Archive of Our Own

Death was an inevitable step that every living thing took as a natural progression in their lives, but it was not always the last one.

In most cases, it was the last step, a smooth shift from life to the comforting, welcoming embrace of death.

But sometimes, other forces liked to extend something's suffering past that stage, dragging out their torment with the same fascination of a child stretching out an elastic band to see how far it could go before it snapped.

These forces were known as The Fourteen — old, powerful beings that had existed since time began and would likely continue to exist when time ended, who slipped through the cracks between realms of existence and tried to break whatever barrier was holding them back.

While unable to ever fully break through — evidenced by the lack of an apocalypse in the world — they seemed to have a strange interest in causing fear in humans, using dead souls as a tool and making them manifest in different ways depending on which of The Fourteen an individual had the misfortune of being snatched up by after death.

This was what caused ghosts in this world, spirits infected and manipulated by beings beyond mortal comprehension until they could take form in the realm of the living once more, with varying levels of success.

As was the norm when unfathomable things occurred, these ghosts were split up into four categories of danger so humans could pretend to have some understanding of it all.

Level one ghosts were the weakest, rarely ever able to take on a fully corporeal shape and instead existing as things like the phantom feeling of bugs crawling on you, or fog curling in the corner of your eye — mildly annoying at most, but never able to commit any harm.

Then there were levels two and three, often murky within difference but widely agreed to be based more on the intensity of actions rather than specifics; a symptom as simple as a sudden, long lasting anger that led to outbursts could be attributed to a level two ghost, whereas a sudden violent lash out that led to a murder would be the result of a level three ghost.

Many argued over whether there should be more levels of classification, because the leap from three to four could be rather impossible, but nobody truly wanted to be the one to change the age old system when it was already so deeply ingrained into society as a whole.

Nonetheless, level four ghosts were a world apart from the other levels, capable of forcing whole towns under their influence at their most powerful, although they usually stuck to a single space because of the concentrated power that could be shoved into it — a building bathed in darkness with an unknown creature prowling around inside, a village's members suddenly ripping each other to shreds in a lethal game of tag.

A level four ghost often meant death for its victim, if not worse.

Or, well, it had.

With such things at play, toying with drifting souls and twisting them up into potential threats against humans, people always found a way to fight back against danger, and this time it came in the form of organisations dedicated to removing spirits from the world.

This could be done through dragging out the more human side of a ghost and soothing their fears so The Fourteen no longer had a hold on them, but that was time consuming and, when things became privatised (no matter how important they were), people liked to make things as cost-efficient as possible and that led to less…humane ways of dealing with them.

Souls couldn't be used to harm someone if they were destroyed, after all.

The Magnus Institute was the most well-known organisation dedicated to documenting, researching and — yes — tackling the paranormal, a behemoth in the field that took on all cases brought to their attention by letters sent to their Paranormal Response Department.

Jonathan Sims started out as a researcher in the Magnus Institute, looking into the whys and hows of ghosts and The Fourteen, desperate to figure out the truth after an encounter with a level three ghost as a child that left him with a crippling fear of spiders.

He was a very good researcher, efficient and detail-oriented with every project he was given, never one to back down from even the most obscure requests sent his way.

The issue was that Jon was also a very stubborn man, one that refused to be contented with the answers he believed to be lacking in specifics and kept digging in deeper, unable to leave even the smallest thread alone if it meant unravelling the whole tapestry and revealing the explanation he had craved so badly.

It was likely this unending drive that drew the Ceaseless Watcher's eyes to him; he went from flying under the radar with his personal investigations to having one of The Fourteen watching him at all times, the heavy weight of eyes on him no matter how hard he tried to avoid or just ignore it.

He felt like a rat in a maze, searching for a block of cheese while observed by a being far beyond his comprehension, and that had made him reckless.

So, when he broke into a building during his investigations, he pushed past all the warning signs that he was not alone in the space until he ended up in hospital with the Ceaseless Watcher having taken up firm residence in his mind, constantly sending him overwhelming blocks of information paired with attempts to communicate that he was its favourite thing ever.

And being the absolute favourite of an entity that liked to play with humans by tormenting them was not fun, especially when paired with a highly unwelcome promotion that put him right into the perfect position to knock out other competitors' favourites.

Well, theoretically, he was in the 'perfect position' for such a thing — as of the current moment, his position was ostensibly beneath a desk; he was only under there because there was more space on the floor and he had to be able to visualise all the connections of the pieces of the case he had been working on since exactly 3:12 am last night.

Also the lights were very bright but he didn't want to turn them off, so he was under the nice, dark desk.

His concentration was abruptly cut off from his work with the sound of his office door creaking open, paired with what he deduced to be a conversation of sorts happening.

"-And fuck Elias to all hell-"

"Oh!"

"-But like, I do think we get so many less fake reports this way, compared to everyone else in the business."

"Why waste time and money sending a letter when other ghost hunters are just one prank call away?" Jon chimed in, and then realised that he probably shouldn't have because now it was clear that he had been listening in, and eavesdropping was very rude, Jonathan.

Thankfully, Tim just took it in his stride and crouched down beside the desk, one hand resting against the top of it while the other one offered a wave alongside a grin on his face. "Oh, hey, Jon! Didn't see you down there." As though the screech he let out only a few seconds earlier had not been enough indication of that.

Then he gestured over his shoulder, and Jon shifted so he could see who the second pair of legs belonged to, raising a brow at the sight of a face he did not recognise to hide the mortification that was slowly dawning on him as he processed the knowledge that he was not just being seen by his assistants in an increasingly regular spot — he was meeting someone new while half beneath a desk, without any chance to explain his reasoning for being in such a state.

"This is Martin, Elias says he's a new hire for the department. Guessed that he hadn't told you, so I decided to show him around the place because I'm a veritable sweetheart," Tim continued on, completely unaware of his internal panicking while also halting it in its tracks with his statement.

Because no, he had not been told that he would be gaining a new employee, despite how pertinent it was that he did know such a thing so he could organise training sessions and meetings to discuss responsibilities ahead of time, but he supposed that he couldn't count on Elias to actually do anything that would benefit him.

"We both know that you just wanted to get out of working on the pile of cases on your desk," he muttered under his breath, giving this Martin character a more scrutinising once-over now that he knew the reasoning for him standing there.

He held himself nervously, shoulders curled inwards as though he could somehow make himself smaller despite that being nearly impossible with his frame — he was taller than Tim, for heaven's sake — and everything about him screamed 'I couldn't hurt a fly', from his awkward smile to his choice of clothing.

Jon barely got a chance to take note of the freckles on his face before they made eye contact and he was blasted with the knowledge that Martin was entirely unqualified for this job.

He managed to hold back any visible reaction to this sudden information splurge, but he did turn his gaze inwards and very frustratedly think 'well, I'm going to fire him then', only to be met with a vivid image of Martin frantically trying to care for an older woman with little money, and he instantly Knew that this was his very ill mother.

Great.

The primordial spirit that had latched onto him was relying on his inability to not help any unfortunate soul he crossed paths with (alive or dead) to make him keep someone on as an employee in a rather dangerous profession.

…And it was working.

It wasn't like all of the cases they dealt with were actually dangerous — in fact, most cases were just low level ghosts that need someone to listen or help them fulfil a small task to help them cross along — and he was already giving the others lower level cases just by Knowing the true danger behind them (even if the primordial spirit was functionally evil, it still had its uses), so it would be no matter to give them a few more higher level cases while he placed only level one cases in Martin's care.

Plus, it wasn't like people didn't do this for apprenticeships in other companies, so why couldn't it be the case for this man?

There was also the inescapable fact that the Ceaseless Watcher was happily blasting his brain with mental images of telling Martin he was fired and the highly emotional reaction that would follow it, and Jon just really couldn't handle the guilt of doing such a thing right now.

He only realised he'd been staring for too long (a perpetual issue, he feared) when Tim cleared his throat and he blinked, looking back over at his slacker of an assistant and wondering if he could become any more mortified than he already was.

"Well," he started, clearing his throat as he clambered out from beneath his desk despite being wholly aware that it was far too late to scramble for professionalism (especially when his head collided with the top of it in his haste to get out, much to Tim's apparent amusement), "Elias did not make me aware of this change, but I am pleased to have another employee down here. My name is Jonathan Sims."

He offered his hand out, and did not think about the size difference as the other man clasped it within his own to shake it, even when he was assaulted with what could only be described as close-ups of the handshake.

God, the Ceaseless Watcher really needed to find something better to do with its infinite time than just ceaselessly watching.

"I'll be sure to schedule a meeting so we can go over any questions you may have, but I'm sure Tim can get you set up in the meantime — he's always eager to delay getting any of his work done."

"I'll have you know I had to drag myself away from my case about…an evil rat…or something…for Martin," Tim replied with exaggerated offence, one hand pressed against his chest, a position he held even with the sceptical look shot his way.

Jon Knew that the case was related to the ghost of a dog chewing at slippers belonging to an increasingly exasperated old man who believed that the holes in his footwear were the result of a rat he had killed a few days prior, but he didn't speak a word of this information as he hummed drily. "Well, if you are truly so occupied, I'm sure Sasha can spare some time to-"

"Now now, no need for that! Can't have you dragging poor Sasha away from vital work, so I suppose I will take the blow to efficiency and help Martin out." If he didn't know any better, he would have assumed his assistant was actually burdened by the situation until he saw the grin on his face as he slung an arm around Martin's shoulders (having to reach up to do it, for once).

