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It doesn't take a Master's in Parapsychology to set up a simple experiment. Primary stuff, really.
Step One: Make an Observation.
Martin Blackwood is not quite Lonely enough. Despite his best efforts to limit his (in)human interactions to the often absent and always fickle Peter Lukas, some unwilling part of him holds fast to his connections in the Archives. He misses Basira. He worries about Melanie. He mourns Tim and Daisy. And Jon-
Step Two: Ask a Question.
Why isn't Martin Lonely enough? What is he doing wrong? What will it take to finally sever his connections to his friends, or, well, coworkers, and the rest of humanity? How can he possibly do such a thing when the only reason he's doing such a thing in the first place is to keep the Lonely from hurting-
Step Three: Propose a Hypothesis.
Maybe Martin is too enmeshed with the Institute to feel Lonely there. After all, the Institute has been the closest thing he's had to stability for going on nine years now. He's never really felt alone at the Institute, and certainly not after moving to the Archives, where the Eye watches with more scrutiny than almost anywhere else. That's not to say the feeling of being perpetually Watched is necessarily a comfy one, but it certainly disavows a person of the notion that they're well and truly isolated. Always a creepy Eye God Watching and all that. But even before he was aware of the Eye, Martin felt a certain sort of… comfort in the Institute, which is why after the Prentiss attack, when Jon-
Step Four: Make a Prediction.
If Martin leaves the Institute and goes somewhere where he knows he will be not just ignored but actively dismissed, then he will begin to feel the true depths of Loneliness. Once he finally feels the Lonely, he can tell Jon-
Step Five: Test the Hypothesis.
Martin’s empty mug hits the bar with a muffled thud. He leans forward and tries to flag the bartender down but she's occupied, listening to someone on the far side of the bar with rapt attention. Dignity is not something Martin has in spades, but he's got enough not to call out or keep waving to her. When she looks down the bar and seems to look right through him, he gives up. Sets a few pounds on the bar, slides off the stool, and lets the tepid tendrils of Loneliness poke disinterestedly at his heart. Someone jostles past him to take his place at the bar without so much as a “‘Scuse you.” So far his theory proves to be holding water.
Like the bar, the dance floor is packed to the brim. It's Saturday and the crowd is dressed for the occasion; Martin swims through a sea of crisp, tight-fitting collared shirts and leather skirts and pants with dangerous slits. In his cornflower jumper and yesterday’s rumpled work shirt, he thought he might stand out, an eyesore. To anyone looking, it's obvious he doesn't belong. But as people bump into and around him, less than half offering a muttered apology, it becomes apparent to him that in order to be an eyesore, someone has to actually be looking.
Martin's beginning to suspect that Peter Lukas lacks a real sense of creativity. After half an hour in a club filled to the brim with attractive, carefree strangers, Martin feels more alone than he would wallowing on any cold, foggy beach. Salt spray and distant foghorns can't flat out ignore you. Their dismissal is more unseeing. Maybe for Lukas Loneliness is never having anyone around, but for Martin Loneliness is being surrounded by the world and still feeling its absence. Having one thousand eyes fix their gaze upon you and seeing nothing in the space you occupy. Spooky fog is just vaguely ominous, something easy to cut through with a little light.
And so Martin loses himself in being lost. He bobs up and down amidst the waves of gyrating bodies on the dancefloor. Rather than try to fight the tide, he floats with it, drifting from person to person and asking them to dance, feeling the jellyfish sting of rejection grow more distant with each denial.
After a while he figures out what he might almost call a methodology: awkwardly shuffle-dance through the crowd, searching for someone who seems just out of his league, someone who won't accept his offer but also won't turn him down without a seemingly genuine look of apology. The ones who will say, “That's so sweet of you, but…” and trail off with an awkward smile and shrug before making a show of finding their friends or getting a drink. It's the nice ones that make him feel more distant, and from the coil of fog he sees trailing around their ankles as they disappear into the crowd, Martin suspects he makes them feel that way too.
