Wake // for John

[loficharm]

[CW: implied extreme violence & death, excessive blood, related trauma]

October 31st - November 1st, 2019

This has taken him far too long already.

Martin sits at his desk in his office, the door shut and locked as it's been most of the time for the past month, staring at his phone, at the open history of his texts with John. The last message exchanged is dated the 19th, John asking with exceptional care if he was planning on being in that day, forcing Martin to reply very briefly that he had in fact been there for several hours. No response. Before that, only scant business-like exchanges. He knows, and he'd known then, that John was testing the waters, trying to get a sense for what was going on. But he hadn't needed to delve much further. For better or worse, the message had been received.

The phone's screen dims, and he absently taps his thumb against it to wake it up.

Three days ago he'd made a decision. Twenty-two days before that he'd made another: to reacclimate himself with the Lonely, to give up all his tentative progress toward the recovering warmth of social connection and to return to the path on which he'd been set. The justifications were many, and they were easy: because he'd seen firsthand what form the Extinction might take, and even if it wasn't his world it felt too awful to ignore; because the Lonely is still here, breathing down his neck and threatening John in his dreams, and even if those threats are empty they still burrow deep into his heart; because none of this feels real or permanent and he ought to know better than to allow himself something nice when it will only get taken away, just like everything else. Because he wants to be ready, because he wants to be useful, because he wants to keep John safe.

The 19th, he realizes, had been the day Luke came. So they had in fact seen each other briefly; Martin had seen John with him, how different he'd been. Kind and gentle, comforting this little boy who seemed, impossibly, to have become close to him. It had hit Martin in ways he hadn't expected; it was like he was missing something he didn't know was there.

That had hurt, even more than the rest. It all hurt, it hurt so much, and he'd hated it. He'd gotten a cat to cope with the suffocating emptiness of his flat, and that had helped, but not enough. He'd justified it all to himself in a thousand different ways, and each time he had the conversation it felt emptier and more circular, like he couldn't quite keep track of all the threads of it. He'd tried to sink, but he couldn't, he can't, not here. Here the water is different and there is not enough to drown him.

He hated it and it hurt, but that wasn't enough to stop him. Not even seeing John with Luke was enough, not on its own. Maybe nothing would have been enough; maybe he'd have found a way to drown himself anyway, to disappear into the cold dark embrace that clutches him every night. Maybe that would have been it, if Kat hadn't forced it. Needling into him with questions and counters too precisely on the point of it. Promising that he was making John miserable.

That was far more than three days ago, but it took that long for him to arrive at a conclusion. It took him so long to decide, enough. He is tired. He is lonely. And whatever purpose this might have held feels so far away it's like he can no longer see it clearly at all.

So he stares at his phone. He'd meant to catch John before he left for the day, but they've become good at avoiding each other even in this small space. And it's become difficult. He'd allowed it to become difficult. He makes so many false starts and deletes them all, jiggling his knee with nervous, manic energy. He just doesn't know what to say. What can he say? What can he possibly say after all this?

He's sorry?

He is, it just doesn't feel like it'll ever be enough.

But he can't keep sitting here and staring at his bloody phone so he finally just starts somewhere.



It's easy to assume, at first, that the lack of response is simply John giving him a well-earned cold shoulder. It doesn't seem particularly like John - for all he was once rather unkind to Martin, he has never been petty - but Martin tries to content himself with that assumption. He tries as he keeps sending messages, as he locks up the Archive and heads feverishly toward the Bramford. The sun has set already, the earlier darkness still catching him off guard, as does the realization that it's Halloween. He'd forgotten, sequestered as he's been. Not that it matters. He's halfway to the Bramford when he tells John he's coming over; and when he arrives at the front door, there has still been no word and he's beginning to feel a tightness in his chest, a certainty that something is wrong. He just wants an answer, anything - John can be as angry as he likes, John can hate him, just as long as he's okay.

But there's no answer, and the longer Martin stands on the stoop, waiting for anyone to pass through, the sharper that sense of dread grows. He's starting to consider doing something genuinely stupid, like scoping around the building for an open window or something, when the door clicks open.

Martin stares at it, uncomprehending. It opens slowly, with a soft creak and all on its own, which is impossible; reaching out to catch it, he feels the weight of it, how this could not be caused by wind. Someone would have to push it open.

"H-hello?" he asks, feeling a bit foolish, but the only answer he gets is a chilly breeze and the distant sounds of trick-or-treaters and those who've gotten an early start on the drinking.

Well, no time to wonder about it now. He steps instead, letting the door fall shut behind him, and heads quickly down the hall to John's flat. He's reaching out to knock automatically when he realizes the door is open, cracked just barely ajar, but open.

It should not be open.

"John?" He pushes it the rest of the way and takes a few short steps into the entryway, startling for just a moment as he thinks he sees a person, pale and slight with very long hair, standing there at the end of it, but it was such a brief impression, like an afterimage on his eye, he scarcely gives it a moment's thought as he steps further into the room and

and

"No," bursts out of him, breathless and already halfway to a sob. "Oh god, oh god, no, no, no, John, John-!"

There is so, so much blood, and it is everywhere, an arc of arterial spray across the wall and spatter from what may have been a struggle and mostly pooled thick and already drying on the floor around the body, around his body, around John's body.

