Kept thinking about how weak and disorientated Jon gets when cut off from the Eye, which got me thinking about Martin having to help him as his state got worse.
Surprisingly, instead of getting angsty, I ended up with Jon being carried around like a ragdoll.
tma is a show which spends the first 100 episodes going “look at these monsters. aren’t they fucked up. yeah and they’re all so happy being monsters who hurt people monstrously” and then the protagonist who you’ve spent hours listening to at this point becomes one of those fucked up monsters, forcing you to either dismiss him as evil or you have to fully change how you view all the previous monsters. and then they spend the next 100 episodes dealing with that
He always comes back, but its easier when Jon speaks to him
It just… takes longer to bring him home, when Jon doesn’t catch it early.
He comes back from a walk through the hills to find the safehouse’s kitchenette glimmering with rime, a veil of mist curling around his ankles. He drops his coat in a pile by the door and rushes through to the little sitting area between the kitchenette and the parlor, finding Martin’s indistinct outline at the breakfast table with a stone-cold mug of tea in front of him.
Fuck. Poor Martin. How long had he been sitting there, slipping? He’s nearly all gone.
[Ficlet posted with permission and collaboration from OP. 🫶 Thanks bestie]
This is the worse it’s been since Jon pulled him out of the Lonely. A sickening frisson of fear rips down his spine at the thought that it wasn’t enough. That Jon’s effort, his love, his desperation to save the only good person he has left, will never be enough on its own to just keep him once and for all.
“Oh, Martin… my love,” he sighs. He approaches and, despite the radiating chill and the heavy, metallic scent of rain-soaked sea air, perches on his lover’s lap. The man’s thighs are cold and rigid. Like sitting on the icy headstone of a grave in winter, where the chill has seeped in deep through the pores and cracks of the rock.
Jon loops his arms around where he approximates Martin’s shoulders are amongst the indistinct, shifting mass of blur that is Martin. He makes a similar approximation in order to touch their foreheads together. He stares into his lover’s eyes and Knows him: the faint, hot buzz of his patron’s power coiling hatefully in the back of his skull and the nape of his neck. He’s been trying so hard not to use it. But this… this warrants an exception.
Martin’s outline solidifies just that little bit more, the longer Jon turns the Eye’s gaze upon him.
“Come on back to me, Martin,” he coaxes. There isn’t much there for him to kiss yet. So instead, Jon narrates the most minute details of his walk just now. The pale butterflies he saw. Couple of rabbits. Almost taking a wrong turn. Hiding behind a rock to avoid a pair of villagers on a walk of their own. The inane thoughts he had over breakfast. (Should he cut his hair? He trimmed it a bit since the wild tangle it’d been left in after he awoke from his coma, but there’s still a lot of length left. Too much? He’s not sure. He knows Martin likes to run his hands through it, though.)
And on that note, he spends a little longer than necessary lauding the skill and strength and gentle goodness of those hands, most importantly when they are playing with his hair and rubbing away the building throb of a stress headache. As Jon so often asks of them. He whispers gently,
“I could actually use a little of that tonight, now that I think about it. Haven’t been sleeping as well. You’ll oblige, won’t you?”
A soft, affirmative hum. Martin’s head turns just a fraction up and to the side as if to face Jon more fully, though that pale gaze is still fixed on some point in the middle distance. His shape is clear now. Just still so cold. Jon counts it a victory. Martin is, and always has been, a caretaker at heart. Jon’s noticed — much as he hates the implications — that Jon’s needing something is the most straightforward way to summon Martin back. Not for Martin. Not for himself. But because Jon needs him.
“Thank you, my love. You’re good to me,” he sighs sadly, and leans down to kiss the dew from those cold, cold lips, shivering as he does so. He’s never retained body heat well. Martin is the one who keeps their bed warm. He curses Peter Lukas’s dead name a million times more for daring to rob the world of that warmth, even temporarily. Without it, Jon’s fingertips grow numb. Still he doesn’t let go.
Lacking further topics to babble about, Jon lets himself go there. He might as well. Martin doesn’t hear him when he’s this far gone. Not the words, anyway. Just the tone of voice, the haze of distant ‘Jon-ness’, as Martin affectionately calls it, serving as a lighthouse on the shore. Martin will hardly notice if the light turns a little red from righteous bloodthirst.
“I hate what Lukas has done to us. What he’s still doing. Even dead, he’s found a way to screw with us. To hurt you. Makes me wish I had some link to the End so I could bring him back and kill him again.”
