a friend to the friendless // for Jyn

[loficharm]

[CW: attempted sexual assault and otherwise gross and creepy non-consensual behavior, please tread carefully.]

mid-July (TBD)


The thing about Harry being gone is that it bloody hurts, even after he's been over it with Zoe and over it again with John, it's still an absence like he hasn't felt in a long time. He'd known this could happen, he'd known and he'd always thought that would prepare him somehow, like he could just talk himself out of feeling the loss. For most, it would mean going home, going back to the lives they were meant to be living, and surely that would be a good thing. Difficult, maybe, but good.

But there was nothing for Harry to go back to. Martin knows this. They discussed it at length, and that knowledge presses down on him, inescapable. Harry hasn't been sent home. Harry is dead, and not the distant, painless kinds of death figures of history always seem to have. To Martin, Harry is no longer a name in a textbook. Martin knows the details, that he was backed into a corner, forced to do terrible things, and that he killed himself, miserable and cold and alone.

Martin doesn't want to talk about it anymore. There is nothing more to be said; especially not to John. John's feelings about Harry will always be complicated, and just as he felt a personal imperative to refuse forgiveness, he can't accept Harry's unexpected absence as being somehow let off the hook. Martin understands that, just as he understands that John is perfectly capable of setting all those complications aside to offer what comfort he can.

But Martin doesn't want him to; doesn't want to ask that of him. At least not tonight. And so he sends John home ahead, claiming he needs time to putter around The Archive, to have a spot of privacy. John can see through the reasons given — there's no avoiding that — but he doesn't seem inclined to press, so he leaves Martin to it. And when the walls start to feel too close and too familiar, Martin locks up and sets out, wandering a few aimless blocks before veering into the first bar he sees.

It's a bad idea. He knows it's a bad idea. He knows it's a mistake the moment he sets foot inside the place. Outside the sun has not quite set, but in here, it's nearly too dark to see. Music drowns out everything else, the heavy thump of some uninspired electronic beat thrumming uncomfortably in his chest. It isn't too crowded yet, which only means everyone near the door looks when he enters, and even if most of them turn away at once, he still feels caught.

It doesn't feel safe in here. It reminds him too strongly of the places he sometimes went when he was at his lowest, when John was in hospital and Martin thought he'd be gone forever. He went to places like this because he wanted to disappear, and the impulse cropped up like a bad habit, one which now holds no appeal.

But he's inside now, and people have seen him, and it is ridiculous and too bloody classic of him, but he feels too embarrassed now to just turn around and leave. As if he has anything to prove to these people, all of whom look at least five years younger and quite fit. He doesn't belong here, and yet it is with stupid, stubborn insolence that he pushes forward anyway, settling in at the bar. He orders a beer, pays at once, and resolves to drink it as quickly as he can without downing it outright. Then he'll get up and go home and just talk to John like he should have done in the first place.

He's only a third of the way in when someone sits down beside him, smelling thickly of vodka and cologne and sweat. A young man with more skin showing than Martin is presently prepared to deal with, drunk and overconfident and taking up too much of Martin's periphery — leaning far too close, the sort of huge that suggests he visits the gym three times a week. He could overpower Martin if he wanted to, and he knows it. This isn't the first time someone's approached Martin like this, and for a moment all he feels is frustration: it's just not fair, not now, not when he was planning to leave. Like recognizing his own error wasn't enough, and rather than let him undo it, the universe is now punishing him instead.

It isn't the first time, but unlike those dark days of miserable isolation, Martin has no self-destructive desire to play along. His fingers tighten around his glass and he looks for the bartender, who seems to have rather conveniently vanished. He keeps his gaze fixed elsewhere, his shoulders tensing as the man leans closer still, breathing directly into his ear.

"All alone tonight, cutie?" he says.

Martin flinches but maintains course, staring elsewhere, like he can pretend he hasn't heard, like he can just ignore him, as if the type of stranger who'll sit this close and ask something like that is the type who'll just go away.

"Aw, c'mon, don't be like that," he says, his speech not slurred enough to obscure the subtle bite in his tone. He lets his arm settle heavily around Martin's shoulders, not threatening, but friendly, projecting some outward appearance that they know each other.