Martin doesn't remember moving forward, only realizes there's dull pain in his knees as he hits the floor and leans over him, grasping desperately at his shoulders as if this is something he can simply wake up from. There is a knife in his chest, stuck into his heart, and Martin can only stare at it, his breath hitching frantically as he begins to hyperventilate, tears spilling hot and startling down his face.

"Nononono," he moans feverishly, his hands trembling as they brush through John's hair like he's trying to smooth it back. His face is still, relaxed, but not peaceful. He thought people were supposed to look peaceful. "John, no, no, no, please, I - I can't, I can't lose you, I- I said I wasn't gonna let this happen again, I said, I - you can't, I need you, I-"

The words are already pouring out in an incoherent mess, but he can't maintain even that as he gives way to outright sobs, crumpling over him, his head pressed against John's unmoving chest. He was too late. He doesn't understand why this happened, what's even happened, but he was too late, he drifted away and he left John alone and now he's - now-

What bloody good is protecting John when he wasn't here to protect him?

"John," he whispers, shaking so badly he feels like he can't breathe, like he's going to be sick. He lifts his head to look at John's face, as if he'll see any sign that this isn't real, and instead his eyes fall to the scar across his throat.

That wasn't there before. That is new; more to the point, it's fresh. Just a thin neat slash across his throat, his neck and shoulders stained with the blood of it. And it's healed.

"What-" He sits up, reaching out delicately to touch the scar, not quite able to bring himself to do so. He pulls back, blinking through tears as he tries to cobble together some sort of understanding. His thoughts are racing as much as they feel frozen; like he exists in two states at once, panic and surrender. Some part of him, the stubborn part that needs made him a target for the Eye in the first place, the part that needs to understand, struggles against the tide of despair until it reminds him suddenly, simply: again.

He said he wouldn't let this happen again.

Nobody could explain how John woke up from that coma. Nobody could explain how he'd managed a coma and not death to begin wtih. Martin hadn't questioned it; it didn't matter. But it matters now. It matters more than anything's mattered in his life.

Martin lets his fingers move slowly from John's hair down the sides of his face, tracing the trail of little round scars down his neck to his shoulder, letting his hands drift back over John's chest. There is nothing intentionally reverent in it; he is moving slow because he can barely control his body, and because he is afraid.

He wraps his shaking hand around the handle of the knife, his lips moving wordlessly in a prayer that is not a prayer - perhaps just please please please please please - and with a strained grunt he yanks the knife out of John's chest.

It clatters to the floor beside him, and Martin sits there with his blood-stained hands curled tight into the fabric of his trousers, staring, waiting, begging. Please, John, please be okay. I need you to be okay. I need you to be here. I need you.

He waits and watches and prays to whatever horrible intelligence is listening, and for the longest sprawl of red seconds, nothing happens.

Comments

cw: more blood, gore, general panic

[statement_ends]

It had been quick. John might consider that a mercy, later, when he's able to consider things again. But he had left very quickly, retreating somewhere deep inside the body lying arrested on the floor of his flat, and it was the Archivist who did the waiting, the Archivist who retained some tenuous awareness as he drifted off in search of a dream to occupy. A hermit crab that had temporarily lost its shell.

It's almost like being asleep, when all is said and done. Not peaceful, because his dreams are never easy, but... familiar.

There is nothing familiar about the waking. The sensations that drag John back out of the dark he was nestled in are sharp and unpleasant: the burning contraction of a heart that is still knitting itself back together, lungs that are screaming for air. He pulls in half a breath and then chokes, back arching off the floor and then slamming back down as his body curls itself into a mindless expulsion, a cough so forceful it almost becomes a retch.

And then his mouth is full of blood, thick and clotted into a slippery mass that threatens to lodge itself back in his throat. He writhes, all of his awareness centered on this nascent threat, and manages to turn his head enough that his body's next panicked seizure forces the clot out onto the floor. He pulls in another ragged breath, the air ammunition for another round of coughing, fire still burning in his chest and neck, and Christ, he misses the ignorant dark that had held him, he wants it back.

[loficharm]

"Oh thank god," he blurts quietly and on a single breath, still weeping openly even as John convulses violently back to life. Martin has to stop himself reaching out to him as he begins coughing up blood and gasping horribly for air; for a moment it's all he can do to to keep himself at bay, hands reaching helplessly as he tells himself to wait, give John space, give him air.

But he can't; he can't just let him lie there like that, suffering so plainly the after effects of what's been done to him. Martin waits until the coughing subsides just enough and not a minute more, and then he reaches down and heaves John gently, carefully into his arms, not wanting to jostle him overmuch but instead to provide support, to get him upright. Martin lifts him easily, god, has he always been this light? and pulls him close, pressing him to his chest, gentle and desperate all at once, as he sobs shudderingly onto his shoulder.

It's for him as much as it is for John; he needs this, needs to promise himself that John is real and solid and not going anywhere, as much as he needs to make up for so much wasted time. There's so much he could say, apologies and questions and apologies again, but he doesn't know how, if he even could string words together through his tears. Maybe it's better to say nothing, to just hold John while he comes back to himself, give him something familiar to - well. Not familiar. Not familiar at all, really. But something good, there to grasp onto when he's ready to come down.