Despite what should be the oppressive, sticky heat of dancing bodies and beer sweat, Martin shivers at the damp chill clinging to his skin. His experiment is going well. He closes his eyes, lets himself be buffeted by the careless crowd. Each bump and jostle feels softer, as if he is slowly becoming less. Less present, less corporeal, less Martin . As if he could simply cease to be and no one would notice.
Loneliness is wanting the world and knowing it will never want you back.
And then Martin is Seen.
Someone shoves past him and it hurts . He staggers a little, eyes flying open and hands reaching out to try and regain his balance before he topples over. Martin swears under his breath and the air from his exasperated huff is warm on his upper lip. He stares down at the floor, tacky with spilled drinks. Looking up will set him back, ruin his progress, but he also knows resisting the pull is impossible. Always has been, ever since that first day in the Archives. He looks.
Martin cannot summon the right words to accurately describe the tableau laid before him, the stuttering scene at the middle of which is Jon and is also The Archivist. The lights of the nightclub pulse, and in between each flicker Martin sees Jon and Jon Sees Martin.
In a world where Gods bring terror and despair instead of hope, Jon is briefly an Angel. As they flash the red lights of the club seem to bend around his form, a fiery iris from which one hundred unblinking eyes peer out; wheels within wheels within wheels dilating and constricting to zoom, to focus, to pan, to narrow the aperture until the only thing in frame is Martin, taken in, transposed on the back of the retina, recorded in negative to be processed in the dark; the weight of the Eye should be oppressive but at the Center is The Archivist and all Martin knows is that he need Be Not Afraid.
And then the lights blink again, dimming and flashing in time with the music, and the only one standing there is Jon. It's been a few weeks since he cornered Martin in the hallway at the Institute, and he looks even more painfully frail than he did then. The shifting colors of the club do little to hide the sickly pallor of his golden skin and the deep bruising shadows under his eyes. His black hair hangs past his shoulders, lank and unusually unkempt. Every facet of him seems cutting, but in the way ice seems sharper when observed under a microscope, crystalline daggers poised to buckle under the slightest pressure.
Martin's chest stings and he gasps for the breath Jon ripped from his lungs. The motion seems to break Jon from his mesmeric, unblinking state.
Martin sees Jon mouth his name as Jon’s face takes on a wide-eyed look of wonder. And then he hears Jon call for him over the crowd. Has he ever heard his name uttered with such shaking desperation? Such mingled relief and fear? Before he can stop himself, he's stumbling towards Jon.
Despite being in the middle of the dance floor, the path to Jon is surprisingly clear. Every person along the way to Jon is turned away, backs to him as if in subconscious hope that they can avoid the gaze of the Watcher. Martin doesn't care. To be Seen is to be Known, and to be Known is to Be.
And now that Martin Is again, Martin is angry . He'd told Jon to stop trying to track him down and talk to him. It was bad enough when they were both at work, with Jon lurking around the corner like some reanimated skeleton waiting to jump out and grab him, trying to paralyze Martin with those soft, tired brown eyes that begged for comfort. It was bad enough every time he sat at his desk and felt the gaze of the Eye skim over him as Jon tried to pierce the fog of the Lonely to See what he was doing. And it was even worse to experience again and again the exact moment when the Eye turned away, when Jon gave up trying to find him. It made him want Jon but feel more Lonely, leaving his progress stuck in neutral.
He'd finally been making headway only for Jon to show up and-
Martin reaches out and grabs Jon’s hand. He'd meant to moodily push past him, but his body had other ideas. Martin starts to pull away, too upset to be flustered, but then Jon turns his hand so that their palms press and laces their fingers together. Jon looks up at Martin as if he hasn't just upended Martin's entire world with a single gesture.
“Don't go,” Jon pleads.