"Don't—" Martin blurts, his voice almost too quiet to be heard. The man has his attention now but he still can't bring himself to look at him directly, keeping his gaze down at the bar, at the glass in his hand. There's adrenaline burning under his skin, energy that can't quite decide if it's panic or rage. Martin tries to shrug him off, but he's a fucking natural, isn't he, the way he takes the gesture and twists it around into something reciprocal, letting his arm slide down to wrap tighter around Martin's waist as if he was invited. The audacity startles an indignant gasp out of Martin, but it also tips the scales quite decisively, pitching him from the beginnings of fear into a hot rush of anger.

"I'm really not in the mood," he snaps, and he finally looks up.

The man is scarcely a day over twenty if Martin had to guess, attractive if you're into pricks, and he smiles, innocuous and pleasant and horribly chilling. He leans back in, his leg pressing up against Martin's under the bar, and he murmurs, "Bet I can fix that."

"Oh, fuck off, will you?" Martin starts to rise but the grip around his waist tightens a few degrees, effectively trapping him in his seat. It isn't so much that he couldn't fight against it, at least not yet; he might be able to wrench himself free, but he's not sure what would happen if he tried. Even if he did manage to pull away, he's not sure he's fast enough to get out, or what he'd do if this man tried to follow him. Perhaps he has friends here. Perhaps there's a reason the bartender so suddenly wandered off. Too many awful scenarios lay themselves out before him, and the anger he'd been so grateful to have starts to waver.

"Just relax." The man's breath is hot in his ear and his free hand reaches over, brushing down Martin's chest. "Let me show you a good time."

Martin can't move, even as he tries to imagine it. He's gripping his glass tight enough that his knuckles have gone white, and he wonders if he has it in him to smash that glass in this man's face, if he's strong enough to endure what might come next. If that would give him enough of a window to make a break for it, if he's quick enough to get outside, to call John or Daisy before his assailant catches up with him. He doesn't want to have to do that; he wants to be able to take care of himself. But he's alone here, and this man is bigger and stronger than he is, and if anyone around them has seen what's happening, they certainly don't seem to care.

"Leave me alone," he grits out, his fingers twitching as that wandering hand starts to toy with the hem of his shirt. He flinches, and fingers dig painfully into his side to keep him still. "Stop—!"

Comments

[nextchance]

With as shaken as he still understandably seems, Jyn isn't sure what she's expecting to happen once they step outside and start down the sidewalk. It isn't this, though, Martin stopping and seeming like he's trying to catch his breath, though she supposes it's a plenty reasonable reaction, under the circumstances. Her reflexes have always been quick, and the same is as true now as it would be in a fight. She stops when she does, keeping a bit of a distance so she doesn't crowd him, but standing in front of him as if, despite being a good few inches shorter than he is, she could shield him from the view of any passersby. No one else should see this. She's not entirely certain that she should, but she's the one who's here, and maybe she can at least try to minimize the exposure of what he must be feeling now to any nearby strangers.

She shrugs a little when he thanks her, awkward and not really knowing how to respond. It's not fine when that shouldn't have happened, but for her, it required little effort and even less contemplation. She couldn't have just sat there and let that happen to — well, anyone, probably, but especially not someone she knows, someone who helped her when she was extremely and uncomfortably vulnerable. She doesn't let people hurt her friends if she could help it, and in this instance, she could help it.

It's what he says next that really gives her pause, though, as if she might have needed some sort of explanation for what just happened, as if he'd somehow set himself up for it when people like that asshole exist, in her experience, in every corner of the goddamn galaxy. "I don't either," she says, blunt but not unkindly so, "and it wouldn't matter if you did. It wouldn't be okay, or your fault, there or anywhere else."

[loficharm]

Martin is quiet for a moment after she answers, letting the blunt reassurance sink in. It feels obvious, and he has to tamp down a reflex to dismiss it out of hand with a weary I know. But it is one thing to understand that this isn't his fault and he doesn't need to explain himself on an intellectual level; quite another to accept it in the deepest part of himself where shame still curls around his heart.

"Yeah," he says softly after a moment, and wipes at his eyes. He isn't quite at the point of tearing up, but it feels like a near miss. He doesn't have much room to be embarrassed about it, at least not in front of her, when he's seen her in a worse state and she's already positioned herself in front of him like she's still guarding him from the world. That would make him smile if he had the energy for it.

