the snakes and the people they bite - neonosito (2024)

Chapter 1: twin size mattress

Chapter Text

“I still don’t know why I’ve been dragged all the way here at six in the morning.”

Jon makes a noise of frustration and viciously shoves another clothing hanger to the left side of his wardrobe. “Because, Georgie, I need your advice on what to wear.”

Georgie is sitting at the edge of Jon’s bed, inspecting her nails and swinging her legs lazily. “I don’t know, they’re all just variations of a stuffy professor. It’s not like anyone is going to notice.”

“But first impressions are important!”

“But you’ve worked here for years, and you’ve known Tim and Sasha the entire time!”

Jon blows a stray piece of hair away from his face and sighs, slamming the wardrobe shut with more force than is necessary. “This is important to me. Elias trusted me with this new position, and I don’t want him to think he’s made a mistake.”

She hums in understanding. “And you think that getting two hours of sleep and not showering is gonna help with that great first impression?” Georgie takes a long, pointed sip of her tea, not breaking eye contact.

Jon is suddenly very aware of his unwashed hair and the purple-blue bags under his eyes. He shifts uncomfortably and tugs at the oversized pajama shirt he’s wearing. “It’s too late now,” he protests weakly. “The outfit is all I have.”

“Christ,” Georgie mutters. She makes her way over to the wardrobe and picks out an outfit combination without much consideration, throwing it onto his bed with little fanfare. “There. A splash of colour with the maroon jumper, but neutral toned trousers so it’s not too funky. God forbid you wear something out there.”

He casts a critical eye over the ensemble, then deflates. He feels something akin to relief. “Thank you.”

Georgie waves a hand and makes her way out of the bedroom. “Get changed. Then let me do your hair, please? It’s upsetting me.”

Jon huffs out a laugh and runs a self-conscious hand through the waves of dark brown. “Sure.”

Georgie’s hands through his hair are slow, methodical. She uses the tips of her fingers to part the knots before taking a brush to it until everything is completely untangled. The whole process is done without any rush, which Jon appreciates. Whenever his grandmother tried to wrangle his hair into something presentable in a rare display of affection she’d tug on it so hard his scalp stung. Georgie gestures for the hair tie on his wrist and starts to pull everything together, making a loose plait that settles near the base of his neck. She pats his head twice.

“There. Now don’t go around telling everyone your ex did your hair for your big day, okay?”

He snorts. “Wasn't planning on it.”

She brushes stray hairs off her jeans and grabs her bag. “Now I,” she announces, “am going to go home and nap for a while until I have to work. Don’t get hit by any buses while you’re walking across the road and stressing out, etcetera etcetera. Eat your lunch. Don’t be a dick.”

“Anything else?”

Georgie taps her index finger against her chin, pretending to think hard. “Nope!” A quick kiss is pressed to his cheek. “Love you!”

Then she’s bolting out of the door, leaving Jon very, very alone with his thoughts.

A dangerous thing.

He grabs his lunch (a meagre cheese and pickle sandwich with a bottle of water) and stuffs it in his messenger bag along with his keys. It’s barely 6:30am - he’s going to be ridiculously early to work, but that’s probably for the best. Enough time to get his bearings and privately freak out before he has to deal with people all day.

London is a hazy, sleepy mess. It’s never actually quiet, but this is as peaceful as it gets. The sweet spot between the type of people out drinking until the early hours of the morning and the type of people up and off to work at some office or other. There’s enough room on the paths that he isn’t rubbing shoulders with strangers and tripping over their feet, and the city is enveloped in an orange glow from the early sun. Jon lets himself enjoy it, just a bit. Today is going to be a good day. He’ll make it so if he has to.

The tube, however, is as troublesome as always. The same hot, musty air assaulting him when he gets to the tunnels, a pleasant but almost robotic voice announcing arrivals, impolite idiots stepping in front of him just because they’re taller. It’s only a few stops to the Institute, and Jon is back out into the decidedly colder air and less sunny London that was there less than half an hour ago. As he walks towards his workplace, he expects it to be different, somehow. It’ll look more important, or more imposing.

Disappointingly, it’s remarkably average. The small pillared building inspires nothing in him, really. The only thing that’ll be changing is the number of floors he’ll be going down when he enters it.

Security doesn’t even spare him a second glance when he walks in. The halls are empty aside from a few tired domestic cleaners milling about the place. They’re almost definitely irritated by Jon walking on their wet floors, but he avoids eye contact and practically runs to the lift. It groans in protest at being forced to head to the basem*nt, and Jon is struck by the cramped, sallow Archives. He’s never actually been down here much, and has the memory of a goldfish if he deems something as useless information, so it’s all new to him. There’s three small desks with rickety chairs stacked in the corner (he takes two down for Tim and Sasha, because he’s a nice boss), and three computers to go alongside them. Chipped white mugs are stacked by the door, probably abandoned for a decent amount of time. The lights make the whole room a sickly yellow. They barely function, but Jon doubts Elias is committed to giving the place an overhaul when Gertrude was perfectly fine down here for decades.

Well, aside from the whole death thing. Keeling over in your office wouldn’t make for a good work atmosphere.

Speaking of, a small, bronze plaque beckons him to his own office. Head Archivist, it says, and Jon tries not to smile and fails. It’s hard not to feel a little giddy about it, even when he’s working in a place as downtrodden as this.

Even when he’s working in an office that’s a glorified broom closet.

He exhales hard through his nose at the state of it all - loose papers everywhere, suspicious stains on the carpet, leaning towers of files threatening to topple over if he so much as sneezes.

“Right,” Jon mutters to himself. “Okay.”

The files have zero consistent organisation - in some drawers they’re sorted alphabetically, in others numerically, in others not at all. The older ones have fragile paper that nearly disintegrate beneath Jon’s hands. When he shuts a drawer too hard it makes a loud groaning sound then promptly collapses, crushing the drawer beneath it and spilling documents everywhere.

He resigns himself to sitting in a cross-legged pose on the floor and trying his best to sort things into coherent piles, brow furrowed. A statement from 1997 next to one from 2012 - probably because they’re both about sentient evil cash machines, right? That works. It’s ridiculous, but it works. Regardless, it isn’t like Jon will have to do this for long. He can foist a lot of the sorting onto his assistants - who, if they’re on time, will be arriving in under ten minutes. Jon straightens himself out as best as he can. He’s professional. Calm. Collected.

(He’s losing his mind.)

Tim and Sasha, are, in fact, slightly late, but he tries not to let his irritation show. Not on his first day, at least.

“Hey, boss,” Tim greets, croissant in hand. “Getting started already?”

Jon rocks back and forth on his heels and nods. “Yes, well. We have a lot to do around here.”

Sasha whistles and casts her eyes over the dire room, eyes flicking to the mess in Jon’s office. “Looks like sh*t. Gertrude left it like this?”

“Evidently. I doubt many other people would take the time to trash the place in her absence.”

The two sit in their respective chairs and boot up their computers. They wheeze in protest, making concerning noises that translate to I’m from the early 2000s and I’m clinging to life oh god please help me. Jon pinches the bridge of his nose and screws his eyes shut.

“I’m sure we’re all eager to start-” Tim snorts behind his travel mug of coffee, “so I’ll put some work together for you to look over. Sasha, there’s a file on your desk I found particularly...interesting. I haven’t figured out the process surrounding the digitalization of the statements yet, so it’ll mostly be busy work otherwise. However-”

“Knock knock,” comes a voice from the open door to the office.

“Elias, hello.”

The head of the Institute looks as well put together as always, charcoal grey suit perfectly tailored, hair slicked back, eyes piercing. He casts a distasteful look over the room and sniffs. “Seems you have your work cut out for you, Sims.”

Jon straightens, trying to look as confident as possible despite his small stature. “I’m sure it won’t be much of a slog with myself and my assistants to help-”

“Which is why,” Elias interrupts, “I thought I’d offer some...extra assistance.” His smile is slimy, sharp, cunning.

Jon bristles a little at being underestimated. He plasters on an intrigued expression regardless.

With all the drama and fanfare that is to be expected from Bouchard, he steps away from the door frame, and it is then that Jon notices a shadowy figure. This mystery person brings themselves into the dim light, and-

“...Martin?”

Martin - oh Christ, Martin - blinks once. Twice. Three times.

“Jon? ”

He’s taller, broader, but it’s him. His face is still chubby and covered in freckles, his hair is still curly, red and unkempt, his glasses still rounded and digging into the sides of his face because he never got the damn things sized properly. He looks...he looks.

Angry?

Properly, really angry. Like he’d never had the bad luck to witness more than a handful of times, and almost never directed at him. His cheeks are pink, his jaw set. Jon takes a step back.

"Oh, so you two know each other," Tim grins, clearly delighted by this development.

With a lack of anything else to say, he falls back onto his default state.

"Unfortunately," Jon replies drily.

Georgie is going to kill him.

Elias smiles, seemingly unbothered by the thick tension in the room, mostly conjured up by the heated stares Martin and Jon are exchanging. “Martin here is very qualified for the job. Hence why I think he’ll flourish under your guidance.” He claps a hand on his shoulder.

Jon grits his teeth, eyes not leaving Martin. “That’s very kind of you, Elias. Though I will say that three researchers seems a bit...excessive.”

“Oh?” Elias' voice goes up in pitch, dripping with fake interest. “I’d say it’s necessary, Jon. Considering what a mess you have to sort out. And three is the magic number, after all.”

“Ha, yes. I suppose.”

“I’m sure you’ll all be one big happy family! Now, if you’ll excuse me.” And he’s gone as quick as he came, shoes barely a whisper against the carpet.

Sasha and Tim break everyone out of the thick awkwardness first, leaping up to introduce themselves to Martin and shake his hand vigorously. Jon is frozen to the spot for now, observing. He’s completely different with his assistants - his smile is honest and open, he’s telling them that he’s completely new to the world of the Institute, hadn’t even heard of it before the interview, but he’s pleased to be here! Tim and Sasha seem utterly delighted with him. They pull a chair down for Martin and offer the vacant desk just across from them, bickering over who gets to give him a rundown of office gossip and Institute staff. Jon feels very left out, something he hasn’t experienced since primary school. It settles deep in his stomach and makes him a little sick.

“I trust you’re all competent enough to get started on this mess while I get my bearings on the excuse of an office I’ve inherited,” he interrupts loudly, causing the three to look up at him quizzically. Martin, once again, looks irritated. “Sasha, keep me posted if you find anything on the statement.”

Sasha nods and Tim follows it up with a jaunty salute.

Once at his desk, Jon sits and breathes. Maybe he bangs his head off of it a couple of times. Of all the people he could have run into on his first day, it had to be Martin. A man he hasn’t seen in ten years, his ex-boyfriend , who he didn’t exactly part with on good terms. Where did he even get the qualifications to obtain a job at the Institute, anyway? Very qualified, Elias had said. Smug bastard. To top it off, the statement on the disappearances in Edinburgh refuses to record digitally, so he’s forced to fish a busted tape recorder out of the ruins of his office and go from there.

“I’ve managed to secure the services of two researchers to assist me. Well, technically three, but I don’t count Martin as he’s unlikely to contribute anything but delays,” he snarks, which is completely unnecessary, but cathartic. Sasha interrupts at one point with some notes on the case. He tries to ignore the shadow of Martin behind his door and presses on.

After a few hours of mindless sorting and recording, the clock shoddily hung up above the door reads 1pm. Jon takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. This can’t be left to fester forever, can it? It doesn’t make for a productive work environment.

He pokes his head out of the door and clears his throat. “Martin, may I speak with you a moment?”

Martin looks up, and for a second Jon fears he’ll say no. Instead he nods hesitantly and follows him through with little commentary.

“Sit,” Jon says once they’re inside, and winces inwardly. It sounded more like a command.

“I’ll stand, thanks.”

When Martin uses his height to his advantage, he can be very imposing. Jon feels very small. He’s enveloped by the large, high backed office chair, and being loomed over doesn’t help. “Right. Well. I thought it would be best for us to address the, uh...elephant in the room, so to speak. We don’t have to discuss it in detail, but I think it would be best for us all if we at least acknowledged...our relationship.”

Martin shrugs. “No need. I’ll do my work, you do yours. We’re just co-workers, that’s all.” His words are blunt and cold. He’s barely making eye contact. The clock ticks ominously in the background.

Jon’s mouth gapes open and closes like a fish. He’s very straight to the point, nothing like the man he used to know, all rambling sentences and stuttering. It unsettles him. It upsets him, makes something like both distress and resentment fester inside his chest.

“Is that all?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

Martin nods shortly and shuts the door behind him a little harder than necessary. Jon sinks into his massive chair, massaging his temples. He notes that he’s left the tape recorder on the entire damn time. Wonderful. A record of his own unprofessionalism and incompetence.

It’s easy for him to avoid further confrontation by just eating lunch in his office. It’s better, actually. He can work and eat at the same time.

(He gets a papercut from handling papers and holding a sandwich simultaneously. He also gets some cheese on a few folders.)

The stress of it all has him bouncing his legs up and down rapidly, eyeing his bag. He keeps a battered pack of cigarettes in the inside pocket for emergencies.

This is an emergency, surely. A special circ*mstance.

Jon pockets his lighter and slips out of the fire door when all of the assistants have left for tea, the light breeze tangling loose strands of his hair. It’s just enough that he has to cup his hands around his lighter to get the cigarette lit, then inhales.

He tips his head back against the cold red brick of the Institute and sighs in satisfaction, exhaling ropes of smoke. God, this was worth the lung cancer. The nicotine courses through him, loosening his shoulders, untying that knot at the base of his back. It gives him a temporary reprieve from whatever the hell was going on in there. A fantastic first day, truly, filled with an incompetent predecessor and an equally incompetent ex b-

The fire door opens abruptly, and there he is. Jon scowls.

Martin seems just as happy to see him.

"I'm leaving early," he says shortly, slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder. He's barely looking Jon in the eye.

"I didn't ask," Jon replies. A little childish, yes, but satisfying. He takes another drag of his cigarette languidly. Martin wrinkles his nose in distaste at the smell. Ah, yes. He'd hated it when Jon smoked. Complained that the tobacco scent stuck to his jumpers and it tasted bad when they kissed. He'd been so smitten he'd actually quit for the man, switching to obsessively chewing gum.

Not that it matters now.

Smoke fills the alleyway again when Jon exhales almost directly into Martin's face.

Martin stares.

Jon raises an eyebrow.

"I'm leaving."

"You said."

“Glad to know you’ve started listening after all these years.”

He rolls his eyes. “Goodbye, Martin.”

Martin walks past him just fast enough that him being jostled could be passed off as an accident, but Jon is fully aware of his intentions. His arm jerks and cigarette ash tumbles from the remainder of the stub, drifting onto his jumper. It blackens the material and burns his skin underneath, making him hiss.

“Prick,” he mutters. Not loud enough for Martin to hear him, though. He’s happy to glare at his retreating back without another confrontation, thank you very much.

Tim and Sasha give him concerned looks when he bursts through the door. He ignores them. The only thing he can do to forget about this whole awful situation is throw himself into work until that’s all he knows, until his head is stuffed full of ghost stories and ramblings of the mentally unstable.

The day ends at 6pm, but Jon stays until 8pm. He’s transfixed by a file containing utterly indecipherable handwriting, the whole thing composed of loops and spirals that make his head spin. When the ache behind his eyes is insistent enough he relents, setting the thing down and grabbing his bag.

“Honey, you’re home,” Georgie remarks from the kitchen, seemingly not surprised by Jon’s arrival on her doorstep rather than his own. “How did it go?”

Jon groans and falls face first onto the sofa. “sh*t. It was sh*t.”

Georgie tuts and makes her way over with a cup of coffee. She nudges Jon with her foot to make some room and wiggles into the small divot she’s made in the cushions. “I’m sure you’re just being dramatic.”

The Admiral sits on Jon’s back with a questioning “mrrp?” and he smiles slightly. “Usually, yes, but…there was an unexpected new hire.”

“Oh? New friend?”

Jon groans louder. “God, no. It was Martin.”

Georgie raises an eyebrow. “Am I supposed to know who that i- oh, no. Oh, Jon.”

He wants to melt into the sofa and disappear. He wants the cushions to swallow him, to make a home amongst the lost hair ties, dust and biscuit crumbs. It’s not entirely impossible, considering the Admiral is kneading his back so hard he feels like he’s being flattened.

“Your Martin?”

“He’s not my anything,” Jon snaps, still muffled by the cushions. The Admiral makes a displeased noise when he extracts himself from the clutches of the plush seat, jumping from him to Georgie’s lap. “But yes, Martin Blackwood has come back to haunt me. To ruin my new job.”

“It’s purely coincidence, Jon, and you know that. From what you’ve told me, I doubt he’d ever want to see you on purpose again.”

He frowns and pulls his knees up to his chest. “I wasn’t that bad.”

Georgie grimaces. “As your best friend and your ex, I’m the most qualified person to say you were, in fact, a complete tosser.” She takes an obnoxious sip of her coffee to really drive the point home.

“I was eighteen.”

“That only makes it worse.”

Jon sighs and leans over to pet Georgie’s cat gently, scratching the base of his back and hind legs. The low purrs makes the pounding of his heart lessen. “I saw him, and I just...I got so angry. Elias, that f*cking prick, has made him an assistant of mine, so I need to see him every damn day. It doesn’t help matters that he’s unwilling to be courteous to me either.”

“Maybe he was just in shock?” She offers.

His mouth sets in a firm line and he shakes his head. “No, no. I know him, he’s still the exact same. There’s a big difference between Martin when he’s awkward and Martin when he’s pissed. I…” He sighs. “This was supposed to be a fresh start. I wanted to prove to everyone, to myself, that I’m capable. This is a setback, to say the least.”

“It's only been a day, Jon,” Georgie soothes. “Maybe you both need time to process and cool down. Besides, Martin isn’t a bad guy, right? He’s not going to make things terrible for you out of spite.”

Jon hums in thought. “I suppose it can’t get any worse.”

It does, in fact, get worse.

Chapter 2: constant headache

Chapter Text

Jon is in hell.

He’s in hell, and this is his Sisyphean torture. Being forced to work with Martin, whose work is so subpar he can feel his soul leave his body with each mistake he makes. Statement follow ups are messy, half-finished, and late.

