“…Mission Grove Park, and the Waterfront isn’t that much of a drive,” Carlos says as they make yet another turn. “It’s under renovation right now, though.”
“I didn’t know there was a waterfront in Night Vale,” Martin says in as neutral a tone as he can. Surreptitiously, he tries to scrape the static off his tongue on the back of his teeth. It goes about as well as can be expected.
The energy in the vehicle is high, most of it coming off of Tim. Whatever upset him at the airport must be really bad, because while he’s doing his best to throttle it back—as the death grip on Martin’s and, presumably, Jon’s hands attests—he’s about two steps away from going full Avatar. Jon’s lips are pressed tightly together, his eyes worried, something Martin Knows he’s only getting away with because he’s seated on the driver’s side and Carlos can’t get a good look at him no matter how often he glances in the rearview mirror. They’re all trying to keep it together, trying to be normal. Despite Jon’s resolution to tell his cousin everything, despite his assertion that he’s sure he can handle it, this is neither the optimal time nor the optimal place.
Martin can’t see Cecil, since he’s sitting directly behind him if two rows back, but he’s been silent and still since they walked out of the airport, and while Martin is trying very hard to keep his eyes out of anyone’s head, well, his particular gifts have always leaned towards identifying the source of pain or fear or sorrow, and the glances Carlos occasionally shoots towards his husband combined with the few drops of Knowledge that squeeze past the mental door he’s thrown up tell him that Cecil being silent is the extreme opposite of normal. Esteban being silent is to be understood, considering he dropped off to sleep shortly after pulling away (again, Martin isn’t trying to pry into anyone’s head, but he can practically taste Carlos’ guilt, less over not remembering to put Esteban down for a nap because he was busy putting the finishing touches on the guest room than over the fact that he’s not telling Cecil Esteban skipped his afternoon nap in favor of extra strawberries). Most of the talking has come from Carlos, who doesn’t seem affected by the energy in the car.
“Martin was in a rowing club,” Charlie announces. He, too, seems completely oblivious to the pressure of the Eye, which is good, because while he knows more or less about the Fourteen they’ve tried to keep the worst of it from him. “I’m going to join, too, as soon as I’m tall enough. Is the waterfront here a river or a lake? It’s not the ocean, is it?”
There’s a sharp hiss of static, and Tim’s grip on Martin’s hand somehow tightens—and, he notices, Carlos’ hands clench briefly on the steering wheel. When he speaks, however, it’s in the same light, jovial tones as before. “Well, it kind of is the ocean. You can only see it from the Harbor, and I definitely wouldn’t recommend touching it or going in it. It’s not safe. Sometimes it’s nice to take a sunset stroll along the boardwalk, but like I said, it’s under renovation right now. The project was on hold most of the summer because of the reconstruction of Old Town.”
Martin can’t really think of a polite way to say okay, can we please change the subject now, but there’s a feedback loop building in the backseat and if they don’t get away from the tantalizing edge of trauma fast, one of them is going to take the whole lot plunging straight over the edge. Thankfully, a car passes them and beeps twice, and Carlos beeps in response, waving. For the first time, Cecil seems to relax as he, too, waves.
“That’s Earl Harlan,” Carlos explains, glancing at the rearview mirror again. “He’s the head chef at Tourniquet, Night Vale’s finest restaurant. He and Cecil have known each other for…how long again, sweetie?”
“We grew up together,” Cecil says, and Martin sees Carlos relax visibly because Cecil is actually communicating. “He’s been my best friend since we were in Boy Scouts together and—oh, here we are. Home sweet home.”
Tim lets go of their hands slowly as the doors open, and Martin tries to surreptitiously rub the pins and needles out of his fingers before he climbs awkwardly out of the backseat. He’s way too big to do this comfortably, and normally he would have taken Carlos up on his offer to let him sit up front while Cecil sat in the back with Jon and Tim, but when Tim gets like this, which isn’t often, he needs both of them to counterbalance him. By the time he gets out, Charlie is staring up at the house with wide eyes, clutching his bag with both hands, but he looks more awed than intimidated.
It’s a nice house. A single level, painted a tasteful grey with white trim, beveled glass in the door and purple curtains in the windows. The porch is low, with only a single step to get up to it, but Martin spots an access ramp leaning against the railing, neatly folded but obviously well-used. There’s a white wooden swing hanging from the porch ceiling and two rockers of pale wood, and a welcome mat that reads KEEP CONTAMINATION TO ACCEPTABLE LEVELS in bright pink script surrounded with several hearts and radiation warning symbols.
Hey, theirs has the glaring eyes of a scowling owl surrounded by the words STEP INSIDE OR GO AWAY, so Martin’s not going to judge.
“Come on in,” Carlos says as Cecil pulls Esteban out of the car and props him on his hip. “We’ve got the guest room all set up for you.” He stops and smiles at Charlie. “We put an extra bed in Esteban’s room for you, but if you’d rather sleep in your dads’ room, that’s fine, too. It’s up to you, okay?”
