Chapter Text
He couldn’t feel his hands. Martin did not realize he’d been losing his grip at all until all at once, he couldn’t feel his hands.
He’d had lost track of the seconds he’d wasted pressing his fingers together, counting each press. Index to thumb. One. Thumb to middle. Two. Thumb to ring. Three. He’d done well, at first, getting all the way up to twenty before his brain scrambled and he had to start over again. He’d skip a finger and shake his head, then his hands, as if to wipe it all away. Then, he’d start again.
Index to thumb.
One.
Thumb to middle.
Two.
Thumb to ring.
Three.
Thumb to middle.
No, no, no, that’s all wrong. That’s not the order. You’ve done it again. Start over.
Maybe it was just his pinkies that he couldn’t feel. That happened, sometimes, when he wasn’t breathing. Was he breathing? Yes, yes, he was, he…. there was a movement there. Up and down, distantly, like someone was breathing for him two rooms down. There was breathing, a wave on which he tried to stay above, but it wasn’t deep enough. Everything felt fuzzy and disjointed. His lungs had somehow placed themselves somewhere he could not find them. His heart was going with it, feet to the pavement, no hope of catching it now. His skin didn’t feel like skin. Had he always been able to feel each individual ridge on his fingerprints? It made him feel sick.
Thumb to pinky.
Ten.
Thumb to pinky.
Ten.
He was five again, perched upon the edge of one of the chairs arranged around his mothers dining room table. The juice from his overturned cup seeped across the table and dripped down onto the carpet. He tapped his fingers together. The girl who sat next to him during lunch taught him how to do it when he’d dropped his sandwich on the ground and wasn’t allowed another. He could count to thirty, if he tried. He got to three before the yelling started; he reached five before his hands were being slapped and he was being pushed along to clean up his mess.
Thumb to pinky.
Ten.
Thumb to index.
Eleven.
Eleven.
Eleven.
Eleven.
Perhaps it was his fault. Martin K. Blackwood was not fit to be a researcher. He hadn’t even been particularly fantastic at science in secondary school. He’d always been more of an English person. His social skills were left wanting, making chasing down statement-givers and personal records a challenge at times. That was more Tim’s thing. Even when he wasn’t flirting his way through his workload, he had a certain way of approaching others that put them at ease. Sasha was the same, though her warm demeanor leaned more towards empathetic friend than wily court jester. Martin tried his best. He did his work to the best of his abilities and followed every file through to the end, but there was something… wrong. No matter what he did, there was always something wrong.
Martin was not fit to be a researcher. He was not fit to deal with the horrors that were circling them all, sharks in the water. He feared he’d be the first to bleed and start the hunt. Jon certainly seemed to think he would be.
Face it, Martin. It’s just you. You know how this works. You try—you try so very hard—and you fail. You fail, and you have to smile and accept your failure, because you can’t ever let on that something is wrong. People will be angry with you. Your friends will be angry with you. Jon will be angry with you.
That last bit was already a lost cause. That was why he was here, wasn’t it? Why he was sat in the corner behind some old row of filing cabinets, tapping his fingers and trying to will himself to stop shaking.
Always the shaking.
Martin didn’t cry much. You wouldn’t know this from looking at him. Soft, rounded face, big wet eyes, a reappearing crease in his eyebrow— tender heart to boot. It wasn’t as if he was afraid to. For better or for worse, he was the type of man who could not ignore his feelings even if he wanted to. The tears simply never came. There was this monumental pressure in his skull, an ache to let go and let go and let go, but the most he got was a reddened face and watery eyes.
And he shook. And he counted his fingers. And searched for his lungs again somewhere between his mind and his heart, all three tied in a hopeless, pulsing mass of heat and panic and pain.
Two hundred and ninety seven.
The teacup rattled on its saucer. The delicate purple flowers that echoed across its outside blurred, just for a moment. The gold accents on the lip of the cup emerged in a less-than-ideal sheen under the fluorescents of the office; its’ mirrored counterparts on the saucer faired no better. Martin paused for a moment in the middle of the hall and tried to recenter himself. He hadn’t anticipated the vibrant wash of color to drain away from the cup the moment he left the breakroom, but he was resilient. It was still his favorite cup. He’d been saving it for something special. A special cup of tea.