Is all of this on purpose? Jon doesn’t know. Either way, he’s pissed about it. Ever since his first day his body has been even less reliable than usual - his appetite is minimal and so are his portions if he bothers to eat at all. Stress related, obviously, and it will go away once he has this whole thing under control, but it doesn’t make it any less concerning when he sees his ribs poking through his shirt. Chronic fatigue has him relying on caffeine more and more with every passing day.

His office is better, at least. More homely. Georgie gifted him a plant, which sits proudly on his desk. It’s a succulent - plastic, of course - in a bright orange pot. It brings a pop of colour to the place and Jon smiles every time he sees it.

However, a whole room full of plants can’t quell his frustration when he notices that Martin has given him the wrong file for the third time. The man is revelling in his small victories, probably, relishing the fact that Jon is more used to having headaches than not having them.

“But Martin is so sweet!” Tim protests, shortly after finding him with his head between his knees making some prolonged groaning noise. “And he’s new. You’re being too hard on him.”

Sasha makes a noise of agreement. Jon only continues to retreat further into himself, like a tortoise. They’ve been prodding him for weeks, asking for further insight into what’s going on (separately, of course, so as to not arouse suspicion, but Jon knows it's a joint mission.)

“He hates me,” he grumbles into his own lap. “This is being done on purpose.”

“And he hates you becaaaause…?” Tim pries. He’s sitting in a chair backwards right across from him, chin resting on his folded arms. If he falls face first onto the floor and breaks his nose it won’t be much of a loss to Jon.

He sighs and lifts himself up, shaking his head and blinking away the blurriness of his eyes. “That’s private information.”

Though he isn’t Martin’s biggest fan right now, and vice versa, he wouldn’t betray his trust like that. Maybe, though, he’s also a little afraid that if he tells them, they’ll hate him. They’ll think he’s the bad one in the situation, just like Georgie had told him he was before. He doesn’t think he can handle yet another person loathing him.

“But you dated, right?” Sasha presses, insistent. She’s Jon’s best assistant because she’s so determined. That isn’t really working in his favour at the moment, however.

"Of course they did. There was tension there. He was all like," Tim makes his voice a tad higher, "Jon? And you were all like," his voice goes lower again, "Martin? Like something out of a movie."

Jon does not say actually, it was the other way around, because it’s none of Tim’s business that he has been replaying that moment in his head since it happened, quietly stewing over it.

"Yes, fine, we did. But there's nothing much to say," he replies tiredly instead. "You know what it's like being young and in a relationship."

"Yeah, I do, but I never imagined you as a teenager. I always thought you came out of the womb a grown man."

“Pictures or it didn’t happen,” Sasha pipes up. “Although I expected it, it doesn't make any sense."

Jon can understand that. They’re polar opposites in every single way, and he’s changed a lot since school. He removes his glasses and cleans them so he doesn’t have to look either of them in the eye.

"We made sense at the time."

The conversation is clearly taking a darker turn, something it seems that neither Tim or Sasha are comfortable with leading on, so they both make excuses and leave Jon to brood for a while. Which is all he seems to do these days, really. That, and wonder why the hell Martin won’t look at him. In the instances where they actually do run into each other - which is inescapable in as small a space as they work in - he’ll keep his head down and rush past, a great deal different to how abrupt and furious he was on their first day. If anything, Jon preferred that. It at least meant he was being acknowledged. Instead, most of their correspondence is through emails and sticky notes left on paperwork, and whenever he comes back from a smoke break he finds stacks of work from Martin on his desk.

The smoking is a whole other thing. Before, it was just a crutch for extra-stressful situations (when is he not stressed) but now he’s sucking down multiple packs a week. It’s near impossible to justify on a pitiful Institute wage. Unfortunately, he gets shaky if he goes too long without one, and going cold turkey is too hard, so he buys the damn things. There’s also the issue of Martin always leaving early on a Monday, something he can’t really understand. Bringing it up would be pointless - needless confrontation and all that, and Martin can be hellishly stubborn when he puts his mind to it. It’s not like he contributes much in that extra hour or so he’s present. He’s a distraction. If anything, it’s helpful.

He can hear warm conversation in the other room, something about Sasha’s dog, he thinks.

“...was never really allowed...wanted one, though...border collie…” Martin’s warm voice is muffled due to the door being shut.

Jon bites down hard on his lip. That’s the Martin he knows - knew. Whatever. No use in dwelling on it any further.

Foolishly, he inadvertently directs all of his ire towards Miss Herne when she arrives to give her statement. It wasn’t exactly a good start when she scoffed at the tape recorder. Ridiculous as it is, he’s beginning to feel a sort of...fondness for them. They’re a comfortable weight in his hands, an anchor, something concrete, and he can’t help but think everything that is recorded on them actually has significance. Not that he suggested psychiatric help just because of that, of course. Grief is a powerful thing. It probably brought a level of comfort to Miss Herne to think that her deceased fiance was aiding her from beyond the grave, but it isn’t a habit she should keep entertaining.

He pointedly ignores the carved granite. Forgotten. It would be poetic, if he cared enough to make that kind of connection.

When she leaves the office, cursing Jon and barging towards the lift, it’s Sasha who makes her way over, eyebrows raised.

“You’re going to get into serious sh*t for that.”

Jon sinks his hands into his hair and pulls at the strands in frustration. “Yes, Sasha, I know. Thank you.”

“And if you want my advice? If you want people - Martin - to stop being so cold, maybe don’t complain about every little thing into that recorder of yours.” She taps the hard plastic twice. “We all listen to the tapes, you know.”

His heart sinks. Of course. “I-”

Sasha holds up a hand quickly to silence him. “No, Jon. I’m not a therapist. I’m a concerned friend, a concerned colleague, but not that. Just...try to be nice, please? You’re putting the Archives at risk too, you know.”

Jon nods, well and truly chastised. “You’re right. I apologise.”

Sasha peers at him, then nods in return, seemingly satisfied.

I will not spiral, Jon thinks to himself, staring hard at the plant on his desk determinedly. I will not spiral.

He spirals.

Not a productive spiral, where he works over a period of 72 hours with little to no sleep (unhealthy, but useful in his university days). Instead, it’s him heading to Tesco Express at midnight on a Friday and shoving all of the clearance food items into his basket, then going home and inhaling it all while watching awful TV. Day old profiteroles? Sure. Spaghetti hoops in a battered tin? Okay. Pair it with some repeats of Come Dine with Me and The Chase and it cements the idea in his mind that Jon’s life is truly, truly f*cked. The weekend stretches past in an awful, fatigued, boring slog, where he tries not to think about the events that have led him to this point. I should shower, he thinks. Then he doesn’t. For the better part of the three days in his flat he barely moves. It’s only on Sunday night when he’s weighing up the pros and cons of getting up to grab his lighter when he notices his phone peeking out from under the sofa, abandoned. The screen is glowing and filled with notifications.

Georgie (15 unread)

Jon sighs and unlocks his phone.

Georgie: radio silence for two days even when ive sent pics of the admiral? are u dead

Buzz.

Georgie: jon

Buzz.

Georgie: joooooon

Buzz.

Georgie: jonathan

She won’t stop until he’s replied, and she knows he’s read them, so he relents, thumbs tapping on the keyboard.

Jon: I'm here. Sorry.

Jon: I've been having a rough time.

Georgie: work? :(

Jon: Yes.

Georgie: we can talk about it???

Jon hesitates. They could, but what would be achieved, he isn’t sure. Georgie has been subjected to far too many of his rants as of late, regardless.

Jon: No, it's fine. I'd be rehashing the same issues and I don't want to bother you.

Georgie: jon, u beautiful mess of a man, u dont bother me

Georgie: i mean u do a little. when ur being a dick. but not REALLY

Jon snorts and watches the little grey bubble pop up again.

Georgie: seriously tho its ok to be a little bit of a burden

Georgie: i love you and care about you

Jon: I know.

Georgie: wow did u just han solo me

Jon: I don't understand that reference.

Georgie: liar

Jon: I love you too.

Jon: :)

Georgie: u wanna hear about the bad tinder date i had yday

That’s safe territory, at least. He sinks back into the sofa and taps out a reply.

Jon: Sure.

Georgie: ok so we went to the greek place yknow the one u hate because ur weird. and this girl starts having a reaction and my date is like I CAN HELP and fully tries to be the hero and use the epipen right

Jon: Oh dear.

Georgie: RIGHT

Georgie: so anyways he misses and stabs himself in the leg

Jon: Was the girl alright?

Georgie: i wouldnt be telling the story if someone DIED, jon

Georgie: if anything harry was worse off. i dropped him off at a&e and just got uber eats to deliver from the restaurant

Jon: Maybe you should've done that in the first place.

Georgie: but human interaction is nice!!!!!!

Georgie: speaking of. visit soon. i miss you. and im 99% sure u haven't eaten properly in at least two days so im gonna fix that

Jon: Okay, sounds good.

He feels warmer. Lighter, somehow. That fatigue creeps over him again, but one born from an actual need for sleep rather than a way to escape his own thoughts. Dragging himself up from the sofa, he begins to head for his bedroom.

Jon: I'm going to try to sleep now. Goodnight.

Georgie: gn!!!! <333

He succumbs to exhaustion, feeling a little hopeful.

On Tuesday, running on nicotine and pure spite, Jon decides to head for Elias’ office. Probably best he does it as soon as possible, just in case he happens to hear about Naomi Herne. Which he’s sure will be a problem soon enough.

He invites Jon to come inside before he even has the chance to knock. The man never fails to be unnerving at any given opportunity.

"Jon," Elias says smoothly, turning around in his swivel chair with steepled fingers. Very villainous. "What can I do for you?"

Jon tugs nervously at the loose strands of hair escaping his ponytail. He settles into the rickety fold up chair on the opposite side - some kind of power play for Elias, probably. "Ah. I'd like to discuss some…issues I've been having in my new position."

Elias leans forward, all faux concern. "Oh?"

He wets his lips. "Yes, it's...I hate to make this awkward, but it's a rather personal problem. Mr Blackwood-"

"A fine choice, I thought." His mouth is twisted up into something that could be a friendly smile, but instead looks smug and satisfied.

"Something like that," Jon mutters. "We have a bit of a history. A romantic one, in fact. It ended rather badly. I think it would be in our best interests if he were to be moved elsewhere."

His boss sighs and clicks his tongue, leaning far back in his chair so he can look down his nose at Jon. He feels a rush of shame, like he’s been called into the headteacher’s office for poor behaviour. "Oh, Jon. I picked you because I believed you were the most capable, the best choice to sort out the godawful excuse for an archive that Gertrude left behind. It's disappointing to hear that you aren't equipped enough to even put personal relationships aside for the sake of your work. I haven't made a mistake, have I?"

A chill runs through him, and he’s suddenly choking on his own panic, leaning forward in his own chair and holding his hands up placatingly. "No, no! God, no," Jon laughs nervously. "I just thought it would be the more professional thing to do. To let you know, I mean."

Elias hums and gives him a critical eye. "I suppose. Regardless, there's no need to worry. I'll be keeping an eye out in case there are any problems."

"Right, thank you." Jon feels the back of his neck prickle and tingle suddenly, like there's another gaze being fixed onto him.

There's a horrible, awkward pause where he wants to protest, but he knows it won’t be of any use.

"Back to work then."

"Yes."

The screech of the chair against the hardwood flooring is painful, and Jon is out of there as quick as his body is able to leave. He quietly curses Elias the whole way back down to the Archives, mood promptly flattened in less than ten minutes.

“For God’s sake, Tim, get off the desk,” he snaps as soon as he’s through the door. He feels as tight as a bow string. It’s not exactly doing wonders for his back. Tim doesn’t even bother to give him a response, instead hopping off and getting back to whatever he was doing beforehand. He would take that as a victory, if he were delusional, but he knows that Tim isn’t intimidated by him in the slightest. He’s likely just humouring him. Which is either very kind or very irritating.

He’s going to find it irritating, given his current headspace.

Little work is done over the next few hours. Jon only comes across statements that record digitally, meaning - something? Or nothing. Maybe he’s just going mad. Just before the day is up (for everyone else), he finds something relatively substantial, something that needs a follow up to the library, a brief mention of a kind of chaos magic. The whole thing could be a dead end, but he figures a trip to see Diana could do him some good. Even if it just means he can stretch his legs.

He’s long past being offended that everyone seems to leave half an hour earlier than they’re supposed to, so is unfazed by seeing the room empty when he exits his office. What he doesn’t expect, however, is to see Martin hunched over his desk. He’s not up to much, just flicking between browser tabs and typing. Nothing offensive. However, because Jon has never been good at leaving well enough alone, he looks over Martin’s screen properly.

He bites his tongue.

He shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t.

“Didn't you get my email? I asked you to drop the Wilkinson case. You’d think you’d know how to check your inbox if nothing else.”

He does.

It’s followed with complete silence. Martin doesn’t even spare him a glance, so Jon is left staring at his back, now motionless as he stopped typing at his words. It only serves to make him more frustrated.

"I wonder if you're being deliberately obtuse to spite me, or if you're really this terrible at the job," Jon spits. "Qualified my arse."

It’s horrible, venomous, completely uncalled for. He doesn’t know where it’s coming from, but all he can think of is the tensions from these past weeks, Martin’s ignorance or complete absence from his day, him still being on his mind whether he’s around or not. He’d blame it on his meeting with Elias, but if they were to have this encounter a week ago he probably would have acted the same. He likes pushing it, just a little. It’s satisfying. Prodding a bruise, picking a scab. A small thrill that serves no purpose other than gaining a bit of attention and hurt.

There’s a minute movement that Jon latches onto. Martin is clenching his fist.

"If you're really so offended by my being here,” he pushes out, voice barely even, “then maybe you should have me moved."

Ah, he speaks.

"You think I haven't tried?" Jon grits out.

Martin turns abruptly, his gaze finally settling on Jon. It’s unsettling, after being without it for so long. Jon’s skin tingles, but not like it had with Elias. Electricity - rather than the lingering feeling of chilled breath and cold fingers - runs through him. He straightens, tries to shake off the sensation. Martin actually has the audacity to look offended at his words. "It seems Elias is keen to let whatever this is fester."

Jon sees the most animation he has from Martin since they’d met, his arms raising in an exasperated motion and his face screwing up. “This-” he gestures between the two of them frantically, “isn’t anything. I thought I made that clear.”

Jon narrows his eyes, thinking. He mostly just wants to keep speaking to keep Martin’s gaze on him. It’s intoxicating. A little unhealthy, maybe. Now he has a chance to look at him - really look - it’s hard to stop. His face was round when they were younger, impossibly so, but now he has a little more of a pronounced jaw. His cheeks are still plump, though. Almost cherubic. It’s been a long, sweltering summer, so the sun has been out more, making his freckles more obvious, a spray of them across his nose and cheekbones. The blue-grey of his eyes are rendered less appealing by the bags under them. He’s tired. World weary, even. Jon wonders if he looks the same.

He wonders if Martin has taken the time to notice regardless.

“Well. If you’re so eager to continue on as if nothing has happened, could you please stop avoiding me at every moment and acting as if I’ve done something wrong?”

Martin rolls his eyes and crosses his arms in exasperation. “Why, because I’m making you look bad in front of Tim and Sasha?”

Jon clenches his jaw. He’s amazed that he hasn’t ground his teeth down to stubs by now. “No, because you’re making it blatantly obvious that you’re not over something that happened ten years ago. It’s childish.”

He throws the sentence out casually, as if he hasn’t been repeating the same thing to himself over and over when his thoughts drift to Martin, even before he met him all over again. Though him appearing at work was a shock, it wasn’t as if he’d never been on his mind before that. He’d never left it, to be honest. Jon had just gotten better at compartmentalising it all, telling himself he’s coping with it just fine.

“I also don’t need to remind you that you caused the whole thing by leaving me.”

His mouth slams shut.

He hadn’t meant to say that last part.

Martin abruptly goes from sitting to standing in a flash, his face red and mottled and oh, he's mad now. Jon feels a little thrill run through him at knowing he still has that effect on him, if nothing else. It's despicable, but- well. He never said he was a good person.

He’s once again struck by how tall Martin has gotten, and how he hardly ever uses that to his advantage, rather shrinking in on himself to be as small as possible. Now, though, when they’re alone with no false pretences and intruding co-workers, he’s clearly being a little more bold. Nothing scary - of all of the things Jon has felt about Martin, he’s never been scared of the man - but...it’s imposing.

“I left for a good reason,” Martin says, voice a little too loud considering how close they are. “What you said-”

“You never gave me a chance to fix it!” Jon yells suddenly. He’s...he’s shaking. He feels eighteen again, a little more hopeful and even more in love. It’s like he can taste the sea salt on his tongue and feel the grit of sand against his skin. “You just disappeared!”

“There wasn’t time-” Martin tries to input, but Jon plows on, rushes of rage enveloping him, fury roaring in his ears.

“It was easier for you to isolate yourself from me like you are now! You’re a damn coward. That hasn’t changed.”

Martin’s eyes widen in shock. He takes a step back, reaching for the solid wood of his desk. Jon’s head is pounding. His throat is dry. The words hang between them dangerously, but Martin lets them stay there, unaddressed. It’s then that Jon realises Martin is crying, fat tears glistening on his cheeks and rolling down to land on his thick knitted jumper. This, he hadn’t planned for. He hadn’t wanted it. He wanted harsh words, a little bit of catharsis, maybe, but not this. Martin standing in front of him, head hanging low, hands still balled into fists. He needs to apologise, but his tongue feels thick and useless in his mouth. There’s the sudden, horrible feeling that he might have broken something beyond repair.

“Well,” Martin whispers. “That’s that then.”

Jon stares, frozen. He watches as Martin clumsily wipes his face with his sleeve and pushes his glasses back to their rightful place, then takes his bag in one hand and his phone in the other. He’s out of the room before Jon can even turn around. The click of the door shutting brings Jon back down to earth, and the realisation of what he’s said, what he’s done, hits him hard enough that he’s forced to sink to the floor.

He pulls his knees close to his chest, presses the heels of his palms to his eyes until he sees white.

He aches.

Chapter 3: wouldn't it be nice?

Chapter Text

1998

Tying his tie is a bigger task than Jon realised.

