[She hates what those words bring. That too-bright, too-sharp thing trying to bloom in her chest at the idea. At the maybe. Hope is too dangerous to have in her life at this point, but it's there. Oh, it's there, and she hates it.]
[ He doesn't like false hope. He doesn't want to make her think he has something concrete yet, because he doesn't, but by God, is he trying. ]
There are some older accounts I need to peruse in more detail, but I believe they are the statements of individuals who have somehow negated the effect of the Beholding.
You have to tell me everything. When you get something solid. I don't care how awful it is, what kind of brutality it takes, if I have to make a goddamn blood sacrifice.
[ Christ. He knew she was vehement about this, knew she wanted solutions, but what if the solution is something none of them can take back? What if the solution is worse? Severing a connexion like this isn't easy, he's sure, but what is the cost, and how much is she willing to pay?
A pound of flesh? ]
Melanie, I promise you. As soon as I know something, as soon as I have anything that looks promising, I will come to you with it.
[Only two, tiny words on a screen, but somehow there is so much feeling in them, still. There is a tension, a heaviness in it all. Possibly one of the most genuine things she's said to Jon in... a long while at this point.]
Oh, you know. Getting by. Not much choice, otherwise, is there?
[There's a pause before she adds: ]
You realize we aren't friends, right? And that by being trapped in the same bloody magically binding bullshit contract doesn't mean you have any obligation to care or worry about me.
I'm not an obligation to be carried, Jon. I'm not a responsibility to be shouldered.
[For once, this isn't something said simply to be an arse to him. It's a bit of an attempt at alleviating the pressure, actually. Taking away the fault from his shoulders. Sure, he has his fingers in just about everything at this point, intentional or otherwise, but... it isn't all his fault, is it? She may have issues with him, but Jon really does have a tendency to try and take on the problems of everyone around him for his own, and... well, Melanie just finds that completely stupid. Everything can't be his fault, can it? Not everything.]
[ Of course they're not friends. They've never been friends, they never will be friends, but Melanie has always fallen under the umbrella of care by virtue of working with and, to an extent, for him. She is someone who deserves his concern and his worry, as all of them do. He'll be his own punching bag over what he can and cannot do to help them, what he's done to harm them - there's no martyrdom, just warranted responsibility. ]
I know that. And perhaps against what might be considered better judgement, given our circumstances, I do care.
I'm not trying to carry you, you've never needed that. I just want to help.
same as the last, no hard feels if you want to drop <3
[By the time they had reached the safehouse, Martin was edging on exhausted. Everything since they somehow stepped back into reality had felt like adrenaline and thrill, more feelings than he thinks he's felt in months that beat through the pulse of his hand in Jon's. Of course there was going to be more to do; of course nothing was ever fully over. But for the time, they were the safest they had been in years, and it was hard to even think about what that was-- what that meant, until later.
All of it still hasn't really processed, in the end. He remembers lying down for a moment and having a fleeting thought about the bed being comfortable before he was socked out entirely. It's not until morning that he's blinking awake, everything feeling foggy and unreal, and--
His heart leaps, just a second, when he can't see and something feels heavy and too close, starting to push from where he is until he can see he can't fucking see--
Until he realizes it's Jon. Until he realizes it's morning.
Martin blinks, trying to steady himself before he reaches up to place a hand on the side of the other man's face. It's a gentle touch, almost a fragile one, like he thinks the other man might disappear if he wants too much, presses too close.]
[ It took more out of him than he anticipated, searching through the fog. Less troublesome was rending Peter Lukas apart with the mortifying ordeal of Being Known and fragmenting that fractured, lonely bastard was the most satisfaction Jon had gotten from a statement in months. Lukas got what he wanted, in the end. Disappearing into nothing, with no one to remember him.
He was quiet for most of the trip up to Scotland, unusually reserved on the train until it left the station, until he was certain Elias - Jonah - wouldn't step out of the crowd and board the car, certain the hunters couldn't find them. Disappearing into the highlands was a relief, a soft hand clutching his own as the landscape rolled past in streaks of green and grey.
Safety, for now. It's enough.
When he wakes up slowly, feeling marginally rested with a great burden shunted from his shoulders, it is with his face pressed into a warm bicep. Something touches his face and Jon blinks, bleary-eyed, inhaling with a sharpness that startles him, exhaling with a scratchy voice. ]
[Despite all of the unnatural, strange things he's seen, it's hard to imagine something like this being real. It's perfectly plausible; falling asleep in a normal bed, with someone pulled close, a quiet morning in the countryside with the light filtering in through a half-closed window. But that, the exact mundane of it all, is why it felt so impossible. It had been years since something was just normal, since he wasn't sleeping in the safe room of an Archive with a corkscrew on his side table, since he was stumbling through the hallways of a creature with fingers too long, since he was running from something terrifying and into something worse. Does he really get to just live, after it all? Do either of them?
