rusty_kink | Prompt Post: The Magnus Archives #1

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From: (Anonymous)

Jon’s still half-hard, but Martin knows this isn’t the time to bring it up. He has a vague sense that some kind of aftercare is needed, but he’s not sure what. He kisses Jon and thanks him again, and undoes the rope around his wrists and thighs. The skin of his thighs is an angry red over a mottled bruise. It’s a good thing Jon likes pain, and that he heals so well. Martin kisses the bruises as he unties Jon’s legs.

Jon remains motionless, his eyes following Martin’s every move like a rabbit watching a wolf. Martin swallows, and remembers their safeword. Jon hadn’t said it when Martin had touched his cock. Maybe he’d wanted Martin to get him off.

Martin smiles and reaches for it. “Jon, do you want me to try to finish you?”

“No,” Jon says, his voice small. “Please don’t, Martin.”

That seals it. A clear invitation, and no banana. Martin wraps his hand around Jon’s cock and moves it slowly, gently, watching Jon’s face for any reaction.

Jon’s free now, could get up, move away, even fight back. But he just lies there, unresisting, tears streaming down his face as Martin works his cock. He’s so pretty, so delicate. Martin kisses his knee and speeds up, tightening his grip and doing everything he can to make Jon feel good. “Do I need to hit you again? What’ll make this good for you?”

Jon turns away, and Martin remembers how he’d wanted to be cut. There’s no sharp objects to hand, of course, but Martin’s actually pretty good at improvising. He ducks his head between Jon’s legs and takes the flesh of Jon’s inner thigh into his mouth and bites.

He doesn’t bite hard enough to draw blood, but the pain must be sudden and sharp. Jon cries out, a small whimper, and his cock gives a small spurt in Martin’s hand. Martin smiles and bites again and again, his hand moving tight and fast around Jon’s cock, trying to drown him in sensation. He’s as surprised as anyone when Jon finally comes with a sob. He loves this man so much.

Jon doesn’t resist as Martin holds him afterwards. The sex was great, but this is what Martin really wants – Jon warm and safe in his arms. He peppers kisses on the back of Jon’s neck and shoulders, biting back apologies and thank-yous, because there’s gratitude and then there’s obsequiousness. He’s hoping for some kind of feedback, even if it’s a criticism of Martin’s ties or timing, but Jon just lies limp in his arms.

They can talk later, then. Martin gives Jon a light kiss and gets up, feeling nicely rubbery from his exertions and orgasm. “I’ll just get something to clean us up,” he assures Jon. “I’ll be right back.”

It’s a short trip to the washroom to wet a cloth, but in that brief time Jon has managed to pull his bottoms back on and make his way to the living room.

Martin frowns. He hadn’t waited for Martin to clean him up and now he’d be all sticky. “What’s wrong?”

Jon doesn’t answer. He’s looking through the bookshelves, peering in corners, under tables. Martin takes a step forward. “Have you lost something?” They’d just arrived yesterday. It’s far too soon to have misplaced anything important. “Is it a tape recorder?” Martin asks, exasperated now. “Did they follow us?”

Jon’s head snaps around, his eyes wide and red-rimmed from crying. “A tape recorder.” He moves past Martin, giving him as much space as possible as he returns to the bedroom and starts rummaging through his bags. Martin watches him, bemused at his antics.

He finds one, of course. Tape recorders seem to be a constant in their lives now. He rewinds it and presses play, and the sounds of sex interspersed with the occasional slap of Martin’s hand hitting Jon’s face ring out. Jon drops the recorder like it’s bitten him, but it keeps cheerfully playing its recording of Martin’s grunts as he speeds up, the wet sound of Martin’s cock pistoning in and out of Jon’s arse, the soft puffs of air that pushed themselves out of Jon with every thrust. Jon’s hand is shaking as he reaches for it again, turning it off.

Martin can feel his face burning with his blush. “It sounds different recorded like that.” He’s getting hard again, which is a little annoying. Jon’s wide awake and doesn’t like being tied up while he’s conscious. Martin just had an amazing orgasm inside the man he loves, he can leave this arousal alone. “Was that what you were looking for?”

Jon shakes his head and rewinds again, almost to the beginning. He presses play again, and this time it’s a recording of his voice, and Martin’s.

“We need to have a talk first.”

“Sure. What about?”

A deep breath from Jon. “I love you, Martin. But I’m not… I don’t…”

“Yeah, Melanie said.”

“Melanie said?”

“Yeah, she said Georgie told her… huh. Actually, that was kind of inappropriate of her to share. Both of them, really. Didn’t you listen to the statement Melanie recorded? When you were… away?”

A pause. “Ah, yes. The Daedalus one. Actually, I mostly missed that, what with Elias feeding Melanie the nightmarish information about how her father suffered as he died. Office gossip seemed rather less… important after that.”

“Right.” Another pause. “I just meant that I get it. It’s fine.”

“Good,” Jon says, and there’s the high-pitched squeal of static. “Sex always seems like it could be a deal-breaker.”

“Ground-rules?” Martin’s voice sounds curious.

“I… yes. I suppose I underestimated you again.”

