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Regret // for Greta
Martin wakes with a splitting headache and a terrible taste in his mouth, and for a moment he just rolls over and stuffs his head under the pillow. Calling into work isn't really an option anymore, but these days Peter never seems to be there anyway, it's not exactly like anyone will give him a slap on the wrist for being a bit late. He'll stay after hours if he has to, no one will-
Oh. Right.
He groans heavily and burrows even deeper under his comforter. Almost a month and he still manages to forget where he is sometimes. It's rarer now, though of course the hangover doesn't help. The events of the previous evening come back to him in bits and pieces, leaving him wrung out and embarrassed. It had been a nice night. Perhaps he'd even deserved a nice night. But in the light of day and the cold embrace of relative sobriety, guilt and doubt stand out starkly against any desire for comfort, no matter how earned.
Martin sits up slowly, wincing, massaging his temple to no avail. He doesn't drink like that often enough to be any good at hangover cures - that was always more Tim's purview - and he's a bit scared to try any of the various cultural superstitions. A greasy breakfast and a lot of coffee might be all he can manage, if he could even begin to think about eating. Water for now.
Following two glasses of water, some painkillers, and a half-hearted attempt to freshen up, he's left again with nothing but the crush of his thoughts. This is, really, no different from how he'd been getting on back home, but there he had a clear picture of how to proceed. He had work into which he could throw himself, all with a purpose. Here, all he has is the work of getting their Archive ready. And that means working with John.
He could talk to John, he supposes. He tries to imagine it. Dredging up that territory again - the fear of abandoning Peter's work, fear of the consequences and the cost, all while they're both hungover - it feels horrible. He doesn't want to make John angry again, or even worse, hurt him. And he doesn't intend to walk back on the promises they've made. That he trusts John, that he wants to help, that for as long as they're here, he's not going to play the Lonely's game. But even if all of that holds true, the idea of being around John and pretending everything about this is fine - it feels like a lie. He doesn't think he can manage that.
His alternatives beyond that are limited. Sitting alone in the flat, wandering the city aimlessly, contacting any of the sparse new friends he's made... He fidgets with his phone and sighs. Seeking outside help with his problems is sort of antithetical to the whole thing, but when he tries to keep to himself, he often winds up needing John's help anyway. The whole thing is just so... difficult.
So, after hemming and hawing over his short list of new contacts, he eventually reaches out to Greta, and about twenty minutes later, he's standing outside her door, still feeling quite ill, struggling to convince himself this isn't a mistake. He knocks.
Oh. Right.
He groans heavily and burrows even deeper under his comforter. Almost a month and he still manages to forget where he is sometimes. It's rarer now, though of course the hangover doesn't help. The events of the previous evening come back to him in bits and pieces, leaving him wrung out and embarrassed. It had been a nice night. Perhaps he'd even deserved a nice night. But in the light of day and the cold embrace of relative sobriety, guilt and doubt stand out starkly against any desire for comfort, no matter how earned.
Martin sits up slowly, wincing, massaging his temple to no avail. He doesn't drink like that often enough to be any good at hangover cures - that was always more Tim's purview - and he's a bit scared to try any of the various cultural superstitions. A greasy breakfast and a lot of coffee might be all he can manage, if he could even begin to think about eating. Water for now.
Following two glasses of water, some painkillers, and a half-hearted attempt to freshen up, he's left again with nothing but the crush of his thoughts. This is, really, no different from how he'd been getting on back home, but there he had a clear picture of how to proceed. He had work into which he could throw himself, all with a purpose. Here, all he has is the work of getting their Archive ready. And that means working with John.
He could talk to John, he supposes. He tries to imagine it. Dredging up that territory again - the fear of abandoning Peter's work, fear of the consequences and the cost, all while they're both hungover - it feels horrible. He doesn't want to make John angry again, or even worse, hurt him. And he doesn't intend to walk back on the promises they've made. That he trusts John, that he wants to help, that for as long as they're here, he's not going to play the Lonely's game. But even if all of that holds true, the idea of being around John and pretending everything about this is fine - it feels like a lie. He doesn't think he can manage that.
His alternatives beyond that are limited. Sitting alone in the flat, wandering the city aimlessly, contacting any of the sparse new friends he's made... He fidgets with his phone and sighs. Seeking outside help with his problems is sort of antithetical to the whole thing, but when he tries to keep to himself, he often winds up needing John's help anyway. The whole thing is just so... difficult.
So, after hemming and hawing over his short list of new contacts, he eventually reaches out to Greta, and about twenty minutes later, he's standing outside her door, still feeling quite ill, struggling to convince himself this isn't a mistake. He knocks.
no subject
When she answers his knock and gets her first look at him, her initial suspicions quickly find a home in how peaky he looks. Whatever her greeting would have been, it's abandoned in favor of a tsk and a blunt, "Well, you look awful. Come on, I've got the kettle on." She ushers him inside with a hand on his back, then slides it to his shoulder so she can give him a brief, comforting squeeze. He seems as if he might need one.
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He follows her inside, frowning distractedly even as Sadie comes to nose at his feet.