The last time Martin touched Jon was when Jon was still in the hospital, only not-dead on a technicality. The skin of Jon’s bloodless forearm had felt cold, almost reptilian in its uncanny density. Nothing like the knobbly, calloused hand Martin clings to now. It feels like reaching into a nest of lit kindling, warm instead of burning, sharp but bird-bone light. He can't help it: he gives Jon’s hand a gentle squeeze. Martin's next words should be accusatory, but instead they come out in a sigh too fond to truly sound resigned.
“How did you find me, then?” Martin asks. He takes a step closer so that he can hear Jon over the throbbing music of the club, despite it not having been an issue before. “Have you been following me, or…?”
Jon closes his eyes. His gaze is distant when he reopens them and shakes his head.
“I was, uh, in the alley along the backside of the Institute taking a s-smoke break when I saw… well, it looked like a woman. Covered in cobwebs. Big clumps and tendrils. Just strolling by, as you like. It didn't look like Annabelle Cane but I knew I had to follow her.”
“And she brought you here?” Martin asks, incredulity on full display.
“She brought me here.”
Jon grimace-smiles and rubs the back of his neck. The gesture is so human, so infuriatingly Jon, that it seems to break the creepy little bubble in reality they'd somehow formed. The music swells and breaks over Martin and the lights strobe more sharply. The people around them move freely to the music, backs no longer to Jon. Now Martin truly does have to lean in closer to be heard over the music. They nearly make contact, shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, but Jon still has to crane his head up to catch what Martin is saying.
“And you didn't find it even a little suspect that someone clearly controlled by The Web brought you here to find me?” Martin asks.
He didn't think he was too close to Jon, but the moment Jon tilts his head to make eye contact, Martin’s stomach gives an all-too-pleasant lurch. It would take so little to close the gap between their lips. If this were before all that Unknowing business, Martin probably would have passed out from the blood rush fueled by embarrassment and desire. Perhaps too much time apart, locked away in the solitary confinement of Peter Lukas’ design, has dulled his reactions. For once Martin is thankful that it gives him a modicum of control. It's better than his usual bumbling.
“Honestly I saw you and it all sort of slipped my mind,” Jon murmurs.
Martin thought too soon. He feels his face heat and imagines he's blushing hard enough for Jon to see even in the uneven lighting of the club. Every attempt at a coherent response comes out instead as a string of vocalized pauses all stumbling over themselves. Jon's dark eyes crease at the corners as Martin is treated to a small but pleased smile.
It's going to be impossible to hide this kind of setback from Lukas. Martin finds he can't summon even an ounce of will to care.
“M-miss my tea that badly?” he finally manages.
“And then some,” Jon replies.
Martin pulls back so that he can look Jon in the eyes without slouching and turning his head at an uncomfortable angle. Even after all these years it still catches Martin off guard, how small Jon truly is. Tim had once joked about how Jon compensated for his slight frame by being an even bigger, louder asshole, like a Chihuahua yapping and biting ankles in order to be seen. Martin had always found it cute, even though it was typically his ankles being chewed on.
Jon's defensive gruffness is nowhere to be seen now. He worries at his bottom lip and waits for Martin’s response with an earnest expression.
“I've missed you too, Jon,” Martin says softly.
He doubts Jon can even hear his words over the music, but Jon must read his lips or his intent. Jon's face lights up, and he slides his hand out of Martin's grip only to throw both arms around him in a tight embrace. Every thought Martin has ever had falls right out his ears and is replaced with cotton candy fluff. He circles his arms around Jon’s back and Jon practically melts against him.
It's less hug and more clinging, the two of them desperately holding on to one another as if it might let them blend together, form a new being that is warm and soft and love and never lonely, never hurt or afraid. An antithesis to the avatars and monsters born of the Dread Entities.
