugs out of his shirt and opens his pants. “There’s still plenty of time. And he’ll never know. Even if I tell him, he’ll think I’m lying.”
Martin shudders. “No. Thank you.” He turns away, only to face a mirror that shows Jon wrapping a hand around his cock and his eyes fluttering shut as he moans. “Stop it!” He tries to turn, to move, but he’s surrounded by mirrors, all angled to show the same thing. The moaning intensifies, and Martin hears his name. It sounds exactly like Jon.
“Get me off, sweet thing, and I’ll stop,” Jon says. “Touch me, darling. Taste me, sweetheart. Oh, Martin, I want you so badly…”
“Shut up!” Martin’s body responds to the sounds of Jon touching himself and begging for him, but his mind concocts visions of him giving a blowjob to a knife. “I’m not falling for this.”
“Such mistrust,” Jon purrs. “I don’t want to hurt you, love. I just want to fuck your face a little.” He laughs and it’s such a pleasant, happy sound. “Tell you what. You kneel down for me, and I’ll feed you my prick. No action on your part, just acceptance. That way, I can’t trick you into doing anything to hurt yourself. Deal?”
Martin knows he should refuse. This isn’t even Jon. But his body is thrumming with desire and, if he agrees, maybe it’ll leave him in peace. Just a moment of peace. “Alright.” He kneels in front of Jon, face level with Jon’s lovely cock. “Okay.” He opens his mouth and closes his eyes.
The hand in his hair is gentle, and the weight of the cock drags slowly across his tongue, not too far. It’s not tentative, but it is careful. Loving, almost. Martin feels a tear escape his eye and run down his face.
“Lovely,” Jon croons, brushing the tear away with his thumb. “You’re wasted on him. Such a lovely, good boy, with such a lovely, receptive mouth… Never to be put to your proper use.” He moves in and Martin closes his lips around him, moving his tongue. “Ah, yes. Just lovely.” The hand in his hair tenses, holds his head still as Jon starts to fuck his mouth. “Imagine how horrified Jon would be if you actually did this to him?” Martin’s stomach curls, but he doesn’t stop sucking. “Imaging him begging you to stop – oh, wait! We don’t have to imagine it. And you have the recording, so you know it’s real.” Jon’s fingers dig into his scalp, and Martin opens his throat as Jon’s thrusts press against his throat. “You got off on that, didn’t you? I could give you that if you wanted, I could cry and struggle and you could hold me down…” It’s too much, too horrible, and Martin pulls back. Or tries to. The hand holding him in place remains firm, and much stronger than Martin had expected. “Don’t stop now, sweetie. We’re having so much fun.”
This had been a mistake. Martin gags around the cock in his throat, trying desperately to get away. Jon laughs and thrusts, still just on the right side of uncomfortable, still objectively as good as he’d been before. Tears are falling freely over Martin’s cheeks now, mingling with the drool that Jon’s cock pushes out with every thrust, but they fall ignored. Martin feels a pressure against his own cock and sees Jon’s foot sliding between his knees, rubbing it.
“Here’s a deal. I’ll come when you do. All you have to do to end this is let go.”
Martin can’t. Somewhere between the horror of what he’d done and the horror of what he’s doing, his cock has softened and lies flaccid between his legs. The direct stimulation of not-Jon’s foot should be doing something, but it’s not enough. Any thoughts Martin tries to bring to mind to help turns to shame as he remembers what he did to Jon. He can’t even remember how he got turned on enough to kneel for this thing in the first place.
The sound of the door opening has to be another trick. Martin makes another attempt at escape, wrenching his head back, only for the hand holding him down to shift impossibly until it’s cupping the back of his head and pulling his hair at the same time. He opens wider and reflexively swallows, and feels the stretch of a cock breaching his throat. It’s easier than it should be, somehow, and Martin takes it with nothing more than a renewed wave of tears.
“Martin,” he hears as if from a distance. “What is in front of you?”
He can’t speak, his mouth is full of cock. Except that it isn’t, and it’s easy to answer, and he has to answer. “Nothing.”
And, just like that, he’s kneeling on the floor with a sore throat and aching scalp, face drenched in snot and tears, alone.
Not quite alone. Jon is standing in the doorway, looking at him. Martin looks over at the clock which still reads noon, except that it’s three o’clock now and he’s not even surprised. “I’m sorry,” is all he can think of to say.
Jon opens his mouth, then closes it and brings out another tape recorder. He turns away and speaks softly into it before sliding it over to where Martin is kneeling. It turns into snakes, again. Martin doesn’t care, and presses play.
“Did you remove the hinges?”
Martin shakes his head, and records his own answer. “Not yet. It… it distracted me. I can do it now, if you like.”
“Alright. I’ll be on the couch, watching.”
It’s comforting to know that the Jon Martin sees walk towards the couch and sit down is the real one. It means all Martin has to do not to hurt him is stay away. The floor is still knives, though, which might yet be a problem. Martin takes out the tools he needs and tries to stand in front of the door, but the moment he steps on a knife, he feels the sharpness of the blade.
Jon is looking at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything. I tried so hard to keep everyone safe, and it was all for nothing. The Extinction is still out there, waiting to destroy everything, and nothing I’ve done has changed any of that. You had to rescue me from my own bad decisions and I just know this is all going just as Elias wanted. We’re hiding out in Scotland, Daisy’s lost and Basira is putting herself at risk looking for her. We have no idea where Melanie is or even if she’s safe. Elias… Jonah Magnus is somewhere out there, plotting who knows what, and The Spiral is here and it made me hurt you in the last way I’d ever want to hurt you, and now you hate me, naturally. Also, the floor in front of the yellow door is knives and it hurts to step on them.”