"I'm sorry to just..." He shrugs and sighs, knowing any apology for an imposition will be dismissed. He needed to talk, and she invited him.
"I'm not sure where to begin," he admits. "There's some... stuff I've been going over, and I think I need someone to go over it with, and... there's no one. I don't want to burden you with any of it, but I... I suppose I feel a bit... lost?" He clears his throat and grimaces a bit. He feels like he's doing a poor job making this sound like it was worth her opening the door at all. And the hangover is certainly not bloody helping. He's not going to be sick, at least, but the natural difficulty of everything is doubled. Perhaps awful was the wrong word, actually; Greta might have done better with 'pathetic.'
"I don't know who else to talk to," he mumbles.
no subject
Honestly, it's all rather intriguing, if only because she knows she's not the only person in this city he might confide in. John would be the most obvious choice, to her way of thinking; they've known each other longer. But their rapport did have a stilted awkwardness to it that might rule him out as a sounding board. Or perhaps he's too close to whatever it is that Martin has on his mind, and he's looking for a more objective take on it all. Regardless, she's curious to know what he might have to say that couldn't be brought to John, instead.
"We can start with tea," she says, gentle but firm as she steers him toward the couch. "You just make yourself at home. Have you had breakfast, yet?"
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He stares up at her ceiling for a moment, listening to the comfortingly domestic sounds of her puttering about her kitchen, trying to order his thoughts. He doesn't really have a plan. How much is he going to tell her, about which things currently plaguing him? Last night it had all been bubbling up so much he'd felt like he might burst. He shuts his eyes briefly, tries to focus on breathing, and all he can think about is John standing so close to him, perfunctorily brushing fog from his neck, his hair.
When she returns, he accepts the tea and toast with a quiet but earnest murmur of thanks. He eats the toast slowly, not keen on making her wait, but he needs to get something down and he can only do one thing at a time.
This finished, he sets the plate carefully aside and just looks into his tea for a few moments.
"When we came to visit you at Green Gardens," he says, "I - I think it was probably rather obvious it wasn't just so you could meet John. I'm sorry for all the... for, for being so weird."
As decent a place to start as any, he guesses. He sighs and takes a slow, ponderous sip of tea.
no subject
The lead-in is almost a relief, when it finally arrives, not just because he's talking at all, but because it was something she'd noticed at the time. He'd behaved a bit oddly that whole visit, edging around something she couldn't see or even guess at. All she could've said with any certainty is that he was plainly anxious about something, and that he just as plainly didn't want to reveal the particulars, or even admit that he was anxious at all.
So she hums in dry acknowledgment and takes a rather pointed sip of tea. "I had noticed that you seemed a bit... preoccupied."
no subject
But he's here, and if he is indeed done with the Lonely, as he'd told John last night, he needs to talk about it, with someone. That someone should be John, but that's dangerous, too, for different reasons. Embarrassing ones. Pathetic ones.
So, what, he's potentially endangering Greta, because he's worried John might learn how he feels? When John already knows that, because it's all on tapes he's heard, and...
And it hasn't come up, and it won't come up, and it shouldn't. And they're reasonably sure Greta is safe, and she's not even the Lonely's type, all... gregarious and good with people. And she deserves a bit of truth. It's not like there's any danger in people knowing the entities exist; it's better for them if they do, really. And here, with all these people from so many varied backgrounds, it'll be much easier to swallow.
So he sets his tea aside as well looks at her, though he's unable to hold eye contact, and his point of focus drifts down to her own cup.
"This is going to take... a lot to explain," he says carefully, "but I guess to start, erm... Where John and I come from, there's... powers. Entities, we call them. They're all based on fears. Things like... loneliness, death, darkness, being buried alive... They're everywhere, like... permeating into our universe, and we don't really know what they are, or... or almost anything about them, except that they're from outside our world, and they... feed on us. On people. They can do a lot of terrible things, and... and he and I were sort of engaged to research them. We didn't know that's what we were doing at the time. Not until it was too late."
He laughs, brief and without humor. "It turns out we were actually working for one of them, and John... Well, it doesn't matter." And it's not his story to share. "There were cults, and... people kind of working for the fears without really understanding them, and we got caught up in all of it, and things were... things were bad." When he draws a breath, it's shaky, and it takes him a moment to order himself.
"I don't really want to go into the whole grim business," he admits, "but the upshot is I started working for one of them, on purpose. A different one. The... the one about loneliness. It was sort of a deal I made to, er, protect him. Them. All of them. Our friends, I mean." The correction is as hasty and awkward as ever, but maybe Greta won't notice. "And also, maybe, the world? It... I was sort of in the middle of working out what I was actually doing when I was... brought here."
It feels... good to be talking about this, actually. A little too good. He braces for a prickle of cold, or a whiff of salt, something to indicate he's about to be punished for it. He watches Greta in case the punishment turns toward her, instead. But there's nothing. She seems fine, still watching him attentively. Maybe John struck more final a blow than he'd even realized.