There's no gesture or look, no subtle communication between them, yet as the embrace lingers their bodies begin to sway. It starts as a rhythmless shuffle and evolves into a slow dance that’s almost to the off beat of the music. Martin’s hands slide up Jon’s back until his arms are circling his neck, and Jon’s touch drifts down to Martin’s waist. It's impossible for Martin's fingers to resist looping around a coarse strand of Jon’s silver-streaked hair. The closest Martin’s ever come to holding Jon like this was when he was bracing Jon as Sasha dug the worms out of his flesh. This is a significant improvement.
They dance. Jon’s movements can neither be described as coordinated or sensual. He sways, following Martin's slightly-more-rhythmic movements, but seems more intent on maximizing the contact between them. His hands move slowly along Martin's lower back in small circles, and he rests his head on Martin's chest. Every few heartbeats Jon’s head shifts, as if trying to nuzzle in closer.
Martin is very good at lying, especially to himself, and allows himself to sink into the delusion that this moment between them is like one of the countless fantasies he's had about him and Jon over the years: one of the fantasies where it doesn't take countless traumatic near-death experiences for Jon to finally lower his defenses enough to see that Martin is worth loving; one of the fantasies where they are just two people who met because of the kind of shit job neither of them are qualified for and are nonetheless carving out a space for themselves. A fantasy where Jon never stopped breathing and where Martin didn't give himself to the Lonely to keep it from happening again.
A chill curls at Martin's neck and rolls and spreads down like fog down his back. It dies only at the point where Jon holds him. Of course. If anyone could botch things so badly as to feel alone in the arms of their love, it would be Martin.
“Martin, I'm here ,” Jon murmurs. He raises his head to capture Martin’s gaze. Tracing his hands up higher up Martin's back dispels the chill and Martin is left to a different kind of shiver.
At first he wonders if one of Jon’s new tricks as avatar of the Eye is mind reading, but then Martin’s mind catches up with his body, which had stopped dancing at some point. Jon keeps his gaze steady, brows drawn but lips lax: concern, not condemnation.
“I'm here too,” Martin replies.
Jon raises one eyebrow. A shock of white cuts through the black of his left brow, one of the only physical changes Jon underwent after waking up from his coma. Martin had only noticed when Jon had tracked him down at the Institute. Martin had fled, naturally, and immediately looked it up. A stress response, the internet had said, a sudden patch of hair bleached white from trauma. Martin thinks it makes Jon look even more dignified. Naturally, though, it makes his skeptical looks seem even more skeptical.
“I am here,” Martin insists, though he's sure Jon felt or Saw him fading in his arms. “Or, at least, I'm more here,” he amends.
Jon’s grip tightens, as if Martin might disappear on the spot. Fair, given the past few months. Martin reaches out and runs a thumb along Jon’s brow, as if hoping to smooth the worry there. As if to say he won't disappear, not again, not like that, and make it be true. He traces along his patchwork eyebrow and then cups Jon’s face. Jon leans into the touch and his eyes slide closed. The hill between his brows wears away, eroded under Martin’s touch.
Like the dancing, it's impossible to tell who initiates the kiss. Jon’s head tilts up and Martin’s chin dips down and their lips meet in the middle.
In every first-kiss fantasy, Martin had pictured file folders or fireworks: a late night burst of passion while working side-by-side in the Archives or a drunken work party revelation as the New Year's clock struck twelve. The sort of tropey construct that didn't belong in a world of monsters and martyrs.
But this kiss is better anyway. Jon's lips are dry but smooth, and as Martin pulls away he sees them still parted, open and waiting for him like the pages of a book. Martin initiates the second kiss, a firmer press of lips in hopes of reading desire in the words that Jon has written. There is a single breath between them, warm and fluttering, and then Jon steals the third kiss for himself. Each kiss is a new chapter in a story Martin has been telling himself for years; the slide of Jon’s tongue against his feels like a resolution.