His grandmother had given him a quick demonstration the night before, then handed it off to him this morning for him to handle himself. She didn’t want him relying on her, maybe. That isn’t out of character for her.

The striped green and red fabric lies limp in his hands as he stares into the mirror, perplexed. He’s never worn a blazer before, only shirts in primary school. It feels very restrictive, very tight. It also makes him look even smaller than he already is. All of the sizes seemed to come with broad shoulders and longer sleeves, so it hangs past his wrists, swamps his frame, and settles below his waist. He wouldn’t dare complain, though. Maybe he would if he were the way he was years ago, before he came across that book - but, well. Before he was the problem child in class, now he sat quiet, reserved. When a teacher asks him a question, he answers in as few words as possible without fuss. Previously he most certainly would’ve snapped, outright refusing to answer or mocking them.

While thinking about this, he manages to pull the tie into something respectful. It’s crooked, yes, but he imagines any other eleven year old wouldn’t be able to do any better.

In a lot of other households he thinks there would be some sort of fanfare. Pictures, weepy parents. His grandmother just hands him his lunch, checks he knows the way to the school, and sends him on his way with not even a kiss to the cheek. He’s not upset. He doesn’t want her to walk with him (she wouldn’t anyway), because the new independence is nice. He feels a little more adult with his new backpack, lunch in hand. There’s even a schedule tucked away in a fresh planner he was given over the summer in the post from the school. Overall, Jon would dare say he was excited. Yes, he didn’t have any friends in primary school, but he wasn’t bullied by people his age, at least. He could go through the school year relatively unscathed.

The air outside isn’t too cold, but the threat of autumn coming into full swing is there. There are groups of children chatting amongst each other, also carrying brand new bags and wearing brand new blazers. Jon feels a pang of loneliness, but brushes it aside. He follows the crowd all the way to school.

It’s remarkably unremarkable. Just a dull set of brick buildings with green fencing all the way around it, a peeling painted sign with the school’s crest on it. There are some wire fences on the inside, which is...a little concerning. It reminds Jon of a prison. Which is how some people would describe it, maybe.

A sharp bell pierces his ears, and a whistle follows soon after. There’s a gathering in the playground just to the right of the school entrance.

“Year sevens to me, please!” Yells a deep, masculine voice, all authority and little warmth. His head bobs through the hundreds of kids and creates a beacon for them all to walk towards. Jon steels himself and makes his way over.

The kids have gathered in what you could call an orderly line, if you were being generous. The tall, intimidating man is holding sheafs of paper and is wearing a lanyard around his neck that reveals him to be Mr Hutchinson.

“If I say your name, follow Mrs McLean-” a short, stout woman waves, “she will lead you to your new tutor group and your designated form room for this year. First, Chloe Abrams...”

It takes a while for Mr Hutchinson to reach the S portion of the register, but Jon’s name is eventually called, and he joins the line behind the teacher previously pointed out to them. People are already pairing off, girls squealing upon finding out they’ve been paired together and holding hands so they don’t ‘lose each other.’ It makes Jon roll his eyes.

They’re led through twisting hallways, all painted the same bleak pale yellow and covered in anti-bullying posters as well as some GCSE art projects of portraits and the like. Their new classroom is a science lab with horribly uncomfortable stools. Jon decides to sit at the back in the corner, considering the rest of the rows are filled with people who already know each other. He tries not to be disheartened. There’s someone else next to him who he’s sure is alone, but he doesn’t speak. He just fidgets and doodles in his planner. Jon does feel him look at him once, but that’s about it.

Their tutor drones on about schedules, representing your house properly (he’s in house Newminster, whatever that means), proper conduct and penalties for lateness. Jon has no desire to make any issues for himself, so he figures this doesn’t apply to him, but rather the already identified troublemakers.

They’re being dismissed before anyone can ask any follow up questions and being shepherded off to their first lessons. Jon has biology first, where all they do is write their names in brand new workbooks and do ‘icebreakers.’ Everyone is polite, asking him about his interests, but when all he offers is his interest in reading (is he even interested anymore?) they smile blandly and seek out their actual friends.

He wanders around to his next classes without much thought or trepidation. It’s all the same, anyway. They work all the way up until the bell rings, when they’re asked to pause and bring their hands together in prayer. Before this, Jon totally forgot he was in a Catholic school. The entire class mumble along to the words, and he is awfully, terribly confused. He just mouths gibberish and hopes no one notices. By this point he’s sick of hearing chalk screech against a blackboard, so he takes the small silence after as a reprieve. They’re led to the canteen shortly after.

Jon hates it. It’s stuffy, hot, and packed to the brim with loud, obnoxious people. He leaves almost immediately after being shown in.

There’s a small courtyard by the art building he spotted in the morning. It’s almost deserted, and is only populated by pigeons and two benches. He weaves in between swathes of teenagers entering the canteen and finally settles himself on one of the rickety seats. While nibbling on his sandwich and observing two pigeons fighting over a stray chip on the gravel, he feels a hovering presence near him.

“Um. May I help you?”

It’s a boy he faintly recognises. He’s right next to the bench clutching a clear lunch box and fiddling with his glasses. He looks extremely nervous.

“Uh, yes. Yes! I was just wondering if I could sit with you? I know it’s a little weird, but we did sit next to each other in our tutor group this morning and-”

“Just because we sat next to each other doesn’t mean we’re friends,” Jon snaps. Which isn’t a good way to make friends in the first place, really, but this boy is being rather presumptive.

The boy’s almost milk pale skin flushes red. “It’s not like either of us have anyone else, is it?”

“I have friends,” Jon says defensively.

“Oh, yeah? Where are they?”

Jon stares.

The boy stares back stubbornly.

He relents.

“Fine, sit.”

The boy beams and situates himself rather close to Jon, maybe a bit too close, but he’s too keen to get on with eating to yell at him to move.

“I’m Martin. You’re...Jonathan?”

He was clearly listening in their group this morning, Jon realises with a touch of guilt. He didn’t recall his name at all.

“Jon. Please don’t call me Jonathan ever again.”

Martin nods, seemingly not put off by Jon’s brisk tone. He takes out a packet of crisps and they begin to eat in what could be called a companionable silence. It’s nice, for a while.

Until Martin decides to ruin it by talking more.

“So…”

Jon groans internally.

“How are your lessons going?”

“Fine,” Jon replies.

“I liked English! Mrs Bentham is cool.”

“I haven’t met her yet.”

“Oh.”

A longer silence. Jon takes a sip of his water. The pigeon on the left managed to win the chip.

Martin pointedly ignores Jon being nearly mute, and continues to chatter on soon after. He talks about how the bell has made him jump out of his skin a few times, how he’s scared about accidentally calling one of the teachers ‘mum’ and making everyone laugh at him.

“Are you a Catholic, Jon?”

“No. I’m just here because my grandmother heard it was a good school.”

Martin looks a little shocked. “Have you been baptised?”

“Uh...no?”

His eyes widen. “Weird. My mum is pretty dedicated, she goes to Sunday service and a few times on weekdays. I’m not really allowed to go with her anymore. I get bored and fidgety and don’t really like singing the hymns much. I cried when I had my first confession.”

Jon laughs a little at that, and it makes Martin brighten as much as the autumn sun behind him.

“We, um...said a prayer before lunch. I didn’t know what it was.” It feels like a forbidden secret, as if him saying it out loud will have him arrested by the Catholic police or something, but Martin just nods in understanding.

“The ‘Bless us, O God for the food we eat today’ thing?”

“I think so?”

“Oh, you’ll pick it up, it’s easy! You should probably learn the Our Father and Hail Mary too, though.”

“The what?” Jon blurts out, and Martin giggles.

The next day, Jon decides to seek out Martin in their tutor group rather than pick whichever seat he finds at the back first. He tries not to make a big deal out of it, but he can see Martin smiling out of the corner of his eye.

“Shut up, Martin.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Martin whispers over the droning of their tutor. The smile doesn’t leave his face.

It turns out they have religious studies together, luckily for Jon. It means that Martin can help him with some of the questions he doesn’t quite understand yet. In turn he helps Martin in history.

It’s...nice. Really nice. To have someone.

Martin is picking away at his cold pasta while Jon chews thoughtfully on a slice of pineapple. “I just don’t get why we’re in house Newminster.”

“The houses are all named after saints. Didn’t you listen in collective worship?”

“No.”

Martin rolls his eyes and snorts.

“Anyway, I’ve never heard of a Saint Newminster.”

“That’s not his name, really. He’s a saint of Newminster. His first name is Robert or something. But that’s not always the case. They can just be Saint Patrick.”

Jon frowns. “That’s silly. Rules should be consistent.”

“Well. Religion is kinda silly.”

They both burst out laughing as if they’ve committed the deadliest of sins, their lunches abandoned in favour of their joy.

There’s some sort of welcome mass for the first years at the end of the week, open to all family members. Jon’s grandmother doesn’t come. Neither does Martin’s mum.

They don’t talk about it.

All the same, it’s a boring affair with or without family. Their priest recites some drivel that Jon has already heard far too many times for just one week as an honorary Catholic of sorts. When they go up to the front of the hall for the body of Christ, Jon is briefly reminded that he needs to cross his right arm and rest it on his left shoulder, like Martin told him. All because he hasn’t been baptised. He only gets a blessing, whatever that entails.

“Isn’t that a little mean?” Jon pouts. “Singling me out?”

Martin shrugs. “Catholics aren’t really known for being nice.”

The priest holds a hand over Jon’s head and mumbles nonsense then sends him on his way. He notices Martin being given a cracker (or Jesus, he supposes), and feels a little left out again. When they’re seated, Martin leans over to him to whisper in his ear.

“Don’t be jealous, it’s just a weird wafer thingy. Kind of tastes like a flying saucer without the sherbet.”

Jon pulls a face, signalling he’s not all that upset now.

When the priest tells them to greet their neighbour, Jon is once again confused. Martin is reaching over behind the rows and shaking hands with other students, smiling. When he turns to Jon, he extends a hand for him to take.

“Peace be with you,” he says brightly.

Jon blinks.

“And also with you,” Martin whispers.

“Oh!” Jon says too loudly. “And, uh, also with you.”

Martin’s grip is firm and practised, but his smile is soft and warm.

Jon can’t help but smile too.

It’s been a year, and Jon can say with confidence that he has a friend. Martin didn’t get sick of him after a while, like he expected. They even have a routine - going to the beach on Saturdays, ice creams in hand (bought with some lunch money scraped together). Sometimes they manage to get enough coppers to spend half an hour or so in the arcades. One time Martin won a prize that dropped from the machine, a fluffy cat keyring, and gave it to Jon. Months later it still hangs from the one key he has for his front door.

They try to prolong their time together outside of school, walking up and down the pier multiple times and hanging onto their fast melting ice creams as long as possible. It’s difficult for either of them to visit each other’s houses. Jon’s grandmother dislikes visitors and loud noises, despite Jon himself being a relatively quiet child and Martin being the same. Martin’s mother is similar, though he’s a little secretive over the whole thing.

“It’s like...she makes fun of me for being lonely, but makes sure I’m lonely at the same time. Does that make sense?” He confessed once, mint chocolate chip ice cream dripping down his clenched fist. Jon just nodded. He’s aware Martin’s mum is sick, and mean, but doesn’t push for details. All he knows is occasionally Martin will come to school without lunch or the money for it.

“Sometimes we have to choose between food or rent,” he’d mumbled, ashamed. Jon vowed to never let him go hungry again, bringing extra portions of his own lunch and tupperware boxes of meals he’d made with his grandmother the night before.

“I made it, I want you to have it,” he’d insist. “If you won’t take it for yourself, I want us to at least eat it together.”

So they’d sit with two forks Jon brought from home and quietly have the meal, whether it be lasagne or lamb curry. It brought him a rush of happiness to see Martin well fed and without that awful, sad look on his face.

They’re on the cusp of turning fourteen, and Jon is on his way to one of his classes without Martin. Before he rounds the corner, he sees Martin waving at him with a huge smile on his face. It makes Jon feel warm all over, like he’s sitting in a hot car on a summer’s day and practically baking in the heat, but he knows he’ll be sad when the sun finally hides behind the clouds. His friend is almost knocking people over to keep his eyes on Jon, the idiot, but it’s so ridiculously endearing.

“That your boyfriend, Sims?” A classmate sneers while they’re walking, breath muggy against Jon’s ear. He shudders. “You a poof?”

He pauses for a beat too long, processing. If it weren’t for the boy seeking him out in the crowd, he would’ve been already pouncing on the classmate like a rabid animal, spitting and swearing. But Martin makes him want to be better, round out his harsh edges. He’s so kind. Absurdly so. He didn’t have to befriend him that first day, but he did. Jon doesn’t know where he would be now if he hadn’t.

He bites his tongue hard. He wants to lash out, wants it so badly. But Martin’s gaze is on him, so sweet, and he can’t bear to sour the mood.

“f*ck off, Will,” he grits out through his teeth.

He waves back.

Wednesday means religious studies at nine in the morning, which is perhaps as close to torture as is legally allowed in the place. Block letters on the blackboard spell out ‘MORAL ISSUES’, which makes something settle grossly in Jon’s stomach.

“Today,” their teacher booms, “we will be discussing Christian attitudes towards four moral queries. Abortion. Euthanasia. Contraception. hom*osexuality.”

A ripple of laughter goes through the class at the last one, but Jon feels like he’s turning to stone. He hears Martin suck in a sharp breath. He then realises he’s holding his own, and lets it all out in a rush. Textbooks are handed out and slap against the table loudly, causing both of the boys to snap to attention.

Jon tries desperately not to look at Martin, to not see the fear he worries is on his own face.

The other topics are less intimidating, though still exhausting - the work mostly consists of copying out tables and keywords for the topic. He is almost lulled into a false sense of security - that is, until their teacher announces the final ‘issue’ will be presented in the form of a debate.

Is hom*osexuality morally correct?

Should hom*osexuals be welcomed back into the Church?

“Well…” a girl at the front of the room fumbles with her textbook, rifling through to find the point she’s searching for. “The Golden Rule says treat people as you would wish to be treated, yeah? So why should we be mean to gay people?”

“But they’re going against God’s will,” someone else points out. “Love is between a man and a woman. If we’re telling them it’s wrong we’re just following, like, what the Bible says.”

“God created us in his image, though? He loves all of us and stuff. Why should gay people change?”

Jon desperately wants to leave. His muscles are tense, he’s ready to flee.

There’s a loud, cruel laugh from the back. “It’s wrong to be a fa*g full stop, mate. Who gives a sh*t about what God thinks either way?”

A girl he recognises from his maths class hides a laugh behind her hand. She let him borrow a pencil, once. Said his hair looked nice that day.

There’s a horrible, oppressive silence for a beat, then Martin jumps up and lets his chair fall to the ground with a loud clatter, leaving the class without even pardoning himself.

Jon is following him without thinking - because of course he is.

“Mr Blackwood! Mr Sims!”

He ignores the outraged shrieks of their teacher and is chasing Martin’s retreating form through the bleak halls, all the way to the bathroom.

“Martin,” he says gently, as gentle as he can so as not to startle him. He’s sitting on a toilet with the lid shut, and though he’s trying to cover it, Jon can make out the constant pour of tears down his cheeks. “Are you alright?”

Martin sniffs. He tries to say something, but it comes out a garbled mess, leading to him bursting into another round of tears. Jon is sinking down beside him, his trousers sticking to the awful state that is the school’s bathroom floor. There’s hardly any room for both of them in the stall, so he’s pressed close to Martin, his shoulders right against his knees. Jon puts a tentative hand on his knee and squeezes, waiting.

“What’s wrong?” He prods, though he knows. He knows too well.

Martin lets out a shaky breath that stutters and catches in his throat. Jon pulls a few tissues out of the dispenser and presses them into his hand carefully.

“I just...I don’t get how they’re allowed to sit there and argue about whether I- whether they are allowed to exist or not. It’s not nice.”

“No, it’s not. I’m so sorry, Martin.”

“Why are you apologising to me? It’s not like I’m...I’m not…” He looks at Jon for the first time since they entered the bathroom. His eyes are red rimmed and sore, his mouth swollen from biting his lip. His whole body seems to sag under the mental exhaustion of just making eye contact. Jon squeezes his knee again with a lack of anything to say.

He wants to tell him he understands, that he feels the same, that Martin just happens to wear his heart on his sleeve and if he were more like him he would’ve run out first. Instead, he grasps Martin’s hand tight and rises from his crouching position.

“C’mon, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Just...just trust me. And look sick.”

They hover in the doorway to class, Jon partially obscuring Martin from view.

“Martin isn't well, miss,” Jon says in his best mature voice. “We need to see the nurse.”

Their teacher arches a brow. The whole class is staring. “Right. I’m sure Mr Blackwood can go himself. Take a seat, Jonathan.”

“Well, you see, miss-”

Martin makes a well-timed groaning noise from behind him.

“He’s very sick, and I’m worried if I don’t escort him to the nurse’s office he’ll faint.”

Another groan. Jon tries not to smile.

There’s a staring contest, then. Jon waiting for their teacher to break, and her doing the same. She must be keen to continue with the lesson, as she simply sighs and waves them away. “I want you back in fifteen minutes, Sims.”

Jon is closing the door before she can finish, taking Martin’s hand and running down the hall, grinning. They keep running, and running, and running, until there’s the cool air of the afternoon on their face.

“Jon, where the hell are we going?” Martin pants.

Jon grasps both of Martin’s hands, this time, and brings them close to his chest. “I think a McDonald’s sounds good, don’t you?”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea-”

“Oh, come on!” He releases Martin with a flourish. “Let’s skip, just once. I’m buying.”

There must be an expression excited enough on his face to convince him, because Martin relents, smiling. “I want an ice cream too, then.”

“Deal.”

They spend the afternoon eating burgers and sucking down milkshakes until the school day is over, and as the winter sun is setting, he wonders if he’s ever been this happy before.

After that, Jon finds himself looking at Martin differently. Not in a bad way, never in a bad way. Just differently. He finds it hard to tear his eyes away from him, honestly. It’s not a surprise to him that thinks Martin is adorable. He’s always thought that. It’s never concerned him. Though now, he realises, they’ve been friends for around three years, and not once have they spent time with anyone else, nevermind dated anyone else. It was never talked about, and Jon has simply never been interested. Isn’t that what teenagers do? Go out with people? Hold their hand, maybe kiss them? The only hand he’s ever held has been Martin’s.