“What does the floor in front of the yellow door look like?” Jon asks eventually, after a long pause.
Martin looks down. “Like a normal floor. Thanks, Jon.” He takes the opportunity to remove the hinges. The door remains in place, but it suddenly looks ominous, threatening.
“You don’t have to do this,” Jon says, but it’s not the Jon on the couch. “Madness isn’t all bad. Delusions can be far better than the real world. I can give you so much, Martin. I can give you him, any way you want him, willing and eager. You’ll never be alone. Do you want Tim back? Sasha? Do you want your mother to love you, to thank you for all the care you’ve given her? I can give you all that. You’ll never be alone again, I promise.”
“Fuck you,” Martin mutters.
He feels Jon’s hands on him and turns. Jon’s naked, unashamed and open. “It’s been so hard, my love. I know. You keep trying and trying, and it’s never good enough. I can make things easy. You’ll never have to try again, never have to fail and deal with his disappointment. Every time he looks at you, it’ll be with love. I want that for you, just that. So much love…”
“Martin, where is the yellow door?”
That came from the Jon on the couch. Martin doesn’t turn away from the Jon holding him, beseeching him. “It’s still against the wall, but the hinges have been removed.”
The naked Jon kisses him and strokes his hair. “I will love you back, Martin. Every ounce of love you’ve offered throughout the years, I will return to you. Everything you’ve ever wanted, I’ll give it to you. I’ll never, ever leave you alone.”
“Liar,” Martin says, but there’s a fondness there. Even if this isn’t Jon, even if it’s saying everything he wants to hear in Jon’s voice, he’s not able to be truly mad at it. It’s his own fault, after all, for having these weaknesses.
“Perhaps,” Jon says, kissing Martin’s lips. “Perhaps it makes you feel better, thinking that I’m lying. It makes it easier not to agree to my deal, no matter how honest I’ve been with you. But perhaps you’ll change your mind, after he hates you, after he abandons you again. Call for me, love. I’ll come to you and I’ll give you everything.” He disappears.
Martin can hear the door tearing from the wall. He turns to look at Jon, but he first catches a glimpse of what lies behind the yellow door.
He falls to his knees and vomits out everything he’s had to eat that day, then retches up nothing but bile and spit once that’s out. The space behind the door looks noisy and painful, and he can’t look away from it. Even when he closes his eyes, he can see it and it makes him sick. He retches again.
“You’ve chosen a bad time,” Jon says calmly. “I’ve recently destroyed Peter Lukas within The Lonely, and you’re not within your own domain. This place is steeped in The Hunt, which holds no love for either you or I. We’re on even terms here, save that I have something to protect. You’re never going to touch him again.”
The soundlessly noisy space behind the door gets sharper, more painful. Martin can hear the pain in Jon’s voice as he speaks again. “Why did you come here?”
Martin can’t hear the answer, but it’s not in any language he recognizes, so he wouldn’t have been able to understand it in any case. He feels blood dripping from his ear. Jon laughs.
“We might have dropped our guards, but we’ve never been stronger. Come back, and I won’t be as kind. I might even navigate your labyrinth myself.” He throws the door into the void and Martin chokes on his need to vomit again. Space isn’t right, he feels like he’s being simultaneously pulled and pushed, stretched and squeezed, and the pain in his head is blinding.
And then there’s just a wall. A wall, and Jon.
“Is it gone?” Martin hears himself ask. His voice sounds very wrong, higher-pitched than it should be and oddly nasal. Ah. His nose is bleeding too.
Jon looks at him, makes an aborted attempt to go to him, to comfort him, then stops himself. “I think so. You should… you should go get cleaned up. I’ll put on a kettle or something.”
Right. Because The Spiral might be gone, but that doesn’t change what happened. Martin drags himself up and stumbles into the bathroom, dragging himself into the shower in the hopes that it would clean even the messes he didn’t know about. His entire body felt sore and aching, and the hot water stung where there was no reason for it to sting. He’d heal. It hardly mattered.
His shirt is stained with his blood. He pulls on his pants and goes to the bedroom, pulling another shirt on and hesitating. He has to come out eventually. Jon is out there. They’ll talk about what happened. Martin’s not sure what he’s more afraid of, that Jon won’t forgive him, or that he will. The Spiral’s words have etched themselves into his memory, and he knows that his mere presence is going to be a problem for Jon, at a time when Jon really doesn’t need any more problems.
He should leave.
Jon will make him a cup of tea and they’ll talk. And it won’t matter what Jon says, he’ll be wishing that Martin was gone, or someone else. Martin should take the initiative, and leave.
The tape recorder, the one that recorded their one-sided conversations and then Jon’s rape, sits on the floor of the bedroom. Martin stares at it, irrationally angry, even though it had held the proof they needed that The Spiral was messing with their minds. It hadn’t helped, but it had done what Beholding does, and recorded evidence. Jon could threaten and bluster but, in the end, he was an observer, his powers unable to protect him when they would be better served watching him suffer.
He can’t ask Basira to come out here, not while she has Daisy to look for. Melanie isn’t really an option either, even if she wasn’t recovering from her blinding. Martin recalls Georgie and considers it – she seemed to care about Jon, even if she couldn’t understand what was really going on. None of them can replace him, Martin realizes. He truly is Jon’s only option.
He gathers the tape recorder and slinks out of the bedroom into the kitchen, only to find it empty with a single cup of tea still faintly steaming and a few pages weighed down by the saucer.
Martin picks up the pages and starts reading.