They’re interrupted as someone half-topples into Jon and nearly spills their drink all over him. With alarming speed Jon snaps back into what Basira used to call ‘Prime Wanker Mode,’ throwing back his shoulders and narrowing his eyes in judgment. Before Jon can open his kiss-bruised mouth to say something so scathing it would no doubt end in a bar brawl, or worse, compel the other person to divulge their deepest, darkest fear, Martin takes Jon by the hand and leads him off the dancefloor. Jon scowls but doesn't resist.
Martin finds a little patch of clear wall near the outskirts of the bar, leans against it, and draws Jon loosely against him. Once again Jon becomes almost boneless in his embrace, tucking into the crook of his arm and leaning his head against Martin's chest. Martin rests his chin on Jon’s head and watches as Jon idly toys with a fraying strand of wool that's come undone from the sleeve of Martin's jumper. They stand in contented silence for what feels like a long time. Eventually, Martin hears Jon mumble something.
“Hm?”
“Nothing,” Jon says, a little too quickly and then, as if realizing he's caught anyway, “You taste like old tea.”
The way Martin's heart throbs is so painful that he would clutch at his chest if it didn't mean letting go of Jon. A body wasn't built to stop feeling for so long only to feel so much, all at once. Even gravity seems to pull on him more heavily as he is anchored into existence by the weight of how much he simply loves the man in his arms.
“Well you taste like shite instant coffee,” Martin replies with a fond smile.
A grin, small but precious, touches Jon’s lips. He turns in Martin's arms so that once again their chests press together, then lifts up on his toes so that their eyes are almost level. This close, Martin can see that, despite everything else, Jon’s eyes remain strikingly unchanged. They are just as dark and deep and tired-looking as always, with ridges of lighter brown along the iris like the cracked and worn leather along a book’s binding.
“Would you be willing,” Jon hedges, “to perhaps… ah… resume our previous activities? Despite my questionable choices in inferior caffeination?”
Martin is happy to oblige.
Unlike before, this kiss is long and slow, a thorough exploration of the other with lips and tongues and teeth. As if they had all of the time in the world, and as if all of the time in the world were an endless luxury and not a finite quantity that both of them were actively destroying themselves to extend. They breathe against and into one another but still do not part.
The kiss lasts long enough to imprint permanently on Martin's memory. Type set, ink dried. It will take erasing Martin's entire being to remove this moment.
Eventually, Martin pulls away with a contented sigh and looks down at Jon. Jon’s eyes flutter open. He can't think of the last time, if ever, he's seen Jon so relaxed. They stare at one another and can simply exist.
“I have missed your tea,” Jon finally says.
“Then come home with me tonight.” The words drop from Martin’s lips before the shame and embarrassment can catch up.
His voice is rough with feeling, turning what he'd intended to be an innocent invitation into something suggestive.
Jon’s lips purse and his nose wrinkles, a look most assume to be one of disdain but Martin has learned is Jon’s poor attempt at masking panic.
“Martin, I don't-”
“I meant for tea,” Martin says in a rush. “We don't have to do anything else, I’m not- I'm not expecting anything else-”
The expression on Jon’s face smooths in visible relief.
“Whatever you're comfortable with, it's okay,” Martin adds. “We don't have to keep snogging, either.”
“I'd actually quite like it if that kept going,” Jon says. He leans up and leaves a soft press at the corner of Martin's lips.
The words and motion should flood Martin with the warm feeling of validation that Jon wanted him outside of this moment. But the vacancy of Jon’s lips is quickly filled with chill air as Martin feels before he hears the oncoming-
“ But I need to go back to the Archives tonight.”
Jon’s voice is all regret and apology, but there's not a single weak link in the chain of syllables that tells Martin that if he finds the right place to press, Jon will relent. It doesn't stop Martin from trying.
“What? Why? Jon, you practically live in the Archives, surely it won't all come crashing down if you spend a few hours away.”
The smaller man winces and looks away. Martin feels a fresh new horror blooming in his chest.