Instead, he rolled his eyes and gestured towards the door, letting Tim steer the new employee out of the room while calculating the most dignified way to get back under the desk without upsetting the documents he had spread out.

He was so focused on this that he would have missed the "it was nice meeting you!" from Martin if it weren't for the Watcher practically setting off alarms in his head so he'd pay attention, and then he had the full image of the man's nervous but warm smile burned into his mind by the obviously far too bored entity.

This was evidently going to take a lot of getting used to.

~*~*~*~*~

Considering he had zero clue what he was supposed to be doing, Martin was willing to tentatively say that he was doing a pretty good job at blending in with the actual trained exorcists.

Granted, he'd only really dealt with the most basic ghosts, like the ones they showed in the 'super real, totally dangerous' ghost hunting shows that spent more time vilifying all spirits than they did actually helping the poor things, but it was still a good enough job that he hadn't immediately been found out and fired on the spot!

Well..he was pretty sure he hadn't been found out, or he definitely would have been fired, right?

Listen, it was either his super uptight, stern but impossibly gorgeous boss was aware of the blatant lies that made up most of his CV and was putting resources relating to the job on his desk as a sly way to help him, or he had no clue and was just doing it to be a passive aggressive asshole.

There was only one real right answer, so Martin took the insult on the chin (and read all of the resources, because they were very helpful) and moved on with his work, trying to take the…suggestions on board if only to stop the pitying looks from Sasha and Tim every time he found a new book or template laying beside his computer.

Apart from that, he liked his new co-workers; they were friendly and kind, not at all bothered about how off-putting he had to be acting and more than willing to include him in any plans they made while chatting idly in the office, or in the break room.

Plus, they liked to give him over the top praise for his tea, and that was one of the only skills he was willing to take full credit for — he spent a lot of time honing it, after all, what with it being the only way he could avoid his mother without it being suspicious.

Not that- not that he was always looking for a way to avoid his mother!

She just got a little bit frustrated because he was overbearing all the time, so he took himself out of the equation in order to get out of her hair without her having to move around, and tea was the perfect excuse so she didn't feel bad about getting mad at him (even though he was pretty sure she didn't feel bad either way, but he didn't like to think about that too much).

But…yeah.

He was good at tea, and he kind of liked when it was recognised.

Even Jon — the man who appeared to very much not like him or his work — gave him a (really lovely) smile whenever he brought tea into the man's office, and he was only under a desk twenty percent of the time!

Martin's boss was a bit of an enigma to him; he was either holed up in his office or out on cases, and he often returned roughed up in some capacity from those but also refused any offers to help him deal with it, deciding that it 'wasn't necessary' or something — also, he literally looked like he had never had a good night's sleep in his life, which was really unfair because he was somehow still really attractive despite it!

Jon had these scars, too, four jagged, raised vertical lines that started at the top of his throat and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt, like something had…well, he was going to make a comparison, but Martin really hadn't seen anything like them before, except for maybe in like an animal attack or something?

But they looked lethal, really, like nobody should have been able to survive getting their throat torn in such a manner.

Basically, his boss was a wounded stray cat that didn't know how to accept help from anyone, and Martin wanted to take him home and take care of him.

When he finally worked up the courage to ask the others about all of his observations about Jon (except that last one, that was staying in his mind and never seeing the light of day), it was in the break room during lunch, and he had been very aggressively gestured over by Tim to sit with them instead of awkwardly eating at his desk.

"Oh, Jon's the only one cleared to deal with level three and four cases," Sasha explained, currently in the process of stealing as many of Tim's crisps as possible while he was occupied making a sandwich, waving one of them around as though in emphasis of her words.

"Really? I mean, not that I don't think he can handle it but…" He had spent so much time after getting this job just reading up on all the cases available to the public eye, and most of the cases with level three and four ghosts were downright nasty — level fours usually took like, at least three exorcists to take down, and Jon was dealing with them alone??

Sasha just nodded, rolling her eyes as she finished eating the crisp and dusted her hand on her jeans as though to hide the invisible evidence. "But it's insane, right? I've tried to get cleared too, but Elias-"

"-Is a slimy bastard that hates women and really wants Jon dead, apparently?" Tim finished, dropping down into the chair next to him and reaching over to the crisp packet, then narrowing his eyes and immediately snatching up Sasha's hand to inspect her fingers closely.

That was another thing that had really thrown Martin off about working at the Magnus Institute: the employees of P.R.D. did not like Elias Bouchard.

And he hadn't exactly asked why, but he was both beginning to understand and hate the head of the institute just as much as them, because there seemed to be a blatant lack of care both in terms of budgeting and just general treatment of the department's workers — this whole thing with Jon being only a prime example of it.

"Is that why Jon's always working late?" He asked, eyes drifting over to the door as if the man himself would come walking in just in time to hear them talking about him.

Tim, clearly not having such concerns, was simultaneously holding his crisps above his head while trying to push Sasha's hand away (seriously, prawn cocktail was not worth all this fuss) and tilting his head to one side as he contemplated his answer. "I mean, I'm not going to say no, but he was also working late in Research, so it could just be a him thing."

"He worked in Research?" For some reason, Martin had legitimately imagined Jon being plucked off the streets to work as Head of their department out of the blue, which said…something about him. "Wait, sorry, but how exactly did he end up as head of P.R.D. then?"

It was Sasha that answered this time, having pushed Tim off his chair and retrieved the pink packet from his (pretend) dead body as her trophy. "We don't actually know? He went to go do some totally legal investigating into whatever project he was working on, ended up in hospital and came back with a promotion. Elias just ushered us along to join him."

"Now Jon spends more time sleeping at his desk than he does sleeping in his bed, just like he did before." Came the muffled addition from the floor, followed by a quiet thump as the not-dead Tim rolled onto his back and stared contemplatively at the ceiling. "So maybe he was just perfect for the role."

Martin was too busy very quietly freaking out about how casually they'd brushed over the fact that their boss had ended up in hospital while possibly breaking into a building or something — was that normal for these guys??

Did Jon end up in hospital a lot or something?

Like, he knew that the guy was more likely than the rest of them to end up in dangerous situations, but the hospital?

He was apparently supposed to just brush that off, because the other two certainly were, with Sasha just nodding along for a moment as she devoured her prize and cast a sudden glance over him, which left him feeling very scrutinised.

Was he actually supposed to know all of this already, and was it super suspicious that he didn't?

"Say, Martin, you seem to be very interested in Jon…" Wait, this might actually be worse than being suspected of not being qualified. "Got anything you want to share with the group? Something to do with how you stare at our boss whenever he walks into a room?"

He could feel his cheeks getting far too warm even as he tried to laugh it off, and then Tim was sitting up with a loud gasp, brought back to life by the chance to learn gossip that he so badly craved at all possible moments. "Oh my god. Marto. Do you have a crush on our beloved boss, Jonathan Sims?! Really?!"

Instead of saying something smart that would easily distract them or throw them off his scent, he instead could only come out with a "well yeah, he's gorgeous, but like it doesn't matter because he doesn't like me, so-"

Then they pounced on him like starved animals and he wasn't really able to say anything else over their clamouring exclamations.

~*~*~*~*~

The very last thing that anybody wanted to be told when they were doing something that could be perceived as dangerous was the amount of people who died doing the exact same thing.

Unfortunately for Jon, the Ceaseless Watcher was a creature that took great joy in doing exactly that, trying to freak him out as much as possible no matter how minuscule the likelihood of his own death by such means actually was in comparison to the statistics it liked to blast through his brain.

Such as right now — he was considering climbing onto a chair (with wheels) so he could reach a box of cases someone (presumably Tim) had put onto a shelf for him, either forgetting that he could not reach the higher shelves or doing it for the express purpose of mocking him for this very fact, all while the Watcher was happily supplying him with the knowledge that 3215 individuals had died from falls in the UK in the last year.

Delightful information to note when testing the stability of the chair he would be risking his life on in only a few moments, of course.

As he kneeled on this chair and still found himself unable to reach the box, he considered the fact that nobody in the department would actually be able to reach the highest shelves without some sort of stepping stool or ladder, which meant that there had to be one of those around here somewhere.

Well, he was on a bit of a time crunch and he didn't have time to go looking for something when he had perfectly reasonable means to reach the box right there, so he went about the very slow and altogether wobbly process of getting to his feet on this unstable chair, hands in a white knuckled grip on the back of it as he gained his bearings.

All throughout this experience, the pest in his head took great pleasure in offering many different scenarios of how this had gone wrong for other people and led to them injured and/or maimed in some way — truly a great motivator.

He didn't take note of how long he stood there steeling his nerves to let go, but he was pretty damn sure that he could have found some form of ladder and gotten the box down safely in that time.

Well, he had committed to this now and he was nothing if not stubborn, so he took a deep breath and forced himself into a standing position on the chair, reaching up for the box before he could think about the stability of the makeshift stool for a second more and ignoring anything that the Watcher may try and make him aware of in the moment, even if it had gone strangely (suspiciously) quiet.