[statement_ends]

John might miss the ignorant dark, but ignorance has never been the Archivist's purview. The moment his gasping breaths have satisfied his body's base need for oxygen, the moment his brain might consider the possibility of firing on all cylinders, the Knowing hits him like a brick. He held the knife in his heart for fully half an hour, and even as it had stilled him, he'd taken it in.

The knife has a total length of 8.14 inches, comprising a 3.74-inch handle and a 4.4-inch trailing point blade, steel with a satin finish, and the shop where it was purchased is near the corner of Madison Avenue and Revello Drive, and it sat in the display case for sixty-two days before the man took it home on the seventeenth of August, 2018, purchasing it for thirty-two dollars and fifty cents, plus tax, and he'd made good use of it, always found it dependable though it was nothing fancy, and before the 3.8-inch cutting edge had come to rest in John's heart, it had taken the life of Nathan Parks during an early morning jog, and before Nathan it had found Leslie Wittenburg as she stumbled back to her flat after an evening drinking with friends, and before Leslie it had caught Adam Marshall in the instant between realizing he wasn't alone and letting out a scream, and none of them were really monsters but it hadn't mattered to the knife or to its wielder--

John becomes aware that he is mumbling to himself, the words leaking out of him between lingering coughs. He's coming back to himself the way a sleeping bag comes back to the stuff-sack it's kept in, too much trying to fit in too small a space, his body shuddering and straining with the effort of holding it all. It takes several dragging minutes for the built-up Knowledge of the knife to subside, and for more immediate facts to make themselves known.

He is sitting upright, somehow, slumped against something warm and soft, both supported and gently constrained by a pair of arms. It's another body that he's leaning against. Someone is holding him. Their shoulders are quaking; it takes John a while to notice, to differentiate their shaking from his own, and he blinks, bleary-eyed, focusing with difficulty at the expanse of blue-jumpered back that he's spackling with crimson.

He drags his eyes upward, and briefly sees a pale figure near the door, and breathes, "Edith?"

And then she's gone, leaving him with the person who's holding him, and they're... weeping? Weeping.

He has felt these arms around him once before.

"M--Martin?" John lifts one arm, weak and uncoordinated, his fingers curling against the bewilderingly solid presence of Martin's back. Martin, here, in his flat, somehow. Martin, who'd barely exchanged ten words with him over the past week, holding him as gently as the dark had. Far closer now than the knife, but so much harder to understand. "You're here...?"

[loficharm]

John starts to speak, but they aren't words that make sense, and Martin has to struggle not to pull back or interrupt or fall deep into despairing fear that John's lost his mind. The barely coherent shape of his speech and the seeming disconnect of the words themselves has him thinking at first that this is all nonsense, but gradually he realizes that isn't it at all. These are details; facts apparently gleaned from the knife that had spent god knows how long lodged in his body, preventing the otherworldly power that governs him from healing his heart. Christ. Christ. Martin shuts his eyes, waiting it out for what seems like a very long time, until the mumbling subsides into a single name that means nothing to Martin, pitched slightly different from the rest of it, like a question rather than a fact. Martin has no time or inclination to wonder about it when finally John returns to the present moment and perceives him.

John is too weak to grip onto him properly, but his arm does shift around Martin's back, fingers curling gently, and Martin doesn't let go.

And then John speaks again, and the note of surprise hits Martin like a blow to the chest. It's awful. It's utterly unsurprising and wholly deserved. Another, fuller sob breaks out of him as he holds John a little tighter.

"Yeah," he says softly, his voice weak and quavering. "Yeah, I'm here." He rests his chin on John's shoulder and moves his hand to cup around the back of his head, fingers sifting into his hair, embarrassment or shame or propriety the absolute furthest things from his mind at the moment. "I'm not going anywhere."

[statement_ends]

"Wh--" John starts, halfway to why? before another, weaker cough interrupts him. Martin's been pulling away for weeks, even since he woke up in the hospital, and it hadn't been hard to guess why, and he hadn't known how to argue against it (stop trying to save our world, this temporary waystation is more important, our temporary, amiable truce means more to me, unthinkable). He didn't have the right to expect anything different, anything more. Anything like this.

He'd hated it, though. He'd missed him. Christ, he'd missed him.

A few more coughs shake their way out of him, and he curls into Martin, half-convulsive and half-instinctive, his hand fisting into the soft material of Martin's jumper. The burning in his chest has been supplanted by a dull ache, and though his throat still feels raw and ragged, it's more the result of his coughing fit than...

--the hand grips his hair roughly, and he feels that more than the light pressure and the faint sting of the blade in his throat, it's so sharp, it's so sharp he doesn't even know what it's done to him until the blood, his blood hits the wall and fills his mouth--

John shudders, a strained noise escaping him as Martin gently cradles the back of his head, his hand unwittingly soothing the remnant ache from that rougher treatment. His other arm curls around Martin's back until he's clinging to him with what little strength is at his disposal. He wouldn't have thought he had the energy for tears (let alone the fucking hydration), but his eyes burn, the intention there if nothing else, and he unthinkingly turns his face into Martin's neck as if he might hide there.