It was silly. The tea inside was no different than he always made. Two hundred and ninety-seven cups of tea he’d made for Jon, and at two hundred and ninety eight, he decided it was time for something new.
In his mind, he saw himself walking into Jons office with a casual sort of confidence. “Tea’s up,” he’d say, and place the saucer perfectly on the square of desk that wasn’t covered by Jon’s paper’s. Jon would look up at the tea and his lips would quirk up in what Martin knew was a smile. He’d look up at Martin with a twinkle in his eyes that he hadn’t had before and say, “Is that a new cup?” Martin would shake his head, maybe chuckle, maybe not, and reply, “No. It’s actually mine, old family thing. It’s nothing, really. The flowers just reminded me of you.”
Somehow, this would charm Jon so thoroughly that they’d end up chatting for an hour, and when they were all through they’d have plans to do something after work. My treat, Jon. No, I insist. You’re always working so hard here. Let me do something nice for you.
Reality was never Martin’s strongest suit. In actuality, the teacup started rattling again the moment he stepped through Jon’s door. He managed to set the tea on the desk without incident, but bumped the empty chair on his side of the desk when he stepped back, mumbling a quick ‘sorry’ to the damned object.
Jon did not reply. He did not look up. Martin must’ve stood there and stared for almost thirty seconds before Jon’s eyes bounced up to his and sent the gears in his head turning again.
“Uh,” Martin said eloquently, “tea. It’s—jasmine.”
“Right,” Jon replied. His eyes flashed briefly to the cup, then back down to his paper.
The silence that fell between them wasn’t pleasant. After a moment, Jon looked back up at Martin, his mouth tucked into a straight line.
“Consistency is key, Martin. Your choice in teacup is a bit behind.”
What?
Martin blinked. He looked down at the cup, his mouth slightly ajar. There was a taste on the tip of his tongue, words that now writhed and crawled back towards his throat. Something about flowers and Jon and wilted petals.
“My…choice in teacup,” Martin echoed blankly.
“Well, sure. I didn’t think it’d be wise to bring up your quality of work in this moment,” Jon replied. Something flashed in his eyes that Martin didn’t recognize.
Oh. So this was critique.
Really, Martin should’ve seen it coming. He’d let himself get too comfortable recently. Jon had been a bit better to him, at least marginally. If he had a hunch, he would have placed his bets on the hour-long meeting Jon had had with Sasha the other day, from which they’d both emerged looking rather troubled and Jon wouldn’t meet his eyes for the rest of the day. He didn’t have much of a guess as to what she could’ve said to him, and him to her. Martin hadn’t told her to do anything. It was no secret that Jon was harder on Martin than the other two, but no one had said anything before. That was fine; Tim and Sasha were his friends. They always tried to include him in their plans for after-work drinks and lunch outings, and he always had fun when he actually accepted. Martin was a grown adult and could stand up for himself, and Sasha especially seemed to acknowledge this.
Still, when Martin inquired about the topic of their unspecified “interpersonal relations” meeting, Sasha had smiled at him not unkindly and asked him what his lunch plans were. To his disappointment, he received no further details at the Chinese place they ended up at. There’d been lots of vague talk about insecurity and ‘feeling welcomed in the workplace’, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
All of this is to say that Jon had been okay as of late. Pleasant, even, on his good days. He’s stopped going out of his way to critique Martin every time he came into his line of sight and even nodded once or twice to him when passing in the halls. On one memorable occasion, Martin had managed to trick Tim with the old what’s-that-on-your-chest trick when he was being extra mischievous and Jon had looked mildly amused. When it came to Jon, those things were on the same level as being told your crush thinks you’re cute. Martin had let his hopes rise a bit too high.
In a second, all that confidence was gone. It wasn’t squashed as much as it was dimmed quite drastically, like someone had put the setting on his gas-lit stove too low.
“No, it—yeah, ha, perhaps not,” Martin finally choked out. He’d taken a bit too long to respond and Jon’s eyebrows were starting to pull together and he did not want to be scolded for wasting his time. He floundered awkwardly for a moment, his feet backing out of the room before he knew what he was doing.