He grabbed the box, trying not to think about how shaky the chair was as he considered how he was supposed to get down (preferably as soon as possible), which actually was worse in the long run because he ignored how it wobbled when he shifted the slightest bit to deal with the new weight in his arms.

The next wobble was a lot more drastic, and he had to physically drop the box onto the floor so he could try and utilise his arms to regain balance.

Unfortunately, that was a terrible move; the weight disappeared and he had basically nothing to counteract the way he was naturally inclined to fall backwards when on an unsafe platform.

So, he fell.

He managed to get out an "oh fuck-" as he squeezed his eyes shut, before there was a flash of 'I cannot believe I'm going to die like this' mixed with a very unwelcome reminder from the Ceaseless Watcher that there was a desk behind him that was in the perfect position for him to whack his head against at this angle.

Unlike how many people described falling, he did not feel like it went in slow motion — one second he felt as though his brain had stopped working in a panicked jumble of cues letting him know he was in imminent danger, the next it was recalibrating to deal with the fact that he wasn't dead or in any sort of pain.

Taking stock of his situation, he found himself not on the floor but instead held up in a rather comfortable set of arms.

This, of course, brought about two very important questions: whose arms were these, and where exactly had they come from?

the Ceaseless Watcher was sending flashes of random images in his head and being entirely unhelpful (as usual), so he instead took it upon himself to look up at his unexpected saviour…

…Which was Martin, who didn't seem at all bothered about the fact that he was holding up another fully grown man but was instead looking at him with a very panicked sort of concern in his eyes. "Jesus Christ, Jon, are you alright?! Why would you- what were you doing up there?! We have a ladder! God, if I hadn't- I don't even want to think about what would have happened if I wasn't there to catch you!"

While he could appreciate the fact that the man had helped him, it did prove to be a bit of a problem because it was Martin, and Jon may or may not have had a…very slight interest in the man.

Because anything more than that would have been highly unprofessional for him to even consider; no matter how kind Martin was, no matter how caring and sweet and thoughtful and, yes, handsome he was, he was not only the man's boss, but he was also aware of a secret that could ruin his whole life and that was a power imbalance he would never consider pursuing.

No matter how often the Watcher liked to show him the man whenever he least suspected it — sometimes making tea, or working, or reading some sort of book with intense focus, or even just giving him that same warm smile he had offered on their first meeting.

Despite his attempts to not think about Martin and avoid him at all costs, he now found himself trapped within his arms because of his own stupidity, just staring up at him blankly without any attempts to defend or explain himself, and Martin hadn't seemed to have the mind to put him down as he rambled on endlessly about how stupid his decision had been.

"I can appreciate what you're trying to say, but I would much prefer to have this conversation on my own two feet." He cut through the word vomit as sternly as he could manage, then shifted around as though to make his point (something he would highly regret later, when the Ceaseless Watcher replayed it in his mind).

Immediately, Martin's face flushed, a deep pink blooming across his cheeks as he quickly placed Jon back down, but his hands lingered at his sides to presumably steady him if necessary, yet another quiet sign of care that he didn't want to think about at all.

He took a moment to clear his throat, trying to pick out the right words to offer in the moment. "Thank you for your assistance. I realised that I had miscalculated the stability of the chair only after standing upon it," he explained stiffly, busying himself with dusting off his jumper and then fixing his glasses mainly to avoid making eye contact with the other man.

"I'm just glad I was there! Honestly, Jon, we literally have a ladder to reach the high shelves."

"Yes, well, I also didn't consider that until I was standing on the chair." He muttered this part quietly, more to himself than Martin, but his assistant let out an exasperated sort of snort that made it abundantly clear he had heard it nonetheless.

"Imagine you died because of that, and then got taken in by the bloody…Falling Titan or something." Honestly, that was a thought experiment he found himself carrying out more than he supposed many normal individuals did — if one didn't work in the paranormal sector, it was an unspoken rule to avoid talking about spirits as much as possible.

However, when someone had one of the primordial beings responsible for ghosts in their mind, it was hard to ever really get away from the subject; he had considered practically every death he could happen across and what would take a hold of his soul afterwards. "I don't believe it would be able to make a very powerful ghost out of me — level one, certainly."

He leaned down to pick up the box that had caused this whole situation as he spoke, looking up at Martin to find him offering a confused look in return, as though he hadn't expected him to engage in the hypothetical.

Of course Jon appreciated hypotheticals — the Ceaseless Watcher couldn't engage in them, and he was all for excluding the damned thing considering how it had jammed itself into every other part of his life.

Nevertheless, despite his general confusion, this didn't stop the other man from smiling a little even with the concern still clear in his eyes. "What, appearing through…vertigo? Maybe like the feeling that you're falling?"

After being rendered speechless by that smile for a moment, Jon turned away and gestured for Martin to follow him out of the room as he weighed up the symptoms that he could offer as a ghost of The Falling Titan; they were rather similar to the ones suggested, which said something good about how quickly Martin had caught up with actually educated exorcists. "Yes, or a particularly strong headache."

Although that would likely be from the head injury that had led to his death, the actual spirit itself affecting a victim even while being puppeted by one of The Fourteen.

Clinging to any remainder of themself, even if it was likely the most horrific moment of their life.

Martin laughed again and, even though he didn't quite know why, Jon found himself smiling too, rifling through the box to try and find the case the Ceaseless Watcher had assured him was an open-shut case about a level one ghost causing imaginings of spiders appearing everywhere.

He would, of course, prefer to avoid that as much as possible, so he was happy to offer the file to Martin, who took it with a questioning glance.

The website he had read through related to being a good boss appeared rather suddenly in his mind (likely the Watcher wanting to be included), and he was reminded that good employers offered encouragement or compliments to keep employees motivated to work well and do their best.

While he didn't like business practices made to keep the working class content with oppression more than anyone else did, compliments were something he had learned that everyone liked as long as they were sincere, so he tried to form something that could be considered a compliment without mentioning Martin's smile or his freckles, or his fluffy hair (did it feel as fluffy as it looked?) or his beautiful eyes, or his honestly wonderful choices of jumper-

He didn't realise they had made it back to his office until Martin stopped in front of the door and raised his brow when Jon backtracked quickly.

Okay, compliment, encouragement, now.

"You have improved well since the start of your employment," he offered abruptly, startling the both of them as he furrowed his brows and stared down at the case files he had yet to sort through, "my methods of criticism are often…heavy handed-" yes, he shouldn't have listened to the inhuman thing for advice on how to offer support to humans "-but I am glad to see they have somewhat assisted you."

When he looked up, he found Martin beaming at him, once more striking him into silence as he stared at his assistant — assistant, he had to get himself together, goddamn it — while the man scrabbled to respond. "Oh, r-really? Thank you! I mean- I've been trying, and your resources really helped."

the Ceaseless Watcher was sending him random images of hearts (both real and drawn), and he endeavoured to ignore it as he nodded his head briskly, turning away to open the door and hide his face without it looking unprofessional. "Yes, well, your effort is paying off. Keep it up."

He escaped into his office before he could embarrass himself any further, but not before hearing a "I will!" called out from behind him, which left him smiling like a fool as the door closed.

~*~*~*~*~

Martin was practically buzzing after a compliment from Jon of all people, unable to keep the grin off his face even as he read through a rather creepy (not spooky, Tim said that their boss despised that word) case about some guy who kept seeing a spider around his flat, no matter how often he killed it.

Seemed to be a level one, and it could probably be dealt with through just talking to the ghost about either a fear or fascination with spiders, so he checked the address on the letter sent in and told his co-workers where he was going as he emailed Jon, just in case Jon thought he was ditching work right after being given adorably awkward but sincere praise.

Sasha, in the midst of making some sort of slingshot with a pen, offered a bright smile and a wave, whereas Tim (who seemed actually invested in his work for once) gave him a thumbs up without even looking away from his computer screen.

With a mixture of good timing and luck, he ended up on a bus with a stop only a few streets away from Carlos Vittery's address, staring out of the window and listening to music until he registered that he was far closer to his stop than he had thought and had to do that panicked thing where he reached to press the button only to find that someone else had pressed it already and the bus was stopping either way.

Anyway.

He found himself at a flat block with no-one answering the buzzer, looking nervously between the time on his phone and the door as if someone would show up after five minutes of waiting and silently weighing up his other options.

He could just call this one a bust for today and try again tomorrow, but the memory of Jon's half-hidden smile paired with that compliment was enough to urge him into finding another way in, one in the form of a basement window that he managed to slip through into a rather dank, grimy looking basement.

Immediately, he was hit with two things — an absolutely foul smell of rot and death that couldn't be muffled by his sleeve when he pressed it to his face, and this strange, squirming sound around him, echoing from every direction as he fumbled to turn his phone torch on and look around.

There were…worms everywhere, small and white with black heads, and they were obviously the source of the gross sound that was really messing with him — he had always hated sounds like that, so he was quick to get away and up the stairs he had spotted in hopes of escaping it.

(In his haste, he didn't notice how a couple of the worms had lunged at where he had just been standing.)

It wasn't as bad upstairs, but he was both horrified and freaked out to find that there were still a few worms dotted around the hallways, on the walls and the floors, just squirming around seemingly without any goal or haste in their movements.

The building itself was in a state of disrepair, lights flickering above and dirt accumulating everywhere, that musty, rotting smell even stronger than it was in the basement below — it looked like something out of a horror film, where a serial killer had made a home out of their hunting grounds or a ghost made any intruders regret stepping into what had become of their final resting place.