“I though we weren’t going to do anything.”

“I know. And I haven’t exactly deserved it for many of them. I want to give you what you need, but I can’t offer you…”

“Of course! I mean, yeah, whatever you need.” A pause, then more warmly. “Whatever you want.”

“I can… there are some things. I like little things, cuddling, kisses. If it gets too much, I might have to leave, but I can give you closeness, at least.”

“It… okay. Um. Do we have anything?”

“Is it really? I know that sex is important for a lot of people. I might be able to do some things. Like, maybe kiss you while you touch yourself? I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep, but I can try with you, Martin. I want to make you happy.”

“Okay. I can do that. So… you do like sex?”

“Me too. Being with you, I mean. You make me happy, Martin.” A laugh. “It’s terrible, but I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than right now.”

“Safeword, please. I don’t want you to be unable to say anything. And I… I want to hear you.”

“Oh, I’m plenty scared. But I can be both. It’s nice, being both, rather than just afraid.”

“Um. No, I think I’m good with just. All that. Uh. Do you have a preference? For a safeword?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.”

“I love you.”

“What else?”

“This might actually work.”

“No, you don’t.”

Jon laughs. “We can’t go back, not for a long time. We’re stuck here together with nothing to do, no plan, and a list of enemies who want me dead as long as my arm. But I feel safer here than I did in The Archives, my supposed place of power. Because I’m with you. Is that crazy?”

“No! Absolutely not!”

“I won’t let anything happen to you, Martin. I… we have enough power now, between the two of us, that we can keep ourselves safe. We’re as far removed for the horrors as we can get and we have each other.”

“I just meant that I didn’t want to cut you or anything. A little slapping is… I can do that.”

“But it’s an option. Keep yourself safe, and trust me to keep myself safe if anything happens, alright?”

“No, I… No.”

“Okay. We can do this.” More strongly. “We can do this. Together. You and me.” More static. “Thank you, Martin.”

“Of course, Jon. Anything for you.”

Martin has trouble following a lot of that conversation, but he’s absolutely sure of one thing. “That wasn’t what you said.”

“It was,” Jon says. “It wasn’t what you heard. And what you said wasn’t what I heard either.”

No. It’s impossible. It couldn’t have happened. “But you…” Martin steps back. “Then I…”

Jon looks at him. “I wish you had died instead of Tim,” he says clearly. “Or Sasha. Sasha wouldn’t have raped me.”

“I didn’t…” I didn’t mean to might be the worst thing Martin could say.

“I should have left you in The Lonely,” Jon says. “You and Peter Lukas deserve each other.”

Martin just shakes his head. It’s true, but it hurts to hear. He takes another step back, trying to give Jon space. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re going to leave me alone here, aren’t you?” Jon says. “You’re going to run like a coward and abandon me, leave me alone as if you were the one who was hurt.”

“N-no, I… I can stay, if you’ll let me. I’ll protect you.”

Jon laughs, and it’s unkind. “From what? The worst threat to me since we left is you, Martin.”

Martin can’t help it. He turns and runs.

Jon finds him huddled in the bath. He doesn’t say anything, just passes Martin a tape recorder and leaves.

“We’re going to have to talk things over when this is done, obviously, but first we need to figure this out. I’m not sure what you heard from me that sent you running, but it wasn’t anything I said. I need to know if you’ve seen anything that could be The Web, manipulating us. I haven’t found any remarkable spiders, but you’re the expert on those. You can record your answer once this is over.”

Martin stares at the recorder as it continues playing nothing. He finally presses stop and then record. “I’m so sorry, Jon. I know…” No. There’s no reason to make Jon listen through his sobbing explanation, especially when he seems to know what’s happening better than Martin does. “I haven’t seen any weird spiders. No webs where they shouldn’t be. I can check the house more thoroughly, though. I’m… I’m going to make up for what I did. Somehow. I’m so sorry.”

Jon had sounded brusque, professional. Martin had sounded like the mess he was. He starts looking in the bathroom, opening cupboards and drawers and peering behind the toilet. There are webs, naturally, but no more than expected, and all the spiders Martin catches glimpses of are normal, ordinary house spiders. Martin moves from the bathroom to the kitchen and does the same. There’s nothing there. They’d been in the bedroom both times this has happened, so he checks there next, only then wondering where Jon could be. There’s nothing in the bedroom, and Martin knows he’s not entitled to hunt Jon down. There’s a storage room that has more spider webs, but again, nothing unusual. The last room is the living room, and Jon already went through it. Martin dutifully lifts the couch and checks behind the broken television set, but doesn’t see anything strange.

Except.

“There’s a yellow door in the living room,” Martin says into the recorder. He can hear a weird kind of feedback as he speaks. “Why is there a yellow door in the living room?”

The tape recorder turns into writhing snakes and Martin drops it with a shout and backs up against the wall.

Jon bursts in, eyes wide. “Martin! Why are you so fucking useless?”

Martin’s legs give out and he slides to the floor, trembling. Jon reaches down and picks up the snakes. Martin hears his own voice.