He pushes those questions aside, swept easily into something to deal with later as Jon speaks, and he can't help but smile and shake with a moment of laughter.]
I... hey. I'm, I didn't expect to see you. When I woke up, I mean, mostly because I... don't really remember falling asleep.
[Martin yawns, but makes sure he moves only enough to let Jon get comfortable again if he wants. No part of him wants to get up right now, not when this scene seems so close to popping like a bubble on his fingers. But he can't help but smile, leave his hand close to Jon's jawline, like he's holding something precious.
[ Jon replies with measured, uncaffeinated bluntness, characteristic of his usual as his brow runkles into something like mild confusion. But Martin's face splits into a pleasant, relieved sort of smile, soft and content and other emotions Jon doubts he's shared in months. Perhaps longer. Hard to feel, after a while, and hard to know what feeling should feel like in the numbness that follows trauma like a dog at death's heels.
Barely nine o'clock and he's already too deep in his own head. Hell.
Jon inhales deeply, breathing out some of the residual paranoia, the stress. It isn't a simple, easy act - it barely rids him of the nagging sensation that something is going to go horrible awry - but until then he has this. Warmth, in the form of a body next to him. A sprawling landscape outside worth exploring, once he decides to put on some clothes. He lifts his head suddenly, looking down at himself. ]
We didn't change. [ Travel attire, still. Cramped under the duvet. ] ...other than that, I- ...I think so. You?
[If he were somehow more composed, Martin would be more inclined to think it all fake. Jon is-- well, he's Jon, and sometimes that means strange pauses and thinking too much and rumpled clothes. But neither of them have gotten to be so gentle lately, or even ever, and he's trying to hold on to that.
... Which, well, would be easier if he wasn't becoming aware of the way the buttons in his shirt have pressed into his limbs and how he really wish he hadn't slept nearly face down in his belt, of all things. Hell, he's pretty sure he still has a shoe on, and maybe just one. Martin wiggles just a moment, trying to relieve some of the pressure.]
Aside from knowing why people don't sleep in trousers, fine.
[Okay, he's doing much too much gazing at this point, and familiar shame comes back as he averts his eyes, at least pretending to look over the room.]
I guess we really were tired. I mean, it was an awful lot of sitting, but it can really be exhausting, can't it?
[Not touching on that they're outrunning a bunch of cosmic horrors and that he was pulled from a space that likely could have imprisoned him for the rest of time pretty goddamn recently, which was done through apparent sheer force of will, but you know. Details. Little ones.]
I'm glad you got to sleep though. We've uh, done a lot in the last couple of days. Not that-- I mean, you still sleep, of course, I was just hoping it still feels... refreshing?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
panopticism) wrote2019-11-10 12:50 pm
corkscrewed;
[ Yeah, he might have caught on. ]
Or you don't do that, but we still go to a bar.
[ Not that Jon doesn't appreciate the thought... ]
no subject
no subject
[ Less like a monster, slowly drifting away from anything and everything that makes him human. ]
You know.
no subject
[ he gets it. ]
I'll buy you a beer. :)
no subject
no subject
no subject
You have a point.
ghosthuntuk;
I'm trying, Melanie.
I think I'm close to something.
no subject
What have you found?
no subject
There are some older accounts I need to peruse in more detail, but I believe they are the statements of individuals who have somehow negated the effect of the Beholding.
my feeeliiiiings.
You tell me everything, Jon.
Promise me.
I'M EMO
A pound of flesh? ]
Melanie, I promise you. As soon as I know something, as soon as I have anything that looks promising, I will come to you with it.
saaaaameeee
[Only two, tiny words on a screen, but somehow there is so much feeling in them, still. There is a tension, a heaviness in it all. Possibly one of the most genuine things she's said to Jon in... a long while at this point.]
no subject
How are you holding up, in the meanwhile? I know it's a sensitive question.
no subject
[There's a pause before she adds: ]
You realize we aren't friends, right? And that by being trapped in the same bloody magically binding bullshit contract doesn't mean you have any obligation to care or worry about me.
I'm not an obligation to be carried, Jon.
I'm not a responsibility to be shouldered.
