tapeleader | planet of love destroyed

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planet of love destroyed

Peter didn't want him to go. He only came out and said it once or twice. Saying anything so directly would mean being in Martin's company, the delight of which has worn off over the months. Still, he's made his disapproval more than obvious, primarily in the form of disappearing people and things that Martin needed to get here. His keys and wallet. His desktop computer at one point. His cell phone. His booking agent. One shoe, in a particularly petty pre-flight snit.

He makes one last effort halfway across the ocean, lazy and comfortable in the strange atmosphere of the economy cabin. "You don't owe those voyeurs anything." Peter hummed sleepily over his shoulder, plastic cocktail cup swirling slowly in his hand. "What do you say to landing and taking a nice, long drive out to the midwest? It wouldn't have to be a waste then. We could get some good business done out there. Really save on stress. Doesn't that sound nice..."

But Martin did learn a few things from his predecessor, and the greatest lesson he learned about Peter was that a smile and a nod were the very best way to deal with him. Once he was pacified, do as you like. Certainly, Martin will wander out of his good graces at some point. But he notes as he checks into his hotel room that Peter doesn't stop him or disappear his credit card or whisk away the attendant. He simply dissipates and drifts away and doesn't appear again until they're in the elevator of the Usher Foundation head quarters.

"You picked a fine suit, at least." He remarks of the well-fitting ensemble that Peter himself paid for early on in Martin's directorship. The gray (or is it blue?) is clean and crisp, well-cut to frame the weight he has left, colored to match the lone blue (or is it gray?) eye that preceded it by only a few months. Martin smiles and nods, and Peter lets out a great, singing sigh. "Do be careful, Martin. You're getting very greedy these days, you know. Don't let your eyes be bigger than...well. Just be careful."

His knuckles brush the side of Martin's neck, fingers comb a few cropped curls out of his collar, and Martin reaches for him--finds himself surprised by the nervousness he finds right at the top of Peter's brain. Before he can ask or look for more, the elevator door opens on his floor, and Peter Lukas is gone through the ducts.

Mr. Blackwood approaches the administrative desk alone, leather portfolio tucked under one arm, the other hand settled protectively on top of it, smile demure and eyes too-sharp as he quietly confirms that he has an appointment.

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"Please stop pacing, Jon."

"I'm just stretching my legs."

Elizabeth sighs and plucks her reading glasses from the desk to help her squint at the screen in front of her. Inscrutable spreadsheets. Steam curls up from the cup of acrid tea in front of her. "He's really got you rattled, hm. Maybe you shouldn't have kept this from Elias. You're clearly in need of moral support. Want to do some breathing exercises together?"

"Not really, thanks," Jon murmurs and folds his arms, not pleased with her for bringing up his recent dishonesty.

It's been eerie, not telling Elias about this. These days, secrets don't usually last between them. They dissolve in the acid of their intimacy.

Rather than lie — Elias, even blinded, can taste a lie too easily — Jon has mostly relied on distraction. Luckily, something is working its bloody way through livestock in Texas, leaving behind strange births, tongueless men with cattle hide on their backs, goats that chuckle with human voices. They're going to go take a look. So Elias is tangled in tapes and travel arrangements. Jon can trust his preoccupation. He knows what Elias wants from the Flesh.

"You could have dressed up," Elizabeth says, interrupting Jon's thoughts.

"What? I'm dressed."

"Dressed up, I said. Have you ironed that shirt recently?"

Jon glances down. He likes this shirt. It's green, vintage (old), with a repeating darker pattern that he had thought mostly disguised the creases. Looking in the mirror this morning he felt a familiar swell of guilt. Sometimes he imagines himself a captive, in order to ease the moral aches and pains. But for a supposed prisoner, he looks very well-fed. Perturbed, he sniffs, "Aren't you trying to work?"

"Maybe I'm a little rattled too," Elizabeth suggests, though she sounds chirpy and amused. Jon knows better than to try and poke around in her head without laying some serious groundwork. Still, he's almost anxious enough to try: all that stops him from making a stupid mistake is the swish of the automatic doors in the foyer, and the cool breeze of Martin's presence.

Elizabeth's smile has fled. She's cool and hard now. "That's him."

"Yes, I know," Jon snaps. He still can't see him. He's a blank spot on the world like someone cut out of a photograph. Jon watches the absence get into the elevator.

"Ten minutes," he reminds Elizabeth, turning towards her. "Ten minutes, and then you leave us alone. You promised."

She looks at him in amazement. "Yes, I did. I very kindly agreed you could have your little reunion in the privacy of my office, too. I'm doing you a favour, Jonathan. You are so rude."

Jon doesn't have time to respond to that, because the absence knocks on the door.

"Come on in, Mr Blackwood," Elizabeth calls, standing up and moving out from behind her desk. She smooths her hands down over her hips to ease the creases in her wrap dress, and positions a smile delicately atop her face. "Please, come on in."

Wait, Jon wants to say, wait, I'm not ready, and then Martin is in the room and visible for the first time in more than a year.