Maybe he hasn’t talked about it, hasn’t done it, because he likes Martin. He likes Martin’s laugh, the way he lights up in English lessons when they do poetry, how his glasses periodically slip down his nose when he shakes his head. His chest gets tight when Martin says his name, even if it’s in exasperation. They hardly hug, but when they do it’s so, so good.

He lets himself consider it.

He likes Martin.

It’s a habit for them to stay in the library on breaks when they’ve finished their lunch - at the back in the corner, where the fiction is and where they won’t be disturbed. Martin has found a book on the Romantics that he says he can’t fully parse yet, but he likes the parts he can digest. Jon has some non-fiction book in front of him. However, he isn’t reading it. He’s just staring at Martin. He stares at him all the damn time.

While his friend is mouthing some verse to himself, some Byron poem, he thinks, Jon slowly reaches under the table to find his hand. It dwarfs his own, and it’s a little sweaty, but it feels right. Martin jolts at the sudden contact. He turns to him, eyes wide.

Jon smiles hopefully and laces their fingers together. He squeezes.

Nothing much changes after that, but it doesn’t really have to. They hold hands when they walk home and it’s quiet, but they don’t get the opportunity all that much. On the days Jon’s grandmother is in a particularly good mood they go to his room and sit close side by side, their shoulders touching and fingers brushing against each other. Martin’s mother being at church or her book club is more common, so they spend as much time as possible at their home. Just existing, surrounded by the knowledge of their affection for one another.

Their first kiss is awkward, of course. Jon goes for Martin’s mouth whereas Martin goes for his cheek, making them both burst into laughter for so long it takes them a while to try again. The height difference doesn’t help, either. Jon has to lean up to catch Martin’s lips or drag him down with him.

(It’s more fun to drag him down.)

Secondary school is over with in a flash, much sooner than Jon imagined. They both come out with good GCSE results (though Martin isn’t thrilled with his, despite his excellent English grade). Martin enrols at the school’s own sixth form, but Jon applies elsewhere. He needs a school with better A-Level options, but neither of them mind. They’re never too far apart.

It’s good. They’re good.

When it comes around to Martin’s 17th birthday, Jon is a mess of anxiety clumsily moulded into a person. They have to celebrate it a little late this year, what with all of the coursework deadlines and stress, but he’s determined to make it special with what little both of them have. What Jon does have is a small vanilla cupcake with an orange candle stuck on top, covered in rainbow sprinkles and buttercream. He’s fumbling around for his lighter in his jacket pocket (which he doesn’t use for smoking anymore, honestly) and emerges triumphant. The little flame is unimpressive, but it’ll do.

Martin thinks it does, anyway, his face lighting up when Jon comes into his room with the thing.

He clears his throat and holds the cupcake aloft, the small candle radiating enough heat that he can feel the warmth against his fingers.

"Happy bi-"

Jon is interrupted by Martin's delighted laughter. "Oh my god, it must be my birthday if Jonathan Sims is going to sing."

"Would you be quiet, please? I'm trying to give the performance of a lifetime, here." He tries his best to sound irritated, but the affection bleeds into his voice. If it were anyone else he'd find it humiliating - but with Martin, he never minds.

His rendition of happy birthday is terribly awkward and shaky, but Martin looks ecstatic all the same, even clapping when Jon is finished.

“Bravo. Remind me why you weren’t in the school choir again?”

“Just blow the damn candle out,” Jon grumbles. He does so, and the dark grey wisps of smoke dance around Martin’s small room. “Perfect. Now, for the real present.”

“Wh- Jon, I thought we said no presents this year.”

Jon waves a hand and searches for the parcel he slipped under the bed when he first entered a few hours ago. “You said no presents this year.”

He imagines he’ll get sh*t for it later, but right now he doesn’t care. He gives it over carefully, sitting down on the bed after.

The brown paper is torn open to reveal the gift - it's the complete works of Keats, a lovely edition that Jon sought out in an independent bookshop just outside of town. The cover is green and almost completely enveloped by twisting vines, flowers, and fruits, all brushed with gold. On the spine is a simple Poems of John Keats, also in gold.

"Oh," Martin says faintly.

"It has some illustrations on the inside, too," Jon offers nervously. "That's good, I think? The owner of the bookshop said so. And I know you're a bit of a purist when it comes to the condition of your books, but I couldn't resist…"

He gently takes the text from Martin's tight grip and opens it to a few pages in. Before wrapping it he'd carefully wrote in his best handwriting:

To Martin,

Happy Birthday.

All my love,

Jon.

"I just couldn't stand watching you checking out some bog standard edition of it every two weeks at the library. You deserve it, you know? You deserve nice things. I'm just sorry I couldn't get you more." He bites down hard on his lip. Martin is very still. "Say something? I think I'm going to have a heart attack over here."

Martin makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob and leans forward to take Jon's face in his hands to press a soft kiss to his lips. His thumb traces over the line of Jon's jaw tenderly.

"It's perfect. Thank you."

Jon's face runs hot and he feels shyness rush over him, but he relaxes into Martin's touch all the same, drinks in the feeling of his soft hands against his own skin.

"Was it expensive?"

"Does it matter?"

"I mean. Yeah. A bit."

He sighs and takes Martin's right hand in his. His mouth ghosts over the expanse of his palm before he intertwines their fingers.

"I might have spent more than I intended-"

"Jon-"

"But it's okay! You know I don't like buying things for myself, anyway. The money was just sitting there."

Which is true. He's gifted small amounts of it from very distant relatives on both parents' sides of the family on his birthday which he never touches. It feels a lot like guilt money for not bothering to visit. He doesn't resent them much, if at all. They cared about his parents, not him. He was just an unexpected extension of them.

Martin hums and presses their foreheads together. A little sign of forgiveness.

They settle into a position that has Martin’s back to the wall and his legs spread, letting Jon sit in between them, his back against Martin’s chest. Martin complains that Jon’s hair (longer now, since school regulations don’t apply to him anymore) tickles him, but if anything he likes sitting like this more than Jon does. The book is in Jon’s lap, but Martin is grasping it.

"Read it to me?"

Jon huffs. "You're just trying to get me to like Keats.”

"No, I just like your voice." Martin presses a kiss to the side of Jon's neck. He shivers.

"Fine, fine."

Martin thumbs through the edition before resting on one of the smaller poems. “This is one of his more famous ones. You might like it.”

Jon tuts, taking the book and eyeing the words suspiciously. He clears his throat.

"Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-

No - yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever—or else swoon to death."

“Good?”

“It is rather beautiful,” he admits, thumb tracing over the thick, black text. “But I think that may partly be because you like it so much.”

Martin laughs, the I don’t believe you obvious. "Sure. Did you know Keats died at 25? He wrote that knowing he had tuberculosis and was going to pass away not long after. Isn't that sad?"

Jon hums and closes the book with care. He runs his hand over the embossed cover. "I wouldn't recommend thinking about mortality on your birthday, love. It's a little morbid."

"Because thinking about it any other time isn't morbid? Also, love?" Martin teases, amusem*nt apparent in his voice.

Jon tips his head back and stares at him in exasperation. "I just read you a damn sonnet and you're going to make fun of me for using a pet name?"

He smiles and brushes the hair away from Jon's forehead to make room for a small kiss.

“I’m not making fun of you. It’s adorable. You’re adorable.”

“I’m nothing of the sort,” Jon grumbles. He leans into the kiss despite it, putting the book to the side and taking Martin’s forearms so they lock around him in a tight embrace. He’s content, warm.

Martin’s watch beeps. He sighs, and Jon’s heart drops with it.

"My mum is gonna be home in half an hour," Martin whispers. Jon groans and snuggles in closer.

"Just five more minutes. It is your birthday, after all."

There's a smile in Martin's voice as his arm tightens around Jon's waist. "I suppose. But you can’t fall asleep, Jon.”

He’s caught him there. His eyes are slipping shut, he’s lost in the haze of Martin’s kisses and embrace. “I always fall asleep better with you,” he confesses, tongue loose in his fatigue. Which is true. The rare times they’ve slept in the same bed, Jon has actually managed to get a full night’s sleep. The man is magic.

Martin groans. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Be cute."

Jon smiles. “Again, I’m nothing of the sort.” He pulls one of Martin’s hands away from his chest and kisses the tips of each of his fingers. “But cute or not, I love you.”

There’s a little surge of elation that comes each time he says it, and he says it a lot. More than Martin, even, which is quite significant. He knows it, knows it like the back of his hand, this irrefutable truth. It's gospel. He loves him. He's in love.

“I love you too.” His other hand is in Jon’s hair, twisting strands of brown around his fingers and releasing them, leaving them curled. The sensation of that followed by Martin massaging his scalp make Jon’s eyes close again.

“Just a little longer,” he mumbles, succumbing to the rhythm of Martin’s touch. “Don’t make me go.”

“I won’t,” Martin whispers. “Ever.”

It goes dark, blissfully so, and Jon welcomes it.

Chapter 4: ignorance

Chapter Text

Jon finds Georgie leaning against a pillar, winter coat swaddling her and a scarf wound all the way up to her nose. She turns to him as he emerges from the Institute, smiling.

“You look awful.”

“Hello to you too,” Jon huffs, jamming his hands in his jacket pockets. The exhale of air expels from his mouth in a cloud of white. “You’ll have to come inside for a second, I need to round up a statement.”

Georgie rolls her eyes and makes her way over to him. “We need to have a serious talk about your time management skills. But as long as it’s warm in there, I don’t really care.”

The Institute is actually warm, as cold and aloof as its outside appears to be. Radiators rattle away, attached to every wall, and Georgie sighs in bliss as the blood in her hands seem to unfreeze. She whistles at the display.

“Remind me why I don’t come here often?”

For how nondescript it is at first glance, Jon has to admit that the interior decorations are quite nice. Small stone pillars on either side of the reception desk hold busts of various patrons, the desk itself having a marble top with neatly stacked sign in papers and ballpoint pens to use resting on it. A sign with their sigil embossed in gold hangs above the receptionist proudly (albeit ominously). There are some oil paintings on the walls too, mostly stern white men with bad beards and obnoxious clothing. Of all the things, their eyes seem to be what the artists have focused on most. Their boss seems keen to waste money on everything but his employees. Georgie quickly scrawls her signature to record her entry.

“You think it’s creepy,” Jon points out.

“No, I think he’s creepy,” she hisses, tipping her head to gesture towards Elias emerging from his office. “His face offends me.”

If she weren’t whispering, Jon would’ve sworn Elias had heard her with the way his gaze locks on them at a breakneck speed. His smile has too many teeth and lingers for too long. Jon tries not to shudder, instead offering a weak smile back, shoes tapping nervously against the polished wood of the floor.

“Have a nice day!” She says to the receptionist in her normal voice, all cheer, clearly keen to get out of the room as soon as possible. They head for the lift at the end of the hall. “I haven’t been to the archives before.”

“Don’t expect much,” Jon mutters. He presses the button for the basem*nt. “It’s rather dour.”

“I’m sure you brighten the place up with your sunny disposition,” Georgie teases.

Despite Jon’s comment, the office is upbeat today. Sasha brought in pastries from the bakery down the road, and apparently the key to a good work ethic is croissants and doughnuts. He finds his three assistants chattering away together, Tim gesticulating wildly with crumbs spilling from his mouth.

“I’m telling you, the man said he had a sexual experience with a ghoul! Just sipped his coffee right after like it was nothing! I don’t like it when we get rogue statement givers, especially when they're American-”

Jon clears his throat loudly. Tim was genetically wired from birth to not feel shame, so he just grins.

“Oh, Georgie!” Sasha cheers. “We haven’t seen you for ages!”

Georgie gives a little wave and takes a stray chair close to the cluster of desks.

“We’re going out for lunch,” Jon says. “Not really much time to chat, unfortunately.”

His friend waves a hand to dismiss him and is already introducing herself to Martin - who acts like Jon doesn’t exist anymore. He’s sure if he set himself alight and ran around the office screaming, Martin would only glance up to make sure the fire extinguisher was still attached to the wall. It’s miserable.

Now, however, he is very engaged, very friendly. As he tends to be with everyone but Jon. It doesn’t help that Georgie is naturally also very charming, so they’re bouncing off each other perfectly.

“So, you’re brand new, huh?”

Martin ducks his head and smiles. “Oh, yeah. Just walked right in and got the job the day of the interview, I guess? Kind of overwhelming.”

If this were any other situation, a normal situation, there would be some sort of banter involving Jon, perhaps.

Jon has told me a lot about you!

Only good things, I hope?

Pause for laughter.

Alas, this is not that timeline. Instead, everyone else is getting on swimmingly while he stands by and waits for the whole thing to be over.

“Are you in any rush?” Martin asks, as if Jon hadn’t said they were going out for lunch five minutes ago.

“Actually-”

“Nope! We can stay for a while. Jon has a statement to follow up on, right?”

“It’s actually just sorting out some papers-”

“I can make tea?”

“I love tea.”

Jon scowls and retreats to his office to gather up what he needs. He sifts through the relevant documents quickly, removing the taped statement from the recorder and placing it in a thick envelope alongside the transcript. With a lack of much else to do, he grabs the scarf and fingerless gloves he wasn’t planning on bringing along and puts them on, sighing. He’s had far too much time to stew in his own company, lately. Since the incident with Martin the office has become a little lonelier most of the time, a little less chatty. His colleague volunteers to go on more trips out of the city for interviews, now. He’s gone for days on end, off to towns, villages, other cities. Despite the research usually amounting to nothing, he continues. It’s obvious what cheer he brings to the archives, since Tim and Sasha have one less person to banter with, making them more inclined to do their work. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course, and they’re not miserable. However, Martin is clearly essential to the team. They can also sense that Jon has definitely done something wrong, with the way they look at him when Martin informs one of them he’ll be staying in a certain town for a little longer.

It makes him actually think about what occurred. As much as he doesn’t want to.

Jon has come to the conclusion that he is most certainly a horrible, terrible person. Not that he held himself in high regard before this - in university he’d been called all of the names under the sun, the most common being pompous prick - but this was a step too far, even for him. He knew that in the moment, yet he persisted. After Martin left the office he couldn’t tell you how long he sat on the floor, eyes shut and mind racing. A few hours, at least. All he knows is when he left the Institute the sky was pitch black and he stumbled home, barely being able to recall how he got there before passing out. This reckless, self-destructive behaviour isn’t healthy. He’s aware. He sees it as some f*cked up penance, though - he can punish himself without really facing what he’s done.

Or something like that.

Jon hears Georgie’s soft thanks as she takes a mug of tea from Martin, and he quietly makes his way back into the room.

“God, we haven’t seen you since- when was it? That fundraiser last year?”

Georgie is hiding behind her mug, clearly embarrassed. She groans. “Don’t remind me.”

Jon tends to drag her along to functions at the Institute that requires a plus one, as he needs some kind of moral support. Despite working with them for a while, he doesn’t think he could rely on Tim and Sasha to lead him outside if he starts to have a panic attack in social situations. Hence, bribing his ex with alcohol and good food for a night.

“What happened at the fundraiser?” Martin asks, bewildered.

Sasha cackles gleefully, and Georgie only takes big gulps of her drink.

“Someone...not naming any names-”

“You,” Tim supplies helpfully.

She glares. “Someone had too much champagne and got a little rowdy. Then a certain someone tried to lean against something sturdy for support, since champagne makes her dizzy. Then she knocked over a fancy bust of some guy with awful mutton chops and weird glasses.”

“Aka Jonah Magnus. Y’know, the founder of this whole place?”

“Oh no,” Martin laughs.

Martin tends not to be like this a lot while Jon is around, so it feels strangely intimate. Like he shouldn’t be privy to such a simple thing as someone’s joy. For the second time today, and numerous times over numerous days, Jon believes he shouldn’t be here. The confusion of it all has him scattered all over in tiny pieces, and he hasn’t been able to get his bearings for a long time, constantly off-balance and disjointed. It’s excruciating.

Georgie is smiling and leaning over Martin to take a pastry from the near-empty box, then stops at his ear to whisper something. It causes him to burst out into a delighted laugh again, and they’re both leaning against each other, and Jon feels-

He feels.

Not jealous, that would be ridiculous. He’s seen Georgie flirt, and this isn’t it. She just happens to enjoy meeting new acquaintances much more than the average person, that’s all. Regardless, why would he be jealous? Not so long ago he was cursing Martin out for being a coward and criticising his work. It’s clear that whatever he feels for the man, it’s no longer a genuine affection.

Even if just thinking about the way he made Martin cry makes him feel like there’s something lodged in his throat, cloying and thick and fatal. Even if he craves his attention so badly a small part of him wishes he didn’t know exactly how to get it, now, because it only leads to destruction.

It’s just annoying that they’re both intent on wasting his time.

“Oh!” Georgie glances at her phone and seems to note the time with genuine surprise. “Only 40 minutes of your lunch break left, sh*t.” She knocks back the rest of her tea quickly and smiles at everyone apologetically, holding her mug aloft. “I’ll just take this to the kitchen, then?”

“I’ll get it! It was nice meeting you.” Then Martin is taking the mug from her, and honestly, what the f*ck? This shouldn’t be as irritating him as much as it is.

Georgie shoots him another winning smile and takes her place beside Jon, looping their arms together easily.

“I’ll make sure that he doesn’t work you lot too hard,” she winks, and starts to walk for the door. There’s a collective goodbye from the three of them, and before he knows it they’re out in the cold London air again.

She’s giving him a look. Jon can feel it burning into the side of his face.

He sighs. “What?”

“Oh, Jon, I love him. How were you ever mean to that poor man?” They’re falling into step with each other in the busy streets, heading for a nondescript cafe that Georgie favours for its simple lunches. Jon agreed to go out with her to eat after multiple texts every day pestering him. Also, he just missed her. Loneliness suits him well, but it doesn't mean he likes it.

He sets his jaw and grits his teeth, electing not to tell her about the night in the office until they’re somewhere warm with a good number of witnesses. “Yes, he’s very...likeable.”