[loficharm]

"Oh," Martin whispers unthinkingly when John clings on tighter, grabbing at his jumper, both arms around him now, his face turned inward against his neck. This would be unthinkable under any other circumstances, which is part of what makes it so impactful now, that he's this desperate for contact and comfort. Martin can't help but feel grateful, relieved, that he's accepting it at all.

"I'm sorry," he says, not sure what else he has to offer yet. His own crying fades into light sniffling and a faint headache, less important now in the face of John's distress. Martin keeps one hand in his hair and rubs his back slowly with the other, desperate to soothe. "I'm so sorry."

It means many things. He's sorry this happened, he's sorry John was so horribly hurt and that he's suffering from it now, and he's sorry for everything, that he hasn't been here, that he didn't find some way to stop whatever this was, that his being here now is so unexpected. Martin's not sure he could gravitate decisively to one particular meaning even if he were inclined to try. They're all of equal import, all free for John to interpret.

"It's okay," he murmurs, needing to say something else even if it's wildly far from the truth. He tries again: "I-it'll be okay. I've got you. I'm here."

It doesn't feel good to say it second time, like it's unproven, a promise he has no business making. Why should John believe that when he's been so absent for so long? But he swallows the urge to keep talking, to account for himself. Not right now. Not yet.

[statement_ends]

Panic threatens to swamp him, belated and wholly useless. There's no point to it now, not with him long since left for dead. The man who did this isn't stupid; he'd used the general commotion of the holiday as a cover for any noises that might have otherwise been alarming, and he would have gotten out and away from the crime scene as quickly as possible. The knife will be clean of prints -- not counting Martin's, he supposes.

Christ, Martin must have pulled it out.

Martin found him like this.

That horrible realization combined with a ridiculous desire not to make things worse is enough motivation for John to pull himself together a little. His breathing slows, and he forces himself to focus on the feeling of Martin's fingers in his hair, the soothing passage of his palm over John's back. Christ, that ought to be all he can think about -- he has not been touched like this, with such tenderness, in longer than he cares to remember -- but the fragmented recollections of his own brutal murder make for unusually stiff competition. John takes a slow, shuddering breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, and notes something familiar beneath the blood and the terror, something that takes him back to when he was small and different and stretched across the vast expanse of Martin's bed. He clings to that familiarity a little shamefully, as if, despite being unwillingly saddled with a cat's senses for a week, he should still have no business recognizing Martin by scent. But he does. It's as well known to him now as Martin's voice.

Martin apologizes to him. Reassures. Says I've got you and I'm here, and John huffs out a breath at the fucking irony of it all, an unkind part of him ready to offer a derisive, 'oh, now you're here! Where the fuck have you been?' But he doesn't have the breath to waste on questions whose answers aren't a mystery, and he doesn't have the requisite spite to voice something so unkind, whether there's an argument to be made about Martin deserving it or not.

And he's glad Martin's here.

He lifts his head from its hiding place, instead tucking his chin over Martin's shoulder. He'll have to sit up eventually, operate on his own steam, but right now, he suspects he'd simply collapse without the additional support. "How'd you get in?" he asks, his voice hoarse and his tone at first bewildered. A peevish note creeps in as he adds, "How's everyone keep getting in?"

November 1st, ~ 8:30 AM (for Kat)

[statement_ends]

John wakes slowly. He's in the Archive: that's the first thing to touch his awareness, carrying with it a sense of warmth and security. He's in his cot in his office, easily deduced; there's nowhere else in the building that he could stretch out this comfortably. Must have stayed late to w--

No. That pleasant, fictitious presumption grates against his mind like fingernails on a chalkboard -- wrong; false; try again, Archivist -- and the previous night's memories come crashing to the forefront. The knock, the knife, the blood, the fear, then nothing, then... Martin. Martin's arms around him, Martin's hand in his hair, Martin's promises that things were going to be different, now. John buries his face in the pillow with a soft groan, shivering a little as a useless spike of adrenaline works its way through him. Over and done now, nothing to run from, nothing to fight. Christ, he needs to just... calm down. His fingertips find the fresh scar curving beneath his chin, and he puffs out a breath before finally cracking his eyes open.

His office is empty.

Martin promised, he thinks to himself, equal parts anxious, petulant, and bewildered. He had, hadn't he? John lets one arm hang off the cot, groping blindly along the floor until he finds the familiar edges of a tape recorder. He drags it out, his eyes drifting shut again as he finds the rewind and play buttons by feel.

"--because this happened. It's because I'm waking up," Martin's recorded voice insists, followed by an audibly shaky breath. "So I'm not leaving you." John doesn't know if he hears the brief rustle of Martin's hand against his shoulder, or if his own memory provides it. "And I'll be here when you wake up."

John stops the recording, takes a slow breath, then slowly bullies himself a little more upright, pushing up onto his elbows. There are plenty of places Martin could be: making himself tea, or popped into his own office. Christ, John doesn't even know what time it is, how long he's been asleep for; Martin might've given up and passed out on a nest of coats or something. He gets up in stages, taking necessary pauses between them like a diver trying to avoid the bends: first sitting upright, then easing his legs off the cot and settling his feet on the floor, then rising to his feet with a hand half-braced on the wall.