“Two spiderwebs behind the TV, one with a fly in it – good job, you. Nothing else interesting there. There’s a yellow door in the living room. Why is there a yellow door in the living room?”

Jon looks at Martin with an intense expression. “Martin, where is the yellow door?”

Martin doesn’t feel like he can talk, he’s scared and ashamed and broken. But he does talk, and his voice is steady and even. “On the north-facing wall, about a foot east of the window.”

Jon nods and walks right up to it. Martin’s not sure why, exactly. It’s right where a door should be, and looks like it should go somewhere, but nowhere interesting, really. Don’t they have other things to worry about? Like spiders?

Martin hadn’t even managed to find any notable spiders. The Web wasn’t just spiders, though. Maybe there’s something else, something they’re missing.

Jon speaks softly into the tape recorder. He’s talking a lot. Martin can’t hear any words, but the soft murmur of his voice is incredibly familiar and comforting. It’s the middle of the night, and Martin hadn’t slept well the night before, excited as he was about the prospect of having sex with Jon. He’s tired and sad and there’s no chance he’s going back to bed after what just happened there. He drops off to sleep against the wall, listening to Jon’s voice.

He wakes up to an empty room and a tape recorder on his lap. A quick survey shows that it’s the entire cabin that’s empty, Jon has left. The bed looks the same as it had after they were done with it. Clearly Jon hadn’t slept there either.

Martin cleans up and gets dressed and makes something to eat. He doesn’t want to hear what’s on the tape recorder, but he can’t avoid it forever. He finally turns it on after doing the dishes.

“These are the things I know,” Jon says dispassionately, like he’s debunking a statement. “We cannot trust our perceptions. What we hear and see is not necessarily what is real. That is a quality of The Spiral, not The Web. We also cannot trust each other, apart from what’s recorded here. Powers don’t mix well, and this is a tool of The Eye. Along those lines, if I compel you to tell me the truth, I believe both the question and answer will be perceived as how they truly are. That’s how it worked with The Stranger.”

There’s a pause, and a soft sigh. “I can’t see the yellow door. I’m going to have to rely on you, Martin. I’m going to leave so that neither of us can further harm the other. You’re going to be on your own. Trust that, no matter what you see or hear. I will return at three in the afternoon, no sooner. Record your actions as you take them, and leave the tape recorder on the kitchen table for me. Hopefully it won’t turn into spiders this time.” Jon’s voice turns wry, and Martin can visualize the slight twist to his lips that he makes when he tries to joke and knows no one is going to get it.

“I need you to check the outside of the cabin, where the yellow door should lead to. Record what you see. Then come back inside and use the tools on the counter to remove the hinges. If the door remains upright, make a note, but don’t open it. If it falls like a normal door would, describe its position. Once you’re done, place the tape recorder on the table and leave. Don’t come back until five at the earliest.”

Martin listens for about a minute more, but there isn’t anything else on the tape. He follows the instructions, recording everything as he does. “I, uh… I’m leaving through the front door at about noon? The north side of the house doesn’t have much, just some overgrown grass and a fence. No reason to have a door to that. And. Yeah, there’s no door on this side, just a solid wall.” He jumps and gives a little yelp. “Sorry, I just… I can see you through the window, even if you’re not here. You said you wouldn’t be here, and I trust you. So that’s not you. You’re not… oh god.” The Jon inside the house has settled on the couch and undone his trousers, lowering them just enough to get his cock out and start working it. Martin feels like a voyeur watching it. It’s anatomically accurate, and Martin both hates and loves that he knows that. “I think it knows that we know. It’s just playing mind games with us.”

Sure enough, when he gets back into the cabin, there’s no Jon. The floor in front of the yellow door is actually knives, however, which is new. “I don’t think it wants me to follow your instructions,” Martin says. “It’s… uh… there’s the illusion of knives coming out of the floor, but that’s obviously not real. I don’t know what’ll happen if I step on them, though. Is imaginary pain as bad as real pain?”

“Yes,” Jon says, arms crossed, standing by the front door. “But I don’t really care about you getting hurt right now, Martin. After what you’ve done, don’t you think you deserve it? Don’t you think you owe it to me to bleed and hurt and die? Just a little. For me?”

Martin rewinds the tape and hears nothing after his question about pain. “You’re not real.”

From: (Anonymous)

I’m outside. I’m not going to push you into talking about this or anything. I don’t expect you to process things the same way I do. After all, you’re not as fully a monster as I am.

I think this will work better. You can always put this down if it’s too much, and it’ll never demand anything from you. It will always be here when you’re ready.

I don’t blame you for what happened.

I’m probably going to repeat that a lot throughout this letter. If nothing else, I want you to know that I consider you as much a victim of what happened as I was. Maybe more so, because I can think of multiple opportunities I had to make you stop, and I didn’t. I’m sorry for that. I should have, ~~I was just~~ I was an idiot and I thought it was actually you. I was so busy asking what I’d done wrong that you would do such a thing that it didn’t bother to realize that you would never. You would never, Martin. I know that.