The cafe only has a few chattering customers and a satisfyingly small queue, with a little chalkboard proclaiming their soup of the day to be tomato and red pepper soup. Georgie is first, and asks for the soup with a roll alongside it, and Jon just mumbles “the same,” since he knows ordering any less wouldn’t be acceptable. They make their way over to the corner of the room, sitting on a table pressed up against the exposed brick wall and a window that shows people’s bobbing heads as they walk around in the frost.

“So,” Georgie elongates the Os while she stirs her soup, the creamy red swirling and radiating steam. Jon’s own bowl is making his glasses fog up.

“So,” Jon echoes flatly.

“How’s work?”

He’s buttering his bread roll with more force than is necessary. “You mean how are Martin and I?”

She points at him with a dripping tablespoon. “Anyone ever told you you should’ve gone into detective work?”

Jon lets out something that could be called a laugh, and dips his bread into the soup, his frozen fingertips warming from it. The glistening golden fat of the butter bubbles in the deep red liquid, and he soaks it for a bit before putting it in his mouth. The tang of the tomato bursts against his tongue, and he sighs. He hadn’t realised how hungry was until now.

“I may have used some...choice words against him. That weren’t entirely fair. And it just...” He sets the half eaten roll down on his plate and makes a noise of frustration, running his greased fingertips through his hair. “I f*cked up. I don’t know, I guess I feel so much around him I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s like I haven’t had this many emotions for years, which is absurd, but maybe it’s the truth. I’ve spent most of my twenties so wrapped up in my work, I- I haven’t let myself process anything outside of my research. Anyway, it’s not like I’m a social butterfly.” He laughs bitterly. “You’re the only person I have outside of work. No room for any relationships that might cause me to actually have a life.”

Georgie is quiet, her expression open and sympathetic.

“Maybe it isn’t all about Martin. Maybe he was just the catalyst for something bigger. No matter what the reason, though, I said what I said.”

“You want to tell me what you said, exactly?” She asks gently.

“Not really.”

But he does. He recounts the whole mess while Georgie has spoonfuls of her meal and prompts him to do the same, until both of their bowls are empty and he’s exhausted and embarrassed.

“You’re mad,” he sighs, studying Georgie’s expression.

“I’m not mad.”

“You have that face on.”

“That’s my disappointed face.”

He’s being judged either way, considering her scrutinising gaze. She’s thoughtful, though, not harsh. Her spoon lands with a plink in her bowl.

“You f*cked up, but - don’t pull that face at me as if you can tell what I’m going to say - but I think that man must have an endless amount of patience.”

Jon leans forward, intrigued. “What do you mean?”

“Because despite that-” Georgie waves her arms around messily, which, yes, is probably the best way to describe what he did, “he still looks at you. He doesn’t completely ignore you like you think. Sure, he’s not happy when he looks at you, but...I don’t know. It’s as if he has to. A reflex kind of thing. Like if he doesn’t check up on you, you’ll just disappear.”

Jon blinks.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

She throws her hands up in exasperation. “I don’t know, I thought it’d make you feel better! Whatever, don’t listen to me, I’ve only known the guy for fifteen minutes. I guess I’d just say not to count out you being able to tolerate each other eventually.”

He sinks low in his chair, thinking. It’s better than nothing, he supposes.

“You feel any better after food and a chat? Like you don’t hate the world, maybe?”

“Kind of. Get back to me in an hour.”

“God, you’re such a baby,” Georgie says disbelievingly, eyes sparkling with humour. “I can’t believe I have to take you out for meals so you’re not grumpy. You’re nearly thirty.”

Jon groans and follows her lead as she gets up from the table and heads for the exit. “Don’t remind me.” He pats down his jacket for his pack of cigarettes, being careful to linger behind Georgie as they walk so he doesn’t blow smoke in her face.

“I find myself dreading going through those doors more and more every day,” he divulges around the cigarette between his lips. “I spend the whole damn week jumping at shadows in case he's around and biting my tongue before I say something stupid.” His lighter sparks to life after a few attempts and puffs of smoke trail behind him.

“It’s no one's fault but your own,” Georgie throws back over her shoulder. “You basically cornered him when he was alone and started yelling at him because you wanted his attention! That’s what a primary school kid does.”

“I know, I know, we’ve established I’m an asshole. But I don’t know how I’m supposed to fix it when he spends most of his time out of the office in hotels and what have you. He’s trying to avoid me.”

Georgie hums in thought and skips over a crack in the pavement casually, just narrowly avoiding a rogue kid on a bike cutting through the lunchtime crowd on the street. “Maybe you should respect that? Let him come to you, or something. Which kind of makes him sound like a dog, but, y’know.”

“I suppose that could work.”

She taps the side of her head twice and winks. “Better than what you’ve done so far, eh?”

“Whatever would I do without your wisdom,” Jon responds, dry.

“Die, probably.”

They bicker back and forth until they reach the Institute, Jon generally feeling better after his cravings for food and nicotine have been sated. Georgie gives him a quick goodbye and a shoulder squeeze before leaving him to his own devices once more. When he returns to the archives he retreats to his office and happens to come across a statement that the tape recorder receives greedily.

This one hits him harder than most. He plows through Carlos Vittery’s words as quickly as possible, trying to brush it off as nothing but fiction. Real or not, he can’t ignore how much it makes his skin itch, like there are eight separate legs crawling stealthily across his shoulders, his arms, his stomach. The man is delusional, probably, definitely needs medication. How would he react if he were in the same situation, though? If Mr. Spider had gotten too close, if he were infallible, or if Jon simply encountered many spiders with a singular consciousness on a constant mission to terrorise him.

It’s the stuff of nightmares. Of his, at least.

There’s a moment while he’s fiddling with the recorder when something dark flashes in the corner of his eye. He freezes, being careful not to move too quickly.

It looked fast.

It looked big.

It looked very spider-like.

Jon jumps out of his chair with an undignified yell, louder than the situation warrants, retreating to the opposite corner of his office (but not before he grabs the heavy stapler from his desk). He eyes the floor, breathing heavily, and his shout must have been obvious enough to hear from the other room, because it’s Martin who comes through the door. He looks frantic.

“Jon, what the hell?” His eyes are scanning the room for potential dangers warily. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Jon stiffly points towards where he saw the movement. “It’s, ah- I think I saw a spider.” He tries to regulate his breathing, tries hard not to freak out over the fact that Martin is talking to him like it’s nothing. The room is still, and he doesn't particularly want to make the first move. Just in case the spider has its beady eyes set on him.

Martin relaxes. He looks a little put out, now. Jon waits for him to scoff, walk away, act like nothing happened. Instead, his shoulders slump, as if he’s giving in to something.

“Want me to look for you?”

Jon’s eyes widen a fraction. He exhales slowly and nods. “Please.”

They don’t make any sort of conversation, Jon electing to stay as far away from the danger zone as possible and Martin not making any commentary while he peers behind cabinets and in corners. He's thorough, careful, and not mocking him for his fear at all. Though he remains squashed in the corner of the room, stapler held out defensively, he does feel better with Martin present. The familiar sight makes Jon pause.

“Who knew that you of all people would be scared of spiders,” Martin teases. He’s looking under Jon’s bed while Jon chews on his bottom lip anxiously. “Or are you just making it up so your big strong boyfriend will take you into his arms?”

Jon rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Please. If I wanted that I could have it any time I- Martin!”

He’s suddenly pulled close to his boyfriend’s chest and being hoisted up so they’re nearly nose to nose. Martin is grinning broadly, his cheeks flushed. “Yes?”

“Put me down!”

He pretends to think. “Mmm. Gimme two more minutes.”

Jon sighs and in turn pretends to be exasperated. “If you must. Do I even weigh anything to you?

"Nah. I have more trouble carrying the weekly shop home.”

They’re only a hair’s breadth apart, and Martin is so, so beautiful, his eyes crinkling at the corners from his smile. Jon can’t resist pressing his chapped lips against Martin's soft ones, just for a second, and they’re both laughing into it giddily. “I love you,” Jon breathes out.

“I love you too. And so does that big, juicy spider under your bed.”

“Wh- ah!”

Martin is snapping his fingers in front of Jon’s face. “Jon. Jon? There’s nothing here.”

He shakes himself out of his reverie and back into his office. Martin’s expression is pinched and annoyed.

He blinks and runs a hand through his hair, the stapler falling limp at his side. He's been stood daydreaming about the past like an idiot. “Yes, um- sorry. About that.”

Martin shrugs and turns for the exit.

“Thank y-”

The door is shut before he can finish.

Whatever kind of hope that moment might have inspired in Jon is quickly snuffed out when he receives a text from Martin no less than a week later. He's telling him that he has a stomach bug and won’t be coming to work. His thumbs hover over the keys for a while as he contemplates a response, but he chooses not to say anything. He just lets the phone sit on his desk and tries not to jump every time there’s a notification. Maybe this is a new level of avoidance for Martin, but Jon doubts it. He’s a terrible liar, doesn’t like to lie if he can help it, so he doesn’t believe he’d do so even over text. Does he even know him that well anymore, though? A lot can change in ten years. That much is obvious. Perhaps he lies all the time. No matter what, it means he’ll definitely be out of the office for a while, which is a relief. Jon won’t be constantly anxious, waiting to see if Martin will choose to ignore him or if one of them will finally snap. The spider incident was enough excitement for a whole year, thank you. If this is as close to peace he’ll get for now, he’ll take it.

He gets work done. It’s quiet. It’s almost nice.

By the end of the week he starts to worry. He stares down at the text Martin sent an hour ago.

Martin: Still sick. Won’t be coming in today

This is getting a little ridiculous. When they were younger Martin never skipped work. He juggled two jobs and sixth form, for crying out loud, and he’d been doing that since he became a glass collector at their local pub at fifteen. Even if he were close to death he kept at it, because he needed the money. Jon imagines he still does - especially considering how little Elias pays them. So he’s either dying, or lying. Neither option sounds fun. He taps out a message for the first time since they started coming.

Jon: Alright. Can I do anything?

No. Too intrusive.

Jon: Tim and Sasha are worried about you.

Absolutely not. He can’t speak on their behalf.

Jon: I’m worried about y

He backspaces rapidly. Nope. No. Terrible idea.

Jon: Feel better soon.

There. That’s something. Well meaning, but not too personal. He presses send, satisfied.

It continues on like that. Martin never responds to Jon’s own replies, instead sending another of the same thing he sent the day before. Which Jon deserves, to an extent. Martin doesn’t owe him a conversation. He persists, though - some sickness remedies, questions that could prompt some kind of correspondence. Nothing. He tries very hard not to be upset by the whole thing, tells himself it’s a sign of progress that Martin elected to text him at all. He could have easily informed Tim and Sasha instead.

Speaking of, day ten is when the duo decide to descend upon Jon for answers.

“It’s winter,” Jon explains. “Stomach bugs are common.”

“Yeah, but they’re usually never this bad. You said he’s been texting you?” Sasha pushes, moving behind Jon to peer at his phone. “What’s he been saying? Didn't you mention something about a parasite?”

Admittedly, the parasite thing is strange. He's never known Martin to be a hypochondriac, rather acting rationally and only going to the GP when absolutely necessary. It unsettles him a little. He instinctively hides his screen from Sasha, shrinking in on himself. “Nothing, just that he’s sick!”

Sasha and Tim give each other that look they always give each other, like they have a telepathic link, and Jon puts his phone in his drawer as soon as they do so. It’s not like there’s anything incriminating in their chat history. He would just rather his assistants not see that he’s been sending Martin recommended medicines he’d copied and pasted from a medical article. It’s embarrassing.

“Alright. Keep us updated though, yeah?”

He nods, relieved to have eluded their advances for a while.

Three days on, he’s looking over Moira Kelly’s incident. Nothing earth-shattering. Another person grieving over a family member and fabricating wild scenarios to cope. The sky swallowing someone? Please. This one does pique his interest slightly as opposed to the others, however, and he finishes up the recording with a few notes.

“It might just be a coincidence, but I recall the name Simon Fairchild was one of the ones used-”

Which is when Martin interrupts, stumbling almost drunkenly and looking wild-eyed. Alive, wriggling things seem to have followed, silver creatures reflecting the light in the dingy office - despite the shock all, Jon can feel is relief when he sees him. Panic swiftly follows, of course, as he instinctively leaps back from the commotion to assess what's going on.

“God, Martin! What the hell is- what are these things?!”

Chapter 5: joyriding

Chapter Text

The sight of Martin in his office is a strange one. He’s cradling a mug of tea miserably, and he’s hunched over as much as his frame can manage. His body language screams don’t touch me, so Jon is keeping his distance. To put it simply, he looks absolutely rotten, and Jon’s heart aches in his chest. He clearly hasn’t showered for a while, his clothes are rumpled and his hair is stuck to his scalp with grease. The near black circles under his eyes are obvious when Martin removes his glasses to rub at his face periodically (probably to keep himself awake). It’s possible he’s lost some weight, too, with the way his cardigan seems just a little too big and his cheeks aren’t as round. His tongue rasps over his cracked lips nervously. Jon is sitting across from him clutching a tape recorder, waiting. After he’d gotten his bearings the two got to work crushing the worms Martin voluntarily brought beneath their shoes, each one squelching under their heels and making grotesque sounds akin to cooked pasta being squeezed between a fist. Their mangled corpses lay on the floor - another few stains added to the many others there - and Jon wished to clean them immediately, but Martin wanted to make a statement. It gave Jon pause, but he obliged.

“Martin, are you sure about this?”

Martin shoots him a look so exasperated that his jaw clicks shut before he can say anything else.

“I just want to make a statement about what happened to me. I mean, it…it’s what we do.”

Jon makes a humming sound and fiddles with the recorder, checking a fresh tape is inserted and everything is working correctly. He’s checked three times already. If this is what Martin needs, then fine.

“Very well. Statement of Martin Blackwood, archival assistant at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding…”

When Martin starts, voice filled with trepidation, Jon feels himself holding his breath in anticipation. At the name Jane Prentiss, he immediately knows that this is an altercation he wouldn’t wish on anyone. Carlos Vittery’s name is another punch to the gut. Martin went to investigate the flat because of him. All of this is his fault. He’d personally ensured Martin would be in this state, that he’d look this miserable and downtrodden because of a damned case about a man that left him shaken for longer than he wants to admit.

“Obviously it’s locked so I try the buzzers, but nobody’s answering and I figure they’re probably all out at work. I didn’t want to come back to you without due diligence, though - I’ve learned that lesson - so I have a look around the place to see if there’s another way I could go in and have a poke around.”

I’ve learned that lesson. Jon winces. Martin continues, describing his first encounter with one of the worms, him killing it the same way they both did no more than twenty minutes before. Jon can only imagine how much worse it would be seeing one of them alone in a dark, disgusting basem*nt. He mentions crawling through the basem*nt window, taking a tumble, and Jon’s eyes flicker to the way he’s cradling his left arm to his chest. You wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking for it, but if he moves too fast his face screws up in pain.

“It wasn’t a lot, really. Still, about as much as I might have expected, so I headed back to the Institute and updated you on what I’d found. And, well, as I’m sure you’re aware that was the last time I saw you before I disappeared.”

Jon is aware. Shortly after the embarrassing encounter with the supposed spider in his office Martin promptly left, returning a few hours later to report back with information that Jon tacked onto the end of the recording alongside Vittery’s...fate discovered by Tim. He never thought to make any sort of connection between the case and Martin’s disappearance, why would he?

When Prentiss is described, blackened and rotten and ridden with cavities, Jon marvels at how composed Martin is. He was always rather excellent when it came to reading or recounting things, his voice soft and level, but this- this isn’t a story. It happened, no matter how much they both wish it didn’t.

“The daft thing is I wasn’t even going to call anyone for help, I just wanted to take a picture of the thing. To prove to you that it happened - you’re always so quick to dismiss these statements and I wanted proof for you,” Martin says, mouth twisted downwards in a frown.

Jon’s fists grip the fabric of his trousers tightly. A small, disgusted part of his brain hisses yourfaultyourfaultyourfault, but another part of him picks up on the mention of Martin abandoning his phone. It interests him, but he doesn’t want to interrupt, so he stores it away for later.

“Maybe I’d overreacted to finding a homeless woman sleeping in the basem*nt. Maybe she was sick and needed an ambulance. Oh god, maybe I’d left her to die.”

Typical. A woman looking like an exterminator’s worst nightmare releases a flurry of worms into his face and soon after he’s worrying over the fact that he might have left her to die. There’s zero sense of awareness there, but it’s so fundamentally Martin it makes him smile a little (though he hides it behind his hand).

The rest of his experience sounds even more miserable. Waking in the pitch black without any source of light, the worms invading his home and forcing him to make it a kind of prison so they can’t enter but he can’t leave. Prentiss, mindless and mottled, prowling outside the door and knocking for days on end. Thirteen days, christ. He was right about the weight loss, too - rationing food for that long would take a toll on the body, even if it was minimal. The hunger, the boredom, the isolation. Enough to make a man go mad. But here Martin is, disheveled and distressed, but whole.

“And I ran...all the way here,” he finishes, finally. Jon lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“You’re sure about all of this, Martin?” It’s a stupid question, but he asks it for a lack of anything else to say. He sounds so sure. There’s no way in hell this could be a fabrication.

“Look, I’m not going to lie to you about something like this, Jon!” Martin snaps, slamming his empty mug onto the table. “I…like my job. Most of the time.”

Could’ve fooled me, he wants to snark, but refrains. That’s not fair. None of this is fair.

So, despite the awkward situations it will inevitably cause, he offers the room. It means he’ll probably be passing out in his office more often than not when working late, but sending Martin back to his flat would be condemning him to another slew of terrifying experiences. He looks shocked at Jon’s proposition.

“Okay…thanks. To be honest I didn’t, didn’t expect you…to take it seriously.” A bitter laugh. Martin rubs at his eyes again. They look sore. Jon should leave him be, but there’s a few more things.

“You say you lost your phone two weeks ago?”

Martin’s brow furrows in thought. “Thereabouts. When I went back to the basem*nt. Why?”

Jon wants to curl up into a ball and die, or at least hibernate for a good few years. So it was never Martin on the other end of those messages. He’d been sending a recipe for chicken stew to Jane Prentiss. If one more humiliating thing happens to him today he might just have to march into Elias’ office and hand in his resignation. The last conversation he had with Martin was about spiders. He could’ve been seriously hurt, or dead, and the last memory he’d have of Jon is them discussing a bad lead on a statement.