He's in all the wrong colours. All bluish grey and gingery-gold, coordinated and clean-edged in a way Martin has never been before. No tattered threads trailing from ancient jumper cuffs here. No attempts to disappear under shapeless layers. No odd socks, but...Jon exhales as he sees the one mismatch.

He sort of knew about the eye. He knew it was a possibility. It shouldn't crush the breath from him. It does anyway.

He just about manages a frozen abstraction of a smile.

He can already hear Peter tutting smugly, and he's dreading it even before his face can decide what it's doing. He'd already made the decision not to shake hands (he'd rather not test Elizabeth out the gate), but he'd planned on it being much less--awkward. Martin slips in the door with a clinical half-smile, and even that falters when he sees--

When he sees.

"Oh." Practice has helped his poise, but he stutters in the face of being thoroughly ambushed. Martin's hands squeeze around the edges of his portfolio, smile winding dangerously tight for the moment that he nods at Jon. "Hullo. Jon." His head tilts back to Elizabeth, stiff and sweet and chipper. "Well! If I'd known we had someone else in the meeting, I would have printed a, uh. Second copy of my notes. Of course, you probably do everything digitally now, right? I'll--send you an email with it attached. Right."

"Hello," Jon says, far too loud, far too sudden, far too croaky. He wishes for something to hold onto. Clever Martin, wielding that portfolio like a shield.

Martin didn't know he was going to be here. The implications hit him in three separate shocks: he doesn't know everything, he thinks this is an ambush...and though he came all this way, he didn't come for Jon.

Jon grips the side of Elizabeth's desk, aiming for a comfortable leaning position to mask the quiver in his knees. He looks away, which doesn't really impact how much he can see. Elizabeth, thankfully, ignores him. She ushers Martin to the low sofa. "Please do. It's so nice to finally meet you — would you like tea?"

"Oh," Jon stammers, his head coming up in quick alarm and his eyes finding Martin's patchwork gaze, "no, don't, erm — it's not..." He struggles for words, suddenly feeling acutely like a cartoon character who has just run off a cliff and hasn't remembered to fall yet. "Unless you're fond of nootropic mushrooms these days?"

Edited 2020-04-03 15:33 (UTC)

"If you have coffee." Martin proffers quickly and instantly regrets it. The stronger drink is soothing in the comfort of his own office, company enough during long hours alone. It can only serve to jitter his nerves now. But the request is already out. He tries to breeze over it. "I'm glad to be here. Not like--oh, I'm just grateful to be here, but--what I mean is--I think birds of a feather should--well, you know."

How professional, a voice that's uniquely his nags at him. Martin smiles another stilted thing and nods, long arms reaching down to find out the low couch before he takes his seat. His hand jerks up gingerly from the cushion the second he touches it. "Mm--it's been too long. Since we all worked together."

"Coffee, sure." The coffee is already made, and so is the tea: both wait on a tray on Elizabeth's desk. Jon realises that she set it up that way intentionally the moment before she prompts, "Jon?"

He shoots her an annoyed look but her head is turned and she's settled opposite Martin, chatting away. "Birds of a feather, huh? We've got lots of different feathers. We are very colourful birds indeed." She crosses her legs and snuggles back into the sofa as Jon brings the drinks over. He doesn't want to draw closer to Martin: it does nothing for the urge to stare and unpick him with his eyes.

"You want to talk about the Eye?" She plucks her tea off the tray and inhales. "I'm up to my eyes in Eye people."

"Thanks," Jon mutters listlessly, taking a seat next to her.

"It's just that I'm most interested in multi-tasking these days. You know, finding efficiencies." Through the steam, she hums, "I am so interested to hear how that's playing out for you."

Not least, Jon knows, because she's afraid. It's taken him a long time to work out, but she's too clever to believe her situation is sustainable. Feeding the Eye is already boring her: she wants to revel in the novelty of the end times without the distraction of paying tribute to the Eye's hunger. But tribute is nonetheless due.

The thanks Martin offers Jon for the coffee is every bit as cursory and avoidant as Jon's delivery. The memories attached to the mug rush into his palms as he wraps them around it, and he's pleased to find his suspicions correct: the ceramic remembers being cleaned in a scalding industrial dishwasher and little else. The steam lets him breath easier. "Well, I'd be lying if I said it was all going smoothly," and he would never dare lie to her, of course, "but--for flying blind, I don't think we're doing too shabby at all."

His eyes flick up to Jon twice, but it's much easier to settle on Elizabeth, the person he wants to impress. Still, just how much he wants to reveal with Jon here--his hesitance as he explains is palpable. "As you...may know, we're undergoing a concerted hiring effort right now, under the direction of our backers. The, um. Archive, the--hard archive, that is--is in a bit of a state after last year's...controversy." It's a good time for his first sip of coffee, though it's still hot and too bitter. "But--we are recovering. Organizing. Diversifying, let's say. It's slowing down the process some, but I believe--it's my opinion that if everyone is doing their best at their business, we'll all benefit."