I’ve read hundreds of statements, and I’ve never come across sexual assault. Sure, there were the occasional ghost sex stories, but those were usually debunked easily enough and more the domain of ‘paranormal investigators’ than The Magnus Institute. But The Web, The Spiral, The Stranger… so many powers seem to be made for such terrors. The only ones that came close was The Corruption twisting the desire for love into a sort of hive thing. I think I know why.

I need to you remember that I don’t blame you for what happened.

People expect rape from other people.

Even Father Burroughs’s story wouldn’t have been as sensational if he’d just raped his parishioners. No one would have even questioned it. But he ate them, and that’s so much worse that it caught Gertrude’s attention. Trevor mentioned people leaving a warm shelter to wander through a cold, wet night. How much easier would it be for The Web to find the part of their victim that wants to be touched, to have them spread their legs and think that they were willing? And The Stranger… if Danny truly was a more attractive version of Tim, he wouldn’t have even had to fool most people.

If any of the above happened, however, no one would come to The Magnus Institute. Most people wouldn’t even go to the police. If their machinations were discovered, people would cluck their tongues and talk about how they’d never have expected it, and no one would even consider eldritch powers. I don’t think we were the first, Martin. I think we were just more aware.

I have enclosed a transcript of our conversation, as I heard it. You can read it if you like, if you think it might help. I lo I’m not going to write it out here. You deserve to hear it yourself. I don’t blame you for what happened. It doesn’t change how I feel.

It might be difficult, though. I’m certain I won’t be able to sleep in that bed, with or without you. I think I might flinch from you sometimes. I might need some space for a bit, but I’ll come back. I’d hoped we could grow closer here, that we could become… more. Now, I’m just looking forward to regaining what we’d had before Peter Lukas came into our lives. Once we get that back, I hope we can talk about next steps. I want to know you, Martin.

I don’t blame you AT ALL for what happened.

Tell me what you need. If I can, I’ll give it to you. If it’s too much, I’ll tell you. As for what I need: I’m outside, not drinking my tea, and fretting. Once you feel up to it, I’d appreciate if you could join me. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk. Just… come see me. I’ll wait until you’re ready.

This might have been the worse thing Jon could have done. Martin can’t yell at a piece of paper, can’t tell it that Martin had enjoyed what he’d done, that Jon shouldn’t have even had to try to stop him. He can’t stop reading either. This is from Jon, and Martin can’t disappoint him, even when the words hurt his chest so much it felt like being stabbed.

He turns the page, and reads the conversation Jon had thought they’d had.

Jon: “Sex always seems like it could be a deal-breaker.”
Martin: “Not for me.”
Jon: “I… yes. I suppose I underestimated you again.”
Martin: “I’ve loved you for years without sex, Jon.”
Jon: “I know. And I haven’t exactly deserved it for many of them. I want to give you what you need, but I can’t offer you…”
Martin: “I don’t need anything you’re not willing to give.”
Jon: “I can… there are some things. I like little things, cuddling, kisses. If it gets too much, I might have to leave, but I can give you closeness, at least.”
Martin: “That’s more than enough.”
Jon: “Is it really? I know that sex is important for a lot of people. I might be able to do some things. Like, maybe kiss you while you touch yourself? I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep, but I can try with you, Martin. I want to make you happy.”
Martin: “Just being with you makes me happy.”
Jon: “Me too. Being with you, I mean. You make me happy, Martin. It’s terrible, but I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than right now.”
Martin: “I know what you mean. We should be scared, but instead…”
Jon: “Oh, I’m plenty scared. But I can be both. It’s nice, being both, rather than just afraid.”
Martin: “Can I think about you? When I’m touching myself?”
Jon: “Sure.”
Martin: “Thanks.”
Jon: “I love you.”
Martin: “I love you, too.”
Jon: “This might actually work.”
Martin: “I hope so.”
Jon: “We can’t go back, not for a long time. We’re stuck here together with nothing to do, no plan, and a list of enemies who want me dead as long as my arm. But I feel safer here than I did in The Archives, my supposed place of power. Because I’m with you. Is that crazy?”
Martin: “Maybe. But I feel the same.”
Jon: “I won’t let anything happen to you, Martin. I… we have enough power now, between the two of us, that we can keep ourselves safe. We’re as far removed for the horrors as we can get and we have each other.”
Martin: “I won’t go into The Lonely unless there’s no other choice.”
Jon: “But it’s an option. Keep yourself safe, and trust me to keep myself safe if anything happens, alright?”
Martin: “Alright.”
Jon: “Okay. We can do this. We can do this. Together. You and me. Thank you, Martin.”
Martin: “Of course, Jon. Anything for you.”

The papers are stained with Martin’s tears now. He wishes that they’d had that conversation. It was perfect, almost exactly what Martin would have said. Promises he wouldn’t have had any trouble keeping. He remembers the first night they’d slept together, when he could feel the warmth from Jon’s body even if they hadn’t touched. He could have had that. If they’d had this conversation, he would still have that.

The tea has long gone cold, but Martin drinks it anyway. He can’t taste anything through the snot and tears, and he’s drained from everything that’s happened and everything that’s about to happen. He checks the wall where the yellow door and been, and finds it empty. He shudders and looks away, wishing that had been at all comforting.