A long pause.
“…Sometimes I wish it had been bloodier. Uglier,” he admits aloud for the first time. “He died in the worst way possible, for him. Known. Seen. But I… even though I Know he died in agony, there’s just this… I keep remembering the mess Elias made of Leitner. The blood everywhere… He didn’t deserve that, least of all from Elias, but I hated that pathetic old man. Beating him to death must’ve been so satisfying. The way Peter Lukas died? It satisfied the Eye. But it didn’t satisfy me. I’d have liked to have had a knife in my hand. Would’ve liked the blood. Just for him, you understand. I wouldn’t ever want to feed the Hunt, or the Slaughter. But with him, it’s personal. I’ll never forgive what he did to you. And a year from now I’ll find his grave on the anniversary of his death so I can piss on it, just for good measure.”
A chuckle, faint and distant as wind over rocks on the moorland. But Martin’s eyes focus on Jon’s face, the hint of an amused smile toying with his lips, and hands slide up Jon’s back to rest across his shoulders. Cold as blocks of ice, but Martin’s not so rigid anymore and the chill doesn’t permeate so deep. His lap is more comfortable now.
“I like when you get a little… vicious. Is that wrong of me?”
“Probably,” Jon huffs as he shifts to get more comfortable on his perch, with the tone of voice that says he’s not particularly bothered by it, and perhaps even pleased to hear it.
He can’t help a shudder as Martin draws him closer for a frigid hug. Martin notices and draws back with a concerned flinch. His face is still oddly blank, eyes without light, but at least he’s present enough to take notice of things now.
“I’m sorry, are you cold?”
“When you’re not around? Always,” Jon whispers, and leans in to hug him anyway.
Mr. Captain Peter Lukas (and his estranged ex-wife)
I choose to believe Elias & Peter have the world’s most dramatic on-again off-again marriage going. They divorce and remarry every couple years or so just for the DRAMA of it all. It’s an entertaining pastime and the post-divorce hate sex is excellent. Better than the honeymoon sex. Which, they’ve had several.
They take turns serving each other divorce papers. It’s always fun for Peter to try evade Elias through international waters when it’s his turn. And when Peter serves Elias in his office, Elias enjoys playing lawyer tag and crushing him in divorce court. Half of the institute’s discretionary funds come from alimony.
Elias using Peter’s money to hire better divorce lawyers so he can crush him in divorce court again and secure more of his money in alimony 👌 hilarious self-fulfilling cycle
All the Lukas relatives get so pissed about it, it’ll be Lukas Family Funeral time again and when they ask their scion to shell out for the ceremony he’ll be like “actually we have to go with the cheap coffin option and do a potluck instead of catering, Elias is raking me over the coals rn”
And they’re like “REALLY?? AGAIN”
“Yeah the post-divorce despair/ emptiness in ur life is SO Good, so tasty, the Lonely loves it, especially when I lark off across the world on another solitary journey of post-divorce self-discovery while Elias gets to sit in an equally empty penthouse and wonder if he made a mistake/ threw away the best thing in his life etc. His fear of dying alone/ desire to have me back/ inability to contact me overseas is a good combo. Very soap opera. You should try it sometime!”
“What, divorcing Elias?”
“No just divorcing. Though I guess you can borrow him this round, once we’re done in court. If you make him feel really alone and unappreciated in the marriage, then divorce him, it’ll be tastier when he comes running back to me.”
They get on like this for decades. They’re having a blast. (Right up until their bet comes to a head but that’s a whole separate can of worms)
An illustration of Jon’s… progression throughout the series :3
I’m so obsessed with this podcast. Sobbing screaming frowing up, I love him Jonathan ‘Jon’ Sims AKA The Archivist SO. MUCH.
CLOSEUPS!!! AND HEADCANONS!!!
Maybe I’m being unrealistic & OOC but I think back when he was a normal (semi-)functioning person, he was sort of quiet and stylish in an effeminate Corp Goth way. Like dressing up his old punk style from his uni days.
He stops taking as much care of himself as the paranoia takes hold, & the self-consciousness of his scars reduces his confidence in his appearance. The stress starts to age him more & more. He doesn’t like jewelry that dangles after the worm incident, so he goes w/ simple, easy-to-wear jewelry.