Charlie looks up at Carlos, and the delight on his face is obvious. “Really? You don’t mind me sharing a room with Esteban?”
“Why would we mind?” Carlos looks genuinely confused.
Charlie beams. It’s amazing how much better he looks these days. “I don’t mind sharing at all.”
“Good.” Carlos wrinkles his nose in a grin at Charlie, then opens the door.
“I’ll show you where it is,” Cecil says, stepping up to Charlie’s side, then glances over his shoulder. He hesitates for no more than a second before making eye contact with Martin. “If that’s all right with you.”
Martin nods, and it’s not hard to genuinely smile, seeing Charlie’s unfettered pleasure. “Of course, that’s fine.”
Charlie follows Cecil and Carlos into the house and automatically steps out of his trainers. He seems momentarily stymied by the lack of a shoe rack, then simply tucks them next to the wall and follows after Cecil, who has not, Martin notes, taken off his own shoes, or Esteban’s. Carlos doesn’t either, merely starts down the hall in the opposite direction, talking all the while. “The guest bedroom is over this way. Sorry, it’s on the other side from where the rest of the rooms are. It’s right next door to my home lab, too, but I promise, I’m not running any experiments that might bother you. Not from home, anyway. And here it is.”
He opens the door to a very nice room, painted—unexpectedly—bright green with purple trim that matches the curtains. The bed is smaller than theirs back home, but not any smaller than the one Tim had when they first moved in together, before they brought him home after the Unknowing and had the let’s not have any more high-pressure revelations please conversation, and spread with a faded patchwork quilt. There’s a dresser, a lamp with a night stand and a radio, and a closet. It’s small, but comfortable.
“Make yourselves at home,” Carlos says, stepping back to allow them into the room. “I hope you’ll be comfortable. I’m going to go finish up dinner. Come on out whenever you’re ready. The kitchen is at the back of the house, or if Cece is in the living room you can meet him in there. Let us know if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” Martin says, softly but sincerely.
If Carlos notices anything odd about them, he doesn’t mention it. He just flashes Jon a grin and heads out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
The second they’re alone, Tim exhales heavily and sinks onto the edge of the bed. Jon and Martin don’t even think twice, just immediately sit on either side of him and bracket him in a tight hug. Tim clutches them both. He’s cold, which is never a good sign. Tim ran hot prior to the Unknowing, and he still does most of the time, but ever since he woke up from his coma they’ve noticed that the closer to full Avatar he gets, the lower his body temperature drops.
Since he’s practically cold enough that if Martin tries to kiss his cheek, his lips will get stuck, he must be really bad off.
“Stay with us, Tim,” Jon murmurs, and the crack in his voice breaks Martin’s heart. “Please. It’s okay. It’s okay. We’re here.”
“I know. I know,” Tim murmurs back. There’s a faint hollow echo to his voice, the rumble of the Ceaseless Watcher trying to come through.
Martin tries not to panic. His own…gifts or powers or whatever…are reaching out anxiously, desperate to fix the problem, to find the source of the hurt and drag it into the light. The problem is that he hasn’t used it on Tim since, well, the Unknowing. Tim is the most powerful out of the three of them by a long stretch of road, even if none of them have actually acknowledged that out loud yet, and as bad as he is right now, there’s every chance that if Martin tries to compel him, or anything like that, his own powers will take over and explode and rend Martin asunder. Which would be bad for Tim, and for Jon, and for Charlie, and would probably cause a lot of problems for Carlos and Cecil.
And you’d be dead, a little voice in his head whispers viciously, which would also be bad for you, idiot.
Jon seems to sense some of what Martin’s feeling. He laces his fingers through Martin before he speaks, low and serious and—thankfully—without the Beholding in his own voice. “This…feels like it started in the airport. When that woman approached us.”
“Leann Hart,” Martin supplies. “The, the reporter.”
Tim takes a deep breath. Static crackles in the room and the lights dim slightly—or maybe that’s just Martin’s perception—as he begins to speak. “The Fourteen are fond of this town, all of them. So many here have been touched or claimed by one, so it’s more of a challenge to truly draw fear, which makes it taste all the sweeter. The Voice of Night Vale may be claimed by the Eye, enough that he makes it easy for others to tell him their secrets and truths, but the irony is that everyone knows he will share that to everyone without hesitation or regard for consequence, and so they strive to keep those secrets from him. But there are those whose stories seem to have been told to all but who still have secrets and hidden depths, and they are the most dangerous of all.”
“Tim. Tim,” Martin says insistently. He squeezes Tim harder, hard enough that it has to hurt. “Stop.”
Tim jerks his head back sharply, and for just a moment, his eyes flash so green even Martin can see it, but the static dies away immediately and the room returns to its usual brightness. “H—what? Martin? I…shit, sorry.”
Martin can feel the beginnings of a headache throbbing at his temples, and an ache like he’s coming down with a light case of the flu. He swallows it down, though. Tim is the important thing here. He’s still cold, but it’s not as bad as before, and the Eye isn’t in his voice anymore. “It’s…you didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Still. Lost myself a bit there.” Tim turns his head and kisses Martin’s cheek, right over the spot where the throbbing is, which could be a coincidence but probably isn’t.