Jon’s outside. It’s late enough that the sun is starting to set. Martin gathers up the papers and goes outside.

The bench Jon is sitting on has enough room for two. He watches Martin approach, his expression neutral. Martin sits down and passes him the tear-stained papers. “Thank you.”

“Are you alright?”

After everything that happened, that’s the first thing Jon asks, the most important thing, the thing he cares about the most. Martin bursts into heavy, painful sobs.

He can faintly hear Jon cursing to himself, feel the gentle there-and-gone touches as Jon tries to comfort him. He’s bad at it. The thought is so ungrateful that Martin somehow finds a way to become more miserable. He curls up on himself, trying to make himself small and quiet like when he was a child. He clamps his mouth tight against the sobs, but now his body is shaking with them.

Jon gets up and leaves and Martin tries to be grateful for it, tries to get himself together so that he won’t be such a burden on Jon. But it feels like abandonment, and Martin feels himself fading with something like gratitude. The Lonely’s misery is quiet and calm. He misses it.

Jon comes back before The Lonely fully sets in, with a quilt and with eyes that can pierce through Martin’s half-hearted escape attempt. “Oh, no you don’t,” Jon mutters, wrapping Martin in the blanket, then plopping down on the ground in front of him and forcing him to meet Jon’s gaze.

Martin remembers the quilt. He remembers putting it aside before tying Jon up, worried that it might get dirty and would be harder to clean than the sheets. He’s not sure if that makes it more or less tolerable.

“Stay with me,” Jon murmurs, taking Martin’s hands. “Cry if you have to, scream if you have to, but stay here.”

The sun has set by the time Martin stops crying. Jon is still holding his hands. Martin loves him. He’s not sure what that means now.

When they head into the house, Jon maneuvers Martin onto the couch, lying him down with the quilt still wrapped around him. “Go to sleep,” he says. The couch is just as uncomfortable as Martin had expected the first night they’d slept here. He still goes to sleep.

He wakes up sometime before dawn. Jon is sitting in a chair, one leg drawn up so he can rest his head against his knee, watching Martin sleep. Martin meets his gaze and neither of them says anything or moves. Martin wants to tell Jon to get some sleep himself, that he looks uncomfortable sitting there, he’ll get a sore back and neck. Jon’s lips curl up in a small smile and he unfurls himself, standing and walking towards Martin, bending down just long enough to gently run his fingers through Martin’s hair and press a tape recorder into his hand before moving to the kitchen.

Martin presses play, because that’s what they do now.

“Good morning. I’m watching you sleep. I hope that’s okay, it’s something I very much want to keep doing.” A soft sigh. “I wish I were better at this. At making people feel better. You’re the one who’s good at that. I’m almost sorry I don’t need it right now. If you were taking care of me, I think you’d be doing a better job.

“I can wait until you’re comfortable with me again. Until I stop making you cry. But I can’t leave you alone while I wait, so you’ll be getting a lot of these. I think I made… seven? While you slept. I’ll probably make more.

“I want to compel you into telling me what I can do to make you feel better. That would be such a violation, but I feel so helpless. I want to ask you and get simple directions that I can follow. If you’ll let me, I actually will, but I’d understand if you don’t want me to.

“I’m going to practice touching you, if that’s okay. I want you to touch me too, but telegraph your movements to give me warning and room to retreat. I held your hand as we left The Lonely together. I remember how warm and nice that felt. I want that again.

“As soon as you’re awake, I’ll start getting breakfast ready. If you hurry, you can stop me from making the tea.”

The serious tone turns teasing at the end, and Martin feels himself smiling. He knows how much endurance he has for misery – he can spend weeks exhausting himself with it, or years functioning with it as a backdrop to everything. It’s been a day, and the moment he heard a smile in Jon’s voice, he lost it. The domestic sounds from the kitchen push it even further back. He stands and makes his way to the kitchen, eying the tape recorder on the table as he passes.

The kettle is getting close to boiling, and Jon is frying up eggs. Martin takes out two mugs and the teapot and starts setting up. He pours the tea as the last toast pops out of the toaster and Jon butters it, and they head to the table. Neither has said a word yet.

Martin manages two bites of his toast before he grabs the tape recorder and presses play.

“To be fair, sometimes it’s The Web. I mean, it obviously wasn’t this time, so perhaps I was wrong in this one instance. But it could have been The Web.” Jon huffs a self-deprecating laugh. “The next time I blame anything on The Web, though, please feel free to remind me that there are multiple other things that want us scared or hurt or dead. I seem to have tunnel-vision somewhat when it comes to The Spider.”

Martin snickers and looks up to see Jon smiling fondly at him. They finish their breakfast, and Jon takes his plate, replacing it with another tape recorder.

“Some of the things I heard you say, afterwards, were quite hurtful. They weren’t effective, because I knew you’d never say them, but they did hurt. I imagine that you went through the same, but that it was more believable coming from me. I’d been so cruel to you in the past, and I tend to lash out when I’m scared or hurting. I’m sorry you had reason to believe I meant any of them, while I had the security of knowing you didn’t.”