Forcing himself to accept her words helps more than brushing them off would have, and with his next exhalation he feels a little bit steadier. The phantom pressure of an unwanted arm around his waist is still there in the back of his head, coupled with further unwelcome memories of Jacob Riggs' hands on him, tying him up and steering him through the woods, but it's a little easier now to set those apart from the here and now. He looks at Jyn more directly. He needs to keep moving, to get away from this place, even if it's just to amble in the gradual direction of home. He thinks she'll come with him, certainly if he asks her to. But not quite yet. He needs to grasp onto conversation, something approaching normal, before he's steady enough to trust himself on his feet.

"I'm glad you were there," he says, finding that a little better than simply thanking her again. "Th-that was quite impressive." A rather asinine thing to say, for all that it's true, but it serves its purpose.

[nextchance]

It wasn't as impressive as it could have been, but Jyn refrains from adding that much. Somehow she doesn't think it would be particularly helpful to note that the asshole who'd been pawing at Martin is lucky to have gotten away with nothing more than a broken nose and some wounded pride. If she'd wanted to, she could have really made him regret ever laying his hands on someone who was distinctly saying don't and stop. Given Martin's reaction, though, how shaken he understandably seems and how quickly he'd wanted to get out of there, she doesn't think that physically driving the point home like that would have done enough good to be worth the effort.

She still feels that desire, rage coiled hot and familiar under her skin, but the longer she's out here, the more it gradually subsides. That part has just always been easier for her than this, the emotions and the aftermath. She barely even knows Martin, and she feels more aware of that now than she did in her back corner booth in the bar, seeing him get accosted by a stranger. Still, she can't bring herself to regret it. Sitting back and letting something like that happen just wouldn't have been something she could stomach, and the fact that he helped her before only makes her feel that much more strongly about having intervened. It's the least she can do for him in turn.

"I'm glad I was too," she says, that much unquestionably true and not requiring any real consideration. Although she doesn't want to insinuate that he wouldn't have been able to handle himself without her intervention, there's no reason it should have had to go on any longer anyway. "Got a few worthwhile tricks up my sleeve, I guess."

[loficharm]

Martin manages a weak rattle of a laugh at her modesty, for all that it seems entirely genuine. "Lucky for me," he says, and swallows a bit thickly, his expression darkening again. He suspects he'll be seeing a lot more of these rapid little mood swings tonight.

"I, erm..." He rubs at his face and looks out at the street, the dimming light. "I should probably head home, but I..." He lets out a long breath, finding himself exhausted at the end of it. "I don't quite want to."

What he doesn't want, specifically, is to tell John what's happened. He doesn't want John to worry, or even to bristle in righteous anger. All of it feels like too much right now, while the odd mixture of familiarity and strangeness he finds with Jyn is rather comforting, in its own right.

"C-could we walk a bit?" he asks, avoiding her gaze. "I, I don't want to keep you, I just..." He trails off, feeling the hard edge of futility at the prospect of explaining himself, as though it might obligate her. He can tell himself he is no burden to her, that any possibility of that was already dashed when she intervened in the first place, but it is still so bitterly hard to believe it.

[nextchance]

Jyn isn't expecting the question. Despite how kind he's been to her when their paths have crossed before, a kindness she still isn't really sure what to do with, she doesn't know why he would want her company. He hardly knows her. She's not very good at being that, or at least she's never thought so, and considering the act of violence he just witnessed her committing, however beyond warranted it was, she's all the more surprised that he might want her to stay for a while. She can't fault him, though, for not wanting to be alone, or not wanting to go home yet, and she has no reason to turn him down. There's nowhere she has to be and nothing she needs to be doing. And, although she wouldn't say as much out loud, she feels something like protective towards him now, which is silly, probably, but true all the same. At least if she hangs around with him for a little longer, she'll be assured that he's okay.

"Yeah, sure," she says, shrugging easily. He sounds so nervous about asking that it seems like the least she can do to make clear that it isn't a big deal to her at all, being asked to stick around for a while. "We can walk. I don't have anywhere else to be; you're not keeping me."

