Martin K(nife) Blackwood (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
curriculum_fictae) wrote2020-08-23 08:44 am
curriculum_fictae) wrote2020-08-23 08:44 am
[PSL-Adjacent] time travel side story
[ Is this part of the other PSL? MAYBE ... tbd.
But - this is the Martin who went back in time to the second season, before everything really started going to hell. It hasn't been the most pleasant ride - seeing himself, accidentally triggering Not-Sasha's attack, the confrontation with Elias - but it's been better. He'd begged Michaelen not to take him back for multiple reasons. Yes, he thinks help more here, but ... he also doesn't want to go home to die. Not when there's a Jon here who's willing to love him, when Tim is blossoming into a new best friend, and even Martin is slowly moving towards self-acceptance in a literal sense.
For the first time in months, Martin - no, Algric - sees the shape of what a peaceful life could be. This could be a world where he lives in Jon's flat for the rest of his life, where he doesn't only have to be a helpful ghost. The Lonely is still too strong in him, but he feels it weakening in spots, where Tim and Jon and Martin have all helped him remember what it's like to have human connection.
That's why he's here at Hilltop Road. He dares to hope now; he dares to consider the possibility that he might get to keep all of this. And if he wants to keep this, he has to make sure there's no way back to the hell he left. Michaelen's appearance had scared him more deeply than he wants to let on.
As he mounts the steps to the rickety old house, Algric takes in a shivering breath. It's fine. It's fine, this is fine, he's just - just going to look. And if there's a creepy basement with a crack in the world, he's not going to go through it! He's just going to. See if it's there or not. If he thinks his timeline is on the other side or not. ]
But - this is the Martin who went back in time to the second season, before everything really started going to hell. It hasn't been the most pleasant ride - seeing himself, accidentally triggering Not-Sasha's attack, the confrontation with Elias - but it's been better. He'd begged Michaelen not to take him back for multiple reasons. Yes, he thinks help more here, but ... he also doesn't want to go home to die. Not when there's a Jon here who's willing to love him, when Tim is blossoming into a new best friend, and even Martin is slowly moving towards self-acceptance in a literal sense.
For the first time in months, Martin - no, Algric - sees the shape of what a peaceful life could be. This could be a world where he lives in Jon's flat for the rest of his life, where he doesn't only have to be a helpful ghost. The Lonely is still too strong in him, but he feels it weakening in spots, where Tim and Jon and Martin have all helped him remember what it's like to have human connection.
That's why he's here at Hilltop Road. He dares to hope now; he dares to consider the possibility that he might get to keep all of this. And if he wants to keep this, he has to make sure there's no way back to the hell he left. Michaelen's appearance had scared him more deeply than he wants to let on.
As he mounts the steps to the rickety old house, Algric takes in a shivering breath. It's fine. It's fine, this is fine, he's just - just going to look. And if there's a creepy basement with a crack in the world, he's not going to go through it! He's just going to. See if it's there or not. If he thinks his timeline is on the other side or not. ]
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Jon had gone to the Lonely looking for Martin, for answers. Destroyed Peter Lukas but for what? Martin's whispers faded in the air to nothing. He was gone.
In the end, Elias had won, hadn't he? The man, Jonah, always knew he would win. He had held almost every card and only showed them when Jon was at the lowest and had nothing else. Everyone was either dead or scattered and Jon had nothing. The modified ritual worked, of course. The only time he could do something right was to effectively destroy the world.
He knew everything now. And he knew there was nothing left for him here. So Jon wandered. He wandered the domains, ignoring Helen the few times she said hello. Spoke out the horror into words as he experienced them from place to place. Even the petty revenge of destroying Jude Perry hadn't done much to ease the pang of loss and regret he felt. It was empty.
Maybe that's how his feet found him at Hilltop Road. How or why this particular place was still standing was beyond even him; the Web was always harder for him to see somehow. The steps creaked under his weight. He couldn't tell if he was carrying himself through the door or if he was being controlled. At this point did it even matter? The basement was... as horrifying as he expected. The cobwebs sent his age old phobia spiking, as did the faint whispers of long legs skittering around behind him. Maybe that's why he didn't notice his body moving. Too preoccupied with the mental image of a giant eight legged monstrosity possibly behind him to make sense of falling through the world.
It's dark when he opens his eyes again. His body aches in a soreness of someone who's been laying still and uncomfortable for many hours.]
Okay... still Hilltop. That's... still here.
[It feels off, though. Jon starts sitting up to his knees on the basement floor and rubs at his head like waking up from a very long nap. And something about the eorld shifts for him. It's 2016. Late fall of 2016, to be precise. Lord.]
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But they'd pulled it off. Unknowing stopped, Jon and Tim both alive, more or less, and grabbed a taxi back to Tim's place where the others were still waiting. He looks tired, more than anything, but relieved when he looks at Tim. Even moreso when he sees Algric and goes straight to him. Yeah, his clothes are burnt and messed from the explosion, and there's the odd pattern of wax and burns together on the back of his shirt in the shape of hands gripping. Jon himself is covered head to toe in ash and dust. But so, so relieved.]
It went well.
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