Jon is washing the dishes, so Martin lets himself cry silently for a few minutes. It’s not the uncontrollable sadness and guilt that it had been yesterday, but it’s still painful. Still, at least now he can get himself together and wipe his eyes and move forward. He’s had enough practice at this that it comes naturally enough.

There’s another tape recorder on the counter when Martin walks into the kitchen.

“Would you like to go for a walk? Or we could sift through Daisy’s rather pitiful library and find something to read. Whatever you like.”

Martin gets dressed to go outside. The sun has just risen, and there’s a heavy mist rolling over the ground. Jon joins him a moment later and they head out, wordlessly. They’re still within sight of the safehouse when Jon slips his hand into Martin’s. His fingers are cold and Martin wraps as much of his hand around them as he can to warm them up. He hears Jon give a satisfied sigh. They walk on.

The mist dissipates just as clouds start rolling in. Neither of them is any good at predicting Scottish weather, so they head back. Jon hasn’t released Martin’s hand, and Martin’s heart sings with hope.

He pauses at the front door and Jon turns to him, an unspoken question in his eyes.

Martin takes a deep breath. “I think we need to talk.”

The smile that lights up Jon’s face is hopeful and bright. “Alright.” He hesitates, then presses his lips to Martin’s cheek. “Before we do, I need to tell you and make sure you hear it.” He finally releases Martin’s hand, only so he has both hands free to cup Martin’s face. “I love you.”

This is when Martin should cry – happy tears or guilty tears or regretful tears. But he feels like he’s cried enough over Jon’s olive branches. Crying doesn’t help. Instead he smiles and slowly, carefully, giving Jon as much time and space as he might need to retreat, he leans in and kisses him.

Jon kisses him back.

From: (Anonymous)

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.

Martin picks up the pages and starts reading.

From: (Anonymous)

(Sorry, I have no idea how that happened)

I’m outside. I’m not going to push you into talking about this or anything. I don’t expect you to process things the same way I do. After all, you’re not as fully a monster as I am.

I think this will work better. You can always put this down if it’s too much, and it’ll never demand anything from you. It will always be here when you’re ready.

I don’t blame you for what happened.

I’m probably going to repeat that a lot throughout this letter. If nothing else, I want you to know that I consider you as much a victim of what happened as I was. Maybe more so, because I can think of multiple opportunities I had to make you stop, and I didn’t. I’m sorry for that. I should have, ~~I was just~~ I was an idiot and I thought it was actually you. I was so busy asking what I’d done wrong that you would do such a thing that it didn’t bother to realize that you would never. You would never, Martin. I know that.

I’ve read hundreds of statements, and I’ve never come across sexual assault. Sure, there were the occasional ghost sex stories, but those were usually debunked easily enough and more the domain of ‘paranormal investigators’ than The Magnus Institute. But The Web, The Spiral, The Stranger… so many powers seem to be made for such terrors. The only ones that came close was The Corruption twisting the desire for love into a sort of hive thing. I think I know why.

I need to you remember that I don’t blame you for what happened.

People expect rape from other people.

Even Father Burroughs’s story wouldn’t have been as sensational if he’d just raped his parishioners. No one would have even questioned it. But he ate them, and that’s so much worse that it caught Gertrude’s attention. Trevor mentioned people leaving a warm shelter to wander through a cold, wet night. How much easier would it be for The Web to find the part of their victim that wants to be touched, to have them spread their legs and think that they were willing? And The Stranger… if Danny truly was a more attractive version of Tim, he wouldn’t have even had to fool most people.

If any of the above happened, however, no one would come to The Magnus Institute. Most people wouldn’t even go to the police. If their machinations were discovered, people would cluck their tongues and talk about how they’d never have expected it, and no one would even consider eldritch powers. I don’t think we were the first, Martin. I think we were just more aware.

I have enclosed a transcript of our conversation, as I heard it. You can read it if you like, if you think it might help. I lo I’m not going to write it out here. You deserve to hear it yourself. I don’t blame you for what happened. It doesn’t change how I feel.

It might be difficult, though. I’m certain I won’t be able to sleep in that bed, with or without you. I think I might flinch from you sometimes. I might need some space for a bit, but I’ll come back. I’d hoped we could grow closer here, that we could become… more. Now, I’m just looking forward to regaining what we’d had before Peter Lukas came into our lives. Once we get that back, I hope we can talk about next steps. I want to know you, Martin.

I don’t blame you AT ALL for what happened.

Tell me what you need. If I can, I’ll give it to you. If it’s too much, I’ll tell you. As for what I need: I’m outside, not drinking my tea, and fretting. Once you feel up to it, I’d appreciate if you could join me. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk. Just… come see me. I’ll wait until you’re ready.

This might have been the worse thing Jon could have done. Martin can’t yell at a piece of paper, can’t tell it that Martin had enjoyed what he’d done, that Jon shouldn’t have even had to try to stop him. He can’t stop reading either. This is from Jon, and Martin can’t disappoint him, even when the words hurt his chest so much it felt like being stabbed.

He turns the page, and reads the conversation Jon had thought they’d had.