"I was meant to be isolating myself," he says, still a bit cautious, "and I was. I'd been getting used to it, and then suddenly I was here, and... and John is here, and..." Now it gets more difficult to explain, and he breathes out, quick and impatient. "The Lonely still wants me back," he says bluntly, "and it's been... making that known in whatever way it can. It's like it can't quite get to me here, but it still knows I'm here, it knows that I'm... talking to people, and... and enjoying it. When I texted you that night, it had been in my dream, and it sort of... threatened you? Or threatened me with you, like... you were the first person I really... had any sort of contact with in a long time. And I think it wanted to scare me with that, like it would make you disappear. I don't think it can," he adds hastily, "but I wasn't sure. So I came by to... to check."
That isn't quite all of it, and he knows the absence of John from the explanation will be conspicuous. He rubs at his forehead and says, "John can... see things. Sometimes he knows things. I just needed him to confirm that you were all right, that there wasn't anything... hanging about you. And he did. I really think the Lonely was just trying to scare me, so... so that's it."
It's not, of course. There's more, a lot more, but he thinks it's past time Greta got a word in. He settles back, unconsciously trying to shrink into the sofa as he picks up his tea and takes a long, slow sip.
no subject
And what work it was. She takes a small sip of tea to avoid reacting to Martin's hasty correction about who he was protecting when he employed himself under The Lonely. Perhaps she's being presumptuous, reading too much into it, but the particular difficulty Martin seems to feel regarding John's presence in Darrow does seem rather telling. Then again, perhaps the difficulty just lies in the fact that you can't elegantly avoid someone from home, here. Not under these rather extraordinary circumstances.
Her expression softens when he finally gets into the details of why he'd texted her at that ungodly hour. Saoirse has been dealing with enough nightmares lately that it had been one of her first thoughts, actually. She just hadn't wanted to suggest it for... well, fairly obvious reasons. A child waking from a nightmare and needing a little reassurance is a less unusual scenario than a grown man doing the same (though she hadn't minded offering in either case). Martin has an earnest sweetness that makes offering comfort rather easy.
And now she knows just how sorely he must have been lacking it, especially recently. No wonder the poor lad had fallen apart in her arms.
"Well," she says after he falls silent, "I'm, er... glad to hear I haven't angered your boss. Or... former boss. However you want to put it. I have felt normal, for what it's worth." She's not sure what being under The Lonely's scrutiny would feel like, but she hasn't felt anything different, at least. Nothing that would mark itself as courtesy of Martin's patron terror as opposed to their own troubles.
"What about you?" she gently asks. "How are you... holding up?"
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He goes quiet at her question, gazing elsewhere for a long moment before he just shrugs. "Not great, if I'm honest? It's..." He heaves a sigh and sets his tea aside again, leaning back and rubbing briefly at his face. "I may have been working for the Lonely, but part of me is still tied to the Eye. That's - that's the one John sort of... belongs to." He hates saying it like that; it leaves a nasty taste in his mouth. "The fear of being watched, or of someone knowing your secrets, or... anything like that. We were sort of prisoners to it. If any of us tried to quit working for it, we... we got sick. And... well, that's started happening to me. I mean, not anymore. We've been setting up a new place to work here. An Archive just... just for the two of us. It feels wrong, like we're giving the Eye more of a foothold, but... we need it. I need it to... I guess to stay alive, and to keep the Lonely out."
This part is so much harder to explain, and he feels like he's getting lost in the weeds a bit. He sighs heavily, impatient with himself, and he hunches forward again to look at her. "Last night it attacked me while I was in the Archive, and John... rescued me. Sort of. He was able to push it back. I think maybe for good? Or at least, I don't think it'll be able to reach me there again. And I felt so angry, I'm just - I'm so tired of being used, and I wanted... I wanted to just let it all go. So I... invited him out and we got drinks. We got drunk. I..."
He pulls inward a bit, his hands clasped together and fidgeting. "It was nice. I mean, I haven't been out with anyone like that in... especially not John. But the better it was, the worse I felt. I'm not supposed to be doing this. Talking to anyone, him most of all. I had work to do, and I just can't stop thinking about what - what'll happen if - when I go back. What if I've undone everything, and then I - what if it was all for nothing? I made a choice, because I had to. Someone had to. I didn't even know what the full scope of it was, but that didn't matter. Because it might have saved the world. And it'd protect him."
No correction this time. It doesn't matter. It's what he means to say.
"I took so long to make that choice," he says ruefully, "and now it's like it just got taken away from me. I gave myself up for it. You know, I really don't think I was coming back, and now I - I'm just at a standstill, and I don't know how to avoid just... going back on everything. How can I just... turn my back on that?"
At the end of this outburst he feels like he can hear his voice ringing in the silence that follows. He feels exposed, having said this much; like if he hadn't made Greta a target before, he certainly has now. But he can feel the prickle of the Lonely over him; just a subtle chill, pushing him to pick up his tea again, warming his hands around it. It isn't reaching for her. Maybe it can't, either because of what John did to it or because Darrow keeps it at bay. It's his burden, no matter how much he says. He's not sure if that's a comfort or a torment.
"I can't stay away from him, but I need to," he says tiredly. "It was so hard to keep my distance before, and now I... it's like I've forgotten how to be myself. Who I am, what I'm... what I was trying to do, how important it was. I can't do it here. I can't - I don't know what to do."