"That--that's not better, Martin," Tim points out, needlessly, because they both know that's not better. Jon is a spooky eldritch knowledge beast of some variety or another; of course he went looking for knowledge, it's what he did. And a cult that offered it was just asking for trouble. They'd all got wrapped up in an institution of it, and at least that had a little bit of legitimacy attached to it, but only a little bit. They were basically a cult when it got right down to brass tacks, and it left a dirty taste in Tim's mouth.

But Martin keeps going, keeps talking about this cult and when he turns up his sleeve--

Tim knows what those puckered, half-healed pink marks are, banding through Martin's skin and the tattoo itself which Martin definitely didn't have before this. Tim doesn't have those particular variety of marks--his self-destruction had always been more chemical and emotional than physical in nature--but he's seen them. He knows what they are and how the position of them bleeds.

He abandons the drink for a moment to reach up and trace the tattoo as best he can without incorporating the scars. "You think? What, there other things out there too?"