[loficharm]

They walk in silence for a while, and it doesn't take Martin long to decide this was somehow a mistake, absurd and unfair as that is. They don't know each other very well yet, discounting all the details he's inadvertently gleaned from passing familiarity with the bloody film franchise that comprises her universe. He shouldn't have that knowledge, and he has no intention, now or ever, of disclosing it; it just makes him feel uneasy, like he knows too much and there's no resolving such a fundamental imbalance.

But even aside from that, he's not in a particularly fit state to make conversation. He doubts she expects much from him now, and yet he feels the same nervous energy as ever when confronted by shared silence, an impulse to fill it with nattering currently undercut by his inability to do so. He can't help feeling awkward, even when he knows he ought to give himself a break. Silence is too permeable, his thoughts too easily crowded by what just happened, and he wants desperately to talk, about anything else.

"So, erm..." he starts, hoping something will simply occur to him, which it doesn't. Blushing in the dim evening light, he flounders, "H-how have you been?" Idiot.

[nextchance]

Jyn almost laughs. She doesn't, because even she has a little tact and enough awareness to know that it would be incredibly out of place right now, but it's a near thing, an impulse she just manages to restrain. After what's just happened, for him to be asking how she's been, like they're old friends just happening to catch up, seems ridiculous. She can't really blame him for it, though. He didn't outright say that he didn't want to be alone, but it seemed clearly enough implied. If that's the case, maybe he just wants to talk, and about anything other than the events that led to this. Picking up on social cues and making conversation may not be her strongest suit, but even she can piece together that much.

For his sake, she can make an effort, too, shrugging in response to the question. She can't really say she's about the same as she's been, given that the last time their paths crossed, she was a sobbing mess, but that's a conversation that she would rather not have. It seems avoidable enough, at least. "I've been alright," she says. "Not much going on, which I don't think is a bad thing, around here." She glances over at him for a moment. "How about you?"

[loficharm]

"Definitely not a bad thing around here," he agrees, his relief immediate and clear at having some sort of normal conversation to grasp onto. He realizes he's not sure what 'all right' means to her, and he feels a sharp pang of guilt that he hasn't ever really made an effort to get to know her, to check on her. The last time they'd met had been... not disastrously awkward, but difficult, he suspects more for her than for him. But he could've made a point of trying to follow up, at least. To make their acquaintanceship something more than just... happening across each other at odd and dire moments in their lives.

Better late than never, he supposes.

"It's... about the same for me, as well," he hazards. "Let's see, erm... been keeping busy with work, mostly. I moved in with my—my boyfriend." That was before they last met, of course, but it's not like he was in any position to bring it up then. Really, Jyn doesn't even know he has a boyfriend, so it feels a bit silly to even say it like it's news either way.

"I was... just having a rough time today," he admits. "A friend of mine was sent back, and... well. He died horribly, where he's from, so that's really all there is to it. He was important to me, and... he and John, my partner, they... had some complicated history, I suppose? So I... I just wanted to be alone, not bother John with it. Which... worked out great for me."

He tries to laugh, but it comes out a bit sour, his smile more of a grimace.

[nextchance]

Jyn has never been very good at small talk, or, really, at being social in general. Being raised largely in isolation, and then around a group of rough-edged soldiers, most of whom were significantly older, saw to that. When Martin starts filling her in on what's been going on, though, she listens, not least because she hardly knows anything about him in the first place. He told her a little about the records kept where he works the first time they met, but aside from the kindness he showed her the day she found her father's message, that's really about it. So she takes it in and nods along, and then finds herself not terribly surprised when it takes a more serious turn. Part of her wonders if maybe he wanted, or needed, to get all of that out, but even if that's the case, she can't blame him. It's a lot to shoulder.

What it says about her that it is, in some ways, more comfortable subject matter than just catching up with an acquaintance, she neither knows nor wants to know, but she finds herself on slightly steadier ground with it all the same.

"It makes it even harder, doesn't it, knowing that's what they have to go back to?" she asks, though from the tone of her voice, soft and sure, it's more a statement than a question. She's known her share of people here who died horribly where they were from and then disappeared. Lincoln, Bodhi, her father. Cassian. It would be true of her, too, if she ever were sent back, but that seems like all the more reason not to mention that particular detail now. "Sorry. About your friend. And that you had to deal with that bullshit on top of all the rest of it."