“Martin- “
“Enjoy the tea!” Martin squeaked, then was out of the room before Jon could continue. As soon as he heard the door shut behind him, his breath rushed back into his lungs and along with it rushed a burning, blinding shame.
So much for special tea. Martin was quiet on his way back to his desk. For a while, he just sat and stared at his blank computer screen,
Inconsistent. Martin thought himself to be many less-than-nice things, but inconsistency had never been on his radar. If anything, he was the opposite, right? He brought Jon the exact same tea at the exact same time every single day. He took great pains to follow the template Jon had suggested for his research formatting. He never once forgot to say good morning to Rosie each time he came in. Hell, his entire life had been built on consistency when he was dealing with his mother’s medication scheduling. Why would Jon say that?
He supposed he did slip up sometimes. He could be a day or two late on his research sometimes. He was dubious about when and where he actually decided to be social, especially when it came to Tim and Sasha’s constant attempts at plans. He got bored sometimes and tried to get a little creative with his language in his case research summaries when the monotony of technical language got to him. He changed the ratio of sugar in Jon’s tea sometimes, just slightly, in his attempts to ascertain what he enjoyed the most. The more he thought about it, the more he was filled with a bleak certainty that Jon had been right.
Wonderful. Martin sighed and set his head down on his desk. Add ‘inconsistent’ to your ever-growing list of character flaws.
Later that night, Martin was sitting on his couch, notebook open on his lap. The page was empty. On the TV was a movie Martin had flipped on without paying much attention. The shot of a mother and daughter in a dressing room played on the screen.
I wish that you liked me, the daughter says
Of course I love you, the mother replies.
But do you like me? The daughter replies.
Martin turned off his TV. He does not know what the mothers response was. In his world, it will only ever be silence, as the TV powered down before her reply. He had the strangest itch to turn it back on, but he did not. He put his pen to blank paper and wrote.
I love you,
and I wish I didn’t know you.
I-
Martin closed his notebook and went to bed.
Thumb to index finger.
One.
Thumb to middle finger.
Two.
The sheetrock was cold against his back. He could feel the hard concrete under the thin carpet that they put in every sort of corporate building. The only thing around him that didn’t feel uninviting was the fold-out file boxes filled with aging old papers stretching on in rows to his right. He ignored it all, ignored the files, the wall, the thought of indigo flowers and dressing rooms, and tried to just fucking breathe.
It was hard to say what he was feeling. What had started as the familiar curdle of panic that stripped him of his higher faculties was morphing to encompass a deep pool of something black and sticky. It tasted an awful lot like despair.
Martin took his favorite teacup out of rotation. For the next several weeks after its wasted use, he returned to the basics; keeping his head down as he worked, polite conversation in the breakroom, gray marble cup for Jon. Nothing more than a “tea, Jon”, or “I’ll leave this here.” He rejected Sasha’s invitation to lunch three times in a row and two more from Tim. It wasn’t all so bad, really. Life was simple this way. It was easy to let himself fade from view and get by. It would’ve been easier if he’d stopped bringing Jon tea without being asked, but he supposed some things never changed. It was what he did. Martin was clumsy. Martin wasn’t good at making eye contact for very long. Martin wasn’t much good with anything at all. Martin brought Jon a cup of tea every day.
He could’ve continued like that forever, if he wanted. He wasn’t sure if Jon nodded at him in the hallways anymore. When had he stopped looking? Had he stopped looking? He supposed he had.
The trees outside the Institute this time of year. Martin sat on the great stone steps at the front and watched the reddish-gold dance in the breeze. The light from the setting sun punched through, making the world seem like it’d all lit ablaze. The breeze snaked its fingers in Martins scarf and over his neck. He wrapped his coat around him a little tighter.
“What are you doing?”
Jon was standing above him, a frown etched into his features. Martin squinted up at him with one eye. The sun caught the silver bits in Jons long hair. It seemed to set him ablaze too.
Martin held up the partially eaten apple in his hand. “Lunch.”
Jon looked at his watch, then pointedly at Martin. He was well aware it was 6pm. Martin didn’t think Jon was in any position himself to judge.