“You remember what you said, right?” Jon asks, a bit apprehensively. “You didn’t…black out entirely or anything?”
“No, I remember. Christ, that’s going to be a challenge.” Tim closes his eyes and breathes deeply. “Hard as it is to keep from going out and pouncing random people back in London, it’s even harder in a place I’m already a str—an interloper. I’m not going to stay here forever and nobody’s going to be able to find me—or you two—so what should I care?”
“Well, I’d rather they didn’t go after my cousin and his family,” Jon says dryly. “And the editor of the local newspaper did get introduced to us as such, so it won’t be hard to find them. I know you’re being rhetorical, but…”
Tim swallows and opens his eyes. “Actually, I kind of did need that reminder.”
Martin doesn’t want to think about the implications of that, and from the look on Jon’s face, neither does he. He casts about for a change of subject and suddenly remembers something. “Oh! W-we, um, we promised we’d call the Primes when we got here. Hold on, let me…”
He fumbles for his pocket with one hand, not wanting to lose the contact with Tim. His phone is still off from the plane ride, but he powers it back on, waits for it to go through the booting up cycle, and scrolls to his contacts to find the number for the Primes’ landline, deeming it the most likely way to reach them at this time of day.
It’s only on the third ring that he remembers that they’re several hours earlier out here and it must be close to midnight in London.
Before he can end the call in a panic, however, the line connects and a soft voice, scratchy with sleep, says, “Hello?”
Martin exhales guiltily. “Sorry, I, uh…forgot how late it was over there.”
“Martin?” Martin Prime’s voice sounds much more alert now. There’s the sound of furniture shifting. “Wondered when you all were going to get there. Jon—my Jon—said you were fine, but…”
“Yeah, we’re good, we made it,” Martin assures him. He winces at the hollow ring to it and isn’t surprised to hear his counterpart’s deeply skeptical hum. “No, there weren’t any problems getting here, promise.”
“But?” Martin Prime prompts.
Tim speaks before the others can. “I lost control a bit. Nothing…too serious, Martin and Jon reined me in and kept me contained until we got in the guest room and alone, but…this is going to be a little harder than I thought, maybe. On me. You know. Not ruining Jon’s visit to his family.”
“Carlos has been very clear that it’s our family,” Jon says firmly. “And you’re not ruining anything. You’re just…a bit tired. We’ll—we’ll figure something out.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Martin Prime says. He doesn’t sound particularly convinced. “Anyway, um, I can help with the…edge. My Jon says he slipped a statement into your bag before you left the Institute on Thursday, so you should be able to read that and at least get something in you. It’s not much, but it’ll hold it off a bit longer.”
“The one following up on the gravedigger? I ate that one already,” Tim confesses. “Found it on the plane while I was looking for the ginger chews we got for Charlie. Do you know how many people fly even though they’ve encountered something supernatural doing it?”
Martin does not like the phrasing there, and from the look Jon is giving him over Tim’s bowed head, he doesn’t either. Obviously without being able to see Martin Prime’s face, it’s harder to predict the meaning behind the long silence on the other end of the line, but Martin would be prepared to wager a year’s salary that as much as he jokes with Jon Prime about consuming statements, he’s not thrilled that Tim is casually and unironically using that phrasing himself.
Finally, he speaks in the same low, serious tones he once used to warn Basira to keep close to Daisy, and that he once used on a recording when telling the three of them to have a conversation they absolutely did not have before nearly getting blown up. “Just remember that Charlie doesn’t know everything yet.”
Tim exhales shakily. “I know.”
Martin knows what that’s about, too. Charlie knows the basics of the Fourteen, including who the Primes really are, but he doesn’t know how bad it is. For Tim or Jon Prime. If Tim starts snatching statements in front of him, it’s going to scare him badly, no matter how much he loves them. None of them want that. Not for Charlie. The poor kid’s been through enough.
“Like you said before you left, it might be more satisfying to the Eye if it’s extracted unwillingly, but try to do it on your terms, yeah?” Martin Prime punctuates the sentence with a yawn. “Christ, it’s late. I’m going back to bed, if you lot don’t mind. Tell Jon’s cousin that my Jon says hello.”
“We will,” Jon promises.
“Sorry to wake you,” Martin adds.
“Don’t be ridiculous. We told you to call us. Have a good trip, you lot.” Martin Prime ends the call without further pleasantries.
The three of them sit in silence for several minutes. Martin guesses that Jon, like him, is trying very hard not to say anything to Tim about…eating the statement, and that Tim is trying not to think about the possibility of scaring Charlie, but none of them actually say it. Which they should, but this doesn’t feel like the place or time for that particular conversation.
Finally, Jon sighs and leans forward over his knees. “Come on. Let’s go at least eat dinner before we completely scare them off.”
“I don’t think Cecil scares easily,” Tim muses. “But yeah, you’re right. We should go out there.”
Martin sighs. “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, I guess.”