Could be worse, he thinks. He's still a bit tired, and more than a bit hungry. But he no longer feels as if he might collapse at any moment, which is a marked improvement from before.

He cautiously pokes his head out of his office, brow furrowing against the daylight spilling in the windows. "Martin?" he hazards, taking a few steps away from his door.

[swerved]

Kat doesn't know much. Martin hadn't exactly been forthcoming, in a way that she's found increasingly worrying as time passes and she sits here alone. Probably she should be trying to get some work done, but she's too distracted for that, turning over what little she does know: that John was attacked and that he's fine, which, in all fairness, she doesn't think Martin would say if it were untrue, but has some trouble taking at face value given the way he said it. Fine is likely an overstatement. She'll find out more when John wakes up, she's sure, since she was specifically instructed to wait for him to do so.

In the meantime, she's busied herself with playing games on her phone, as well as ordering food from Munchsquad. She's not super hungry so much as she thinks eating will give her something to do, and she's not sure if John will be hungry when he wakes up, so she gets a second breakfast sandwich to go with her own and a large pumpkin spice latte. Halloween might be over, but she's still a shameless basic bitch who likes her seasonal drinks, and there's probably a week or so to go before Ahab's comes out with their winter flavors.

Theoretically, she could work, but she knows that's not happening until she has more of an idea what's going on. It just isn't happening.

Though she's been waiting for it, Kat still startles slightly when John opens his office door and steps out, asking for Martin like she'd kind of expected he might, given what Martin said before he left. "He'll be back soon," she says, setting her phone and coffee both down. "He and Eliot went to clean your apartment, or something? It's just me for now." Only when she's finished does she start to really take in the sight of him. He looks pretty fucking rough in general, but her gaze settles on what looks like a scar across his neck that definitely was not there yesterday, and she feels something in her stomach twist. "You look like hell. No offense."

[statement_ends]

John starts a little at Kat's voice, before belatedly realizing that it's Friday. Christ, so much happened last night that he'd forgotten what day of the week it was -- or perhaps he'd just presumed, on some subconscious level, that the weekend would courteously move itself forward to account for how fucking exhausted he and Martin both were. But it's only Friday, which meant Kat and Eliot would have come in as usual, and Martin must have... Christ, John doesn't even know to what extent he would have explained things before apparently dragging Eliot off to go and clean his flat. John isn't sure whether to be grateful or appalled.

He blinks at Kat's rather pointed assessment, then snorts. "None taken." His voice is still rough from sleep, and he drifts over to the tea station to make himself a cup. "What did Martin tell you?" He glances over at her as he waits for the water to heat, willing to bet that it wasn't much. Certainly less than she deserves, he thinks, though he can understand why Martin would want to keep things vague while John will still functionally unconscious and unable to weigh in.

[swerved]

"Basically nothing," Kat answers, though she doesn't sound particularly bothered by that fact. Under the circumstances, it makes sense, though a little clarity would have been helpful. Still, despite the worry in her expression as she watches John, already alarmed by the scar on his neck and half-expecting some other injury to make itself apparent, the way she speaks is straightforward. She has a feeling that will go over better than any fretting over a situation she really doesn't know much about when he so far seems exhausted and seriously worse for wear but generally speaking okay. "He said you were attacked, and that he had to go clean your apartment, before he pretty much dragged Eliot out of here. Whole thing took less than a minute."

She takes a sip of her coffee before she realizes that what she hasn't said is probably the most important part, however self-explanatory it might seem to her. "And he said that if you woke up before he got back, to tell you that he'd be back soon." It must be a hell of a mess he has to clean up, though the thought of that mostly just reminds her of how confused she still is. John doesn't seem like he's about to run off, though. Maybe she'll be able to get more of a straight answer out of him.

[statement_ends]

"Right." He's not surprised by Martin's restraint, but Kat's calm reporting of it all throws him a little. Maybe it shouldn't; he's known for some time now that she has something, though he's never pressed. There's undoubtedly some flavor of hypocrisy about it all: that he'll accept Statements from Martin, who knows the risks intimately, or from strangers, whose personal lives are unimportant enough that the thought of them assuming said risks isn't as troubling.

But Kat and Eliot fall somewhere in between. Too distant to trouble but too valuable to risk. Of course, that distance doesn't feel like such a favor, now, with Eliot off literally cleaning up after him, and Kat sitting here in ignorance that she absolutely doesn't deserve. Christ, he ought to have learned by now that there's no safety in the dark.

John takes his tea over to Kat's desk, detouring a little to grab Eliot's chair and drag it over. Then he sits down opposite her, his hands curling around the mug, his gaze steady. "What do you want to know?" he asks. "I'll answer anything."

[swerved]

It's a hard question to answer and a hard disclaimer to have when there's so much that she wants to know. Kat finds herself struck by it all of a sudden, just how curious she is about so much. She has been since she first walked into this place, really, and that's only grown since then. None of it, though, has anything on the truly bizarre situation she's found herself in this morning. It's sort of nice, having it in her hands to ask questions instead of being given an explanation that won't go any further, but she wants to give it some actual consideration. She also wants not to be a dick or take advantage of that offer, which seems entirely too easy given all she'd like to know.