“Forgetful,” Jon said simply. He tilted his head to the side.
Okay. Martin swallowed down the sting Jon’s words sent through him and looked back out to the trees. “By the time I remembered I hadn’t packed a lunch, I’d already turned Sasha down on her lunch plans. And then I got busy,” he said. Remember the stack of files you’d dropped on my desk? he wanted to say, but did not. It was his job, after all.
“That was nice of her to offer,” Jon replied with a thoughtful look.
It was then that Martin noticed the briefcase in Jons hand, and the brown scarf wrapped haphazardly around his neck. It was rare for Jon to go home this early—sometimes at all—and, despite everything, the sight pleased Martin. Jon looked more and more each day like he’d never be rid of those bags underneath his eyes.
“Right, well. That’s what I’m doing, then. Apple,” Martin said. He thought of taking another bite, then decided against it.
“Hm. Going out with Sasha would have probably been more fruitful than your culinary endeavors,” Jon said. As he said it, there was a curious upturn in his voice and in his eyes that was completely foreign to Martin. Was he…. making fun of him?
For the second time, Martin swallowed down his hurt and gave Jon a wry smile. “Goodnight, Jon,” he said. He got up and gave Jon a nod, then turned back into the Institute without another word.
“You should try it, you know.”
Martin looked up, suddenly aware he was being spoken to. Tim stood smiling over him, a sort of playful lean in his stance.
“Sorry, what?” Martin said blankly.
Tim nodded down at the paper in front of Martin. On it, his name was scrawled over and over from his mindless attempts at perfecting his signature. Martin K. Blackwood.
“Start dotting the ‘I’ with a heart.”
Martin crinkled up his nose and gave Tim a look of confusion.
“Why would I do that?”
“S’ cute. Eye-catching. If your aim is to catch attention, anyway. I bet Jon would have a comment or two about it,” Tim replied. He winked and went to sit at his own desk, just adjacent to Martin’s.
“Why would I care if Jon noticed?” Martin replied a little too quickly, his eyes darting to Jon’s closed door. “My name is hardly the part of our report he cares about.”
“Maybe when it comes to me or Sasha, but you? I reckon he’s just waiting for something as small as a signature change to yammer on about,” Tim replied. He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, but whatever he was suggesting went over Martin’s head completely. All he could think about was whether or not Tim was right. What if he was giving Jon all kinds of new things to pick apart without even realizing it? Did Jon really hate him that much?
Jons office door suddenly creaked open. Jon stepped out, his face set in determination, his eyes on Tim.
“Tim. I’ll have you in my office now,” Jon said. Tim let out a little ‘oh, right!’ and hopped up. Martin frowned and leaned forward. There hadn’t been any routine meetings scheduled. After his initial meeting with Sasha, Jon had had one more with her, and now Tim.
“Anything I should be privy to?” he asked hesitantly.
Jon looked at him, seeming to be surprised at Martin’s presence. He opened his mouth to speak, but Tim piped up before he could.
“No worries, Martin—just another “interpersonal relations” scenario, bleh. Been scheduled for ages,” Tim said. He looked towards Jon and nodded.
Martin only frowned deeper. This had been planned? He must’ve planned it with Sasha as well. “Oh, really? I’m sorry, I must’ve missed the memo. Is there somewhere I can sign up for a slot? Online calendar, or….?” Martin replied, his question directed back at Jon.
Jon stiffened slightly. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Then a physical calendar? Or a sticky note? I know you don’t always prefer to- “
“I mean—I won’t be requiring a meeting with you at this time, Martin. Sasha and Tim are sufficient for this…… assignment.”
Martin went quiet again, his eyes flickering back to Jon’s open office door. He wasn’t a stranger to Jon disregarding him in favor for his other two assistants on some cases, but quite honestly, he’d thought they’d moved past that. Hindsight had sufficiently proved that they all worked better together. The smaller, more personal part of Martin flared with hurt at being locked out.