[loficharm]

Martin casts a sideways glance at her when she answers, her tone softening, her expression seeming a bit distant. This has happened to her. Odds are good it's happened to just about everyone here at least once. He's not sure if he feels grateful for the understanding, or like a bit of an arse for bringing it up like it was a special problem unique to him.

"Yeah," he agrees after a moment, looking back down at his feet as they walk. He nods to acknowledge her sympathy, quiet for a few moments, caught between wanting to change the subject and wanting to find a way to ask more, to get to know her better.

"Suppose it's pretty common around here," he hedges in the end. "Maybe I should just count myself lucky it's only happened just the once."

That tastes bitter on his tongue, though, and he grimaces at once. It's horrible to think of Harry that way, like there's any fortune in losing one friend to a miserable, lonely death when it could have been two or three or a dozen. As though it's a concern of quantity alone.

And it's especially horrible if it has in fact happened to Jyn more than once.

"Sorry, that's..." He struggles with how to amend it before finally letting out a heavy exhale and shrugging. "It never gets easier, I expect."

[nextchance]

"No, it's alright," Jyn says quickly, almost automatically. It isn't, not really — at least, what happened isn't, in both of their cases; his bringing it up isn't anything she can fault him for at all — but she doesn't make a habit of dwelling on her losses or personal tragedies outside of her own head. To do so would leave her too vulnerable, and there have been too many of them. He is lucky, she thinks, that someone disappearing under such circumstances has only happened to him once, but the fact of that doesn't make that one loss any easier to bear, and she wouldn't hold it against him. She's just been particularly unlucky, in this place as well as before it. Besides, it makes sense that so many of the comparatively few people she attaches herself to would have backgrounds like her own, untimely deaths included.

That is a fact she knows better than to drop into somewhat casual conversation, especially when he's struggling with the loss of his friend. This isn't about her or her grief or how she died, no matter how haunted by it she may still be; neither is it about any of the people she tries hard not to grieve. It's not a competition. It's just a messed up, painfully unfair situation. People leave, and they die, but here, there's an utter randomness to it that makes it all feel even worse.

"I mean, it doesn't. Get easier," she adds, mentally wincing at her own awkwardness. Putting words to a thing, making sense of what's in her head, has never been her strong suit. "But there's nothing for you to be sorry for. It happens, and it's always awful. No matter how common it is or if it happens once or a whole bunch of times."

[loficharm]

That's far from comforting, and Martin gives her a brief, surreptitious sidelong glance. He's not looking for comfort, really, not from her; but the open honesty of it is... well. It's familiar. A little too familiar.

He's gotten this sense about her before, but it feels so horribly clarified now: that like him, Jyn is intimately acquainted with solitude, not always by choice, and perhaps has been molded by it, built into someone who now doesn't quite know how to accept a hand out of it. Maybe doesn't feel safe even trying. Or maybe he's projecting too much.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he says softly after a while, and he walks quietly with her for about a block before he ventures to speak again. "I don't suppose you'd ever like to share a drink on purpose sometime."

Embarrassment hits all too easily, much as he tries to fight it back, and he clears his throat. "I-I mean, it doesn't have to be a drink. Just..." He shrugs, looking down at his feet, then manages a faint chuckle and glances back at her. "We've got to stop meeting like this."

[nextchance]

Jyn smiles just a little, his apparent awkwardness somehow making her feel a bit more at ease. She's not good at things like this — at having or making friends — but her lack of social skills aren't as likely to run her off with someone who at least also seems to be self-conscious about the whole thing. He's right, though. All of their past meetings, if she includes the incident with the Christmas tree, have been under less than ideal circumstances. She might not have thought too much of the fact of that, but his kindness has meant a lot to her. It isn't strictly why she stepped in back at the bar, but it was certainly a contributing factor; although she couldn't have sat back and let that happen to anyone, she really didn't want to see someone hurt who'd helped her before, when he had no particular obligation to do so.

If it were just about repaying a debt, though, then she would have moved on rather than continuing on with him. At the very least, there isn't anything to lose from meeting up under more deliberate, less traumatic circumstances. Given what they've respectively had to deal with these last couple of times they've crossed paths, it wouldn't be difficult to have a better time of things.

"Yeah," she agrees, huffing out a mostly mirthless laugh of her own, though her expression is genuine enough. "A drink on purpose sounds good. Somewhere not where we were earlier."