#archivist!martin

believe it or not archival assistant jon is even more unhinged

I'm not gonna make them kiss because Archivist!Martin needs to stop being kissed by things

I'm so excited to see what everyone thinks, this idea has been rattling around in my skull for more than 2 years!!!

Hope you do too!

This is Martin in my fic at the time of writing this :)

As soon as he had the means, he got himself a library card and as many books as he could conceivable take out and would situate himself in the quiet corner, and read the hours away. On slow days, and most days were slow, Martin would also watch the librarian wander about the shelves with her cart, a rattling thing with a bad wheel that required extra strength to push through the aisles. She was older than his mother, but always had kind words for him whenever he found he had questions about what he was reading, or what she was doing. In a way, he found a friend in her, and that library helped him get through the worst of his childhood. As his mother grew sicker and Martin grew out of being too young to help her, he visited less and less, but one day, he’d had enough of having tea mugs thrown at him and his mother’s rasping, biting insults, that he went for a walk. It was a cold august afternoon, and raining quite heavily, so it was no surprise when he stepped into the library and found it empty. It was always better like that anyway. The shelves had been rearranged and there were construction materials scattered here and there. Martin walked through the building, and felt a pang of loss, for the quiet corner he’d grown to love had been converted into a proper computer room, and it now felt so much less inviting with the banks of those cold machines and chairs. He was standing there, lost in some small grief, when he heard the trundling squeak of the librarian’s familiar cart. The librarian, now advanced in her old age, huffed and puffed as she pushed it on, despite its stiff wheel’s failings. And Martin realised that change was an unstoppable marching force, but he didn’t have to stand aside and let time pass him by. “Can I help you with that?” He asked, motioning to the overladen cart. The librarian stopped and a book fell off that he retrieved, holding it in his hands. It wasn’t one he’d read. And then he lifted his eyes to meet her old gaze. And he asked. “Will you teach me how you shelve the books?”

This is huge.