Oh god, he was an intruder, wasn't he?

He felt pretty out of his depth; he'd been expecting a completely normal building, with maybe a ghost in Vittery's flat that needed coaxing across the spiritual barrier or whatever the scientific name for it was, not an infestation of worms and an extreme sense of foreboding washing over him as he hesitantly walked down the hallways to try and find…something.

Everything mainly looked the same, with closed doors that he didn't really want to try and open for fear of like, an avalanche of worms falling out of it like what happened in films.

Or maybe finding a body, which was just as horrific, actually.

The relative silence of the space remained as he wandered around, and the worms seemed rather content to leave him alone as long as he left them alone, even if they did have a terrifying penchant for trying to leap at him if he got too close to them.

He just wanted to find an exit at this point, or maybe another living human being that could explain what the hell had happened here.

Despite feeling like he was in a horror film, he did the thing that people always yelled at characters for doing and cleared his throat, calling out a nervous, "hello?" into the empty space.

There was no response for a few moments, before an echoing, almost humming laugh greeted him, which was totally what he wanted to hear in this freaky building and definitely didn't have him letting his phone clatter to the ground as he very quickly turned away from the direction the noise had come from.

Unfortunately, when he did try and get away from the laughter, it seemed to follow him, a sign that he was not very excited to recognise as something from the many cases he had read about in the institute — y'know, the ones about mega-dangerous ghosts that you had to train and be cleared to deal with?

The ones that literally only Jon was allowed to handle?

Martin's first instinct was to just fucking bolt, but he knew that ghosts didn't work based on rules of humans and would not be kind enough to move at a natural pace in order to catch him, so he instead took stock of his surroundings and quickly opened the door that had the least signs of worms on it, praying to whatever was listening to keep the avalanche of worms away, please and thank you.

Of course, it wouldn't stop the spirit from finding and likely maiming him, but the only ghosts that could literally see through walls were that of the Ceaseless Watcher, and this certainly didn't look anything like its usual method of attack.

Shutting the door behind him as quietly as he could, he slowly turned around to see what hellhole he had decided he'd rather face than the ghost prowling around outside, wholly expecting to come face to face with some sort of giant mutated worm that was going to eat him or something.

The sight he was met with was much less dramatic, in a sense, but no less terrifying

In fact, it was so much worse than any giant worm could be.

Slumped over on the couch, in the mockery of a casual sitting position, was a body — or, well, what was left of one, anyway.

Its face was almost completely eaten away, holes making up the rest of its skin, ragged circles forced through clothes and skin and presumably even further down through muscle and bone, creating tunnels in this corpse that could only be navigated by the worms that had evidently gotten comfortable in the new space the spirit had decided to be their hunting ground.

Well…at least he definitely knew which of The Fourteen had dominion over this place now.

He was so focused on making sure that the body didn't suddenly start moving that he genuinely believed the sudden knocking that had started up was somehow coming from inside it, which made it somehow more terrifying when he realised that it was coming from behind him.

There was a moment where he couldn't decide whether he wanted to risk turning his back to the body so he could check that he had locked the door, but the handle rattled and he spun around so quickly that he went a little dizzy as his hand clasped over the doorknob and he rechecked the locks.

His relief was strong, but it didn't last long; the knocking continued, slow but confident, pausing just long enough to have him hope that the ghost had gotten bored before offering two extended raps against the old wood once more.

That was fucking horrifying all by itself, but then a sound that was quickly becoming familiar joined the knocking — a quiet squelching, squirming sound that had him looking down to see where it was coming from, and then immediately panicking at the sight of worms trying to wiggle their way through the gap between the door and the floor.

He stomped on as many as he could, before shucking off his coat and shoving it against the gap, looking around for any other signs of worms trying to get in and leave him like the poor corpse on the couch (which still hadn't moved, in a rare blessing from the gods).

There was literally nothing he could do.

He was trapped in a hellhole with a level four ghost, no phone and no way to contact the outside world, with no idea when or even if anyone would notice that something was wrong for at least a day or two when he didn't show up for work.

Would he even last that long??

Echoing, humming singing started up on the other side of the door, and he pushed his glasses out of the way as he pressed his face into his hands, a terrified helplessness settling over him while he stood in the room that he was probably going to die in.

~*~*~*~*~

It took Jon far longer than he was willing to admit to realise that something was incredibly wrong.

He had just been reading out a few letters for archival purposes, as usual, when he noticed that the Ceaseless Watcher had been extremely silent ever since he had sent Martin off with the case.

At first, he just presumed that it was because of the interaction with the man — when it wasn't encouraging him to pursue an extremely unprofessional relationship, it was rather docile after conversations with Martin — but it slowly became more suspicious the longer the silence continued for.

He resolved himself to just ignore it and take advantage of the blissful quiet, shifting to click off the tape recorder (more reliable than audio files, according to Elias) and go back to working on a case that had been taking up most of his time since it had appeared upon his desk — Jane Prentiss, a soul so deeply entangled with The Corruption that she was one of those few entities not bound to any final resting place.

He had traced her path from Whittington Hospital, the place that should have been her final resting place, but that ended up being the first point of her nonsensical trail towards…well, towards Chelsea, for some indiscernible reason.

Prentiss worked in a very fascinating and frustrating manner — a ghost could not travel without a physical manifestation, and she seemed to struggle to maintain a fully human manifestation (as she was still on the cusp of being a level four based on the last sighting) so she instead travelled in the form of a sort of worm that dug into a human's skin and multiplied inside them like some sort of virus, all the while poisoning the victim's mind.

Her most recent victim had been Timothy Hodge, a man who had foolishly moved upon feeling incredibly ill, as though it was his environment that was the problem, and Jon had been up all night trying to pinpoint his new address.

He could just ask the Watcher, but it was slow to offer such information at the best of times, almost like a petulant child in that regard.

Luckily, Sasha had managed to gain access to Mr. Hodge's email through an 'extremely legal method', so he went about scrolling through any mention of moving within the cluttered mess of an inbox.

Honestly, he couldn't understand why people didn't clear out their inbox of useless rubbish the second it appeared in there — his own only held the most vital emails, the rest discarded without care or hesitance.

(It may have been the only thing with an organisation system that people could understand in his workspace, but this wasn't about his other systems that involved a frankly vile amount of post-it notes and the appearance of chaos.)

He could actually recall an instance back in Research where he had insisted on cleaning out Tim's inbox because the man 'couldn't remember what was important' to retain, practically shoving the man off the desk he had perched on when he tried to argue that a random promotional email from five years ago was important because the place had closed since then.

Tim hadn't even liked that place, and he shouldn't have been signing up to websites using his work email anyway- oh.

Oh!

He quickly scrolled back up to the email congratulating Mr. Hodge on his new flat, clicking on the bold words as he scrabbled to find a pen and paper so he could scribble down the address, only to pause as he read it.

The address looked familiar, in a way that had him frantically searching through his memory to figure out where he had seen it before, when eventually the previously silent parasite in his brain deposited the information in his mind like a cat presenting a dead bird to its owner.

And what a dead bird of information it was; the address that Timothy Hodge had moved to was the exact same one that Martin had emailed him about going to check out so he could deal with Vittery's ghost spider.

Immediately, he turned his attention back to the email to check the date — it was sent a week ago.

Meaning that there was an extremely high chance that Martin was in the vicinity of a dangerous threat in this very moment.

Jon was moving before he could even think about it, barely stopping to grab his phone before he was up and out of his office, bolting down the hallway and ignoring the concerned calls from Tim and Sasha behind him.

'Why the hell did you not think to mention this?! I thought you liked Martin!' He yelled inwardly, taking only a second to check the direction he was going in as he got out onto the street and just starting to run that way — usually, he would be on the floor by now, but adrenaline was a very useful tool in keeping someone moving.

There was silence for a long moment, before the Ceaseless Watcher blasted him with an image of himself in some sort of princely outfit and Martin clinging to him in a stereotypical princess dress, and he felt his eye physically twitch as he hissed out, "are you fucking serious?"

The parasite paused for another moment, before there was a more tentative image, this time with the roles switched, followed by a question mark.

Right, he came to the decision that he was going to ignore the absolute bastard and just kept sprinting down the street, narrowly avoiding bumping into people and almost tripping over the hem of his skirt no less than three times.

Despite the fact that he hadn't run so fast or so far since the torturous cross country runs they made them do during PE, he somehow made it to the dreaded flat block without collapsing, and basically started picking the lock of the door the second it didn't budge under his panicked hand — every good researcher should know how to pick locks and always carry the tools necessary for it, as far as he was concerned.

The door swung open after a moment and he stepped in more cautiously than he had been moving this whole time, forcing himself to remember that this was a dangerous situation and he had to follow the same procedure he always followed when approaching level four ghosts; Prentiss could definitely be classified as one of those now.

It was dark and damp, and he was certain that any normal person would probably need more light to see than the weak flickering ones above his head as he walked through the lobby and pushed open the door into the ground floor hallway, wrinkling his nose at both the smell and sounds he was greeted with.

His first instinct was to clasp his hands over his ears, but he shoved that feeling down — showing weakness in such an environment would only end in his death — and kept analysing the space to try and figure out how bad this all was.

