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“Do you know?” Nikola carols, prancing up to Jon, pink marker pen in hand. “I think I’ve changed my mind about the best places to cut you!”
Jon watches her dully. He can’t move, can’t crawl away and hide himself in a corner somewhere, because he’s tied to a chair, and even though the ropes are soft and don’t leave marks on his skin, that doesn’t make them any less real. He’d thought for a day or two, a while ago, that maybe he was imagining them, that if he just tried hard enough he could simply walk away.
But they’re real. The ropes are real and the chair is real and the pain, that’s real too. The pink marker pen in Nikola’s shiny hand is real. Jon can’t even flinch away from it; he’s tied too securely.
“I’m going to… oh!” Nikola takes a step back and puts a hand to her mouth with an expression of exaggerated surprise. “How can I mark where I need to when you’re all tied up like this? Silly old me!”
And then there are hands on him, at least three sets, and all they’re actually doing is untying the ropes, although he doesn’t know if you can actually call these strange, soft bonds ropes, but they’re being untied and Jon is being lifted and carried and laid out on a table for Nikola. When he’d first been brought here, he’d struggle and try to run every time he was untied, but now he simply lies, letting the wax things position him as they will. At least his nakedness doesn’t seem to mean anything to them, not even Nikola. It’s not much of a comfort to be regarded merely as a thing to be moved and washed and moisturised, but it could be worse. It’s one of the things he tries to hold onto. It could be worse.
“Now!” Nikola says, once he’s been carefully arranged, arms above his head, legs spread. “You aren’t going to make trouble, are you, Archivist? You’re going to let me draw exactly what I like, where I like, yes?”
Jon nods. He hates himself, but he nods. It’s better this way. Making Nikola angry leads to punishment. Saying no leads to punishment. None of it harms his precious skin, of course, but it turns out that there are a lot of ways to make someone suffer without leaving bruises. He nods and he stays still and he doesn’t try to say anything through his gag.
“I think we’ll start here!” Nikola tells him, and picks up his ankle to draw a fat pink line around it. “And work upwards! Doesn’t that sound fun?”
Fun, Jon thinks dazedly. Yes, this is fun for her. He still doesn’t struggle, though, and he doesn’t make a sound, and he doesn’t even cry. At least when his eyes are clear and he can see what’s coming, he gets a few seconds’ warning for anything that might be about to happen to him.
“And once I’ve finished peeling your legs!” Nikola says. She drops his leg and moves up his body. “I’ll cut here! – and here! – and here! – and here! – and peel all the way up to your arms!”
Her voice goes on and on, and more pink lines appear on his skin, and then Nikola decides she doesn’t like them after all and calls the mannequins and they carry him to the bathtub and wash him in ice cold water. He’s never sure whether ice cold or scorching hot is worse. After that they wrap him in soft cloudy towels and moisturise him, thickly and thoroughly and for what feels like forever, with something lavender scented, but Nikola says they haven’t done a good enough job and makes them do it all again. This time they use lemon scent, and Jon wants to throw up but he doesn’t. He’s good at not throwing up.
It's a relief when, after hours and hours, they carry him back to his chair and tie him up again.
He still tries not to close his eyes.
*
Jon blinks his eyes open muzzily, and looks around himself.
Right. Of course, he’s at Daisy’s safehouse in the Highlands. He’s curled up loosely on the sofa with a tartan blanket tucked fastidiously around him, and someone’s humming tunelessly close by. Martin. A moment later, he appears, carrying a plastic packet of something and a large sheet of paper.
“Oh, hey, you’re awake!” he says, and beams at Jon. “Remember how I said I wanted to try writing some poems out in marker and see if it feels different? Look!”
He turns the paper around to show a poem Jon’s familiar with from when Martin read it to him a few days ago, written out in big purple letters in Martin’s rounded handwriting. It’s one about the flowers that grow around the cottage, and how they resonate with Martin’s soul, feeling like he’s seeing in colour again. Or something. Jon’s never quite managed to get his head round poetry. It’s one of the reasons he refused to take English Lit. at uni even though everyone assumed that’s what he’d choose. History is far more comprehensible.
Looking at the poem, Jon can’t help but smile. Martin’s even illustrated it with flowers in various colours. He’s obviously had a lot of fun.
“It looks lovely,” he says, a little startled, as he often is in Martin’s presence, by his own easy sincerity. Martin’s face lights up at the compliment.
“I know I’m no great shakes as an artist, but it was a really fun way to make me think about the words in a different way, you know?”
“Right,” Jon says, a bit lost but enjoying Martin’s delight.
Martin laughs and puts the paper down, pulling something out of his packet. He comes to perch on the edge of the sofa, in front of Jon’s legs, and moves a lock of hair out of Jon’s face with the lightest, gentlest brush of fingertips. Jon smiles at him. It feels utterly bizarre to be happy, when there are Hunters after them, and possibly Not-Sasha, and maybe police too, although maybe not, and Daisy’s lost to the Hunt and Basira’s trying to find her, and Jon’s slowly but surely growing weaker without any statements to read, but he is. He’s happy.
Martin turns his hand around to show Jon a dark blue flower, matching the ones that decorate his poem, drawn on the back of it.
“Here,” Martin says, his face still all alight. “Let me give you one, too.”
There’s the familiar click of the lid being pulled off a marker pen. Martin leans forward, and a fat pink line appears on the back of Jon’s hand.
Jon doesn’t struggle, and he doesn’t make a sound, and he doesn’t even cry.
He doesn’t even know what he does do. (He’s good at not throwing up.) But Martin stills, the tip of the marker pen still resting on Jon’s skin. He looks down at Jon’s face. He lifts the pen away from Jon’s hand and puts the lid back on. Puts the marker down on his other side, where Jon can’t see it. The tight pain in Jon’s chest loosens, just slightly.
“Hey,” Martin says, and his voice is impossibly gentle. “What’s wrong?”
Jon finds that he can, after all, close his eyes. He does. He doesn’t want to talk about this. He never has, not since it happened. He made one attempt, with Martin, but he’d backed down before actually saying anything. Instead, he’d buried himself in work, and there’d been plenty of it, with the Unknowing approaching, such very, very important work. Crushing the memories down and refusing to think about them unless forced to had been necessary, really. Yes, he only ever buys unscented products now, and never, ever lotion, but that’s nothing. Everyone has their little foibles. He’s been fine.
He opens his eyes, and there’s Martin, still sitting on the edge of the sofa where Jon’s lying, looking down at him with concern and care, holding the hand he’s drawn on between both of his big, soft, warm ones, so that Jon can’t see that fat pink line. Jon draws in a long, quivering breath.
“When I was kidnapped by the Circus…” he begins.
When he’s finished, Martin holds him for a long time, cradling him close and letting his jumper soak up Jon’s tears, soothing Jon’s trembling with his firm hold and gentle words. They go to the bathroom and Martin helps him wash the marker off his hand and later, when Martin thinks Jon isn’t watching, Jon sees him throwing away the pink marker. Martin doesn’t treat him as though he’s broken, or fragile, or weak. He’s just… Martin.
And that night, when they curl up in bed together, Martin wrapped around Jon and holding him close and secure, it’s the easiest thing in the world for Jon to close his eyes and let himself drift off into sleep.