“In that time I’ve received several text messages from your phone, saying you were ill with stomach problems,” he replies tiredly, thumb anxiously tracing the ridges of the tape recorder. “The last one mentioned a parasite, but my questions were never followed up with an answer.”

Martin looks alarmed, and rightly so. Jon is kicking himself for not being more concerned at the time.

It’s been a rough few weeks.

“So, if this does involve Jane Prentiss-” which it most certainly does, “then I take it deadly serious-”

Buzz.

Jon cautiously picks up his phone and unlocks it, mouth dry.

Martin: Keep him. We have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist’s crimson fate arrives.

How delightfully ominous.

“What?”

He recites the message to Martin dully, expression carefully blank. There’s no point in panicking. For now, at least.

“What does that mean?” The man across from him looks distraught. For himself or Jon, he doesn’t know, but it’s the most upset he’s appeared thus far. Jon deflates, placing his phone far away from him on his desk.

“It means I ask Elias to hire some extra security.” A lot, if he’s to believe the bloody implications of the phrase crimson fate. “I should probably warn Sasha and Tim as well. I’ll also have a look through the archives, as I believe we should have a statement from Ms. Prentiss herself in here somewhere. Recording ends.”

The ensuing days carry on in a pale imitation of what they usually were. Martin seems to settle into his new home (in a sense), and thankfully there’s a shower in the disabled toilets he can use day to day. Jon is sure it’s not the most ideal of situations, but it beats being attacked by worms again. He’s generally a sour presence in the archives now, which he can’t be blamed for. He jumps at sudden movements and various bugs that invade the office and will occasionally even snap at Tim and Sasha (though he immediately apologises after). No one is mad, or even frustrated, Jon is sure. They’re concerned. He is concerned. Martin gets his work done quickly and quietly, his reports are thorough and a remarkable improvement. In any other circ*mstance Jon would be relieved, but he’d take shoddy research over Martin looking like this. He doesn’t leave the Institute much either, only for lunch or dinner and somewhere on Monday afternoons. Jon doesn’t ask him to leave the city for interviews, and he doesn’t request it. Since his statement was given, a small barrier has been broken, and they can actually discuss work in a cordial manner. Nothing else, unfortunately (but he'll take small victories where he can get them). He resolutely does not mention the texts he sent over Martin’s absence. He’s glad the phone is gone and/or destroyed - just the thought of the way he behaved makes him cringe.

Sometimes he’ll risk his dignity and make his way over to Martin’s desk when it’s quiet, hovering and offering a simple well done on a case or what have you. The most he gets back is a nod, and it’s hurtful, but understandable.

There’s an inevitability that comes with Jon being a workaholic and Martin stuck in the archives. The inevitability being that Jon thinks about him a lot, and is very aware of their close proximity constantly. The sealed room is just down the hall and to the right of Jon’s office, and if he strains to listen he can hear Martin puttering around the kitchen occasionally. He catches a glimpse of him in his pyjamas turning the corner when it just turns 10pm, if he’s lucky. It’s strange that they’re stuck together, existing in the same space, and Jon could easily reach out if he wanted to.

So he does, in his own way. He takes two mugs from the cupboard instead of one when he enters the kitchen and prepares Martin some tea alongside his own coffee, grabs a plate and puts a few biscuits on it. He leaves it all just beside the door to Martin’s room, rapping on the wood three times and quickly making his exit. Then he doesn’t think about it until the next night when he does it all over again. The mug and plate are always washed and dried by the morning, but they don’t talk about it.

One night the door opens before he can knock, and Martin is looking down at him. Jon’s mouth is open in surprise, his fist held up in mid air.

“Your tea isn’t very good,” Martin says simply. There’s humour in his voice, and when Jon meets his eyes there’s a glint in them.

“It never was,” Jon jokes weakly. They’re very close, closer than they’ve been outside of a work capacity since they fought, and he takes a small step back to gather his thoughts. Martin does the same, instead moving back to the cot and sitting down. He doesn’t tell Jon to leave. Jon doesn’t want to leave. He hovers in the doorway. The quiet settles around them softly, he can hear his breaths picking up speed and his heart thudding a little faster.

“I’m so tired, Jon.” Martin’s voice is no more than a whisper. The words crack under the simple sadness of the phrase. “Aren’t you tired?”

Jon considers the question. Loneliness and sadness cause this unrelenting fatigue that he's known most of his adult life. It's curled up in his stomach, has a tight grip on his heart, it's made a home in his body. He feels it at night when the pillow next to him is cold and in the morning when he sips his coffee at the breakfast table then realises not even the birds are singing. But it's such a big part of him now, this innate exhaustion, that he thinks without it he'd lose a lot of himself. However, such a confession should be saved for another night. A distant one. So he simply says "Yes."

Martin nods wearily and rests his elbows on his lap. He runs his hands through his red hair, and his fingers get tangled in the knots.

Jon has one foot in the room. He can’t bear to go any further. It's a very careful thing, neither of them pushing too hard or really saying what they want. It's like the flickering of a bonfire before it roars to life, a candle in the breeze. A flame in its infancy. Martin is almost bent into a C shape with how he sits. There’s a thin blanket beneath him (he runs hot during the night), but two pillows by his side (he can’t sleep with just one). Jon is content to remain here all evening without being dismissed, absorbing all the details of Martin he can glean from one room.

There’s a hesitant “You can come in,” and he near jumps out of his skin at the sound. He takes a few more steps forward until he’s situated by a shelf of folders and books. Martin isn’t looking at him anymore. There’s a strange clunking noise from the loud pipes in the hallway, and Jon uses the opportunity to suck in a sharp breath to compose himself before he speaks.

“Martin, I am so sorry.”

Martin laughs - that twisted, acidic laugh from when he gave his statement.

“I am,” Jon insists. “You showed initiative when you investigated. You were proactive for the sake of your job, that’s admirable.”

“Thanks, boss.”

Jon screws his eyes shut and makes a noise of frustration. “That’s not what- I meant to say that I’m sorry this happened to you. What you did was very brave.”

“Don’t. Patronise me.” His words are stilted and angry, and this is going very wrong.

“I’m not, I mean it! You’re brave.”

“And this is coming from the guy who called me a coward not too long ago?” Martin shoots back, and, well. Yes. He can’t dispute that. "You know what I hate about myself?"

Jon is silent.

"The whole time I was alone in my flat, I thought about you. I wondered if you had noticed I was missing, if you'd called anyone. I thought, 'any day now someone will show up, because Jon cares a little, even if he doesn't show it.' But you didn't, did you? You don't."

He wets his lips. "I-"

"Don't," Martin bites out, his voice wavering. "Don't lie to me. You've never done that. Don't start now."

Honestly, though it causes a hot flush of shame to overtake him when he admits it, he didn't care all that much . Not at the beginning. Having Martin out of the office was a godsend. He wasn't constantly tense, he didn't flinch at the shadows walking by his door. Not that he wanted him to be hurt, of course. A few weeks of illness wasn’t enough to kill him. But Martin not being around wasn't the worst thing. That was until it became a few days too long, and he noticed his absence with aching clarity.

"You being gone, it was...a relief, to say the least. At first."

Martin lets out a humourless laugh.

"But I never wanted this for you, Martin. You being hurt, scared, alone, it's…" He exhales heavily. God, this is hard. Why does it have to be so exhausting every time they speak? "I wouldn't wish anything bad on you. You need to know that. I worried. Though we may not be able to be friends soon, or ever, I don't know what I'd do if I never saw you again." This is more than he was planning to say, but the words are falling from his mouth in a rush. "I didn't realise how much I missed you until you were gone. You don’t have to believe me, but it’s the truth. I didn’t want to overstep or cross any boundaries. I wanted to keep my distance, because that’s what you deserve. Hell, I tried to make conversation, but it turns out I’d been talking to Prentiss the whole time. I thought your strange responses were a roundabout way of telling me to f*ck off.”

Martin’s eyes are watering, just on the precipice of tears. His hair is stuck up from how much his hands have been running through it. Jon resists the urge to move a stray curl back into place and digs his nails into his palm.

"I miss you, too," Martin admits, voice hoarse. "I miss my best friend. It was so simple when that's all we were."

Jon huffs out a laugh. "Then we had to go and ruin it by dating."

"Hey," he interjects softly. "Don't say that."

"Right."

"Just because it was complicated doesn't mean it wasn't…good."

That they can agree on. The small acknowledgement of what they were causes Jon’s heart to skip a beat in a familiar way. “Yeah. We were really good.”

Martin smiles at him, actually smiles, and Jon is stunned by it. It’s weak, certainly, and he can barely make it out in the dim illumination of the room, but it’s precious. He gives him a tentative smile back.

"I'd...I'd like to try. At being your friend again, or whatever you want. Please."

Martin’s smile widens just a fraction. "Yeah. I think I'd like that. Give me some time, though? This is a lot, you know?”

Jon tries not to let the disappointment show on his face. “Yes, of course. I understand. I’ll give you your space. I’m sorry.” He’s never really been able to take rejection well, and though it didn’t go as badly as he thought it would, it settles like a rock in his stomach. He absently recalls the fact that he has a full mug of tea in his hand (now lukewarm), which needs to be taken to the kitchen. “Um. Goodnight. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be...around.”

“Goodnight,” Martin says, so soft Jon could mistake it for a slight breeze from a forgotten open window, then he’s forcing his feet to walk out of there and into the dim hallway. The small glass panel on the door of the room goes black as Martin presumably turns out the light, and Jon feels the distance in his chest again that makes him ache. It’s progress, however small. They had a whole conversation without Jon messing it up in a major way, and there was a promise of...friendship? A solid commitment to holding non-work related conversations? The prospect is maddening. More tangible now, though. He allows himself to hope.

Martin comes into his office with tea twice a day not long after. There’s often a little small talk, and when Martin passes him the mug his arm breaks out with goose pimples. The heating system in the archives is shocking, honestly. Jon should complain.

He gets headaches less and less, also, and is delighted to share the development one morning when the office is empty aside from the two of them. It has just gone seven and Martin is still in his pyjamas, eyes bleary and barely able to grasp what Jon is saying. When he finally clicks on, he rolls his eyes.

"Yes, because I give you tea, you loon. You get headaches because you're dehydrated. For such a smart ass you don't know anything about how to look after yourself."

Jon glares in response, and Martin laughs, which makes him marvel at the fact that that is a thing now. Martin chooses his company and enjoys it, albeit in short bursts. He thinks about it when he’s at home after work, where he has nothing to do but wish he were back at the office.

Speaking of eating, Martin rarely does.

Jon isn’t trying to pry, but there hasn’t been a time lately where he’s seen Martin with a full meal - just a biscuit or a sandwich, then nothing else for hours afterwards. His trips to the canteen are few and far between, also, and Jon really doesn’t want to intrude-

"I, uh. Made stew.” He blurts out one night after being invited to the back room. He’s tentatively sitting on the other end of the cot, trying his best not to brush shoulders with Martin but failing. The thing isn’t even big enough for someone his size, for crying out loud. It can’t be helped.

"You made stew," Martin echoes, confused.

He did. He thought he’d make good use of that damn recipe even though he hasn’t cooked for ages, so with a fit of inspiration at midnight and a quick trip to the local Tesco he produced a few tubs of the stuff. He’s frozen a batch of it and put it in the small freezer compartment of the fridge they use in the kitchen. It was quite relaxing to make, actually, chopping the meat and vegetables with a classic rock radio station playing in the background. The flat smelled amazing all night, and Jon slept soundly after the few hours of preparing and stirring.

"Yes. For you? When people go through traumatic experiences they tend to develop an unhealthy relationship with food, so a regular eating schedule is key to recovery."

"You sound like you're reading from a wikipedia article," Martin teases. He looks pleased rather than offended, which is good.

"Close. I heard it from Georgie."

"Oh, Georgie. She's really nice."

Jon nods firmly. "She is."

"Are you two, uh…?"

"No- well, yes. A few years ago. But not anymore."

He is very aware of the fact that they don’t talk about the past at all - their shared one, or anything that came before them meeting for the second time. This is the closest they’ve come, and they both must arrive at that realisation at the same time, because Martin is talking just as Jon is opening his mouth again.

“That was-”

“That bakery,” Jon says a little louder, anything to drown out the awkwardness. “Just down the road.” Martin looks relieved to have been cut off, so he continues. “If you come at a certain time - during our lunch hour - they’ll be bringing out freshly baked rolls. They’d be nice with the stew. We don’t have a stove in the kitchen to warm it up, but maybe if you microwave it? Ah. I didn’t think this through all that much.”

“I think I can figure it out. Hey,” he nudges Jon with his shoulder. He’s only in a t-shirt, so the warmth of his skin seeps through Jon’s own thin clothing. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

There are nights he likes more than others. He’s sifting through a drawer of jumbled, creased folders, cigarette in his mouth while he mutters to himself. He meant to go out for a smoke break an hour ago. Last time he checked it was nearing 11pm.

“Gertrude- f*cking- Robinson- ” he growls, kicking the bottom of the filing cabinet. It doesn’t achieve anything, but it feels good to make a bit of noise.

There’s the telltale sound of the main room’s overhead lights buzzing to life, and Martin opens the door to his office without knocking. He almost blocks out the illumination from the other side with how tall he is. Jon relaxes at the sight of him.

"You look stressed," Martin whispers, the side of his head flush with the door frame. "It's not good for you to be working this late."

There's pillow creases on his left cheek (he prefers to sleep on his side), his curls are mussed and falling in front of his eyes. His voice is hoarse and deeper from waking up, but still sweet, coaxing. There's a slight furrow in his brow showing his concern yet the right side of his mouth crooks upwards, betraying his fondness. He's gorgeous. Not a startling realisation - not particularly unwelcome, either, but a random one to have on a Thursday nevertheless.

Jon almost wants to laugh. He wonders how he could be so stupid, how he could ever assume that Martin had changed into a liar, lazy, antagonistic to the point of cruelty, when the man before him wears his heart on his sleeve so readily you can't help but know him as soon as he does something as simple as smile. What you see is what you get.

It's wonderful.

Jon shrugs as if it doesn't matter, but he's stepping away from the cabinet (and putting away his cigarette) already. He'll just be marched out of the place if he doesn't relent. The thought of Martin doing so is hilarious, but he's threatened to do it many times, and he's a man of his word.

"I'm going, I'm going."

Martin nods with satisfaction and yawns shortly after, big and theatrical. It's very endearing. His t-shirt rides up when he raises his arms, and Jon gets a glimpse of pale freckled skin spilling over his waistband. He looks away.

"I've woken you up. I apologise."

"Mmm, no, it's fine. No matter what time it is, I don't fall asleep properly 'til I know you're home safe."

Jon's face heats up. He keeps his gaze averted and starts rustling through his bag, despite not looking for anything. They - or Martin in particular - have fallen back into an easy affection. The way in which they're in step with each other again is nice. He tries not to believe it means much. It doesn't. They're only friends again - perhaps not even that if Martin can't bring himself to forgive Jon yet, or at all. Some days he quietly tells Jon that he needs space, and it stings, but he withdraws without complaint. Some days, however, it's more simple to take in an old routine instead of starting from scratch. A world where the gap between them didn't widen, where it didn't exist in the first place. Jon loves these brief moments - but they're not realistic.

"I'll try to leave earlier, then."

There's a beat, then they both laugh as if Jon has told the funniest joke in the world.

"When you do that, I'll know the world is ending."

"Noted. Goodnight, Martin." He’s always loved saying his name. Mah-tin. It’s a relief to say it without annoyance, or pure venom, or sadness. The syllables taste sweet on his tongue. It’s a touch bitter this time, unfortunately - he never enjoys leaving him in the archives alone, in the dark unhomeliness of it all. But at least he'll see him the next day. Parting is such sweet sorrow, etcetera, etcetera.

"Night.”

He chooses to walk most of the way home, leaving his face numb and legs frozen. By the time he’s fumbling with his keys to the flat he’s down to his last cigarette. When he falls into bed almost fully clothed, it's only by sheer luck he remembers to pull out his phone and text out a single word to Martin, who thankfully quickly acquired a cheap phone himself.

Home.

Then there are nights where Jon feels like he is on a razor’s edge. It gets tiring, not talking about what happened, but pushing would lead to disaster. He’s exhausted with asking how Martin’s day was when they’ve spent all their time in the same office, how he has to be a passive part of whatever this is rather than confronting it head on. Not that him taking initiative in the past has gone well, but still.

He brings his busted up laptop to the office when Martin complains about being bored in passing - getting tired of reading so much, not having anything to do but work. He tentatively suggests they watch a film when everyone goes home, happy to dismiss his search for Prentiss’ statement for the night (after many, many other nights of searching). When Martin agrees, Jon finds himself anxiously waiting for the end of the day, practically ushering Tim and Sasha out of the office himself.

They make the best out of an awkward situation, them both squashed together on the cot with the laptop set on top of a stack of crates, taking a pillow each and resting them against the concrete wall. The blanket is spread across their knees, and Jon has tried to shrink himself as much as is possible but their legs are still touching. He ignores it in favour of the screen and sipping his tea. They picked a World War Two movie, another dramatic adaptation of the battle of Dunkirk, something like that. Jon isn’t really concentrating, instead just tuning in when Martin points out a moment that intrigues him. It’s not really about the movie, more the distraction of it. It’s easier to ignore the fact that maybe they’re just spending time with each other for the sake of it when there’s a task or a form of entertainment to focus on. One of many beach scenes is playing, and Martin makes a soft, sad noise.

“Do you miss it?” He asks, fingers tracing over the pastoral landscape on his mug.

“World War Two? Can’t say I remember it, if I’m honest.”

Martin rolls his eyes. “Funny. I mean the beach.”

“Not really. Seeing it so much kind of killed it for me. I think I prefer the city, anyway. The smell of the beach air makes me feel a bit sick, now.” Jon watches the boats in the grey sea on screen, the vastness of the water against their insignificant presence. The waves lick at the sand lazily, their natural flow interrupted by the flurry of soldiers throwing themselves into the violence. “Besides, whatever fond associations I would have with it had essentially been erased after…”

He looks down. White light still shines onto his glasses. The sea rushes and roars on screen, the sound of it unrelenting and constant in the background of guns and screams.