(The green cat eye studs were a surprisingly considerate gift from Elias, to congratulate him on his promotion. They’re comfortable gold flat-backs, so he just puts them in one day when he’s in a rush to get out the door & never changes them out. It gives Elias a convenient means to spy on his little Archivist 👀)
Season 3 is self-explanatory. His upper cartilage earring and his nose ring get ripped out while he’s tussling with various avatars. He spends enough time being hunted like an animal that self-care frankly doesn’t occur to him. Scruffy scruffy wet cat of a man.
Season 4, well… no one bothered cutting his hair during the coma. Martin told him once while he was comatose that he likes it long, & even though Jon doesn’t remember, he refuses to cut it all the same. He would Know what Martin had said if it occurred to him, but it never does. He just never thinks about why he likes his hair long now even though he never did before.
He dresses more comfortably than stylishly now, in too much constant but minor sensory overload to bother with blazers or turtlenecks or slacks.
The hospital staff removed his piercings while he was comatose. Most healed over. Only his lobes stayed open enough to put jewelry in. Elias recovered the cat eye studs he gave Jon and re-gifted them back to him after he woke up from the coma. Jon feels like he should throw them away, but they’ve been with him through so much. So few of his possessions survived after he lost his place in S3 and then again in S4. He’s basically lost everything, and it’s not like the jewelry are symbolically evil just because Elias happened to give them to him. They’re just objects. He’s allowed to be emotionally attached to them. …Right?
Hehehe ANYWAY. I have plans to draw a full spooky portrait of Season 5 Jon. So much to draw, so little time!!
I feel like we as a fandom kinda gloss over the fact that apart from being shit at detectiving, Jonathan Sims Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute is also kinda shit at like,,
His actual job -
Like. There is an episode beginning where Tim points out like twenty mistakes Jon made with the statements rapid-fire, he has absolutely zero training in library sciences or even experience with anything remotely archive related as pointed out by Georgie who’s immediately suspicious as hell that he was appointed head archivist at all, and in the face of the disorganized mess he kept complaining the archives were his brilliant solution was basically to just keep it that way and power on
It’s easy to overlook this bc of how buttoned up and “professional” and perpetually salty Jon is so we just assume he must at least be decent at his actual Job Description, but our boy is truly a stinky raggedy pathetic wet cat down to his b o n e s and I love that for him
Ooougugghd dkskskdjjfks and the Season 1 JMart implications…. Jon projecting his insecurities onto Martin…
Jon doesn’t know why he was promoted either, deep down. Gertrude and even Sasha herself expected for Sasha to be the next Archivist. He knows he’s under qualified, though he assures himself that the bar is in hell in this not-so-organized chaos where only Gertrude herself would’ve been able to find anything. He’s a reasonably organized and hardworking guy who can use basic digitization tools, so he’s already ahead of the curve there. If he can get things re-file the decades into their own piles, he’ll be way ahead.
But oh god, Martin. Jon is pulling 10 or 12 hour workdays trying to catch up and do a good job and prove to everyone and himself that he can do this, he was the right choice. But Martin is apparently even less qualified than Jon himself and Christ, if Martin doesn’t pick up his own slack it’s going to reflect badly on Jon! So he takes out his stress and insecurity on the poor guy, and since he can’t in good conscience (or legally) tell his subordinate to pull unpaid overtime, he instead focuses on the poor quality of Martin’s work and every tiny bumbling mistake, nitpicking and harping and judging and blaming so he can hide how petrified he himself is of making a mess of this promotion.
He doesn’t even know why it means so much to him. It’s not like he applied for the Archivist opening, or thought of it, or wanted it, or set it as a career goal for himself, before the moment Elias offered it to him. But he didn’t even stop to think about if he wanted the promotion. He just said yes, and let it consume his life without pausing to wonder why.
And it never occurs to him to write up warnings on Martin, or negative performance reviews, or even the beginnings of a disciplinary. He never starts the process. It simply… doesn’t occur to him.
(Ah, the trappings of office romance in a supernaturally cursed workplace that selectively blinds you to certain truths while confronting you with the horrors of others!!)
Ooough I think I’ve made the coolest thing of my entire life and I’m vibrating to post it immediately even tho I know I should pace myself and stagger my posts instead of dumping so much stuff for several days and then going radio silent for months…. PAIN
Kept thinking about how weak and disorientated Jon gets when cut off from the Eye, which got me thinking about Martin having to help him as his state got worse.
Surprisingly, instead of getting angsty, I ended up with Jon being carried around like a ragdoll.
Just noticed that Jmart is “hated being babied or treated like he was young” x “forced to grow up and become a caretaker way to fast” fascinating dynamic, Im gonna go rotate this in my head now
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