Finally, she starts with, "So what's with the, uh..." and traces her finger across her own throat, where a scar that she definitely doesn't remember seeing yesterday cuts across John's. The idea that it came from this unspecified attack, which she thinks will probably be her next question, is both logical and not. It's the one thing she knows has happened between now and the last time she saw him, but wounds don't heal that quickly, when they do at all.

November 1st ~ 8:00 AM (for Eliot)

[loficharm]

Is it just him, or is it colder than when he walked with John last night? The jumper is still doing the job well enough, but the pajama pants are far too thin for this, and he's growing irritated by how he keeps nearly tripping over his own feet.

Eliot follows along close behind him, and Martin can feel the questions radiating off him. The explanation he'd given was not good enough and he knows that, but he cannot think about that right now. He can't think about anything except getting to John's flat and cleaning it so John never has to look at any of that again.

He only hopes they make it back before John wakes. He promised he'd be there, and it's a promise he wants to keep.

The walk is quick, at least, quicker than last night by a great deal. He lets himself in with John's keys, holding the door for Eliot and moving on toward the flat. He pauses at the door, the key raised, breathing shakily. What is he doing? What does he think is going to happen when he opens this door, that Eliot is just going to calmly accept all this blood without pressing him for more information?

He turns and looks up at Eliot, scarcely aware that he's trembling.

"It's - it's bad in there," he says. "Just... It's bad."

He's too bloody tired to give him anything better. That will simply have to do.

He unlocks the door and pushes it open, stepping inside and letting Eliot follow. He stops and stands and stares numbly at the dark, rusty stain in the wood, the spray across the wall. Nothing's disturbed. No one's been here. It's quiet, and it's thick with the visible memory of what happened here.

Re: November 1st ~ 8:00 AM (for Eliot)

[eliotwaugh]

He has so many questions, but everything about Martin's demeanor keeps Eliot from asking, keeps him from even making any remarks about the clothes. It's a short walk, and Martin hurries, hugging himself against the chill, and Eliot follows in increasingly concerned silence.

John was resting, he'd said, and Martin needed help with cleaning. He’d been attacked. Martin's been so distant of late, it’s hard to read anything from him other than just overwhelming stress. He’d thought Martin and John were barely even talking, with whatever’s going on between them. This must have been serious. So his mind only races from thought to thought, increasingly dire explanations, what if the entity John's attached to has somehow...infested the place, what if there's something like a demon trapped in the apartment, what if more ghosts and this time they’re hostile.

But the building is quiet, everything appears normal. Eliot can't sense much in the way of magic, even. As they reach John's door there's a similar heaviness to the air that he feels in the Archive, but that's not entirely surprising, given what he's been told about the nature of John's bond with whatever power sustains him.

Martin turns to him, and warns him, looking so stricken that for a moment Eliot can only nod. "Okay," he answers, solemn.

When Martin opens the door the smell is the first thing Eliot registers. Even this long after...whatever the fuck happened here, with the apartment closed up the smell of blood still lingers. Blood and wood.

Eliot's hand shakes as he closes the door behind him, and he says nothing, only looks at the horrible tableau and tries to breathe through his mouth.

There have only been a few times Eliot's seen this much blood in one place, and he remembers them vividly. There is the wide dark stain on the floor; there had been so much blood on the pier where Benedict fell, where he'd lay with hands curled into claws stained black, the arrow stuck in his throat. No one had known, was the horrible thing, they had all been so focused on the battle at the island, it had felt like such a victory, and Eliot hadn't known the true cost until it was all over.

He clears his throat, and looks at the arc on the wall, looks at Martin in John's clothes. He remembers kneeling on the ground in Ember's Tomb, for what seemed like hours. Trying to maintain a barrier on Quentin to keep enough blood inside him, to physically hold him together until help came. He'd felt as exhausted then as Martin looks now.

Eliot sniffs; his eyes are stinging and he wipes at them hastily, and frowns. Martin brought him here because he needed help, he needs to be able to do that, to be helpful. He needs to focus.

"What happened, Martin?" he asks. His voice is rough but steady, and his hands do not shake. "What happened to John?"

[loficharm]

The worst thing about it isn't Eliot's reaction or how quickly and how well he tamps it down. The worst thing is that for a moment Martin actually feels surprised by it. He realizes with an uncomfortable jolt that all this time, all he knows of Eliot - from the impression he'd made on arrival to threatening Peter with a sword to responding to the danger the Archive represents with such confident composure to that ridiculous adventure they had just the other night - it's all led him to construct an idea of him as unflappable. Even when he'd seen Eliot in true panic over the ghosts they'd encountered, it had still been contained somehow. Like he could weather anything; like at the end of it, he'd always still be the king of some fantasy land, a bastion of charm and bravery and above all, good humor. He realizes that he'd managed to forget that Eliot is a person just like anyone else.

The question comes before he can think what to say, if there's anything to say. He hesitates before answering. It's the right question, as if Eliot just knows how to ask it - he'd said John was attacked, but all this blood goes beyond that. But Eliot hasn't asked what happened, whose blood this is. He's asked what happened to John.

And there is an answer. He hadn't wanted to give it, but there is no avoiding it now, and Eliot deserves to know.