“Oh.”

“Yes. Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.” Shouldn’t have. Wanted to. Did.

“It’s fine.” Martin tips his head back so it’s facing the ceiling, and his eyes slide shut. The cot creaks under Jon’s weight as he turns to look at him, observing the even rise and fall of his chest. “You know, it’s hard to stay mad at you.”

Jon laughs, but his chest is tight. “Because I’m just so charming?”

“Jon.”

“Kidding, kidding.”

Martin catches his bottom lip and sinks his teeth in, white against petal pink, and if he isn’t careful red will bloom there too. “We need to talk about it, though. Eventually. But not here. I’m sick of every conversation we have being in this godforsaken place.”

He hums in agreement. The only time he goes home is to sleep. It’s more of a hotel room than a place where every one of his earthly possessions exists. It would be healthy to have some memories outside of the Institute, perhaps.

“I’d like that. Maybe I should go for now? I’ve soured the mood quite a bit.”

The movie is fading out, the ending scene presumably being replaced by the credits and a swell of violins. Martin’s eyes flutter open, and he shakes his head.

“Stay. Just for a while.”

Jon doesn’t say no, can’t bring himself to even if he didn’t want it so much. He settles back in the cot and leans against the wall.

He lets his head fall to the side and rest on Martin’s shoulder.

Martin does not push him away.

They sit.

Chapter 6: motion sickness

Chapter Text

2005

Jon thrives off of stress. This is a fact. It makes him sweat, get headaches, sleep all the time or not sleep enough, but if he’s not constantly being pressured he doesn’t feel like himself.

Which is where sixth form comes in.

It’s perfect - he’s given practise essays upon practise essays, impossible deadlines, a plethora of information that he can barely process while he scribbles it all down. It’s overwhelming. It’s too much. It’s fun. School wasn’t challenging enough for him - he was always told he was a gifted child with so much potential, a reading level above average, not like the other kids , but was never given work to help him go further. So when he starts to pick up extra assignments from teachers, spend more time in the library alone looking up topics that aren’t prescribed on the syllabus, it’s a surprise when he’s taken aside after class.

You take initiative, Jon, they say, have you thought about which university you’ll be applying to next year? and he positively glows with the praise and recognition.

Obviously he’s thought about it. Distant, wishful thinking of the cobblestone streets of Oxford, the neverending libraries and potential to be the best of the best. It’s not a want, but a need. When he tells them this, they’re overjoyed, pushing shiny leaflets into his hands and encouraging him to do some research (like he hasn’t already).

Usually we don’t do this. There’s not many kids here who have the drive you do, but we think you can go far. It’s whispered like a secret, they shoot him subtle smiles and offer to help in any way they can.

He walks home with the things tucked neatly into his planner and devours them as soon as he gets to his bedroom. There’s no use in bringing it up with his grandmother, as she’d never give him the reaction he wants. So he tells Martin, of course, who is overjoyed.

“I’m so proud of you!” he grins, eyes crinkling at the corners with how broad his smile is.

“I haven’t gotten in yet,” Jon protests, trying to dampen down his cheer, but he lets the praise wash over him anyway. He’s allowed to be a little excited himself.

His spare time is soaked up with looking at interview processes, which college would be best for him, entry examinations. He uses one of the two computers in their limited library to write out a personal statement, staying back after hours until the librarian ushers him out and he walks home when the sun is beginning to set.

The consequence of this, unfortunately, is him not seeing Martin as much. This shouldn’t all be laid at his feet, though, because Martin is also busy, struggling to balance his two jobs alongside studying. Add the fact that they don’t attend the same school on top of all this and it doesn’t make for the best time to be with each other. He’s sure that it won’t be forever, so instead focuses on pushing through his extra studying material and attending informal meetings with supervisors after hours. One bleak afternoon has him sifting through his schedule for the week, absently eating a salad that had been sitting there for hours while ticking off tasks he’s completed. It comes to him after finishing up that he hasn’t seen Martin in - he flicks through his calendar - two weeks. Mobile phones are too expensive, and neither of them rarely take the risk to call each other’s landlines, so his voice is a distant memory. Jon pushes aside his bowl of barely eaten lunch and sighs, rubbing at his temples. A half-finished history essay lays in front of him.

He picks up his pen. One more paragraph, and he’ll walk to Martin’s home. Maybe they can go get a coffee together, or something.

Within half an hour, he’s asleep at his desk.

He wakes at 6am the next morning with a bad back and a crick in his neck, the essay crumpled under his weight and salad wilting in the warmth of his bedroom. Groaning, he rubs the sleep from his eyes and pushes himself from his chair, and once he stumbles to the kitchen, nearly lucid, he realises that he never got around to seeing Martin. Shame and exhaustion flood his consciousness as he flicks the switch on the kettle and pulls a jar of coffee down from the cupboard. The kettle bubbles, and Jon frets. He hopes Martin isn’t working himself too hard - he never knows when to stop. Sometimes he doesn’t have the choice to stop, money is so tight. Late night (and illegal) shifts at the pub have him drained from pushy patrons, day shifts at the little Italian place in town have him upset from - again, pushy patrons. His fingers drum out a nervous pattern on the countertop. He’ll see him today. Definitely. He just needs to finish up the draft application for a grant-

The kettle comes to a boil just as there’s a loud knocking at the door.

He can predict the words coming from his grandmother’s mouth just before she says them, just before the television stops playing.

“Jonathan, I told you I don’t like you having visitors without being told beforehand-” her reedy voice makes him grit his teeth. He abandons his mug and the kettle and heads for the door.

“I’m sure it’s just someone coming about the TV licence or something, grandma,” he sighs, passing the living room and ignoring her glare. “I’ll get it.”

A shadowy, tall figure is behind the frosted glass of the door, and it opens to reveal a familiar face.

“Martin,” Jon smiles, the tension leaving his body. “I’m so happy to- Lord, are you alright?”

Martin looks at him, and it seems as if it takes all of his energy just to raise his head to do so. He’s slumped, leaning against the doorframe a little for support, and his clothes are wrinkled, maybe days old. His lips are cracked and bloody from picking and biting at them, the purpling under his eyes more prominent than he’s ever seen before. He tries to smile, but it looks more like a grimace.

“I’m fine,” he pushes out, barely-there smile gone instantly. “Is your grandmother home?”

Jon quickly looks over his shoulder at the woman viciously crocheting while watching Eggheads. He rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

Martin sighs and pulls at the strings of his hoodie. His nails are bitten and jagged. “Right. Okay. Let’s go for a walk, then.”

He wants to see Martin, he really does, but deadlines are piling up. There’s a stack of unopened practise papers on his desk that are calling to him. “I’d love to, but I really need to finish up…”

“Jon,” Martin says, much louder this time, so much that Jon flinches. He sounds pained. “Please.”

No amount of work could make Jon deny that tone, as impertinent as it might be, so he immediately grabs his coat from the hooks by the door and pulls it on. Martin’s body seems to sag in - not relief, but something. When was the last time he slept? All the worry that he’d pushed to the back of his mind to save space for school is coming to the forefront in a frenzied stampede.

It’s a Sunday, maybe. Jon doesn’t really keep track of days, more what he has to do on those days. He knows for sure that January exams are coming up, though, as that is all he’s allowed himself to focus on. The streets are near empty. He thanks himself for grabbing his coat before he left - the chill nips at his fingers and cheeks, unrelenting and harsh. The only good thing about colder weather is there are little to no tourists around to crowd the beaches and shops.

Martin isn’t very chatty, which unnerves him. He tries to make conversation, but his whole life has been school lately. He talks nonsense about his teachers, all of the applications he’s having to fill out, him finally deciding on a college in Oxford. Martin barely acknowledges it all, he just makes all of the appropriate noises and walks steadily forward, gaze fixed on the beach but otherwise distant. Again, because of the weather, the landscape is empty. There’s a dog walker or two on the sand, but the fog is so dense Jon can’t see anyone else. Drizzle falls from the grey sky, droplets gracing his nose and wetting his hair. He never thought to bring an umbrella. Martin usually remembers.

They stumble over the rocks and pebbles that are wont to gather at the edge of the beach, Jon’s boots not suited to the task. Martin hasn’t said anything for a long while, only acknowledging him when he nearly slips on a particularly large stone, briefly taking his hand to keep him steady then letting go like he’s been burned. It’s confusing. He clears his throat and wiggles his fingers to dispel the awful chills running through them. There needs to be something, anything to fill the silence, or he’ll go crazy. Their quiet walks have never once been uncomfortable, but Jon is feeling apprehensive.

“Um, remember when I mentioned the interview? I’m going to need to take the day off if I’m invited, I’ve been looking up train tickets and I think I can scrape together enough money to get there…” he follows Martin tentatively as he rambles, watching his retreating back and even jogging a little to keep up. The rain is more than just a drizzle, now, and it’s soaking through his coat. They’re reaching a small, enclosed area of the beach, surrounded by jagged rocks and barely away from the incoming tide. The waves rush and roar. Martin stops abruptly, and Jon bumps into his side, confused.

“We need to talk.” His hands are stuffed into the pockets of his jacket, and the hood is up. It’s nearly obscuring his eyes.

Jon nods slowly. “And you brought me to the beach for this, because…?”

“Your grandmother is home and so is my mum, so this is the best I could do, okay?” His chest is rising and falling at an alarming rate, and Jon knows this sequence of events. He steps forward and holds his hands up in a placating manner.

“Okay, okay,” he soothes. “What’s happening?”

Martin takes a deep breath and lets all of the air out in one big whoosh. “Um. Right, well.” His hands are twitching in his pockets, and Jon watches as he struggles to talk. It makes his insides turn to ice. He’s not sure if he’s shivering because of the cold or because of the way Martin is looking at him.

“Martin, you’re scaring me.”

"Right. We're leaving. Moving away, I mean."

Jon stills. The waves are probably still crashing, roaring as nature intends for them to, but all he can hear is the pulsing of blood in his ears and a cacophony of panic in his mind. Then, he laughs.

"No you're not," he says, dazed. "No. Why would you... why?"

Martin sniffs. His nose is beet red from the cold, he’s really not dressed for the weather, why on earth is this happening on the beach of all places?

“Mum is getting really sick. It’s not looking good.” He takes a hand out of his hoodie to rub at his face, eyes watering. His voice is shaking, and Jon’s own legs are too.

“I’m not making enough money to pay rent on the house, either. They’re threatening to kick us out, and no matter how many shifts I pick up they’re not helping, even with mum’s benefits, and…” an exhale. “But my aunt, y’know in Devon, the one we never speak to, she has a flat we can rent. She said she’d look after mum while I work, and it’s quite close to the local hospital, so I can take her there after my shifts.” This sounds very planned out, far too concrete for Jon’s liking, and he struggles to take in so much information at once. Okay, okay. He feels dizzy, trying his best to process it all. Right. The fundamentals.

“When exactly are you leaving?” His voice breaks on leaving, the crack in his tone glaringly obvious.

He won’t look Jon in the eye, and that says a lot before he even opens his mouth. “By the end of the week? I’ve quit my jobs. I went into school and told them I won’t be finishing the year.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me?” Has he really been this far removed from reality he hasn’t seen all of this happening? It’s been two weeks, not a lifetime. Surely he’d have noticed Martin’s exhaustion, his worry, his distance.

“You’ve been so busy! I haven’t been able to get through to you. Even when we’re together, we aren’t really,” he’s weary, resigned. Jon gets the creeping, itching feeling that he’s been planning this conversation for a long while. “Besides, I didn’t want to stress you out. But it’s all fine! Devon isn’t too far, so we can visit each other. Right?”

Unlikely. Neither of them drive, neither of them have the disposable income to buy a train or coach ticket, neither of them have the time. They live a twenty minute walk from each other and they struggle to meet, for God’s sake.

Jon was ready to let Martin go eventually, of course he was. University would cause some distance and a lot of strife. But that was the distant future, a whole year away. They planned a long, interrupted summer together, whispered promises of leaving, somehow, ignoring adulthood for just a few months longer. It never occurred to him that them being apart was real. He’d always pushed it aside.

He’s taken this whole thing for granted.

“You know we can’t see each other, your mum wouldn’t like it.” She barely liked it when Martin introduced Jon as his friend, and when they met any time after that she brushed him off like dirt and acted as if he didn’t exist. They’d never bothered to elaborate on their relationship, as it would cause too much hurt. Honesty isn’t the best course of action when it comes to Martin’s mother. Jon kicks the sand beneath his feet with such vehemence it erupts in the air in a spray, the grit blurring his vision and salting his tongue.

Martin is unsurprised by Jon’s words, clearly knowing them to be the truth. When he tries to smile it’s sad, so sad, and Jon would rather him not try at all.

"Tell me what to do," he says, desperate. "What do you need? Martin, please. I'll do anything. This can't be...no."

Martin smiles that smile again, and he feels ill. "I'm sorry, Jon. You can’t do anything."

Jon kicks up the sand again for a lack of any other way to let out his frustrations, and swears. He’s grasping at straws, but there must be something, and f*ck, why is it so cold? When did the fog get thicker?

“But hey, maybe this is for the best!” His voice is full of false cheer, uncanny and wrong, and Jon can hear the wobble of honest emotion beneath it. “You’re going to Oxford, anyway. You can meet new people without me dragging you down."

"You've never dragged me down - Christ, you're all I've ever wanted. That's why I've never bothered with anyone else. Is that so hard to believe?" He’s trying to push Jon away, it’s obvious, and what he said in response is true. He tends not to enjoy the company of others, finds them too noisy, bothersome, insensitive. Maybe it’s bad he doesn’t have anyone outside of Martin. It’s codependent, and it’s messy, but it’s them. It’s them, and it’s being ripped away from him too early.

Martin just shrugs, and it’s a simple action but it’s devastating, knocks the wind right out of him - he looks so washed out and faded against the grey landscape, and that’s not him. He’s all warm colours, smiles, sunrises, soft words and softer actions. The tide is coming in towards their feet and wetting Jon’s shoes and it’s so much. He takes Martin’s hands and they’re dry and stiff, cold, so cold, coldcoldcold, and he squeezes.

"I love you. It's always just been you and me. Why does that have to change?"

Martin hiccups and a tear falls down his cheek. "I love you too. So much. I have to do this, though. She’s my family. She’s all I have left, really.”

And Jon - he’s hurt by that. It’s a hard blow to the gut. They’re each other’s family, he’s always thought that.

"You're not obligated to do anything for her, you know," he says stiffly, hands still in Martin’s despite the crushing words. “I thought you were going to university too.”

Martin scowls and withdraws his hands first. "For Christ's sake, she's my mum! She raised me! Things don’t always work out!"

"I know, I just-" Jon sighs. "You have so much potential, and I'd hate to see you throw it away because-"

"Because I want to take care of my own mother? I know you think you know her, because of...but she’s not all bad. She loves me."

"When you put it like that it sounds cruel."

"Because it is cruel, Jon, Jesus!" He’s yelling now, the shouts reverberating around the beach. “I’m sorry you can’t understand that because you don’t have a mum!”

That stings. The loss of his mother is a dull pain, but pain all the same. However, Martin is being irrational right now, making no sense, so he forgives the jab. All he needs is a little push in the right direction, that’s all.

"We can go together." He blurts out. "You, uh- put your mother in a home. I'll find a flat close to here, go to a local uni. Or I can take a gap year! We can live alone, just us. Isn't that what we've talked about? What we want?"

Martin sighs exasperatedly, like Jon is a child, and he bristles at the treatment. "You don't want that, Jon." The condescending tone sounds foreign on his tongue.

"What?"

"Oxford is what you want. You’ve made it your whole life. Anyways, you've always expected I'd just follow you once we'd graduated. So you wouldn't have to make any sacrifices of your own. Silly Martin will go anywhere, right? No matter what he actually wants, as long as you snap your fingers it'll work out in the end. You don't mean what you're saying."

"Don't," Jon hisses, allowing venom to seep into his voice, the panic in him replaced by anger, "put words in my f*cking mouth. You don't know that."

Yes, maybe he did imagine them living somewhere Oxford adjacent when thinking about their future after graduation. But it didn’t actually matter as long as they were together, right?

Right?

“I’m sorry.” Then Martin just... looks at him. Almost pityingly. “I just want you to know it's okay to want things. To leave me.”

“I don’t want- I don’t want that! I don’t want other things! You’re the one leaving me! ”

Then he’s lurching forward, he’s sobbing, grabbing at Martin’s hoodie, chest heaving. His throat is burning, he feels like he's f*cking dying. He can feel Martin shaking beneath his hands, and he just fists the fabric tighter, just to make sure he's there, solid and warm in front of him. "Don't. I don't want to even think about doing this without you. Don't make me. You can't."

He can’t breathe, his heart- it doesn’t hurt, it just feels like there’s nothing there. He doesn’t want to imagine the space Martin will leave when he goes. Hot tears trail down his cheeks, and he can’t believe he’s actually begging like an idiot, maybe people can see him? Hear him?

Martin holds him, and it feels so tender, like a goodbye. Jon lets out another sob. He pulls back, the briskness of the air slapping him, and this is all so ridiculous, the flood of fury hitting him just as quick as the melancholy.

He doesn’t understand why he’s doing this for her. Yes, she’s his mother, but Christ, surely he doesn’t want this. Martin may think he knows him, but Jon knows him just as well. That’s why he fits so neatly by his side. They’ve been in each other’s pockets while they’ve grown, and now they’re older, shouldn’t they naturally drift apart? Jon doesn’t want to, though. He still feels the same fondness he did for Martin when he was just a kid, and maybe he is still a kid, maybe he doesn’t know what being in love is yet, but if it’s anything other than this he doesn’t want it. The idea of romance was never appealing when he was in primary school, his peers kissing each other’s sticky cheeks in the playground and having crushes, but with Martin it’s right. There’s no obligations to be too much or too little. He can just be. Isn’t that perfect? Isn’t that love?

Jon can’t say that. It won’t come out. He’s furious. Not at Martin - well, yes at Martin.

“You’re acting like an idiot,” he snaps.

“Jon,” Martin whispers, barely there beneath the wrath of the waves. “Don’t do this.” He’s still crying. Is Jon still crying? He presses a fingertip to his cheek and feels the wetness there. He doesn’t think he’s cried this much his entire life. He brushes the tears aside in one fluid, angered motion.