“Jon, the Archives won't actually collapse if you leave for too long, right?”
“No, no,” he says in a hurry. “Well, at least not yet , I don't think. I assume that's something the Eye would want me to Know.”
Martin’s brows raise. “So why go back?”
Jon steps back, not quite out of the circle of Martin's arms, but enough that he can feel the space between them.
“You know about Breekon? The delivery?”
This time the tentacles of the Lonely branch from the inside, beginning in Martin’s lungs, creeping beneath sternum and tightening around trachea. Unable to speak, he nods. He doesn't need some deathproof connection to the Eye to know what Jon will say next.
“I know a way to save Daisy. I think I can pull her out of the coffin.”
“You think , or you know?”
“I know,” Jon says, but his pinched expression betrays him.
“You're not planning on going in there tonight, are you?”
The ice gripping Martin's throat chokes his words.
“You were going to go in there tonight, weren't you? You'd probably be in there right now, all alone, belly deep in The Buried if it weren't for some Spider Lady !”
Jon places a hand on each upper arm in placation. But being pacified isn't even close to what's going to help Martin. The pull feels even stronger now. As the music from the dance floor grows muted in his ears, he's almost surprised that Jon can't See what's happening.
“I wasn't going to go in there tonight,” Jon says. He's full of shit and they both know it. “But I have a plan, and I need to test it.”
Jon’s fingers flex around Martin’s biceps, and Martin sees his gaze shift from Martin's face to the slender digits of one hand. It's all the confirmation Martin needs that Jon's plan is a terrible one.
“What happened to Daisy wasn't your fault.” After his last outburst, it's hard to muster up as much energy. “She knew the risks, just like me, and Melanie, and you, and Tim.”
Martin glides right over Tim's name, but Jon flinches as he says it.
“But I can get her out now,” Jon insists. “I can save her.”
“Is that what this is all about, then?” Martin asks. Given how Jon's face drops, he must hear the detachment drifting into Martin’s voice. “Am I just another tick on the ‘List of People I Need to Save to Make Myself Feel Better’? Were going to get to me later but you found some time in your busy schedule between forcing people to relive their worst fears to feed your Eye God and trying to get yourself killed?”
Jon's look of concern turns to one of open hurt. His hands drop to his sides. Martin looks within himself and is unsurprised to find he doesn't care. The anger Martin feels is nebulous and quickly being overrun by weariness. By the time he's done speaking, his tirade has turned to a sigh.
“Martin, that's not-”
Martin feels himself fading even faster than before.
“Martin, stay with me.” Jon reaches out again, begging hands grabbing Martin's only to slowly sink through. Shock and panic flash across his features.
“Martin, why are you doing this ?”
The prickle of compulsion is washed away by the haze of Lonely. Martin shakes his head. It wouldn't matter if he'd answered; Jon would still go.
“I never got a chance to tell you-” Jon’s voice is shrill with desperation, “I was an idiot, I should have told you before The Unknowing, I-”
Martin already knows. Had felt it in Jon’s rare touch and rarer trust. But it doesn't matter how much Jon loves him. Jon will still leave him.
“No, Jon,” Martin murmurs.
“Please stay-”
And for the first time, Martin truly disappears.
Step Six: Analyze the Results.
Isn't love its own kind of Lonely?
Jon stands there, shell-shocked, unable to see or feel Martin still standing mere inches from him. He hears his name on Jon’s lips, but the fog of Lonely makes it little more than a distant whimper. He sees Jon’s eyes grow wide and glassy as he tries to See Martin, but it's useless to try and See something that isn't really there.
Eventually Jon leaves, looking even more exhausted than before. It's not until hours later, as the bar is closing and the last patrons are drunkenly shuffling out, that Martin drifts home.
Step Seven: Form a Conclusion.
Loneliness is having the entire World in the palm of your hand and still knowing you will never, ever be enough.