Chapter Text
“You’re going out again?”
It was asked innocently enough; Jon looking over from where he was putting mugs away in the cupboard. Yet it had Martin hesitating in the act of pulling on his jacket, standing by the door.
Since they arrived at the safehouse, Jon had been increasingly staying indoors. The Archivist was feeling drained from subsisting on the few rationed old statements they’d thought to grab on their way out.
During Martin’s time with Peter, the girls had apparently kept a careful eye on Jon to make sure he wasn’t taking any more live statements but it seems their duty of care had stopped there. He was tired and worn thin. Yet he insisted old written statements were enough and Martin had to accept that for now.
But still…
There was that unspoken if not unacknowledged worry about what might happen if Jon happened to meet anyone carrying a live statement. Martin thinks that he would have probably been ok with Jon accompanying him to the village shop or down to the pub if Jon had suggested it…but at the same time he was grateful Jon himself seemed to have decided it wasn’t worth the risk.
Though rather than ruin the precious new experience of being together by bringing up the uncomfortable topic of The Archivist's dependence they just talked around it and the excuses weren't yet worn out.
The autumnal Highlands weather made staying in more appealing.
He actually wasn’t feeling stir-crazy yet.
He was just tired.
No, you go out, it’s fine.
Martin on the other hand had been venturing out whenever the weather permitted. The novelty of a new environment and the necessity of trips to the shop or phone box were of course perfectly good reasons but to be honest he also valued the solitude. Ironically enough, Jon turned out to be somewhat, well, clingy. Even as they both relaxed by degrees and began to decompress and really believe they were safe here together, he still wanted to stay close to Martin. Even moreso, infact. He’d follow Martin around the small bungalow, talking or just occupying the same space. Like he wanted to keep him in sight.
Negotiation of boundaries and defining this new relationship for which neither of them had a template upon which to draw was expedited by the fact they had arrived, exhausted, to find there was only one bed in the safehouse. There had been no serious consideration of either of them taking the small and worn sofa that night. So that had been convenient.
And lovely as things were turning out to be, Martin was...well…he was simply an introvert.
Hadn’t he always liked his time walking, thinking, alone? Growing up with his Mum it had been part of his life’s rhythm for better or worse. Suddenly the tension in the house would overwhelm something in him and he’d just have to get out, put his headphones on and wander around lost in his own thoughts for an hour. Not that he needed to escape from Jon! Of course not, no. No.
But it wasn’t like the chill grey Highlands landscape especially called to him on days like this with fine drizzle blowing sideways into his face until it was dripping off his glasses.
Misty.
Dulled.
Muted....
Yeah. Okay. There could be no more escaping the thought he’d tried to skirt around. As much as Jon hadn’t directly addressed the problem of his own dependence on statements since they arrived, Martin didn’t want to address the worry that the fog of The Forsaken could be creeping around him still.
Insidious tendrils he might not even notice at first. Because if he thought too much about that, tried to unpick his personality from The Lonely he’d never stop unravelling his every mood and his every interaction. He didn’t think there was anything sinister about his natural introversion, but then again, was he the best judge? Didn’t the small-L lonely tint so many of his memories?
A multitude of little choices along the way, a natural affinity, or both: no one fell into the service of a particular Entity by chance. Even before Peter had told him as much, he’d read enough statements to get a grasp of how it works.
While semi-consciously fretting about this his aimless walking had taken him to the village’s one winding main road. It was a shame, Jon had said in a moment of wry humour, that they couldn’t use the Institute credit card he still carried, for fear of being detected. Not that they could do too much damage to the expense account in the village shop. But finding himself there, Martin broke into his cash reserve to take back a clinking bag of extra items if only as an excuse for this expedition.
They were into the second bottle of mid-shelf wine when he started to voice his preoccupation. Martin had never been much of a drinker so perhaps he could excuse himself the slightly hackneyed poetic turns of phrase when he started to express his concerns of not being sure where “The Lonely ended and he began”. There were more words tumbling out, but that was the gist of it.
Jon recognised that this was a time to listen, and if he was feeling the buzz it only made him more performatively attentive, serious dark eyes locked on Martin’s.
“Martin. If you were in the grip of the Lonely, you wouldn’t be asking that. You’d be embracing it.”
“So I’m still emo enough to pass the humanity test. Good to know.” It’s not said sarcastically.
Jon puts down his glass very deliberately and takes Martin’s hands. Tries, in his faltering and emotionally inarticulate way to reassure Martin. “I’m trying not to Know things…but I don’t think I need to, to be honest.” His eyes glisten in the lamp light before he averts them to stare down in concentration.
“Y-you were…deep in it for a long time, I know.” He breaks off and shrugs apologetic and frustrated at his own inability to express what he wants to say, running out of words to try to express feelings at this point but still holding Martin’s hands.
Martin wants to say he does a good job of decoding Jon-speak and he can read the sentiment between the lines. Sadness, guilt, empathy, regret for all of the trauma they couldn’t shield each other from. Instead he just feels his own eyes pricking a little as Jon brings Martin’s knuckles up to his lips. Brushes a light, reverent kiss there as if they had always had this level of intimacy and tenderness. As if it wasn’t a mere two weeks since they’d arrived here.
“Your feelings, your sadness or your loneliness can just be yours. I think when we’ve put some time between us and…all this it will become clearer. Give yourself time.” He shrugs again, squirming at his own words. “Sorry, I-I sound like a bad therapist.”
“Well, -ah- can I book another session with you?” Crikey, he really is drunk.
Jon huffs amusement though and any tension diffuses as Martin takes back his hand and pours out the rest of the wine filling the glasses generously. Takes a sip and pulls a face at the tannins. In a lighter, changing-the-subject voice he says, “You know what, I’m not sure I even like this.”
“Well you bought it.” Jon says, mildly. Offers to get Martin a cup of tea instead.
“No, no. It's not that bad and we might as well finish it.”
“My tea isn't that bad. So, what alcohol do you prefer?”
“Oh, um. I don’t drink much. Rum and coke, usually.”
“Good Lord.”
“Anyway, I’m going to drink different things. I’m pretending we’re on holiday.”
Jon laughs at that. Agrees its probably preferable to being aware they’re in Daisy’s safehouse - he wasn't wasn’t entirely joking about the kill room.
“I know, right? So, I’m on holiday instead. I’m just struggling to figure out why we went on holiday to the Highlands in autumn to stay in the worst reviewed airbnb in the area - but apart from that my delusion’s going quite well, actually.”
Martin can see Jon getting an idea at that. He gets up on only slightly unsteady legs and retrieves a DVD from the cheap pine bookshelf on the far side of the room. Holds up a copy of Withnail and I. When they’d first arrived, Martin had pulled that DVD and the paperback copy of The Thirty Nine Steps off the shelf and asked incredulously if this was evidence of Daisy having a sense of humour. Jon had replied that Martin might be surprised. To which Martin agreed that he would, actually.
“We’ve gone on holiday by mistake” intones Jon, quoting the film as Martin who has just taken a mouthful of wine gestures enthusiastically for Jon to put it on.