Martin clutches at his arm and stares down at the stain on the wood, feeling miserable that he brought Eliot into this without any regard to how it might affect him. "He was-" His voice cracks, Christ, and he clutches himself tighter but he can't stop the spill of tears, as tired and dehydrated as he is; there are still more.

"I found him here," he says, his voice quavering horribly. "Dead. I- someone got in here and tried to kill him. H-he's survived through something that should have killed him before, because of his whole - his connection to the-" He waves a hand, frustrated at having to find the words for this. Eliot probably understands what he's getting at. "So I, I just had to pull the knife out, and he came back. He came back."

He repeats it like he's trying to convince himself. Being here again, reliving the experience of first stepping in to find John on the floor, has brought that fear, that horror of losing John forever, rushing back like it never left.

"I - I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought you here, I-" He covers his face, shaking, hating himself for it, for all of it. "I'm just so tired, and I don't, I don't want him to have to look at this, not ever again, and I didn't know what else to do."

[eliotwaugh]

Martin crumples at the question, and obviously it wasn't going to be an easy thing to talk about, given the state of things, but Eliot still feels awful for asking.

He stays quiet as long as he can, one hand halfway reaching toward Martin for-what? what kind of comfort can he offer for this? Eliot tries to register what Martin's saying, tries to think about it analytically, what this might mean about John's nature, the thing they've tied themselves to. But it doesn't stick. He doesn't have the heart to be curious now, the only thing that matters is that something truly horrible has happened and Martin, bless him, has been alone with it.

Eliot can't help the lump in his throat as he sees Martin crying, and he swallows, trying to speak, to do anything.

"No," he says finally, his voice a cautious whisper as he takes a step towards him. "Hey, no no it's okay, you don't need to apologize, Martin--" He huffs, frustrated that Martin's had to deal with this, and enfolds him in a hug. Eliot doesn't even think about it, just puts his arms around him and rests his chin on top of Martin's head and lets him cry. "It's okay," he murmurs. "We're going to fix this."

[loficharm]

He keeps his hands over his face even as Eliot tries to stop him babbling out apologies, so it's a bit of a surprise when Eliot's arms wrap around him, pulling him close. He doesn't resist; once the initial shock of it wears off it's easy to just slip into it, settle his arms around Eliot in return, his forehead pressed against his chest.

There's a whole other layer of shock to it, not just that it was unexpected. Apart from the twice desperate occasions that he pulled John to him in the past twelve hours, Martin has not touched anyone - and especially not been touched like this - in nearly a month. Before that it had still been rather few and far between - he'd been acclimating cautiously to receiving affection from Greta and Saoirse and Blue, exchanging occasional light contact with John, but... it had all been few and far between. And after how quickly he sank back into the depths of the Lonely, this feels - it's different from hugging John. It isn't as fraught for a number of reasons, and it isn't something he chose to do. It is something being given to him because he needs it.

Eliot tells him that it's okay and that they'll fix this, his chin resting comfortably on Martin's head, and for a moment Martin can only shiver and cry softly. It's so pathetic, but it's good, the feeling of another body, of reassurance given. He holds on a little tighter, aware that Eliot needs this, too.

By the time he finally pulls away, his tears have died down again and he feels only vague, belated embarrassment. "Thank you," he says a bit raggedly, and sniffs. "Erm..." He looks over at the stain, trying to put himself back into a problem-solving state of mind, but he's rather tapped out. "I... I did my best last night, but... John doesn't have a lot of, erm... I mean we need just. A ridiculous amount of hydrogen peroxide, or something." He shrugs haplessly.

[eliotwaugh]

It takes Eliot a moment to recall the last time he'd seriously hugged someone that wasn't a social situation, wasn't just him being drunk and gregarious, but then of course he remembers. Saying goodbye to Quentin. It's an odd thing to realize, that even if he hadn't been snatched up by this city he'd had no guarantee of when or if he'd see his best friend again. On some level, he knows, everything he's done since arriving in Darrow has been to avoid thinking about that loss.

It's certainly not the same as what Martin's gone through--what he'd already been going through before this gruesome scene. And obviously Eliot can't just replace one of the most important people in his life with someone he only met a month or so ago. But he understands feeling lonely, and bereft, and Martin needs this. Martin needs to be hugged more, and Eliot needs to be a better friend to him.

He only sniffles a little when Martin finally pulls away, and the loss of that comfort (Martin's so soft) is replaced with relief, as he seems to be...well. A bit less on the edge of a breakdown.

Eliot clears his throat when Martin finishes speaking, and looks over the stain. He's starting to see a clear course of action, and it helps; he can almost look at the blood without wincing. "Well I think," he says slowly, looking at the color of it as he edges toward the kitchen, "it's probably sat too long for me to just...whoosh it away, you know." That and it's a whole person's worth of blood.

"Peroxide, though, that's actually very doable." He even manages a tiny smile as he hangs his coat up and starts to roll up his sleeves. "How about you start filling up the sink, and then I can rearrange some molecules."

~9:00 AM (for John)

[loficharm]

Martin has been awake now for over 24 hours, and it's starting to seep into his bones. He's beyond tired - he knows he's starting to edge toward delirious. But he ignores Eliot's ginger suggestions of going home. Out of the question. He needs to be with John; he needs to be there when John wakes.