Worms writhed along the floor, sticking out of walls and even in the ceiling, and there was a layer of filth on the floor that made his shoes stick for a moment whenever he stood still for too long.

the Watcher, still acting rather confused but apologetic (likely because it thought it was helping, but he wasn't being charitable towards it right now), pushed the information into his brain that everyone in the building was dead except for Martin, which only brought about warring emotions of relief and guilt in his chest.

They wouldn't be dead if he had just managed to find Timothy Hodge earlier, or even stop Prentiss from getting this far — everyone told him that he worked himself too hard, but they never understood this is what happened when he took breaks or allowed himself to falter in his investigations.

People died, and it was his fault.

He couldn't afford to drown in that guilt right now, though, not when Martin was still alive and there was still a chance to save at least one person.

So he pushed on, hands clenched into fists and eyes darting to watch the worms, all too aware of what they could do if they got a chance to dig their way into his body (the images flashed through his mind, involuntarily, and he couldn't tell if that was because of the parasite or if it was just his own thoughts this time).

He Knew exactly where Martin was, Knew exactly what was happening to him, and it only urged him forwards, even when he didn't manage to dodge the first worm that lunged towards him from the floor, landing somewhere on his leg and immediately starting to dig in.

After the first one got in, the rest seemed to realise that he wasn't invincible and wasted no time in trying to join it, undeterred by how many he did manage to dodge or bat away, dropping from the ceilings and jumping from the floors and walls, latching in and trying to dig their way in before he could yank them out.

It was a horrible experience, the Ceaseless Watcher simultaneously making him very aware of what the worms were doing inside him and also shrieking in his mind about the corrupting rot trying to gain a firm grasp on the soul that already very firmly belonged to it.

By the time he managed to turn the corner to the hallway that he Knew Martin was in, the agony and rot alike were overwhelming his senses as the few worms that had avoided his desperate attempts at dragging them out of his legs seemed to target his hip.

Trying to knock him down, he thought distantly, and then shuddered at the realisation that they were a lot more intelligent than they had been in Whittington Hospital.

Everything was blurry and out of focus, so he barely caught a glimpse of Jane Prentiss before she disappeared in front of the door he Knew needed to get to even through the pain, likely moving away to adjust her approach based on his presence — or just knowing that he'd go chasing after her either way, because he would.

She was a ghost, and it was his job to deal with ghosts.

Right now, though, he was limping towards the door, trying to ignore the list of symptoms the Ceaseless Watcher was giving him to warn him that he was in danger right now, as if that wasn't obvious from how heavily he was leaning on his good leg and how harshly his breath was coming out — he had grown accustomed to pain with the promotion to Head of P.R.D., so it was rather worrying that he practically collapsed against the door when he got there.

He could hear the softest humming in his mind, everything burning hot and searing with every forceful twitch of his muscle, like his body was trying to shove out the worms he knew were gnawing through to the bone, ripping through veins and nerves alike to make their own homes in his skin.

"Mar-…Martin-" He called out, at least in his right mind to know that knocking would not help the situation right now, to know that knocking never helped a situation.

There was silence on the other side, and he had just enough time to panic that maybe the worms had already gotten to the man, that he was too late once again, before there was a whisper on the other side of the door, barely loud enough for him to hear over his own pounding heartbeat. "J-Jon? Jon??"

He could barely offer a sound of acknowledgement before the door was opening and he was falling forwards, not really having a chance to register that there was nothing holding him up anymore.

Thankfully, he was saved from a painful greeting from the floor by warm arms wrapping around him for the second time that day, hoisting him up a little even as his head thunked against a very comfortable shoulder — dying didn't seem so bad when it involved dying in such a lovely embrace.

There was some sort of panicked rambling going on above him, and he remembered that he didn't actually have to die if he got the worms out, which he tried to get across with slurred words, forcing his head up and gripping tightly at a soft jumper with one of his hands.

Something…something happened after that, but he blinked and found himself sitting on the floor, leaning against something solid and trying to squint at his surroundings while some..one moved around next to him, a vaguely familiar mumbling ramble just loud enough to hear over the singing that quickly cut off into screams.

His own panic was muted and far away, all of his thoughts and emotions an unending blur that all melted and swirled together, but something else's distress was making itself very known in his head, trying to force him into alertness with random images and shapes and colours, all too similar to a different time where everything had been wrong and strange.

All of this was wiped away with a sudden, searing burst of pain when something stabbed into his leg and forced a sound out of his mouth - it sounded so muffled to his own ringing ears, but the panicked mumbling only got louder as if to try and quieten him.

Something was dragged out of him then, and the screams in his head cut off so abruptly that he felt dizzy from it, hit with clarity so severe that he practically blacked out for a moment as the Ceaseless Watcher regained its hooks in his brain.

The first thing he latched onto when the world came back into focus was that Martin was right there, pressing some sort of cloth against his hip and whispering apologies — his hands were covered in blood, the same dark red staining the cloth and the cuffs of his jumper, and Jon could feel more soaking into his own shirt and sliding down his neck.

A corkscrew rested on the floor next to his knee, and his skirt had been pushed up enough to reveal jagged holes ripped into his skin, in that stage where the blood had not yet stopped oozing from them; the Watcher was tutting in his mind, trying to stop the flow from his wounds but unable to actually close them for some odd reason.

He stared silently at all of it for a moment, before dragging his eyes up to wholly take in Martin — he didn't look injured, thankfully, and all of the blood seemed to be from Jon rather than himself, which was also good.

He did, however, look incredibly panicked and- had he been crying?

"Are you…crying?" He asked, his voice hoarse and cracking a little on the final word, which he attributed to screaming he must had done while semi-conscious rather than his actual current emotional state.

Martin's reddened eyes snapped up to meet his, and he was hit with the knowledge that the man had wholeheartedly believed that he had killed him when trying to remove all the worms. "Wh- Jon? Holy fuck, I thought you were dead! You just- you just stopped breathing and I couldn't find your pulse so I just-"

And then he was wrapping him up into a tight embrace, hand cupping the back of his head and digging lightly into the space below his bun (which had held on quite admirably) and the other one pressed into his side, blood-soaked cloth further dampening the fabric of his shirt.

There was a distinct wetness against his shoulder, and he awkwardly raised his hand to pat it against the other man's back, staring into the middle distance — he was not very good at comforting people, especially when he didn't have the foggiest why they were sad in the first place.

Yes, obviously it could just be a reaction to the distress of seeing an individual and presuming that they were dead because of your actions, but it was just Jon.

"Well…I'm not dead." He had likely been more disoriented from the internal battle for control over his psyche that had been taking place; the second the last worm had been taken out, the Watcher had certainly wasted no time in forcing clarity into him, and all of the pain from moving could easily be brushed aside for the time being.

"You looked dead," Martin replied, any other emotion wiped away by pure relief, thankfully not appearing to be crying anymore as he almost reluctantly let go and leaned back to take a more scrutinising look at him. "You actually still look dead."

"I feel a bit dead, but rest assured that I would not be this talkative as a ghost," he replied with a sigh, even as he did a really quick check-in with the Ceaseless Watcher just to be sure that he wasn't dead - ghosts of his parasite were either able to maintain an almost completely normal appearance to have an easier time slipping into public areas and work best, or they were monsters of eyes and an endless void that stared back.

Fortunately, the Watcher just offered an image of a thumbs up emoji, too distracted keeping his blood in his body to give him anything too detailed as an answer.

When he zoned back in, he realised that Martin was actually speaking. "Listen, I am so sorry for this, I didn't know it was going to happen and I thought it was just a normal ghost, you got all caught up in it trying to get to me and now you're hurt instead of me and it's entirely unfair and I'm just so so sorry, you've lost like a lot of blood and if you die that's going to be my fault too- please don't die, I really don't know what I'm supposed to do if you're dead after everything you've done for me, I guess I'll just die too or something?? I mean I definitely deserve it for getting you caught up in this-"

"Martin, I'm not going to-"

"- and you know, you wouldn't have even come for me if you knew the truth because who the hell would try and save a liar, right? I don't even know how you got here, but you just almost died for me and you might still be dying for me while I've been lying to you this whole time because I lied on my CV, Jon, I literally have no qualifications except for like maybe a few GCSEs?? So now you've probably died for a goddamn liar too, which can't be a good death-"

"Oh, I already knew that." The words slipped out before he could stop them, still slightly distracted by the twinges of pain every time he breathed and swallowed, eyes drifting to the side before he realised what he had just admitted to and immediately looked across to Martin with horror he found already reflected in the other man's expression.

~*~*~*~*~

Silence fell over the two of them for a moment or two, all of Martin's thoughts having halted at the words falling from the other man's mouth.

One second he had been worried that Jon was about to bleed out, no matter how confident he seemed that he wouldn't and now he had the inane worry that he was about to be fired of all things, almost planning backup options he could scrabble to- oh god, rent was due soon-

All the while, his boss' mouth opened and closed without making a single sound, eyes wide and darting around in a manner not dissimilar to a caged animal's.

He truly did look half-dead, skin ashy and lifeless in a way that only seemed to highlight the dark bags under his eyes, sweat and blood pasting the errant strands of hair to his face and those vicious, jarring rips through his skin from where Martin had to pick out worms using a corkscrew he had found in the kitchen - all firmly crushed the second they were out, of course.

