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Saturday morning begins like any other.
Jon wakes in their husband’s arms, finding him already awake and lying there with his eyes open, illuminated by the winter sunlight streaming in from a gap in the curtains. Martin’s always been a naturally earlier riser than Jon, who’s unable to be woken even by a blaring alarm if she’s comfortable, but it’s Jon who’s able to actually get out of bed first if she knows she has work to do.
After a long while lying in silence, Jon manages to corral Martin out of bed with the promise of breakfast. They take their time eating together before getting dressed and making a start on their respective work - Jon has papers to mark, and Martin’s sworn to finish the collection of poetry he’s working on by the end of the month. The work certainly doesn’t feel strenuous to Jon, not least because he’s sitting beside Martin in his softest jumper (stolen from Martin, like the majority of their jumpers).
She barely notices time going by until it’s already mid-day. When Martin gets up to retrieve last night’s tomato soup from the fridge, Jon follows suit, purely so they can wrap their arms around Martin’s waist from behind and press a kiss to his neck. This elicits a surprised but pleased noise from Martin.
“What was that for?”
“Do I need an excuse to kiss my husband?”
Martin responds with an affectionate eyebrow raise, and Jon can hear the blush in his voice, “No, but I’d appreciate it if my absolute koala of a partner would let me go microwave our lunch.”
“I am not-” splutters Jon, still refusing to let go of Martin’s waist, “I- There’s- Fine. At least give me a kiss before you go.”
“I’m going to the kitchen, Jon, not Australia. The world’s not going to end if I go into another part of the flat one time without giving you a dramatic farewell.” Martin sees Jon’s unimpressed expression and repents, sighing, “Come here, love.”
After the kiss ends, Jon mutters, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” and Martin chooses to gracefully ignore him.
Unwilling to lose the warmth of Martin’s arms just yet, Jon settles into his chest, and despite his feigned annoyance at Jon’s affection, Martin responds by pulling her closer. Just as Jon’s about to let go to allow Martin to go get them some soup, there’s a ring on the doorbell. Martin breaks away from the embrace.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it. It’s probably just the book I ordered.”
Nodding in acknowledgement, Jon returns to the sofa. From the living room, she can easily hear the conversation happening at the door. They listen, at first only out of a vague sense of curiosity.
“Are you Martin Blackwood?”
“Yes! Well, Blackwood-Sims, now, but- Yeah, I, uh, do I… Do I know you?” asks Martin. There’s a long pause.
“No,” replies a different voice from the first, “But we know you. We have important information.”
Confusion is evident in Martin’s voice, “Look, if you’re trying to sell me something or- or anything like that, I’m not interested.”
“No,” cuts in the first voice, “It’s not like that,” In a quieter tone (but certainly loudly enough that Jon can hear from the living room), they snap to the other person, “God, Sam, could you be any more vague?” Returning to their original volume; “Martin, we know about the Institute, and the archives, and… Everything, really.”
What on earth are they talking about? Martin’s never been involved with an archive in his life, as far as Jon’s aware, nor any kind of Institute. Martin seems to mirror this sentiment in his answer.
“I have no idea what you mean. Are you sure you’ve… Got the right guy?”
“Yes,” replies the second voice - Sam, apparently, “Me and Alice, we’ve heard the tapes, Martin, we know it’s you.”
“What tapes?” exclaims Martin, sounding increasingly frustrated, “Look,” his tone softens, “If you need… help or anything like that, you can say so. You both look pretty, uh, rough, so- Yeah, I can try my best to help, but I don’t know what you mean. About tapes and all that.”
“You don’t need to lie,” says the one seemingly called Alice slowly, “We’re not here to hurt you, we’re glad you’ve found a new life. But we have a warning for you and Jon. It’s about the-”
Jon freezes in surprise. When Martin replies, he sounds scared this time.
“H- Hey, how do you know Jon’s name? What do you- Leave her out of this.”
At this point, Jon gets up and approaches the door, trying to make as little sound as possible. He shakes slightly as he does so. If he’s honest with himself, he’s more than a little unnerved by these strangers knowing his name.
As they get closer to the door, they can see the two figures - a girl with short, dyed red hair wearing a crumpled suit and a person in a ratty t-shirt and jeans, their long, dark hair hanging down to their waist, with a large backpack on their shoulders. Both of them appear to be in their late twenties, and look as if they haven’t slept in a very long time. Jon goes to stand at Martin’s side and Martin notices her with surprise, followed by concern.