“Are…. are you sure? I know I’m not always on par with their expertise, but I’d like to think I can lend a hand when it—”
“I said no, Martin. This one is not about you. Stay out of it,” Jon suddenly snapped. He did not look angry, but Martin wasn’t able to get a clear look at his face before he turned towards his office, giving Tim a stiff jerk of the head in the direction. Tim gave him an apologetic look and followed, closing the door behind him.
It was then, staring at the bland wood of the closed door, that the seed of desperation planted itself alongside the confusion and hurt that’d been slowly budding in Martin’s chest. What could he have done wrong? It had to be something. Whatever made his very fragile footing with Jon slip, he needed to get it back.
He spent the next hour going through his recent notes, looking for anything Jon could’ve marked down as a grievous enough error to ice him out. Pages and pages of scrawled observations, paper and phone number trails, half-successful interviews, all compared to his final write-ups on his computer, and he found nothing. Nothing. He’d even been careful to leave out any flowery language and keep his conclusions concise. All evidence led down dead-end roads. Frustration wasn’t the right word for what he felt. What he felt was…. well, it was closer to dread.
If it wasn’t his work, then there were few conclusions he could draw other than it was something with him. Something personal. Martin knew better than to think that Jon would admit to personal bias coloring his work relationships, but anyone who spent more than a day working with the man knew that he was just as susceptible to favoritism as the rest. Not much could be said about Jon’s reasoning if this had happened at an earlier date, but as of recent, Martin kept concluding that Jon simply did not like him and had now decided to go to lengths to keep him farther away.
It hurt, but the hurt was familiar. He’d seen it a thousand times before. He’d seen it when his old friends used to find every excuse to ignore his requests to spend time together; he’d seen it in every passive-aggressive comment his mother had ever made, like it was his fault she had him. There was something about him that fundamentally repelled others. Sometimes it took a while, but he always ended up alone. He knew Jon wasn’t partial to him from the start, but this felt different. The beginning of the end, he assumed, and Tim and Sasha were already following him out the door.
They’d all be gone. Soon, his workplace would become somewhere he wasn’t wanted by anyone. While his mother was still with him, work had become his refuge from that exact feeling. This was like his worst nightmare coming true.
The indistinct voices coming from Jon’s office were becoming louder. Martin could hear the floor creak as the two made their way to the door. Before he knew what he was doing, Martin was up on his feet and hurrying to meet them. He reached the door right when it opened, coming face to face with a very startled Tim and Jon.
“Let me help,” Martin said, trying and failing to sound composed. He was breathing rather hard, he realized, despite Jon’s office door being a mere fifteen feet from his desk. When had that started? The air felt rather thin.
Jon’s face cycled through a thousand tiny expressions in the span of a second before locking back into his normal neutral. ‘Martin, I don’t—”
“Please,” Martin interjected. He cringed inwardly at the way his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. “I mean—I mean you’d be doing the wrong thing. If you… if it’s only Tim and Sasha. No offense, Tim.” Tim simply shrugged his shoulders. “I know I haven’t always been good—no, I know I was bad, I was properly shit—but I can do better. I have done better. Let me show you I can be an asset to the team.”
For a moment, Jon just stared at him, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. Jon often had a look about him like he was constantly solving a puzzle inside his mind, but this was deeper, as if he’d unlocked some hidden compartment to his puzzle that only made the solution harder to grasp. Martin hated himself for thinking how pretty he looked, how the creamy brown in his eyes seemed to liquify. He was staring into Martin’s soul, and the air only felt thinner.
Silence. There was the faint click of a door opening in the distance. Then, all at once, the shadow fell off of Jon’s face and his eyes turned into something…. soft. Unsure. Pity, Martin wanted to say, but he beat that thought back with all his might.
“Very well,” Jon said, in a tone that matched his eyes and made Martin feel sick in the most pleasant of ways. “I will put together the necessary files for you to delve into.”
Behind him, Tim made an odd sort of choking sound. His expression looked uncharacteristically conflicted. “Uh, Jon—”
“Not a word, Tim. Martin will now be assisting us. You will come to me and me alone with your research, and only when I find it satisfactory will we meet and discuss. That goes for you too, Martin,” Jon commanded. He turned and gave Tim a look, then leveled Martin with a similar gaze.