Jon's handkerchief (because of course he had a handkerchief) was basically ruined now, but he would maintain that a ruined handkerchief was preferable to a dead corpse and he was going to offer to replace it but now he wasn't even sure that would help the situation because Jon knew that he'd lied.

"How?" Was the first question that he asked, and then a whole lot of other ones started to pour out as well. "Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you fire me?! Were you actually trying to help me with those resources?? How the hell did you know?!"

"Martin." Jon cut through his panic using his 'boss' voice, the one he used when he had a report he wanted written 'as soon as possible, thank you,' or when he asked Tim and Sasha to 'focus your attention on your work,' which basically meant 'shut the hell up'.

Following this logic, Martin immediately shut the hell up out of instinct, even though his brain caught up and was rather offended by how easily he had been shut up.

The man across from him looked extremely conflicted and a little bit guilty for a second, as though arguing with himself, before taking in a fortifying breath (it sounded raspy — if only they weren't in a worm-infested flat block, he'd make some tea) and rubbing a hand over his face.

His glasses were pushed askew with this movement, and Martin wondered if he had noticed that one of the lenses was cracked.

"I'll- damn it all, I'll tell you how I know, but you must swear that you won't tell a soul." Jon suddenly said, always so very abrupt in his conversations in a way that was usually endearing, but was kind of terrifying this time around, especially paired with that incredibly intense look in his eyes — no, he wasn't thinking about how attractive it was, this was a serious situation and he was focused on the right things.

He stared at him for a few moments, trying to figure out what he was actually agreeing to, before he decided that he would actually keep any secret of the other on account of the impossibly huge crush he had on him.

And morals, of course.

"Well, um, I'll keep yours if you keep mine?" He offered, a nervous chuckle bubbling past his lips in reaction to literally all of the stressful things going on right now.

There was a slight relieved lowering of Jon's shoulders, and he nodded along with the utmost seriousness. "Yes. Right. Of course. Yes. So. the Ceaseless Watcher is in my head- or, well, I suppose it's a part of me, but it spends most of its time in my head."

Silence fell over them once more after the confession, only this time he felt distinctly guilty about it; the longer it stretched out, the more anxious the other looked as he stared at him with those wet cat eyes, adjusting his glasses nervously, but Martin was just trying to process the idea that his boss-slash-crush had one of The Fourteen just chilling in his head or possibly a part of him.

Eventually, he opened his mouth to speak and Jon perked up, clearly waiting for a response, and he had to physically force down the feelings that bubbled up because now was not the time. "Can- can I ask questions?"

When he received a vigorous nod (paired with a pained expression as Jon tugged on at least five different wounds with the movement) in answer, he tried to figure out which one was best to start with.

There was no point asking if there was any sort of proof for it — even putting aside the fact that he knew Martin wasn't qualified, Sasha and Tim had their own stories of his uncanny ability to be able to guess what they might want as a gift at any one time without them even voicing it to each other, let alone to him.

Which was…okay, yes, he found it kind of cute; imagine having a primordial entity that knew everything and fed off fear in one's mind and using it to get friends really good presents.

So it was probably best to ask the other most important question, which was "how the hell did that happen?"

The look that crossed Jon's face was both helpless and resigned, as though he had seen the question coming and simultaneously understood it while really hoping that it wouldn't be asked despite it — well, sorry, but it was a very important question because how else was he supposed to begin to understand any of this?

The person sat across from him took a moment to apparently gather his thoughts, something flitting around in his eyes before his whole body seemed to deflate and he came to a decision, just wrapping his arms around himself without any care for the injuries he must have been pulling with every movement. "It's a long story."

Not a deflection, but more of a warning, a chance to back out.

"Not like I'm going anywhere."

A huff of weary laughter escaped Jon, and he nodded his head as though making a concession to him for pointing out the obvious — or was it for calling out the only bluff he had left?

"No, I suppose not…you're aware that I used to work in Research, I know that, and you know that I was involved in an incident that somehow led to my sudden promotion to Head of P.R.D."

He nodded, not wanting to risk breaking the flow of anything by speaking.

Not that it seemed it would anyway, because Jon just nodded along too despite not even looking at him at this point, eyes fixed somewhere on the floor without really seeing anything except, perhaps, the memories of what he was about to describe.

"The Ceaseless Watcher had long since had its…eye on me, so to speak, perhaps because I was rather intent on peering into the business of The Fourteen and it was just seeing how much I liked it in return — not much, let that be said. Having something dedicated to watching placing even a little of its attention on you is a crushing feeling, one I hope you never feel in the manner I grew used to while researching.

However, it never reached out fully, not until I made a stupid mistake- or, a series of stupid mistakes that built up into one big shit show of my idiocy that all could watch with glee.

The first mistake I made was not walking out of the building after I first started getting lost down the endlessly twisting hallways - I had turned back, just once, to make sure that I actually could get back to the exit, but I wasn't smart enough to realise right then and there that I should just leave and never turn back.

I'd made it back once, surely I could make it back again, right?"

This was followed by a scoff — a bitter, frustrated scoff that spoke volumes to how he felt about that sentence, aware of the naive belief displayed in such a thought despite all of the warning signs that had been starting to stack up around him.

"My second mistake was overestimating my own ability to get around this obviously unnatural labyrinth of a building, all for the sake of a loose tip-off related to missing people entering the space and never coming out; I thought there was something to be found in that…and there was, just not what I had actually expected it to be.

I wandered through those halls for what felt like forever, passing the same off-yellow door more times than I could count with that naive belief that I could still get out if necessary, until the frustration truly got to me and I just turned to wrench open the door, fully expecting it to be locked as it had been the first time I tried it.

That was my next mistake — thinking that I could rely on my perception and memory in that moment.

The door swung open, suddenly a painfully vibrant yellow, and the once dark surroundings were engulfed in colours and shapes that made up incoherent nonsense — it was everything and nothing all at once, sounds piercing my eardrums almost as loudly as the echo of my own breath in the somehow simultaneous silence, bright swirls and fractals unravelling all around me as I floated- or ran? Or just lay there, unmoving…

It was not my first time in contact with a ghost, nor even my first time time in contact with a higher level ghost, but this was my first time handling a level four ghost and I couldn't tie together the thoughts to comprehend such a fact in the moment.

The Twisting Deceit is often labelled as one of the worst entities to deal with, and I would be obliged to agree — I could barely remember where I was, let alone what was going on around me, and the only feeling I could understand was an all-consuming panic that would have choked me if I had felt like I had a throat in that moment."

Martin could only listen, almost caught up in the imagery that Jon painted with every word and shuddering at the thought of being caught up in it like the other man had been.

The thought of not being able to understand anything going on around yourself, all while trapped in a space that truly felt like it hated you for even being there…well, actually, that kind of sounded like his youth with his mother, just further aggravated to a much worse degree.

Like, so much worse, if how the other man was staring emptily into the middle distance was anything to go by — in fact, he felt bad for even thinking the two experiences were comparable, and was suddenly so glad that he couldn't seem to find the words to interrupt and offer such stupid comments to try and make him feel better.

His throat felt clogged up, and Jon continued unhindered, bitterness still seeping into his tone with the next sentence.

"I…I was about to say that I couldn't tell you how long I spent there, but of course I could.

I won't.

In the moment, it had felt endless; time had no meaning in that place, and I wouldn't have gotten anywhere even if I had actually been moving.

I can't describe exactly how it happened — one moment I couldn't make out what anything was, overwhelmed by the nonsense pouring into all of my senses, the next I was coherent enough to register just the slightest tug in my head, forcing my attention in a single direction and holding it there as if for fear that I would lose it again if it didn't keep a tight grip on me.

Everything was still incomprehensible to me, meaning I had to cling to this faint thread of understanding that seemed intent on leading me somewhere, ignoring the spirals and lies that sought to draw me in once more.

I walked- crawled? Sprinted?…I moved through the space for a while, unable to think about anything but this fine string that promised knowledge I had never so desperately wanted before, that promised the hows and the whys that I just couldn't make sense of in the moment.

When I eventually reached the space I had been led to, it took me a few moments to even register what it was that I had been led to, that string tugging all of my concentration to what appeared to be a man of sorts, one who was hunched in on himself with his hands covering his face as he sobbed into them.

There was clarity here, a calm within the eye of the hurricane, and I found myself focused on nothing but this individual, approaching as though I had some sort of purpose of finding him — I suppose I did, really, it just wasn't one I had thought of myself.

His hair was impossible to make sense of, yellow and staticky and spiralling in endless loops, and his voice almost danced with the colours with every warped, heaving wail that escaped him; he looked like he was a manifestation of the impossible nonsense, or perhaps the impossible nonsense was just another part of him.

It didn't really matter what he was — the only clear thought in my mind was that this was a ghost with a story, and I wanted that story more desperately than I wanted to be free of everything around us, so much so that I stumbled over to this spirit and didn't even consider my safety as I asked him to tell me everything.

Something heavy appeared in the air as I asked that, a static almost cutting through the overwhelming jumble of noises.

The constant movement seemed to pause as well, like everything was holding its breath as the man stilled — I didn't know why in the moment, but I know now that he didn't want to share his story with me, trying to fight against the words being dragged out of it by a hook that neither of us could see.

He told his story haltingly, as if trying to figure out when it was enough, but it never was.