“Jon, I was just about to tell them to go, I- I don’t know if you should-”
“Tell me what you want with me and my husband,” snaps Jon, addressing Alice and Sam directly, “Or leave. How do you know our address? What do you think you know about us?”
Alice and Sam exchange a glance. They have a silent conversation for a moment and eventually, Alice speaks. “As Sam said, we listened to the tapes. All of them. When the entities and both of you came to this world, so did they. We’ve discovered something important, something you need to know.”
Jon can see Martin getting agitated, and he can understand why. They take Martin’s hand. “I told you,” says Martin with emphasis, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never had anything to do with tapes or- or archives or whatever else you mentioned, and neither has Jon! I don’t know how you know our names, but I think you’ve got the wrong people!”
Sam sounds extremely confused, “But your voices are the same…”
Alice turns to Sam, “He sounds like he’s telling the truth.”
“Do you think it’s amnesia?”
“Maybe. Why would they still be in a relationship if they’ve forgotten everything, though?”
“They could’ve woken up together, covered in blood and remembering nothing, and bonded over their shared confusion. Or-”
“You know,” retorts Jon, “We’re still here. And for your information, I’ve never been involved with some… Some traumatic incident involving amnesia.”
Alice makes a tired noise, “...Do you think amnesia could make you forget the fact that you have amnesia?”
“Stop!” exclaims Martin, “If you have something you want to tell us so bad, then tell us. Otherwise, leave me and Jon alone!” Jon looks at Martin with concern over this uncharacteristic outburst, placing a reassuring hand on his back. Martin’s breathing calms and he ends up with a surprised expression on his face. “I’m sorry, I, heh… I don’t know what came over me, I wouldn’t usually…”
With Martin so unusually distressed by the two strangers, Jon makes the choice to take decisive action. They say in a sharp tone, “Please leave. If vague warnings are all you have to offer, we have no interest in them.”
Both Alice and Sam look panicked at this, and Sam interjects, “Jon, Martin, please,” There’s real desperation in their voice now, “Even if you don’t remember, there’s- Martin was right. We need help. And we have the tapes with us to prove you’re both in danger too. Let us in so we can play them to you.”
“Might even jog your memory,” adds Alice.
Jon meets Martin’s gaze. There’s deep concern in his eyes, and it's impossible to tell whether it’s over Alice and Sam’s warnings or Alice and Sam themselves. Jon knows she’ll be wracked with worry for who knows how long if she lets them go without hearing them out first. But is it really safe to let these people into their home? To listen to their tapes? He certainly won’t agree to do so unless Martin does as well - it’s not just Jon’s flat this is about, not just Jon who’s supposedly in danger here, and that scares them the most of all.
Jon nods at Martin and, after a very long moment, Martin nods back.
“Fine,” says Jon, “But when we ask you to leave, you leave. Understood?”
Alice and Sam both nod. Reluctantly, Jon steps back as Martin opens the door wider to allow them in. They follow Jon and Martin to the living room and hover awkwardly around the sofas until Martin gestures to indicate they can sit down. Then, they’re all sitting, Jon and Martin on one sofa and Alice and Sam on the other, in a tense silence. Martin is the first to speak.
“So… Where are these, uh, tapes, then?”
Sam takes off their backpack, opening it to reveal a tape player, along with a large pile of labelled cassettes, “Here.” They glance at Alice, “Which one do you think we should…?”
Alice thinks for a moment. “Number 22. The later ones might be, well… Too much, if they don’t remember anything. This one might help them with that, though.”
“We don’t have anything to remember,” insists Jon, “I remember my entire life. So does Martin.”
Sam and Alice exchange what seems like the hundredth look since they’ve arrived.
“How did you meet?” asks Sam.
Jon can tell they’re expecting him to pause or fail to remember, and she hopes they’re both shocked by her vivid recollection of the day. “I work as a teacher at H-” They manage to stop themselves from revealing where they work to these strangers, “Well. I work as an English teacher. Almost three years ago, Martin visited for a day to do a one-off poetry writing session with my class.” Despite the circumstances, Jon finds themself smiling at the memory, “We were always looking for people to come in to do sessions like that, and- and Martin had just self-published his first collection, so he was taking all the opportunities he could. We talked afterwards, and despite our… strongly differing opinions on poetry, we exchanged phone numbers, and… Yes. Here we are.”