At that moment, Martin couldn’t care less about what Tim had against him helping. Jon had given him a chance to redeem himself, and it hadn’t even taken that much convincing. Not only that, but Jon had stood up for him—in a sort of way. His mood lightened significantly, but alongside that came a healthy dose of anxiety. He had to get this one right. This might be his last chance to get in Jon’s good graces.
“I won’t let you down,” Martin said. Jon stopped in the middle of shoving Tim out of his office to give Martin a hopeful sort of look that would go on to power Martin for a whole week.
Martin proved himself wrong yet again. He’d been so sure he wasn’t going to cry this time, just like so many times before it, but now here he was. He hadn’t realized it was happening until he felt a tear fall onto his hands, and it’d started him so bad that he gasped. That gasp turned into a choke, which turned into a sob, and he found himself full-body sobbing on the floor in the file room. Ridiculous finger-tapping forgotten. His entire body was tingling, like every nerve had fallen asleep and was now waking up hungry for oxygen that he couldn’t supply. He dug the palms of his hands into his eyes, trying to stop the tears, trying to distract himself with the sporadic lights and waves that appeared in his vision when he did so. There was the sound of gasping coming from somewhere, a desperate in and out of someone who’d completely lost control, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It didn’t cross his mind that it could be him.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Martin muttered to himself mindlessly, tapping his head to the beat of his words, ‘c-come on, focus, f-focus, you—” He touched his fingers together shakily again. “One.” He tried to do it again, but he couldn’t. Another wave of that dark, sticky sadness and panic passed through him and he let out another sob. He gave up entirely, curling his hands into his chest and his torso into his knees. He gave into it then. He couldn’t hold back anymore.
Stupid, he thought. He felt like his thoughts were stuck on an endless loop, kicking him into the ground over and over each time they passed him by. Stupid, useless, idiot. Idiot. You can’t do anything right. It was all so simple. You fucked it all up, just like you always do. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Can’t do your job. Can’t take care of yourself. Can’t even take care of others. Your mother was right. Stupid, clumsy, useless, insufferable.
The Archives were achingly quiet, besides the sound of Martin’s desperate crying. Because of this, Martin was instantly aware the very moment he was no longer alone because of the sound of the door opening. He couldn’t get himself to stop now, no matter how much he wanted to. There was a pause, then the sound of quickened steps coming towards him.
“Martin?”
Martin had read a poem once, back before he’d joined the Institute, that he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind. It went something like this:
‘you want to be loved if only to prove it possible: to tell the world that someone saw you as a conquest & came back alive. that above all else, you are worthy of the risk, the effort. you want someone to serve you the evidence: you are not as damned as you think you are. you are not as damned as you think you are.’
He thought he’d loathed it, for a while. The idea of love as conquest, as a badge to be worn and flaunted instead of a flower to cultivate and take care of. He’d thought that it came too close to the idea of love as violence. At the core of his being, Martin was a romantic; he believed—or wanted to believe—that love, no matter the type, was gentle, that it was kind. He’d been affronted by the notion that love could be a single-minded means to an end.
Now, he wasn’t so sure.
What had he been doing, if not using love as the exact thing the poem suggested? As a testament, a stamp of approval. Something he could say when he stopped every person on the street, shaking their shoulders. “I have been loved! Look, see! I have been loved! Please love me!” It wasn’t born of violence as much as a mindless need to prove to himself what he’d learned from a young age was impossible was indeed possible. That he was capable of being loved. That he wasn’t alone in the world.
He'd never think of it as being damned, but close enough to it without having to be so crass. If he was as unlovable as he felt sometimes, he wasn’t damned. It was somewhere adjacent to that, somewhere cold and still and distant, like the empty land of an unformed dream.
Love as an Act of Merciful Conquest. That was the title of the poem. He thought of it again, every time Jon’s gaze on him turned into something softer than he was used to. It was rare, but it was powerful enough to have him wanting to fall to his knees. Please, he’d think, please. Mercy.
Jon had been very clear about his expectations when he handed Martin the files for the project.