The Ceaseless Watcher wanted it all, and so all of it was pried out of this poor soul who survived in the lack of understanding I was forcing it to offer.

Its name was…well, he had once wanted to remain as Michael, but now it wanted to be nothing and everything all at once, something that could not be defined or labelled with a name, which is why it fought so fiercely against being Known.

When I had collected the story of Michael Shelley's life and death from it, everything remained impossibly still for a while afterwards, shocked by how easily the information had been dragged out of it.

Then, this creature that had once been a confused, helpless soul lifted its head from its hands.

Any facial feature that could have been picked out was twisted, distorted, but I could see this impossible fury in what I presumed to be its eyes as it looked upon me, and then these razor sharp fingers were stretching, reaching out and slashing down my throat before I even had a chance to realise what was happening."

He choked up, then, almost trying to stop himself from continuing as he shook his head.

His hand flew to his throat, pressing there harshly like he was physically trying to keep blood that wasn't there in, or perhaps just trying to halt the words flowing from his mouth while Martin could do nothing but watch this struggle, still caught up in this recital of a traumatising experience like it was just another story he was reading online instead of sleeping.

They were both trapped in the moment, just like Michael had been trapped in it all those years ago.

That didn't mean he couldn't at least move his hands to take Jon's free hand in both of his own and clasp it, silent support that the man reciprocated in a tight grip.

"The pain was sharp and violent, but what was worse was how these unfeasible fingers didn't stop at my throat — they caught on my bones as I tried to lurch back in shock, hooking down and ripping with this sickening, wet cracking sound while I spluttered up blood.

Most people would find it hard to remember exactly what happened that day, what with the mixture of trauma and the Twisting Deceit creating a vicious cocktail of memory loss, but the Watcher has made sure that I can remember each agonising second of the whole experience, can feel the blood drip through my fingers as they clutched uselessly at the remains of my throat.

There was no point even trying to struggle, not with my chest in such a state as well, but dying with a lack of oxygen can make one's thought process less than optimal.

The creature formerly known as Michael was not through with me though, and I believe it would have torn me apart bit by bit if it weren't for the fact that I had just drawn that story from it.

Even if it didn't need or want to be known anymore, Michael Shelley certainly had, and had easily allowed himself to be pulled from the Twisting Deceit's clutches as a result of his wish being fulfilled, leaving the entity suddenly without any source to cling to.

The world of incoherence was crumbling down into normality around us, and whatever remained of this creature could not maintain its form without a soul, twisting in on itself with an echoing, enraged shriek even as it reached out to…finish me off, I presume.

Not that it was quite necessary — even with the immediate threat so suddenly dealt with, the damage had been done and I was dying either way, unable to breathe and then soon finding myself unable to remain upright as blood continued to just pour out of the injury I had sustained.

I should have died, that is obvious to the both of us by now, but the Watcher was not done with me.

It reached out to me once more, offering a solution I desperately craved in the moment; I didn't understand what I was agreeing to outside of knowing that I would be able to live because I just didn't want to die.

And then…then I woke up in the hospital with bandages firmly hampering any movement and a monster in my head — a monster that had somehow kept me alive until a group of teenagers broke into the building that night, spurred on by the rumours of danger and ghosts and instead coming upon the body of a man with his chest half ripped open.

Mustn't have been a good sight to stumble across in the dark, I don't suppose, but…yes, that's…that's everything."

~*~*~*~*~

Even though he had seen it coming, the silence that followed was still anxiety-inducing, and Jon looked down to avoid seeing whatever expression was currently plastered on Martin's face.

He found that, while he had been speaking, one of his hands had moved to rub over the scars on his neck — constant reminders of the experience that the Ceaseless Watcher had been unable to remove, along with the mess of scar tissue that was his chest, all of it pulling and tugging wrong every time he breathed too deeply or coughed too harshly.

For all of its ability to heal wounds and keep him alive when such a thing should be impossible, the Watcher made no attempt at trying to heal the scars that were left from most of his experiences with ghosts, and he was sure that his skin was more scar than flesh at this point, but he had never actually had the guts to look, covering up the mirror when he had to wash or anything.

He quickly dropped his hand back down into his lap, eyes dragging over the newest additions to his collection of disfigurements, and he wondered if Martin ever would respond — what was he really supposed to say, though?

He hadn't even really meant to say all of that, but something had gripped his thoughts and he knew that he wouldn't be able to stop until he spilled all of it out into the world…which he supposed was how Michael (or whatever Michael had become) had felt, all those years ago.

Just another thing he couldn't control, like how he was never able to control when he could use his words to force people to listen to him or do what he said, or when he pried deep into people's minds to draw out their secrets and thoughts, or just Knew things that he was not supposed to know.

Honestly, it would make more sense if he tried to kill him; he was a monster, not a human and not a ghost but controlled by one of The Fourteen all the same, capable of such awful things should the Watcher ever grow bored of his struggles and fully take over, no matter how often it claimed that he was its 'favourite' human and that it would never do such a thing.

Yes, better to kill him now, put him down and avoid any such threat being realised — the last thing that Jon wanted was to be a danger to those he was trying to protect.

Martin moved and he willed himself not to flinch, to not make it any harder than it already was on the sweet man — it wouldn't be hard, he knew that he would be easily overpowered by most people, he just hoped that the Ceaseless Watcher would let him go quietly and without struggle-

And then arms were around him and there was a moment of panic, a moment of 'surely he wouldn't suffocate me, of all the ways to go' before he realised that Martin wasn't trying to kill him but hold him, pressing him into an embrace just on the right side of squeezing and dragging all of his focus to the gentle touch instead of bracing himself for danger.

Well.

This hadn't been what he had expected.

Martin certainly didn't realise this, face pressing against his head as he whispered something or other about being 'so sorry you had to go through that' but honestly, Jon was still caught on the fact that the man didn't want him dead.

In fact, he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the apologies to turn to rationalisation as he had the life squeezed out of him, but it never came.

The hug continued being just that.

It was a while before he finally let himself relax into it, abandoning all pretences of professionalism and burying his face into Martin's chest because he didn't know the last time he had actually been hugged — the Watcher supplied him with the knowledge that it had been just after the incident with the Twisting Deceit, when both Tim and Sasha had crushed him into a hug far too soon after he woke up, which was…quite a long time ago.

Long enough ago that he was reluctant to let go when the opportunity presented itself, even though he knew that it would be strange if he didn't and so forced himself to do exactly that, wiping away a couple of stray tears that were left from the worms being tugged out from him (and nothing else).

"Do you have any other questions?" He asked, trying to regain his footing and pretend that all of this was normal, all the while Martin continued to look at him with such pity that Jon felt rather like he wanted to leave this situation entirely.

"Um, yeah, loads..but I don't know- we could try getting out of here first." His assistant pointed out, and Jon was rather suddenly reminded of the fact that right, they were still in the domain of a level four ghost who really wanted new vessels to spread the infection squirming around the space.

"Right. Yes." This was murmured more to himself than it was to Martin, and he moved to start standing up despite how wobbly he was from the second his feet took on his weight.

His leg inevitably buckled, sending a flare of pain up his side as he was instantly caught in Martin's steady arms. "Hm…this won't be very helpful."

Couldn't really run if he couldn't make his leg work, but he was sure to find a way around it.

Martin, for some reason, was making a very big deal out of him moving, citing things like blood flow and 'still open wounds' as though any of that had ever stopped him before — not that he had dealt with wounds of the worm variety before, but he had dealt with…relatively similar things at least, so he was confident he could handle this the same.

"-I mean, can you even walk? Do you know how many worms I pulled out of your leg?!" The other man was evidently not as confident in his ability, which left him slightly indignant as he made another attempt at standing on his own feet without support.

"Twenty two and a half," he replied, not looking up from where he was trying to place his foot down in a manner that wouldn't immediately make his hip give out, before pausing as he reconsidered the number that had just left his mouth and looking up in confusion. "A half?"

Now it was Martin's turn to look a little indignant, even as he cleared his throat awkwardly. "I accidentally squashed half of a worm before I got the hang of the corkscrew. I did get the other half out, though!"

Jon nodded along slowly, already having forgotten what he had asked about as he placed all of his focus on the damaged leg and then decided that it wasn't even that big of a deal, brushing aside all of the other amounts of worms that had been pulled out of his limbs that the Watcher offered him because it wasn't going to help him now.

"Right, well, it doesn't matter. I need to deal with this either way…I suppose I will just have to ask Prentiss to come to me rather than I go to her. Oh, and now that I'm here, you should have no trouble leaving — there's nothing The Fourteen hate more than another of their number interfering with their fun."

While he explained all of this, he had managed to steady himself against the couch, sparing only a moment of horror and guilt at the sight of the body sitting there — the amount of corpses he had seen since becoming head of P.R.D. didn't exactly numb him tot he sight of bodies, but it had certainly made it easier to compartmentalise his feelings on their existence when in these situations.

And, of course, Martin said the worst thing someone could say in this kind of scenario. "Wh- I'm not going to leave you, Jon! Look at you!"

"Yes, I appreciate that you may feel some guilt over leaving me, but I assure you that I have dealt with all of this before and having another life to worry about is a danger to both of us," he sighed out, now having stabilised himself enough for a serviceable limp to the door, bracing himself against sturdy objects along the way while Martin followed close behind, wringing his hands anxiously.