“Are you satisfied?” asks Martin with a vindicated smile.
“I…” Alice drags a hand down her face, “I don’t… It just doesn’t make any… Look. Jon, Martin. Listen to the tape. See what you think then. Sam?”
Jon sighs, “Fine. But I really don’t think I’ll-”
Sam removes a cassette labelled #22 from the backpack and inserts it into the tape player. They press play, there’s a click, and sound fills the living room.
“Martin, are you sure about this?”
Is that Jon’s voice? No, it can’t be, but it sounds exactly like…
“I just want to make a statement about what happened to me. I mean, it… it’s what we do.”
Jon spins around to face Martin, his heart pounding in his ears, and sees his shock mirrored on Martin’s face. How is this possible? They’ve never had a conversation like this, Jon’s sure of it, and certainly never recorded themselves on tapes.
“No, what we do is research statements. Usually those made by liars and the mentally unwell.”
The words themselves barely process in Jon’s mind. All they can focus on is the recording of their own voice, saying something they’ve never said in their life. The tape keeps playing in the background as Jon utters a shaky question.
“M- Martin, Martin, what? I- I don’t, I’ve, I’ve never, I…”
“If you’re that worried about it, it doesn’t need to be an official statement. I just need a record of it.”
“Y- Y- Yeah…” breathes Martin, “I- I didn’t… I, Christ, Jon, we’ve never- I’ve never said that.”
“Fine. You’re right. I suppose. Statement of Martin Blackwood, archival assistant at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding…”
Her eyes wide, unable to focus on anything but the voices coming from the tape, Jon reaches a violently shaking hand across the sofa and places it in Martin’s. He immediately takes it.
“A close encounter with something I believe to have once been Jane… Prentiss.”
“Recorded direct from subject, 12th March, 2016. Statement begins.”
“Martin, I don’t-” Jon’s voice trembles. There is a deep feeling of wrongness in their bones, has been ever since the tape began playing. “I don’t understand…”
“No,” Martin’s voice is soft, weak, and Jon knows that he feels the wrongness as well, “Neither do I.”
“Well, a couple of weeks ago, you were looking into that statement about the spider that wouldn’t go away. Carlos… Vittery I think his name was? I knew there was something not right about the whole thing from the off. I said it probably wasn’t-”
The tape player shuts off abruptly, Sam’s finger on the ‘stop’ button. Sam and Alice look across the room.
“Do you believe us now?” asks Alice.
Martin is the first to regain himself enough to speak. His previous confusion quickly morphs into anger. “What is this?” he exclaims, tears gathering in his eyes, “I- I’ve heard about those… Deepfakes and- and everything else people can fake with technology, you must have made this, w… why?” Martin's voice breaks, “Why us? What are you- What could you possibly achieve from this?”
Sam looks upset at Martin’s outburst, but replies as calmly as they can, “It’s not fake. It’s from another universe. We thought you were both from that universe, too, but… I can only assume you’re this universe’s version of Jon and Martin.” They pause to let this information sink in, “You’re still in danger from this, though. If we couldn’t tell the difference, then…” Sam trails off.
“Then neither will the monsters that are looking for the other versions of you,” finishes Alice.
“Monsters?” repeats Jon. He manages to break from his frozen state enough to squeeze Martin’s hand, holding onto his fingers tightly enough that in the back of his mind, he’s afraid he’ll break them. “There’s- This is a lot of information, and I- I really don’t know if I can believe-”
At this, Alice looks confident. “We’ll explain it to you. All of it. Play you the important tapes, too. You’re both going to need to listen carefully, if you don’t want to die.”
Martin freezes and clutches Jon’s hand even harder, but doesn’t say a word. Jon closes her eyes, takes in a long, deep breath, and then opens them again.
“Fine. Tell us.”
Alice and Sam oblige.
First, Alice tells Jon and Martin about how she and Sam both work for a department of the Civil Service dedicated to investigating supernatural occurrences. They were given the tapes to research, and found themselves pulled into something far larger than themselves. Something apparently involving Jon and Martin.
From there, they explain the contents of the tapes, regularly interrupting each other to fill in gaps that the other missed. They tell Jon and Martin about another world, with fourteen entities of fear, one where other versions of Jon and Martin worked at an organisation called the Magnus Institute and became trapped in the world of these entities. Whenever there’s an aspect they feel they can’t explain themselves, Sam and Alice play a tape. By the time they get to the end of their story, what feels like a lifetime later, they simply play the tape labelled #200 and sit there without interrupting as Jon and Martin hold each other in shock.
