Work Text:
Martin brushed a few errant strands of hair from Jon’s eyes. “Go ahead and ask,” he murmured. They were spending the night - he tried not to think of it as the last night - curled together in his bed. Imitating Jon’s voice, he continued, “‘Are you sure about your part in this plan, Martin?’”
“I suppose it’s too late to try to hide our thoughts from each other,” Jon admitted with a faint smile. “But if you aren’t sure…”
“I’m not,” Martin said. “But I still want to go through with it.”
“You already have some idea of what Elias can do,” Jon reminded him. “He’s likely to be even more ruthless when challenged.”
“Then I’d best make the challenge count,” Martin said firmly, pushing away the memories of Elias nudging him into Peter Lukas’s chilly, choking embrace. Jon had been there to see him through those memories, and would always be there to protect what was his… “You concentrate on stopping the dancing vampire clowns. I’ve got this.”
Jon’s kiss carried the briefest press of fangs. “I trust you.”
“Isn’t that my line?” As he spoke, Martin told himself that they’d already plotted and fretted as much as humanly or inhumanly possible, and let himself melt into Jon’s embrace.
---
The paper in Martin’s hand was crumbling at the edges, and long-ago moisture had smudged the curling script that formed My Dearest Jonah… The rest of the page was dotted with spilled ink. Later, Martin would understand how badly its writer’s hands had been shaking.
He held his lighter to the page, and as Elias demanded, “Did Jon order you to do this?” Martin had the satisfaction of seeing him, for the first time, visibly upset.
“You don’t think I could come up with this idea on my own?” Martin retorted as the paper turned to ash.
“After everything you’ve learned about the Beholding clan and our thralls, I’m surprised that you presume to know which decisions are your own.” Elias had recovered some of his customary calm. “Your master can make you do, and remember, whatever he pleases.”
“Oh, is that supposed to be some sort of revelation? The power imbalance between Jon and me might have crossed my mind once or twice while I was getting sick from blood withdrawal or... or crying my eyes out because I couldn’t follow his orders to the letter.” Martin tried not to think about how he’d come back from that desperate state. “But we all know who put us in this situation, Jonah .” It was the first time that he’d called his boss by the name he’d used two hundred years ago.
Martin reached for another statement and braced himself for what he knew was coming.
---
Jon’s hands were so still .
Even before his coma, no pulse had beaten in his wrist. But his fingers had been busy, more often than not, with a pencil or a drawer full of files or the buttons of Martin’s shirt. When Martin sat beside the bed and reached for Jon’s hand, those fingers didn’t so much as twitch.
“Hi, Jon,” he said softly. “I wanted to tell you this in person -- I still hope it’ll help -- but I’ve got a tape going, too, so you’ll have an explanation in case anything happens to me. To the me that you know.” Earlier that day, Martin had forgotten the location of the Tube station that had taken him to work for years, left only with the panicked sense that he needed to be somewhere , until the fog had cleared.
“You probably couldn’t See into the Archives from all the way in Yarmouth,” he continued. They’d tested Jon’s psychic range together, since it wasn’t as if Melanie or Tim would have participated willingly. “And I still hope you would’ve been more focused on stopping the Unknowing than checking on us. But, for what it’s worth, everything went according to our plan at first. I distracted Elias while Melanie snuck into his office. I wish I could say that she found a way to break our enthrallment, or find anything that could put a dent in his power, before he got back, but we couldn’t manage it; we…” Failed , something whispered inside him. Failed our master . “He showed up in the Archives while I was burning a letter from Barnabas Bennett. Maybe that was where he got his idea.” Or maybe this was always meant to happen , Martin thought sometimes.
“He accused me of ‘acting out.’ I told him what I thought of that . Told him what I thought about a lot of things, actually: about how he fed on us in secret, made us believe that monster was Sasha, meddled with our memories, turned you into…” Martin trailed off. “He stood there and smiled until I asked if he was going to, you know, shove something horrible into my head. Like he did to Melanie.
“He said, ‘I suppose that I must, as much as it will disappoint Jon.’ I said, ‘Like you care how Jon feels.’
“His eyes were already red, but I swear they glowed brighter when he asked me, ‘You think you know a lack of care when you see it? Let me show you what it truly means to be forsaken .’”
The word summoned the fog back into his mind ( forsaken by your master ), and he forced the next part of the story through lips that suddenly felt far too cold, describing the images and sensations that had poured into his head. “I saw the parts of Bennett’s life that I hadn’t read about: loving Jonah, letting him feed, hoping to become his , making a mistake that landed me… sorry, I mean Barnabas … at Mordechai Lukas’s feet instead.” He could almost taste the blood that flowed onto his tongue from Mordechai’s hand, and tears (of shame, of fear, of longing ) gathered in his eyes. “The memories felt so real that I didn’t realize that they weren’t mine, until Melanie snapped me out of it. She told me that they’d start to fade after a few days, and I believed her.”
Martin rubbed his neck with his free hand, an old habit that had faded over the past year. “After... after the explosion, we were distracted for a while, between making sure we could still get blood from you, and…” He swallowed. “Grieving for Tim and Daisy. I think I dreamed about the Lonely, most nights, but since then, the dreams have started creeping in during the day. When Basira came into the Archives yesterday, I had no idea who she was at first.” He couldn’t stop his voice from wavering. “Every time I go outside, everything is so bright and crowded and I almost miss the mews where Mordechai used to keep his thralls. I think most of them got used to the quiet and the isolation, after a while. Once they stopped missing the people that mattered to them, and worrying about anyone missing them back.”
For the first time since he’d sat down, he made himself look at Jon’s face. “You’d probably tell me not to hide this from Basira and Melanie. That you hurt yourself and us by keeping secrets, and it’s important to hold onto those connections, now more than ever. And you’re probably right, but…” But every time Martin thought about it, he grew a little more determined not to burden them with his problems. “I’m pretty sure Elias knows what’s going on. He usually does, yeah? And every time I see him, he smiles like it’s a secret we share.” Like I shared my blood and mind and promises, like Jonah shared his kisses and sweet words… Martin clenched his teeth against the heady swirl of yearning thoughts. “He hasn’t said or done anything about it yet, and I told him off once, didn’t I? Maybe I can do it again, before…” Before I fade away.
If Jon were awake, he would See that fear easily, but Martin wasn’t ready to put it into words. “I guess I’m telling you all this, right now, so you’ll know that I’m trying to hold on. To remember that I’m Martin Blackwood, and I… we belong to each other more than I could ever belong to the Lukases or Jonah.” He finally let the tears fall, whispering, “Please come back to me,” and gripping Jon’s hand long after there was nothing left to say. The tape spooled shut with a click.