[For once, this isn't something said simply to be an arse to him. It's a bit of an attempt at alleviating the pressure, actually. Taking away the fault from his shoulders. Sure, he has his fingers in just about everything at this point, intentional or otherwise, but... it isn't all his fault, is it? She may have issues with him, but Jon really does have a tendency to try and take on the problems of everyone around him for his own, and... well, Melanie just finds that completely stupid. Everything can't be his fault, can it? Not everything.]
no subject
I know that. And perhaps against what might be considered better judgement, given our circumstances, I do care.
I'm not trying to carry you, you've never needed that.
I just want to help.
same as the last, no hard feels if you want to drop <3
I just wanted it clear.
No misguided notions and all that.
kicks your door in with my introspective bullshit
All of it still hasn't really processed, in the end. He remembers lying down for a moment and having a fleeting thought about the bed being comfortable before he was socked out entirely. It's not until morning that he's blinking awake, everything feeling foggy and unreal, and--
His heart leaps, just a second, when he can't see and something feels heavy and too close, starting to push from where he is until he can see he can't fucking see--
Until he realizes it's Jon. Until he realizes it's morning.
Martin blinks, trying to steady himself before he reaches up to place a hand on the side of the other man's face. It's a gentle touch, almost a fragile one, like he thinks the other man might disappear if he wants too much, presses too close.]
Jon...?
8)
He was quiet for most of the trip up to Scotland, unusually reserved on the train until it left the station, until he was certain Elias - Jonah - wouldn't step out of the crowd and board the car, certain the hunters couldn't find them. Disappearing into the highlands was a relief, a soft hand clutching his own as the landscape rolled past in streaks of green and grey.
Safety, for now. It's enough.
When he wakes up slowly, feeling marginally rested with a great burden shunted from his shoulders, it is with his face pressed into a warm bicep. Something touches his face and Jon blinks, bleary-eyed, inhaling with a sharpness that startles him, exhaling with a scratchy voice. ]
Martin.
god u fucking understand me
He pushes those questions aside, swept easily into something to deal with later as Jon speaks, and he can't help but smile and shake with a moment of laughter.]
I... hey. I'm, I didn't expect to see you. When I woke up, I mean, mostly because I... don't really remember falling asleep.
[Martin yawns, but makes sure he moves only enough to let Jon get comfortable again if he wants. No part of him wants to get up right now, not when this scene seems so close to popping like a bubble on his fingers. But he can't help but smile, leave his hand close to Jon's jawline, like he's holding something precious.
Well, because he is, to be frank.]
Are you okay? Uhm, feeling a little better?
OF COURSE................
[ Jon replies with measured, uncaffeinated bluntness, characteristic of his usual as his brow runkles into something like mild confusion. But Martin's face splits into a pleasant, relieved sort of smile, soft and content and other emotions Jon doubts he's shared in months. Perhaps longer. Hard to feel, after a while, and hard to know what feeling should feel like in the numbness that follows trauma like a dog at death's heels.
Barely nine o'clock and he's already too deep in his own head. Hell.
Jon inhales deeply, breathing out some of the residual paranoia, the stress. It isn't a simple, easy act - it barely rids him of the nagging sensation that something is going to go horrible awry - but until then he has this. Warmth, in the form of a body next to him. A sprawling landscape outside worth exploring, once he decides to put on some clothes. He lifts his head suddenly, looking down at himself. ]
We didn't change. [ Travel attire, still. Cramped under the duvet. ] ...other than that, I- ...I think so. You?
<3
... Which, well, would be easier if he wasn't becoming aware of the way the buttons in his shirt have pressed into his limbs and how he really wish he hadn't slept nearly face down in his belt, of all things. Hell, he's pretty sure he still has a shoe on, and maybe just one. Martin wiggles just a moment, trying to relieve some of the pressure.]
Aside from knowing why people don't sleep in trousers, fine.
[Okay, he's doing much too much gazing at this point, and familiar shame comes back as he averts his eyes, at least pretending to look over the room.]
I guess we really were tired. I mean, it was an awful lot of sitting, but it can really be exhausting, can't it?
[Not touching on that they're outrunning a bunch of cosmic horrors and that he was pulled from a space that likely could have imprisoned him for the rest of time pretty goddamn recently, which was done through apparent sheer force of will, but you know. Details. Little ones.]
I'm glad you got to sleep though. We've uh, done a lot in the last couple of days. Not that-- I mean, you still sleep, of course, I was just hoping it still feels... refreshing?