Martin huffs softly, halfway to amused, for all that this really isn't funny. It's a fair question, one he'd sort of expected sooner or later.
"It's..." Complicated would probably sound like he was putting her off. He always hated when adults said things like that. He needs to give her the truth, or at least some approximation of it.
"I knew him before," he says. "Before we came here, and before he was... like he is now. His name is John." She probably knows that, since she's found out his name, but it feels important to draw some distinction here. "The man you met in that dream, that... version of him, I suppose, is called the Archivist. They're sort of the same and sort of not. I would say John is the one who doesn't want to hurt you, but it's not always up to him. And so maybe it doesn't really matter what he wants." It feels bitter on his tongue to say it like that. There's more to it, John's relative innocence or culpability not nearly so easy to define as he might like, but that will have to do, for now. He's not keen to explain the whole damn mess of it, and she didn't really ask about that, anyway. She asked about him.
"But for me," he says, "I don't think of them as the same. I can't. Because it's John I care about. John is my friend. More than that." No sense hiding it, really. She's already judging him; no point in fearing judgment over this. "He's my partner. My- my boyfriend. So I'm not exactly neutral. And I understand if that makes you not want to trust me. You can tell me to leave if you need to, whenever you want, and I'll go. I should've said that first, really."
He looks at her, distantly surprised at his own calm. "But I didn't come here to get you to trust me. I came because I wanted to tell you I was all right and that I wasn't mad. And because I felt like you deserved some answers. I can't really speak for him, so maybe my answers aren't worth much, but I wanted to try."
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"It's..." Complicated would probably sound like he was putting her off. He always hated when adults said things like that. He needs to give her the truth, or at least some approximation of it.
"I knew him before," he says. "Before we came here, and before he was... like he is now. His name is John." She probably knows that, since she's found out his name, but it feels important to draw some distinction here. "The man you met in that dream, that... version of him, I suppose, is called the Archivist. They're sort of the same and sort of not. I would say John is the one who doesn't want to hurt you, but it's not always up to him. And so maybe it doesn't really matter what he wants." It feels bitter on his tongue to say it like that. There's more to it, John's relative innocence or culpability not nearly so easy to define as he might like, but that will have to do, for now. He's not keen to explain the whole damn mess of it, and she didn't really ask about that, anyway. She asked about him.
"But for me," he says, "I don't think of them as the same. I can't. Because it's John I care about. John is my friend. More than that." No sense hiding it, really. She's already judging him; no point in fearing judgment over this. "He's my partner. My- my boyfriend. So I'm not exactly neutral. And I understand if that makes you not want to trust me. You can tell me to leave if you need to, whenever you want, and I'll go. I should've said that first, really."
He looks at her, distantly surprised at his own calm. "But I didn't come here to get you to trust me. I came because I wanted to tell you I was all right and that I wasn't mad. And because I felt like you deserved some answers. I can't really speak for him, so maybe my answers aren't worth much, but I wanted to try."