Jon: “Sex always seems like it could be a deal-breaker.”
Martin: “Not for me.”
Jon: “I… yes. I suppose I underestimated you again.”
Martin: “I’ve loved you for years without sex, Jon.”
Jon: “I know. And I haven’t exactly deserved it for many of them. I want to give you what you need, but I can’t offer you…”
Martin: “I don’t need anything you’re not willing to give.”
Jon: “I can… there are some things. I like little things, cuddling, kisses. If it gets too much, I might have to leave, but I can give you closeness, at least.”
Martin: “That’s more than enough.”
Jon: “Is it really? I know that sex is important for a lot of people. I might be able to do some things. Like, maybe kiss you while you touch yourself? I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep, but I can try with you, Martin. I want to make you happy.”
Martin: “Just being with you makes me happy.”
Jon: “Me too. Being with you, I mean. You make me happy, Martin. It’s terrible, but I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than right now.”
Martin: “I know what you mean. We should be scared, but instead…”
Jon: “Oh, I’m plenty scared. But I can be both. It’s nice, being both, rather than just afraid.”
Martin: “Can I think about you? When I’m touching myself?”
Jon: “Sure.”
Martin: “Thanks.”
Jon: “I love you.”
Martin: “I love you, too.”
Jon: “This might actually work.”
Martin: “I hope so.”
Jon: “We can’t go back, not for a long time. We’re stuck here together with nothing to do, no plan, and a list of enemies who want me dead as long as my arm. But I feel safer here than I did in The Archives, my supposed place of power. Because I’m with you. Is that crazy?”
Martin: “Maybe. But I feel the same.”
Jon: “I won’t let anything happen to you, Martin. I… we have enough power now, between the two of us, that we can keep ourselves safe. We’re as far removed for the horrors as we can get and we have each other.”
Martin: “I won’t go into The Lonely unless there’s no other choice.”
Jon: “But it’s an option. Keep yourself safe, and trust me to keep myself safe if anything happens, alright?”
Martin: “Alright.”
Jon: “Okay. We can do this. We can do this. Together. You and me. Thank you, Martin.”
Martin: “Of course, Jon. Anything for you.”

The papers are stained with Martin’s tears now. He wishes that they’d had that conversation. It was perfect, almost exactly what Martin would have said. Promises he wouldn’t have had any trouble keeping. He remembers the first night they’d slept together, when he could feel the warmth from Jon’s body even if they hadn’t touched. He could have had that. If they’d had this conversation, he would still have that.

The tea has long gone cold, but Martin drinks it anyway. He can’t taste anything through the snot and tears, and he’s drained from everything that’s happened and everything that’s about to happen. He checks the wall where the yellow door and been, and finds it empty. He shudders and looks away, wishing that had been at all comforting.

Jon’s outside. It’s late enough that the sun is starting to set. Martin gathers up the papers and goes outside.

The bench Jon is sitting on has enough room for two. He watches Martin approach, his expression neutral. Martin sits down and passes him the tear-stained papers. “Thank you.”

“Are you alright?”

After everything that happened, that’s the first thing Jon asks, the most important thing, the thing he cares about the most. Martin bursts into heavy, painful sobs.

He can faintly hear Jon cursing to himself, feel the gentle there-and-gone touches as Jon tries to comfort him. He’s bad at it. The thought is so ungrateful that Martin somehow finds a way to become more miserable. He curls up on himself, trying to make himself small and quiet like when he was a child. He clamps his mouth tight against the sobs, but now his body is shaking with them.

Jon gets up and leaves and Martin tries to be grateful for it, tries to get himself together so that he won’t be such a burden on Jon. But it feels like abandonment, and Martin feels himself fading with something like gratitude. The Lonely’s misery is quiet and calm. He misses it.

Jon comes back before The Lonely fully sets in, with a quilt and with eyes that can pierce through Martin’s half-hearted escape attempt. “Oh, no you don’t,” Jon mutters, wrapping Martin in the blanket, then plopping down on the ground in front of him and forcing him to meet Jon’s gaze.

Martin remembers the quilt. He remembers putting it aside before tying Jon up, worried that it might get dirty and would be harder to clean than the sheets. He’s not sure if that makes it more or less tolerable.

“Stay with me,” Jon murmurs, taking Martin’s hands. “Cry if you have to, scream if you have to, but stay here.”

The sun has set by the time Martin stops crying. Jon is still holding his hands. Martin loves him. He’s not sure what that means now.

When they head into the house, Jon maneuvers Martin onto the couch, lying him down with the quilt still wrapped around him. “Go to sleep,” he says. The couch is just as uncomfortable as Martin had expected the first night they’d slept here. He still goes to sleep.

He wakes up sometime before dawn. Jon is sitting in a chair, one leg drawn up so he can rest his head against his knee, watching Martin sleep. Martin meets his gaze and neither of them says anything or moves. Martin wants to tell Jon to get some sleep himself, that he looks uncomfortable sitting there, he’ll get a sore back and neck. Jon’s lips curl up in a small smile and he unfurls himself, standing and walking towards Martin, bending down just long enough to gently run his fingers through Martin’s hair and press a tape recorder into his hand before moving to the kitchen.