“These are the most important files I am ever going to give you,” he’d said severely. It was a stack of maybe three files, all average sized and slightly worn like the rest of the files in the archives. Jon had them outstretched to Martin when he said this and Martin had grabbed the other end, but Jon didn’t immediately let go. “I want you to read them carefully. Analyze everything. Don’t share them or your thoughts with the others until our meeting, lest we sully the academic integrity of this assignment. Do you understand?”
Martin had it in his mind that perhaps he was out of his depth here, but he swallowed and nodded his head anyway. He didn’t think there was any number of statements in the archives possible of pulling such secrecy amongst his coworkers, but he’d been wrong before. If anything, it made the anxious certainty in his gut harden. Don’t screw this up.
Jon had been very clear about his expectations. That was the kicker. He’d been so sure, putting his trust in Martin, all because Martin had begged him to. He should’ve known he’d find a way to ruin that too.
In the grand scheme of things, what happened to those files really wasn’t Martin’s fault. He could not control the weather. The weather channel had not predicted rain for the evening, so Martin hadn’t brought his umbrella. He’d run into an unexpected rainstorm before and kept his things in order, so he wasn’t terribly worried. He figured he’d simply zip the files up in his jacket until he was safe and relatively dry underground. He could not control the rain, nor the biker that’d been half-blinded by the rain, swerving towards him on his way out. Martin had managed to jump out of the way, but only just. He tripped and skidded towards the ground. On impulse, he flailed his arms out to save his face from hitting concrete. He managed to catch himself with only scraped up hands, but in the chaos, he’d foolishly let go of the files under his jacket, and they fell right out of the bottom.
Martin felt nauseous. More than the pain in his hands, more than the chill of the rain, Martin’s heart twisted and rocked in the split-second certainty that he’d just wasted his last chance.
The papers scattered. The rain pelted down, pinning each errant sheet to the ground and in place, but the tradeoff was worse; the admittedly flimsy constitution of the statement papers soaked through within seconds. Martin scrambled to pick them all up and push them back together, but the blood from his scraped hands soaked into the sopping paper, dying them a reddish brown. Martin gathered up every single one he could and ran back inside.
The building was nearly empty by now. Martin ran past the front desk and back into the offices without a problem; his employee ID was good enough to get him through. Once back, he slowed to a brisk walk, just in case any of his coworkers happened to be sticking around.
Tim and Sasha’s desks were empty. One look into Jons open door told him the office was vacant. Martin took a deep breath.
At least he could panic in peace.
Martin didn’t stop to think. He swept everything from his desk and dumped the pile of soaking wet files onto it. He didn’t want to see the damage, but he had to. There had to be something he could save.
It was worse than he thought. The rain had stuck the pages together and softened them beyond recognition. Martin’s heart stuttered unpleasantly in his chest.
“No, no, no, come on,” he muttered to himself. He tried to pick up and peel apart some of the pages only for them to turn to slurry in his hands. The ink was bleeding, blending words together and creating an incomprehensible mess of letters and punctuation.
The air was feeling rather thin again, and this time, there was no one around to hear the way Martin’s breath started to quicken. He looked up and around the room wildly, looking for anything that could help. His eyes landed on the door labelled File Room.
There had to be copies, right?
Martin looked at the pages on his desk. Most was unreadable, but one of the pages still held on to the statement number in the top right corner. Statement number 001275. Martin committed it to memory and ran towards the storage room. Luckily, it was unlocked.
“Zero-zero-one-two-seven-five,” Martin mumbled under his breath. The archives were by no means organized to completion, but there were some rooms that had a half decent system set up since Gertude’s disappearance. He ran up and down the aisles, scanning the numbers on each box, praying that the statement he had was one that’d been categorized. If Jon had had his hands on it, it must’ve been, right?
He was getting closer. He followed the numbers up, running his dirty fingers along the shelves, until suddenly he came to a stop. The tag read: Files 001200 thru 001275.
Martin ripped the drawer open. He saw neat rows of brown files with little tags sticking up that boasted their numbers. At the front of the drawer was nothing—just an empty, glaring hole, roughly the size of three average-sized folders.
There were no copies. Of course there were no copies. As much as Jon insisted upon order, he’d never been a copy sort of guy. He’d plucked those three statements right from their spots and entrusted them to Martin. He'd turned around and let them wash away in the rain.