A pause and a tight sigh before he adds cheerily. "It just turns out that Eye people tend to be best at the business of--well, of a business. I can't do my due service to any of the others until I've set my people up for success. Which is why I'm here, of course. Which--you know. Of course."

Any of the others. Jon notices it, which means Elizabeth must too — but she gives no sign, just grins and sips her tea. "Well, my goodness. You must have been working hard to get Peter to allow concerted hiring efforts."

"Yes," Jon says, suddenly and snarlingly polite. "How is Peter Lukas?" He has a suspicion that these days, Martin isn't too hindered by what Peter allows him to do.

"Oh, it's not so bad. Peter and the rest had their reservations, of course, and they certainly aren't making the search any easier. But y'know--dinosaurs move slow. Ha." Another fidgety drink, and Martin keeps his eyes on his hands. Jon only gets his answer obliquely. "They're nervous, I think. But as for Peter, it's usually just a matter of making him understand that if he wants what he wants--we get what we want.

"What I want," Chest tight, eyes up, Martin stretches to set his mug on the table and pulls his hands demurely back into his lap, "is for we to include all of us."

Jon's mouth falls open, his eyes rounded with disbelief. "Seriously?" he hisses, but Elizabeth is talking over him:

"That sounds very nice. But you know things between my Foundation and the Institute have been unfortunately frosty before, and frankly it has taken you a year to reach out. It doesn't exactly make me feel wanted." She pops her tea on the counter and mirrors Martin's pose. "Eye people are good at business, whereas followers of the Lonely favour out-of-office replies and hold music. It's a funny mix, Martin, you have to admit. How am I to trust that you'll stay balanced? I don't want to end up in a partnership with someone who won't pick up the phone."

"I understand. I really do, I can't--express my frustration with--I could--" Show her, he could show her easily enough what's in his mind. Any idiot could have known this question was coming, and Martin did. He did plan for this, but he hadn't planned for him. His tone softens, a touch quieter as if he can close Jon out of the conversation as he leans forward. "I understand that there have been...issues in the not too distant past between our organizations. I hope I can impress upon you the difficult position that Mr. Bouchard left me in as his successor. I reached out at literally the first available moment. I can't hope to convince you in one conversation, of course, but--we have to start somewhere, don't we?

"I've had to spend the last year rebuilding my Institute before I could work on any bridges." On the exhale, his gaze drifts to Jon and sticks there. He'll remember the wreckage left behind by the Hunt, Prentiss storming through the place looking for him. The corners of his mouth tremble down for a lone moment of weakness. On the inhale, Martin turns his imploring look back to Elizabeth. "I'm happy to take things slow. But I am fully invested in repairing damage done. After all, I'm sure you'd like to lessen your load here as well. You've got a lot of irons in the fire, I imagine."

Jon can't keep returning Martin's gaze for long, not while the echo of my Institute rings so obvious and loud. They both look away at exactly the same moment. Jon digs his fingers into the couch cushions.

He can't see what happens in Elizabeth's mind, but he knows her well enough now to hear it ticking. Nothing pleases her more than efficient outsourcing, and she likes the idea that she can get someone else to keep the Eye happy while she devotes more of her time to pollution and cataclysm.

"That's the downside of diversification," she acknowledges. She taps her manicured fingernails on her knee. "I'm not opposed on principle. I don't make business decisions based on grudges — it's petty and old-fashioned. You seem to have a similar — oh, excuse me." One of her hands flutters to quiet the soft buzzing of a phone. She pulls it from a pocket of her blazer. "Sorry. If this phone rings, it's urgent. Hold that thought."

Jon wants to change plans. He doesn't want to be alone with Martin. But there's no way to communicate that to Elizabeth now: she's in full flow. She stands and grabs her teacup in one hand, phone wedged between shoulder and ear, leaving one hand free to grab the door. "Hi, no, of course it's not a good time. Talk, please..." The door closes behind her and her voice becomes inaudible. The silence blankets them like snow.

Jon realises he's holding his breath. He exhales in a soft rush. It feels like fighting against a weight around his neck to bring his gaze up to Martin's face. He does it anyway, though it causes slight tremors of effort.

"I..." He swallows. "I didn't mean to surprise you." His voice is as neutral as he can make it.

Surely she won't take the call. Surely she'll have them leave a message and stick to the matter at hand. Surely she won't leave them alone--

Martin hums to himself. He nods to Jon's statement and hums again to himself before reaching for the mug on the table. He stands, moving towards the tea cart and well enough away from Jon. "Oh, I'm. I'm sure you didn't." He chirrups. "All's well. Do, um. Does she keep sugar here, or is it some other mushroom-based sweetener?"

"Er — yes, there should be — somewhere on there." Fuck, Jon thinks to himself, with all the venom he can't spit out aloud. Fuck. He had to bargain hard to get Elizabeth to agree to leave them alone. She'll still expect him to honour their terms, and they weren't pleasant terms at all.

With a little bit of desperation, he says, "Martin," though he's not sure what he's pleading for. He comes up off the sofa, but doesn't move towards him. "'All's well'?"

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