So, for the third time in twelve hours, he stumbles his way between the Bramford and the Archive. At least Eliot was able to clean up his clothes as well as the flat. Martin knows he probably could have fixed John's as well, but it wasn't worth bringing up. Those, he deposited in the Bramford's communal dumpster before setting off.

He reaches the Archive feeling lightheaded and out of breath - still starving - and pushes the door open a bit more vehemently than he needs to. Kat's there, looking at him, but he only sees John, hunched over the tea station. Shit.

"John," he says, his voice coming out a bit hoarse. He knows he must look and sound like he's been crying, which he has. He makes his way over, reaching out to set his hand cautiously on John's arm. "Are you okay?"

[statement_ends]

John's in the middle of preparing his second cup of the morning -- he'd knocked back the first rather quickly, and hopes a second might help stave off the more mundanely human portion of the hunger he's feeling -- when the door jingles, and Martin pushes his way inside, Eliot somewhere behind him. He's wearing his own clothes again, the same outfit John had bled all over, though it's spotless and unwrinkled, now. Must have been a successful trip.

But aside from the clothes, Martin looks like hell. He's pale and drawn, his eyes red-rimmed, and his voice is a bit rough when he speaks. John straightens, his hands still going about the process of making tea, though they adjust the proportions of milk and sugar without any conscious order from John's brain. It's Martin's cup, now; he looks as if he needs it more.

He's not quite expecting the hand on his arm, as if the slow encroachment of daylight and normalcy should have relegated all that to memory: something they did, not something they do. But his surprise only lasts a moment before he softens, looking down at Martin in undisguised concern.

"I'm okay," he murmurs, lifting his hand to gently clasp Martin's arm in turn. "What about you? Did you sleep at all?"

[loficharm]

"I-" He's not expecting the question, the gentility of it, the returned hand on his arm. He looks briefly and with incomprehension at the cup John's been preparing, then back up to him. "No. I - I'm fine. John-"

He wants to cover John's hand with his own. He wants to pull him in, craves that closeness which last night felt so necessary that it could almost be normal. He just keeps his free hand at his side.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, wishing he didn't sound and look so pitiful. "I said I'd be here."

[statement_ends]

The 'no' isn't really a surprise, but John still huffs out a faintly unhappy breath at the answer. Christ, that means he's going on over 24 hours without sleep, now. Only a matter of time before he starts hallucinating, at the rate things are going. He's certainly not fine.

John does briefly reconsider the tea he's made, but decides it'll probably do more good than harm. The caffeine won't be enough to offset that much sleep deprivation, and he needs the calories.

"Martin..." John sighs again. It was a little unpleasant, if not disappointing, to wake to an empty office after all that. But he's guessing neither of them anticipated Eliot and Kat coming in -- not because they shouldn't have, but because a lot had happened, and they'd both been too exhausted and preoccupied to remember which day of the bloody week it was. Regardless, he's not going to hold a magical flat-cleaning against them because the timing wound up being imperfect.

"It's all right," he says, giving Martin's arm a light squeeze before releasing him and picking up the tea. "Here, come on." He nods towards his office, trying to gently steer Martin in that direction. It would probably be best not to continue the conversation in front of Kat and Eliot and anyone else who might walk in.

Once they're inside, the door shut quietly behind them, John guides him over to the cot and presses the cup of tea into his hands. "Sit. And drink this; you should get something down."

[loficharm]

Martin almost flinches at the tired sigh of his name. He feels suddenly, ridiculously, like he's about to be told off or dismissed, when John hasn't spoken to him like that in years, when he's now technically John's boss. The reassurance and gentle pressure on his arm come as slow surprises, and he looks dumbly at John's hand as it pulls away from him.

He goes along with John easily. There's no alternative, nothing else he might conceivably do at this juncture. He's at the bitter end of his tether, his hunger wearing away into nausea, his fragile grasp on his own emotional wherewithal eroding quickly. He lets John guide him into his office and to the cot, where he sits and takes the cuppa without understanding at first.

The instructions are easy to follow. He drinks. It's sweet, made again the way he likes it, though that isn't as pleasant as it normally would be. It feels incongruous with everything else.

He wants to apologize again for not being here, but John has already reassured him once, and he fears being a nuisance. He looks cautiously up at John, eyes flicking to the scar on his throat and away, to his face.

"You're all right," he says softly - he thinks he meant it to be a question, but it comes out more like a very tired, awed sort of relief.

[statement_ends]

John watches Martin sip at his tea, a faint line between his eyebrows. He looks like a wreck, and John just wants to--to fix it, somehow. Amid the chaotic smear of last night's memories, he can still easily recall Martin softly promising to take care of him. He just doesn't know if Martin would allow for the reverse.

Not that caring for anyone (himself very much included) has ever been John's forte.

"I'm all right," he echoes, settling himself on the cot beside Martin. The only other options are looming over him, dropping into a crouch like a children's footie coach, or going to sit at his desk as if this is some sort of bizarre counseling session. The cot seems preferable to all that, and he gives Martin a foot and a half of space, trying not to hover too close, or to project a chilly distance he certainly doesn't feel. Within arm's reach.

John swallows, his elbows resting on his knees, then ventures, "I, er... I got your texts."