There’s a long silence once Sam and Alice finish speaking. The only sound is Jon and Martin’s heavy breathing, both of them trying desperately to hold back tears. Over the course of the explanation, Jon and Martin had long since abandoned any reluctance over showing physical affection in front of the two strangers (not least because of the number of private conversations between the other Jon and Martin that Alice and Sam had apparently already heard). Jon is practically in Martin’s lap and they’re clinging to each other, both of their eyes shining with tears.
His voice scratchy, Martin says, “C- Could we have some time alone? To…” He takes a deep breath, “To process.”
“Of course.” replies Sam, looking genuinely sympathetic. They and Alice don’t need to be told where to go before getting up and moving into the hallway, and then out of Jon and Martin’s sight.
As soon as they leave, Jon lets out a deep sob into Martin’s shoulder. Even as Martin is shaking with the effort to hold back his own tears, he begins to run a gentle hand up and down Jon’s back in a grounding motion.
“They were telling the truth, weren’t they?” Jon’s voice is low and broken. The question is just as much to himself as it is to Martin. “It’s real.”
“Y- Yeah. Christ, yeah, they… I think it’s real, love.”
Saying this out loud is what finally breaks Martin. He cries, and Jon cries too, as they cling to each other tight enough that it’s hard to tell where Jon ends and Martin begins. Once the sobs subside, Jon lies against Martin, silent and shaking, in his arms. She can’t stop thinking about how once they were pulled in, the other Jon and Martin could never go back. They, too, know about the entities now, about the alternate universe versions of themselves. Will they never be able to escape the knowledge they’ve gained?
“I- I love you, Martin,” whispers Jon, “Whatever happens, I love you. More than anything.”
Martin presses a trembling kiss to Jon’s hair and then buries his face there. “I love you too, sweetheart. Jon. I- I love you too, so much, I just- What do we do?”
“Sam and Alice said the entities will find us whatever we do. That they still have a- an interest in us because of what happened in the other world. And that they’re establishing themselves here rapidly.”
“What, so we just wait for them to come for us?” asks Martin in horror.
“We could,” Jon pauses, meeting Martin’s eyes, “Or we could go with Alice and Sam. Help them. They clearly need it.”
“Wouldn’t that just make things worse for ourselves?”
“Not if we can believe what they told us about the entities. I- I can stay here with you in pretended ignorance if you want to, Martin, you know I would. But to me, it seems far preferable to make an effort to stop the entities whilst they’re weak instead of waiting for them to come and kill us. Or turn me into…” Jon swallows hard, “Into whatever it was the other me became, by the end.”
Martin cups Jon’s cheek in his hand, running his thumb up and down, and Jon nearly cries at the touch. “They- They said there was a chance that the entities would leave us alone. That they’d… Discard us now they’re done with us.”
“Are you willing to take that chance?”
“... No,” Martin sighs and slumps down against Jon, “No, you’re right, Jon, of course you are. I can’t live in fear.”
There’s a long silence. Then; “I’m scared, Martin.” murmurs Jon.
“Me too.”
“What if this is our lives now? What if we never escape, because other versions of us in a- a different universe made some bad choices?” Jon’s voice quivers, “Being in love wasn’t- it certainly wasn’t enough to save them. What if it’s not enough for us, either?”
“Jon,” exclaims Martin, wrapping his arms around her and tucking her under his chin, “Jesus Christ. It’s- We- We’ll figure it out. I swear. I know it’s, uh, it’s not great, but… We always do.” Jon makes an unconvinced noise and Martin tilts their face up so they’re looking at him. “Remember when you were convinced you were gonna get fired because you had a panic attack and didn’t show up to one of your lessons? That ended up fine, once you explained what happened. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not the same. Still. We’re not bloody destined to fail. Alright, love?”
“Alright,” repeats Jon, breathing in deeply, “Alright. Let’s get Alice and Sam’s contact details, kick them out and sleep on it. Today has been… A lot.”
“Yeah…” Martin breaks off, his voice cracking, and feels Jon run a slow hand through his hair, “Time to kick them out, I think.” A pause.
“Together?”
“Together.”
The unspoken ‘one way or another’ echoes in Jon’s mind, exactly how the other Jon had said it in the moment before Martin drove a knife into his chest.