The Magnus Archives One-Shots

Too Many People, Yet I Still Feel So Alone

Content Warnings:

- Loneliness

- Isolation

- Child Neglect

- Grief

- Self-blame

- Self-depreciating Thoughts

(There may be more and please let me know if more need to be added, however these are the ones I noticed.)

This does contain some ideas/spoilers from MAG 186, although they shouldn't be too evident unless you have listened to the episode.

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An examination of the relationship between Martin Blackwood and loneliness.

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Martin had always been lonely. He supposed that's why Peter sought him out in the first place.

It had first started in his high school. Or was it before that. He supposed it had really started when his father left. He'd been eight at the time, coming up on his ninth birthday in only a few months. He'd been sad, of course. But at this point he didn't remember enough of the man to miss him.

It had started out alright. For the first few months. His mother had cared for him as best she could, and he'd taken up on doing more around the house. His mother was devastated of course, but Martin always made sure to take care of her properly on the really bad days. It had been a few months, and his mother had moved on from grief. Now, she felt anger.

Martin isn't sure exactly when it had happened. He wasn't sure he could pick an exact time when her feelings towards him shifted. He just woke up one day, and knew that things had most definitely changed.

He had cared for his mother as he had been previously doing, although now, he began to do more that his mother would usually do. She still had to do some things, such as call the doctor's to book appointments, and occasionally go down to the pharmacist to get the medication she needed. But Martin was always the one to plan these things beforehand.

Taking care of his mother had just taken up more and more of his time as he got older though. And by the time he was finally able to get a job? Well, he hadn't had many friends to ignore in the first place.

The loneliness had really sunk it's teeth in then. During the later years of high school, he knew he was taking on to much. He knew he had little to know social life, and his mother had taken to becoming more, stubborn, towards him as he had grown older. He began to enjoy the rain. The time to relax. It made the sadness feel more at home. Like the world was crying with him. Perhaps then, when he had begun to see the world as his only friend in those darker moments, was when he had accepted his fate.

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The next time the loneliness had sunk in, was after he'd gotten the job down in the archives. That was a different sort of loneliness though. Sure, he was friends with Tim and Sasha, but even then, he still felt as though he wasn't close to them. As though there was a wall between them, that he couldn't quite reach over, keeping them just out of reach.

They had been chatting in the archives as usual, when he'd noticed. They were eating and talking, Tim wildly waving his hands around as he loudly proclaimed about some movie he'd watched over the weekend. Sasha was listening intently as he spoke, intersecting here and there to comment on something. Martin sat back and listened, not quite feeling involved enough to interrupt.