loficharm | Entries tagged with eliot waugh

May 11, 2020

Functionally, nothing's changed. Martin tries to go about his business as usual, and if he brings John his tea a little earlier or a little more often than normal, well, that isn't in and of itself a sign of anything. But things are different, a little, not in any large, profound way, but something small and special. It's a bit how he felt their first few days after they'd started properly seeing one another, with every moment of self-awareness bringing a new rush of giddy feeling.

What they'd done the day before, it doesn't truly change anything, but it still feels... momentous. It's still new. It's still something they share now, tucked away in the flitting looks they pass each other, the smiles, the lingering brush of hands. A little while after lunch, Martin brings the afternoon cuppa to John just as John is stepping out, and they stop in the doorway, each a little startled and a little flustered, and when John takes the cup he also takes Martin's hand and presses a gentle kiss along his knuckles, his eyes never leaving Martin's. A little thrill shivers up Martin's spine, his stomach dropping like he's on a bloody roller-coaster, and he blushes intensely with no means to stop himself. John smiles, smug and satisfied, before drifting off to fetch whatever file he'd come out to get, and Martin makes his fumbling way back to his office.

[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.

( Twenty minutes later he finds himself outside the Bramford. )

Monday, September 23rd, 2019

Day 4 of Cat John

It would be disingenuous to say Martin is getting used to waking up with John in his bed, because that doesn't mean what it sounds like it means, but it's true insofar as John is a still a cat and Martin is getting used to the cat in his bed. And it would be fine if it was just a cat, but it isn't, it's John, and it is the worst thing he can think of, settling into the false warmth of familiarity over something that isn't going to last, that is wholly circumstantial, that wouldn't be happening if it weren't absolutely necessary.

Worst of all by far is that when Martin wakes up this morning, curled over on his side like he often is, he finds John pressed up against him, huddled in a ball against his chest, his little body shaking uncontrollably.

"John?" He sits up, not wanting to touch him, but not knowing what else to do. "John, are you-"

No, he's not all right, and what's more, Martin knows exactly why. They had just been discussing it last night, the worsening hunger for Statements, and Martin had watched John prowl around the flat like a hunter with no prey, and he'd felt the horror grip him, knowing exactly how this would go were John still human, seeing fully how easy it is for that state to take him, how little time it actually takes. It was comforting when the possible solution came from John, about the 'psychic amplifier' he'd met - a clever idea, hopefully, made easier by the realization that Martin had met her, too.

He'd thought they might reach out to Blue today. He was already planning to avoid the Archive as long as necessary, to tell Eliot and Kat they were just out sick, wanting to involve as few people as possible in this. But now, seeing John like this, he realizes with a quick, sickening lurch that they've already waited too long. There is no more might, no more thoughtful consideration and planning, there is only the immediacy of John right now looking like he might give out at any moment.

"Christ," he hisses under his breath and hauls himself out of bed. He grabs some clothes and hurries to the WC, getting dressed as quick as he can and brushing his teeth for about three seconds. No breakfast today, no fixing his hair, nothing. When he comes back into the bedroom, pulling on a light jacket, John is still where he was left. Martin draws a shaky, terrified breath before he leans down over him.

"John," he says quietly, "We're going to find Blue. I have to carry you again, I- I'm sorry about this."

As gently and gingerly as he knows how, he slides his hands under John and scoops him up, tucking him back against his chest, folding him into his open jacket and zipping it up partway. John is still trembling violently, and Martin can only hope the added warmth is enough.

"I've got you," he says softly, and regrets it the moment he's said it.

He makes his way outside as fast as possible and is startled but immediately grateful to see a cab parked along the street just outside, as though waiting for them specifically. He hurries over, quick to catch the driver's attention.

"I need you to take me to Crescent and, uh - erm... Archer Ave." That was it. At least his time spent studying the map is paying off.

"Hang on man, is that a cat," say the driver with the same reluctant, apathetic energy Martin's come to expect from many of the natives.

"Yes, he is, and he's not the one giving you directions; I am," says Martin, managing to sound cold and sharp even while barely hanging onto the thread of what he's saying. "You're going to take me to the cafe on that corner. It's a simple route. Two blocks that way and then several down. You're going to do it quickly and you're going to do it now."

He's not sure where all that came from, but if it gets the job done, he'll take it. The driver sighs but mercifully does not argue, and about five minutes later Martin is stumbling into Un Chat Gris and praying Blue is actually on today.

When he sees her behind the counter he feels like he could cry with relief. "Blue," he says, coming right up to her, dimly aware he's drawing a bit more attention to himself than he'd like. "I - I'm Martin, we met - I need your help."

[Archive Family mini-gathering! While the thread with Blue will obviously be the first thing happening here, after that John will be feeling more like himself, and Eliot and Kat are welcome to get their kicks in as well. Come meet your cat boss.]

September 10th, 2019

"That's the last of it," says the man - Connor, his nametag reads - who's been loading boxes from a nondescript truck into The Archive for the past two and a half hours, and Christ there are a lot of them. 'The last of it' brings Martin's count up to either far too many or surely at least three metric tons.

"Thank you," says Martin rather weakly. The little space, on the cusp of being actually open for alleged business, is now overcrowded to the point of being a fire hazard with boxes and boxes of files, delivered to them so generously (and, honestly, a little too eagerly) by Darrow's City Council. Their application to function as de facto record keepers for the City's constantly shifting array of newcomers had been accepted with rather alarming quickness and efficiency, considering what they'd been given to understand about the soul-numbing bureaucracy of it all. It had felt like a relief - no fuss, no appeal, not even a follow-up; just an agreement and a generous offer of payment that should be more than enough to keep themselves afloat, especially with the aid of John's... extracurricular acquisitions. But really, Martin thinks as he takes in the new weight they've just collected, all that apparent convenience should have been a much greater cause for concern.

Connor, for his part, shrugs, busily setting up the invoice. "If you say so," he says, and turns the digital pad over to Martin for a signature. "I'd wish you luck, but, uh..." He looks around the neatly stacked mess he's made and shrugs again. He doesn't need to add the implicit god rest your sorry soul, that's loud and clear. Martin limits himself to a professional grimace as he fills out the invoice and hands it back.

"Is it just you?" Connor asks with that apathetic energy Martin's come to expect from the locals - they ask questions where appropriate, but they don't really seem to listen.

"No," says Martin absently, his attention on the rows of empty shelves, trying to calculate if they actually have room for all this. "My partner's in the back."

Partner slips out easily, and he reddens by reflex, but Connor's already halfway out the door.

"Well, hope they're good at lifting," he says as he departs, the door swinging shut and leaving Martin in thick, cardboardy silence.

"Hah," Martin replies belatedly. John is presently shuttered in his office and, he believes, recording one of the piecemeal Statements they've managed to gather. He's been having to sort of ration them. Surviving, but not exactly thriving. Martin has more of his strength, but he can barely reach the highest shelves. They'll be able to do it, the two of them, but Christ, it could take weeks.

Well, first things first. He blows air through his teeth and goes to fix them some tea.