"I can take care of myself!"

Jon didn't deign to point out this obvious lie, but he did offer a sceptical look over his shoulder as he leaned against the door, kicking the coat there to the side with his more functional leg and went about unlocking the door. "Whether that is true or not — and it is not — you haven't ever gone up against a level four ghost, and I have, so trust me when I say-"

"Jesus- Jon, look out!"

The warning was rather unnecessary, because a rather worm-filled hand grabbed at his jaw and forced him to look back at the remains of one Jane Prentiss.

She was about to attack him, to kill him, and he could feel the parasites begin to burrow into his skin once more.

Automatically, instinctively, the words that he Knew he must say slipped out of his mouth, and he could feel the familiar pressure of an intense gaze snapping onto him as the singing started up once more.

~*~*~*~*~

Jane Prentiss' life had been a lonely one.

Such little affection from her parents that she tried to supplement with the care and comfort from friends who held her close and let her cry into their shoulders with any inconvenience she stumbled upon throughout her youth.

But she took too much, always took too much and never gave enough, according to those liars who had called themselves her friends and while turning their backs on her and letting her life sink back into the cold emptiness it became when there was nobody there to show her that love she craved so desperately.

They called her selfish, refusing to listen to her pleas for connection and walking away as though she had never meant a thing to them at all, as though she was the one in the wrong.

The descriptors given to her didn't stick in her mind, however, not as badly as that one simple lie from a fellow classmate about the truth behind blackheads, the one that had her obsessively staring into a mirror every night and just dragging her nails over her skin to squeeze and rid it of even the slightest hints of those damned things.

If she bled, it only meant that she was doing it right.

Her parents, of course, never cared or noticed, as distant as they had been throughout her whole childhood — missed school events, forgotten birthdays, they were the backdrop that made up her miserable pretence of a life until she finally moved out to university with little fanfare, and she found herself clinging even more to even the tiniest displays of a bond from others.

It was a new opportunity to gain friends, to have those connections everyone flaunted online and in films and books, that existed everywhere she turned for everyone except her, apparently.

At first, it truly felt as if there were a change, like she truly was making those friends she had craved all of her life, but they soon decided that she wasn't worth it either; telling her that she took too much, that she was 'toxic' and 'selfish', but they were the ones who were in the wrong, tossing her away and leaving her with nothing but soured memories and holes in her face that wouldn't go away.

Wicca felt different, almost like the closest thing she had felt to true connection to others without having to speak to them — the attachment through shared beliefs, even if it was just a passing moment when talking in the shop she had managed to gain a job in as she fed customers honeyed lies about crystals that did not sing and did not help her or the growing infestation of ants in the basement, but that shone so prettily that surely it didn't matter whether they really did anything at all.

There was another one, a quiet, melancholic man named Oliver who handed out the same lies she did with a solemn air and looked at her with such sadness, like he was mourning her before she had even died.

She liked to have think they would have been friends if others had not begun to complain about her warnings of the ants, if he had not started to look at her with such fear, forcing her to go all over again and leaving her with nothing but those holes she picked at every night, desperately trying to stop the rot from seeping into her skin.

For a while, she believed the quiet singing that had started up in her mind was actually from those useless crystals littered over her windowsills and pressed against her skin on thin black string, that she was actually connecting with those gods written about in the books of magic and witchcraft, but…well, of course it wasn't anything to do with those lies.

No, it was something else.

In her attic, there was a wasps' nest, and it sang so beautifully to her.

It promised her love and connection, unending and all-consuming, and all she had to do was let it in.

The landlord, the fool who believed he owned the space and demanded her useless money like it meant something, had the key to the attic, but that was rather easily remedied with a hammer.

A lock would not keep her away from the singing that lured her in and terrified her all at once, and the wasps' nest's song overwhelmed all of her senses as she approached it in the dark, cobwebbed room, that promised her that she would finally be part of something more than herself.

That she would finally feel whole.

~*~*~*~*~

Everything was very bright and he felt like he was floating, lost in the gentle haze of something he couldn't currently comprehend.

He felt numb, practically completely disconnected from his body even as he somehow forced his eyes to open just a sliver, a distant sound of discontent escaping him when the brightness was still very much there and not leaving.

There was that vague knowledge kicking around in his empty brain that he was supposed to be in some sort of danger, but it was quickly washed away by the fact that there wasn't anything he could do about it if he were in danger — he could barely even open his eyes, how on earth was he supposed to do anything against the danger he was apparently in?

With that decision made, Jon was ready to just close his eyes and accept whatever fate he was about to be dealt, when he suddenly registered a very muffled sound going on somewhere off to his right.

His first thought was that this was the supposed danger he was facing, and his natural instinct was to see exactly what was causing his brain so much distress, no matter how distant it was; if he were to be killed, he'd at least like to know what it was that was killing him.

So, he went about the slow process of shifting his head in that direction, taking note of a strange pull in his neck with the movement — sure, now the aches were starting to set in, when he was trying to see the threat — but the pain was still far away, as though it were happening to another person and he was just an observer of their plight, meaning he could focus on trying to pry his eyes open further.

Instead of coming face to face with some sort of axe-wielding maniac or a ghost come to haunt him (not that these two things had to be mutually exclusive), he could make out a vaguely familiar blob amongst the still too-bright light, one that was moving around and making those muffled sounds like he was supposed to be processing them.

He just continued to squint at this blob, hoping that it would somehow come into focus if he just focused hard enough, and there was a pause before the blob suddenly moved out of his line of sight.

Usually, this would distress him somewhat — he never had liked not knowing where things were, whether it was people he cared about or his favourite inanimate objects — but he felt this was all rather par for the course in this situation.

Of course the thing he had only just registered as existing would up and leave, sweeping the only vaguely comprehensible thing away just as he started being able to make out what it even was.

He went back to silently complaining about the brightness of the space, making a solid attempt at killing it with his mind, when it dimmed out of nowhere and he had to consider the power he now held if he legitimately could kill light sources by focusing on it really hard, all while experiencing extreme relief that the slowly appearing headache had subsided with the movement.

The blob moved back into his line of sight and he realised that it had likely been the real reason the light had died, and that he could now actually see things a little bit better without the blinding white taking up everything.

Of course, the blob was not actually a blob, but a person, one with orange hair and some sort of brown article of clothing…a jumper?

All of a sudden, he was hit with a startlingly clear image of someone very familiar — oh, Martin! — and then had the Ceaseless Watcher flooding into his mind with so much knowledge and information that it was hard to make out anything it was trying to tell him, especially considering the utter whiplash of still seeing things blurry while being offered images with stunning resolution in his mind.

It was disorienting, and he reacted with a groan because there was nothing else he could do, but Martin had no idea what was going on in his head and reacted with worry that he could recognise even in this state.

Jon automatically tried to explain that. no, he was fine, it was just the Watcher being its usual overstimulating self, but all that came out were vague sort of jumbled attempts at words and the other man seemed to become even more distressed as a result.

Well, he had tried his best, and that was all that could be asked of him.

He just shut his eyes once more, finding it quite hard to keep them open even as he was vaguely aware of someone else entering the room and speaking, the sound muffled just as it was when Martin spoke.

Just a little nap would get him back together, surely?

Everything was still blurry when he next opened his eyes, but he was able to recognise that it was just the product of not wearing his glasses this time, rather than what he presumed was likely medication last time.

No, actually, he was certain that it was medication beforehand, because his whole body was currently in agony and he was aware of every bit of it — no matter what he attempted to move, it pulled some sort of injury, or it pulled on dressing covering an injury.

Even still, he had never been someone who followed the obvious path no matter what it was and he moved his head despite all of the warning that it was going to hurt, face scrunching up (even that pulled on something) as he pressed the side of his face into the pillow of the hospital bed.

Because that was what it was, obviously.

He was in the hospital after surviving yet another messy situation with a level four ghost and somehow he could make out his glasses resting on the small table that was attached to the bed, so he forced his arm — bandaged and very much not pleased to be moving — to shift enough so he could actually grab them with a barely stifled grunt of pain.

It was fine, he had dealt with far worse than parasitical worms digging into his muscles (and probably his bones), he could handle putting on his goddamn glasses.

He took note of the fact that one of the lenses had cracked with sigh of resignment, just glad that the blurring of his vision had decreased at least a little as he took in his surroundings more properly this time.

Immediately upon doing so, he found himself staring at Martin, who was sitting in the chair next to his bed, chin tucked against his chest and glasses resting on the edge of his nose, one deep breath away from slipping off entirely.

And, as Jon watched on with those impossibly warm feelings bubbling up inside at just the sight of Martin so willing to wait for him to wake up that he would fall asleep in one of those uncomfortable chairs, the man's chest rose up with a particularly deep inhale and his glasses simply couldn't hold on any longer, sliding down to rest against his chest as he exhaled once more.

Soon enough, Martin would wake up and call a doctor at the sight of him awake and coherent, then there would be all sorts of tests and questions and hard truths that the Ceaseless Watcher was already trying to impress into his mind, recovery that he wouldn't follow and eventually more danger that he couldn't turn his back on.

However, right now, Jon was rather content to watch Martin sleep with one of the arms of his glasses digging into his cheek, tracing his eyes over those freckles and just being rather thankful that he was there with him.