It was funny, really, that this would be the thing to do it. That a simple lack of paperwork would have Martin sinking to the floor, backing into the corner he was already near, fighting the bile rising in his throat. He’d had enough panic attacks in his life to recognize the beginnings of one coming on, and he needed to try and calm down before it got too far. Things were getting fuzzy and unfocused. He couldn’t catch his breath.
He couldn’t feel his hands. Martin did not realize he’d been losing his grip at all until all at once, he couldn’t feel his hands.
Oh, fate was cruel. If he wasn’t sure of it before, he was sure of it now. His head was pounding, his world was spinning, it felt like the sky might just fall atop him, and that was Jon’s voice calling out to him, his footsteps advancing on him faster than he was ready for. Martin wanted to sink into the floor. He started to shake his head, trying desperately to unscramble his thoughts long enough to get Jon to go away.
“Martin, is that you? Where are you?” His voice was frightfully close, and Martin swallowed down another sob.
“Jon, don’t—”
It was the wrong choice to talk. His voice sounded absolutely wrecked, and if the sudden pause and quickened footsteps told him anything, he’d only made Jon more concerned.
“Are you hurt? Hold on, I’m coming—”
“Don’t—”
“Tell me where you are—”
“I said don’t!”
Jon’s footsteps stopped just at the end of the row. One more and he would’ve stepped right into Martin’s point of view. There was a long, tense moment of silence.
“Are you hurt?” Jon asked. His voice was quieter now, unsure. “I need to know if you’re hurt.”
Martin considered the scratches on his hands. He had a feeling Jon didn’t mean a few measly nicks from falling on the sidewalk.
“I just don’t want you to see me l-like this. Please.”
Silence again. Then, movement. Martin heard Jon’s footsteps again, but they didn’t come around the corner. Instead, they were coming down the aisle right on the other side of the filing cabinets. He stopped just on the other side. There was the sound of shuffling, like fabric against the wall, and then a soft sigh.
“Martin.” Jon’s voice was just beside him now, separated only by the filing cabinet. Martin let out a choked sound and closed his eyes.
“I can’t feel m-my hands,” Martin mumbled. He flexed his fingers numbly.
“Are they still there?”
That gave Martin pause. He let out a watery sound that was somewhere between a laugh and an exhale. “W-what?”
“Your hands,” Jon continued patiently, “are they still there?”
“U-uhm….yes. They…yeah.”
“Connected to your body?”
“Y-yes.”
“And you’re able to move your fingers?”
Martin flexed them again. “Yeah.”
Jon let out a gentle sigh. “Good. That’s good news. That means you’re probably just hyperventilating. Luckily, there’s plenty of oxygen in this room to go around.”
Martin smiled, despite everything, and then he felt miserable all over again. Jon wasn’t supposed to be making him smile. He felt his throat tighten again with renewed tears.
“I’m sorry, Jon.” His voice wobbled. “I’m really, really sorry.”
“Martin, you don’t have to be—”
“I ruined them, Jon,” Martin continued. “The…. the-the files. That you gave me. I… they got wet. In the rain. I tripped, and they went everywhere, and I took them back in here but they were all soggy and mushy and just- just- just kept falling apart when I touched them and—”
“Martin… really, its—”
“—I thought maybe there’d be copies, which is stupid, I know it’s stupid, you’ve never made copies, but I thought that—I don’t know, I just didn’t want this to go wrong, I didn’t want to ruin this, this one thing, but I-I-I did, God, I did, and it’s—”
“—you’re not listening, Martin, the files—”
“—and I just have to accept that I’m never going to get it right, but I just—I just so badly don’t want to disappoint you, and I know that’s stupid, but maybe I’m just—”
“Martin.”
His tone was commanding enough to get Martin to stop his rambling. All at once, the room was plunged into silence again. Jon took in a heavy sigh.
“I lied, Martin.” Jon’s voice was smaller now, almost…sheepish. “I….those files….they’re not….real. I mean—they’re real, but….the project. The assignment. Tim, Sasha, you. It’s….I made it up.”
Silence. A rustle of movement. This time, Martin stood up and peered over the files, down at Jon on the floor.
“What?”