Martin presses play, because that’s what they do now.

“Good morning. I’m watching you sleep. I hope that’s okay, it’s something I very much want to keep doing.” A soft sigh. “I wish I were better at this. At making people feel better. You’re the one who’s good at that. I’m almost sorry I don’t need it right now. If you were taking care of me, I think you’d be doing a better job.

“I can wait until you’re comfortable with me again. Until I stop making you cry. But I can’t leave you alone while I wait, so you’ll be getting a lot of these. I think I made… seven? While you slept. I’ll probably make more.

“I want to compel you into telling me what I can do to make you feel better. That would be such a violation, but I feel so helpless. I want to ask you and get simple directions that I can follow. If you’ll let me, I actually will, but I’d understand if you don’t want me to.

“I’m going to practice touching you, if that’s okay. I want you to touch me too, but telegraph your movements to give me warning and room to retreat. I held your hand as we left The Lonely together. I remember how warm and nice that felt. I want that again.

“As soon as you’re awake, I’ll start getting breakfast ready. If you hurry, you can stop me from making the tea.”

The serious tone turns teasing at the end, and Martin feels himself smiling. He knows how much endurance he has for misery – he can spend weeks exhausting himself with it, or years functioning with it as a backdrop to everything. It’s been a day, and the moment he heard a smile in Jon’s voice, he lost it. The domestic sounds from the kitchen push it even further back. He stands and makes his way to the kitchen, eying the tape recorder on the table as he passes.

The kettle is getting close to boiling, and Jon is frying up eggs. Martin takes out two mugs and the teapot and starts setting up. He pours the tea as the last toast pops out of the toaster and Jon butters it, and they head to the table. Neither has said a word yet.

Martin manages two bites of his toast before he grabs the tape recorder and presses play.

“To be fair, sometimes it’s The Web. I mean, it obviously wasn’t this time, so perhaps I was wrong in this one instance. But it could have been The Web.” Jon huffs a self-deprecating laugh. “The next time I blame anything on The Web, though, please feel free to remind me that there are multiple other things that want us scared or hurt or dead. I seem to have tunnel-vision somewhat when it comes to The Spider.”

Martin snickers and looks up to see Jon smiling fondly at him. They finish their breakfast, and Jon takes his plate, replacing it with another tape recorder.

“Some of the things I heard you say, afterwards, were quite hurtful. They weren’t effective, because I knew you’d never say them, but they did hurt. I imagine that you went through the same, but that it was more believable coming from me. I’d been so cruel to you in the past, and I tend to lash out when I’m scared or hurting. I’m sorry you had reason to believe I meant any of them, while I had the security of knowing you didn’t.”

Jon is washing the dishes, so Martin lets himself cry silently for a few minutes. It’s not the uncontrollable sadness and guilt that it had been yesterday, but it’s still painful. Still, at least now he can get himself together and wipe his eyes and move forward. He’s had enough practice at this that it comes naturally enough.

There’s another tape recorder on the counter when Martin walks into the kitchen.

“Would you like to go for a walk? Or we could sift through Daisy’s rather pitiful library and find something to read. Whatever you like.”

Martin gets dressed to go outside. The sun has just risen, and there’s a heavy mist rolling over the ground. Jon joins him a moment later and they head out, wordlessly. They’re still within sight of the safehouse when Jon slips his hand into Martin’s. His fingers are cold and Martin wraps as much of his hand around them as he can to warm them up. He hears Jon give a satisfied sigh. They walk on.

The mist dissipates just as clouds start rolling in. Neither of them is any good at predicting Scottish weather, so they head back. Jon hasn’t released Martin’s hand, and Martin’s heart sings with hope.

He pauses at the front door and Jon turns to him, an unspoken question in his eyes.

Martin takes a deep breath. “I think we need to talk.”

The smile that lights up Jon’s face is hopeful and bright. “Alright.” He hesitates, then presses his lips to Martin’s cheek. “Before we do, I need to tell you and make sure you hear it.” He finally releases Martin’s hand, only so he has both hands free to cup Martin’s face. “I love you.”

This is when Martin should cry – happy tears or guilty tears or regretful tears. But he feels like he’s cried enough over Jon’s olive branches. Crying doesn’t help. Instead he smiles and slowly, carefully, giving Jon as much time and space as he might need to retreat, he leans in and kisses him.

Jon kisses him back.

From: (Anonymous)

welp I’m crying now

thanks

From: (Anonymous)

(also, the “people expect rape from other people” is a very good way to put something I’d been inching towards for a bit. thank you for the insight)

From: (Anonymous)

Thanks! I really like that there's no sexual (or racial, for that matter, I think) violence in TMA, and an in-universe explanation for it was an interesting mental exercise.

I'm glad you liked it, despite my poor posting skills. Anonymity is hard!

From: (Anonymous)

OP here coming in a couple months late having just checked the meme and I AM YELLING! Everything about this was phenomenal and I'm crying now after that ending. Using the tapes to communicate what's actually real is a genius idea. THANK YOU!!