“No, you are. You’re being an idiot. A coward.”

Martin’s hands ball into fists, his face is bright red. “Don’t. I’m not an idiot. Did you really think I'd follow you? That I'd wait for you? I can make my own decisions. Are you really thinking about what I want or what I am choosing to do, or are you scared about what you'll do without me? You can't do this, Jon,” he chastises, now insistent and strong, “you can't expect things from me and get mad when I don’t do it. Just let this happen. It'll be okay.”

Jon doesn’t want to be the boy he was before Martin came along. He doesn’t. He can’t.

On impulse, a whim that will most likely change the course of whatever they could be in the future, he grabs Martin’s left arm, and tugs his sleeve upwards. Yanks it, really.

"What the hell," Martin says faintly. "What.”

It's all there for them both on display, red welts and scratches seared onto his arm, a circular bruise around his wrist from a too-tight grip, a cigarette burn where his thumb connects to his forefinger. Sharp nails marking him, raised and angry. Burns from a hot drink. Yellows and purples litter his skin cruelly, a sallow tapestry of abuse and pain. His stomach churns at the sight of it, the sight of what he brought forward, the sight of a mother's hatred. He just needs Martin to see as well.

He knew it was bad, but Martin had always brushed him off when he asked.

She's just sick.

She was quite nice today.

The long sleeves? Nah, I’m not really hot.

Don’t worry about it, Jon.

I love you so much.

Thank you for caring.

"This is what she does to you," Jon spits out, bile rising in his throat, the rage he has reserved for Martin’s mother being inflicted elsewhere. "This is what she does, and you're still going to leave?"

Martin is clutching his arm, hurt.

Something has shattered.

Something is gone.

His eyes are blank, his expression shuttered off.

“You should go, Jon,” he says, voice distant. The fog is like tendrils around his legs, cradling him like a child. Is he getting further away? He looks smaller. The chill is too much to bear, the waves are crashing, demanding attention, and Jon can’t think straight.

“Go,” Martin repeats, louder.

Jon stops.

He raises his chin, blinks away his tears, and tries not to feel anything.

“Fine.” His tone is flat. “I will.”

He turns.

He doesn’t look back.

Jon gives it two days. He stays in bed for two days. They need space - Martin always needs space after an argument, and so does he. When he sees him they’ll hug and he’ll apologise, and he’ll do anything to fix it. He will.

He forces himself out of the house on the third day, ready to make the journey to the Blackwood residence. It’s an unremarkable walk, the world spinning on as if it all never happened, and Jon resents it. The rows of attached houses are all the same, never ending loops of brown brick and white doors, until he finally arrives on the right street.

Martin’s home looks the same, except-

Except for the For Rent sign in the front garden.

Jon’s breath catches in his throat, and he’s running, bursting through the broken front gate and to the front door. He knocks so loudly and for so long the sound drills into his skull. There’s a small crack in the curtains covering the front window, but the living room is cast in shadows. He slams a fist against the glass, leaving a dull, thudding pain in his fingers. He flexes the injured digits, thinking. Maybe they’re just out? People don’t stay in their houses all day. He’ll check.

Jon stumbles over the grass in his haste and knocks on the door of their neighbour, this time with more restraint. A kind looking older woman opens it, looking up at Jon and smiling inquisitively.

“Hello, um- miss, ah…” he struggles to keep his voice level. “S-so sorry to bother, but do you happen to know where Martin Blackwood is? He lives next door.”

The woman’s face twists in sympathy. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t you know? They left this morning.”

Like that, his world shatters.

“Uh, no,” he’s unravelling now, lips trembling. “What happened? When was this?”

“They put some things in a woman’s car - poor dears, they didn’t have much to move between them - and drove away.”

“Did they leave anything? A forwarding address, a phone number? I’m sorry, it’s just...Martin was a friend.”

If it were physically possible, the neighbour’s face seems to become even more sympathetic. She reaches out a hand to pat Jon’s shoulder. He flinches.

“No, dearest, nothing. We weren’t very close.”

Jon wants to scream, push her damn hand away and reject her false pity, take it out on someone. Instead, he sighs, blinking back the tears gathering.

“Alright. Thank you anyway.” He drifts away without saying a proper goodbye, gravitating towards the empty Blackwood home. He rests his head against the cold brick and breathes, each exhale stuttering and wet as his lungs struggle to keep up. There’s a plant pot in the corner of his vision, the terracotta still visible despite the tears blurring everything. Martin sometimes hid a key under there for Jon. When he reaches for it, the thing wobbles, and it’s still there underneath the dirt spread about the pavement. He brushes the mud off and feels the ridges of it beneath his thumb, the only solid proof of Martin living there anymore.

The house is completely empty, of course, but seeing it rather than just imagining it makes the whole thing much harder, too real. Jon’s steps echo as he aimlessly wanders around the living room, the kitchen. Rooms that don’t mean all that much to him, never have. His hands clutch the bannister of the stairs which creak under his weight (the sixth one squeaking louder than the rest like always). He’s still clutching the key, the jagged edges sinking into his soft palm.

Down the hall, second room on the right.

He opens the door to nothing but a bed frame and mattress.

Jon swallows a hiccupping sob and sits down, the hard springs of the old mattress digging into his thighs, reminding him of the many times he’d complained about it before. He runs a hand over the bareness of it, and if he tries, can he smell Martin, any sign that he used to sleep here?

No. Not really. Just wishful thinking. The window is open, probably has been for a few hours, so anything that would smell familiar is replaced by plain air.

They laid here. They would lay chest to chest, talk, hold each other until they fell asleep. Jon would count Martin’s freckles, Martin would play with his hair, and Jon would take it for granted because there would always be another night, another morning.

Now there won’t be. He can’t even remember the last time he held Martin, really held him. He’d been so absorbed in other things. Now he’s gone, like sand through his fingers. Like smoke. Like fog.

Jon can imagine all he wants, but there’s nothing of Martin here now. It has to become the new normal, something for him to get used to. He can stay for a while, though. Dream a little longer. If he closes his eyes and tries to feel Martin's duvet beneath his fingertips he can pretend.

Reality will come to drag him down soon after.

Chapter 7: you're the one

Chapter Text

The insistent thrum of Jon’s phone buzzes against his cheek, rousing him from his strangely deep sleep. He must’ve forgotten to put it on silent last night. Disgruntled, he cracks his eyes open a fraction, the weak sunlight coming through the gap in his curtains and imprinting on his face, his sheets. He fumbles blindly for the still buzzing thing, opening his eyes enough this time to make out the blurry name on the screen.

Missed call from Martin (5)

That wakes him up. He sits bolt upright in bed, shaking his head to rouse himself further, swiftly unlocking his phone and sifting through his contacts. Before he can press call, though, Martin beats him to it. He picks it up before it has a chance to get to the second ring.

“Oh, Jon, thank God.” Martin sounds wide awake, panicked, voice rushed and higher in pitch. Doesn’t sound in danger, thankfully.

“What’s wrong?” His own voice is a shadow of his normal one, rough with sleep. He clears his throat. The thumping of his heart is still fast, and his hand is shaking a little with the sudden rush of adrenaline.

“It’s Sasha, she’s-”

Jon freezes, imagining the possibilities. Another Prentiss situation? He can’t even imagine-

“I’m fine, Martin,” says a familiar, exasperated voice. Sasha. Jon relaxes a bit, his heartbeat evening a fraction. She’s not dead, at least. It’s a little worrying that the bar is that low, but that’s another issue for later.

“You should probably come. Now.”

“Don’t listen to him, Jon!” He almost smiles at the absurdity of them bickering at - he checks the time - 6am, but a strange kind of concern and protectiveness overrides it.

“I’m on my way.”

He’s hanging up and getting out of bed as fast as humanly possible, putting aside the usual things like ironing his clothes and making his hair somewhat presentable in favour of grabbing his keys and shoving on whatever he has available in front of him. In record time he’s out the door, jogging ( not running) down the street to the underground, pushing past groggy early risers and squeezing onto the first available tube. There’s no signal down there, obviously, but he scrolls through his messages to try and piece together what could have happened. Martin’s texts aren’t particularly helpful, just jumbled, clumsy variations of his name and an occasional “pick up.” Great. Given their - for lack of a better word - spooky reputation, and Martin’s forced move, he imagines it is something in the realm of the supernatural. Well, the perceived supernatural. He’s sure Sasha has some kind of rational explanation for it that Martin won’t listen to. Still, it doesn’t hurt to check in, anyway. Martin panics easily, but not for no reason. He ignores his own right leg bouncing up and down anxiously and the way he’s fiddling with a loose thread on his jacket.

He’s pushing his way off the tube and onto the streets close to the Institute as soon as possible, not counting how many insults he hears in response to his rushed apologies. He may or may not have spilled someone’s coffee, but oh well. The building is in sight when he crashes into someone again, and this time it was definitely the other person’s fault, so he goes to yell before he notices it’s Tim. He looks barely awake, his usually perfectly coiffed hair messy, and there’s a bit of toothpaste at the corner of his mouth. It’s likely they bumped into each other because he’s typing something out on his phone frantically. Tim only seems to process that it’s him after a few seconds of staring.

“Tim. I take it you got a call from Martin?”

Tim nods and pockets his phone, running a hand through his hair. Jon has never seen him this rattled. “Yeah. He tell you much?”

Jon shakes his head and continues towards the Institute, Tim hot on his heels. It’s possible they both may be running this time, but Tim has longer legs, so. Jon has to go faster to compensate. “I heard Sasha, at least. So she mustn't be seriously hurt.”

Tim’s mouth just sets in a firm line. It doesn’t seem to calm him at all. They burst through the Institute doors together, the clunky lift taking them down as best as it can, and when they enter the archives they find a pacing Martin and Sasha in an office chair. She’s clinging onto her shoulder, the left sleeve of her shirt dangling loosely. She’s bleeding.

“Sash?” Tim is shouldering past Jon and kneeling by her side, hand on her bare arm. Sasha gives him a look , fond but frustrated. “What the hell happened?” This last part is directed at Martin, as if he is somehow responsible.

Martin throws his hands up in the air, bewildered. “I don’t know, she won’t say! She just keeps saying she wants to make a statement!”

Sasha is speaking to Tim in a low, placating tone, cupping his cheek and smiling, and...huh. When did that happen? Jon has clearly been too wrapped up in - his eyes flicker to Martin - whatever to notice. He watches as Tim presses a kiss to the back of Sasha’s hand, and swallows hard. He’s happy for them.

Really.

Eyes scanning the remainder of the room, he notes that there’s a first aid kit sprawled out on Sasha’s desk, plasters strewn about and medical tape slightly unravelled. The blood must have mostly been on her shirt, then. There’s a flash of white from a bandage on her shoulder. Martin has patched her up.

“I didn’t know what to do,” the aforementioned man whispers helplessly next to Jon, watching Tim fuss. “I just panicked. I’m no good at this stuff.”

“I disagree,” Jon murmurs. He proved himself quite capable when dealing with Ms. Prentiss. A little reckless, maybe, but who is Jon to criticise? “Her wound has been looked after, she’s safe, she’s smiling.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?!” Tim asks insistently, shoving his hand in front of Sasha’s face.

“One, and I am begging you to stop.” She’s rolling her eyes. It’s not hard to see the laughter bubbling up inside her, though. Jon and Martin laugh quietly themselves. It suddenly occurs to him amongst the offers of painkillers and medical questions, that Tim might be the most well adjusted of them all - and isn’t that a horrifying thought?

“Okay, uh...coffee. I can do coffee. You want coffee? I’ll do that. Are you okay? Do you need me to stay?”

Sasha pushes Tim backwards with a hand on his chest. “I’m fine. Go get coffee.”

“Right. Okay.” He kisses her forehead quickly and is out of the door in a flash. Jon feels a pang in his chest. Something like envy, perhaps. Or maybe just heartburn. He’s been drinking too much coffee himself, lately. That’s probably it.

Martin clears his throat beside him. There’s a weird energy between them, now. Not bad, but not exactly good. They’ve taken a half-step towards something better, and they’re hanging about in this liminal space that’s leaving them off kilter. At least there’s an acknowledgement of it all, though. No outright hatred or tension, just - something different.

“Could anyone go for some tea? I could. Oh, Sasha, you’re- right. Jon? D’you want some tea?”

Jon is not particularly thirsty, but he gets the feeling that Martin just needs something to do with his hands, given the way he’s fidgeting.

“Tea would be nice, thank you, Martin.”

He smiles gratefully and goes off towards the kitchen, leaving Sasha and Jon alone.

“Sorry about this,” Sasha says, her voice strong in the room. She’s putting her left arm back in it’s shirt sleeve and buttoning it all up. “I told Martin not to call you two. I was fine with waiting.”

“Hey, it’s not a problem. I’m pretty sure Tim would’ve killed him if he didn’t let us know, anyway.” He would be pretty unimpressed too, to be honest. Although they’ve only been a unit here in the archives for a few months now, he would dare to call them family. He’s known Sasha and Tim for a long time, Martin even longer. They’re a part of his everyday life, and he’s glad of it. Even if he has to deal with Tim’s awful pranks, Sasha’s tech skills which lead to her knowing more about Jon than she should, the history he has with Martin. It’s good to belong. In the strangest of ways.

Sasha smiles faintly. Now that the commotion has died down, she does look exhausted. However, she probably doesn’t want to be coddled any further, so he doesn’t point it out.

“Martin mentioned something about a statement?”

She perks up. “Oh! Yes. I think it’s worth a go.”

Despite one part of him knowing that he should tell her to go home, the bigger, ravenous part of him, the part that needs to simply know, can’t deny the invitation. He nods, beckoning her towards his office to prepare the tape.

Sasha settles herself in the chair opposite while he fiddles with things, thinking. This is the second time, now, the second time one of them has been hurt on the job. It certainly didn’t happen when they were in research, and it fills Jon with a sickly dread. He doesn’t know what has been done to Sasha yet, but it’s becoming familiar territory. Will Tim be next? Will he be next? Believe it or not, he doesn’t enjoy taking statements from endangered people. He sighs, tugs hard on a strand of hair. It makes him notice that he hadn’t styled it before he left the house, and it’s falling loose around his shoulders. He takes the tie from around his wrist and piles the mass of brown up into a messy bun, just to keep it out of his eyes.

The tape recorder begins to whirr.

“Statement of Sasha James, assistant archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding…”

This...this Michael. He, it, they are different. This whole experience is different. Prentiss was a whole other being, more a possessed creature than a woman anymore, but Michael is fully aware. Of what, Jon isn’t sure. He’s out of his depth. They all are.

He tries to protest when Sasha tells him that he would have disregarded her statement without proof, but can’t bring himself to actually say it aloud. Maybe he would have, a few weeks ago. When everything seemed to make a little more sense - just a few deranged people using the Institute as their last hope to convince themselves they had a grasp on reality. Now, it’s getting harder and harder to deny the distinct strangeness that comes with these particular statements. He can’t record these doubts. Professionalism, and all that. Can’t have anyone knowing he might be worried, especially Elias. It could cost him his job.

“...As I was about to exit, though, it called after me, and said if I was interested in saving your life it would be waiting at Hanwell Cemetery.”

Jon stills. “Sorry, saving my life?”

“Yeah. It called you by name. You. And Martin. And Tim.”

You, Martin, Tim. It hits him like three consecutive punches to the stomach. Michael is fully aware, indeed. Have they been lurking around the archives? Christ, Martin is here almost 24/7, what if this Michael had hurt him, threatened him, caused him to risk his life, just like Sasha? It doesn’t bear thinking about. He seems to have a set of unruly, self-sacrificial colleagues on his hands. Though he can’t scold them too much - if he were Sasha he certainly would have explored the cemetery alone, no matter how high the risk. Plus, she did offer a potential solution to the worms with the fire extinguishers. He’s getting tired of squashing them beneath his shoes. The sound is awful, and he has to scrape worm guts off of his soles every evening.

They should probably quit. Definitely should. There’s this quiet agreement between them, however, that’s persisted since they met on the job. Both of them, even Tim, sometimes, have this- hunger. For knowledge. All for different reasons, he’s sure. It doesn’t go unnoticed, but it’s never been spoken about outright. They’re tied here, voluntarily or otherwise.

It isn’t worth dwelling on for the time being, so he shuts off the recorder and tells Sasha to get some rest. Not long after Tim is back with coffee, pushing a paper cup into her hands and guiding her to a chair by the small of her back. Then, Martin is offering his temporary bedroom, and she’s being herded there despite her protests. Jon smiles at the scene through the glass window on his door. Not long after they’ve disappeared down the corridor, Martin peers around the doorframe, mug in hand.

“You okay?”

Not really. I’m near certain that everything I’ve been reading is real, and everyone I care about is getting hurt.

“Yes,” Jon replies, smiling hesitantly. He holds his hands out for the mug, used to their well worn routine and knowing it’s for him. The liquid is perfectly sweet, and he sighs in satisfaction, letting the warmth and small amount of caffeine flood his veins and relax his muscles.

“How’s Sasha?”

“As well as she can be, I suppose. Maybe even more so. I’m going to tell her to take some days off, though. I’ll need to talk to Elias about getting more fire extinguishers for the building, too.”

Martin looks puzzled, but otherwise satisfied with Jon’s response. He raps on the door twice as a kind of goodbye and retreats to his desk, leaving Jon with Sasha’s tape and a mountain of papers.

Little work is done that day, if any. Even though she resisted at first, he’s pretty sure Sasha has been sound asleep in the back for ages. Tim keeps disappearing to go check on her, every hour on the hour - also, he’s certain Martin is just switching between playing solitaire and looking at a blank document. It doesn’t bother him. He’s too tired to care, and it’s been a bad morning.

He emerges from his office at around 2pm, relenting.

“I think we should call it a day. Go home early.”

There’s an audible sigh of relief from the pair, and Tim goes to wake Sasha with an order from Jon to tell her to go home for at least the rest of the week. Preferably longer, but that will be a chore for her. He’s piling some papers into his bag, knowing he’ll get the urge to work at some point later, but right now he just wants to be home. Calling the flat he occasionally sleeps at home is a bit of a stretch, considering he sleeps here more than in his bed, but at least his mattress is better than an office chair.

Or a sh*tty bed in a back room.

Martin doesn’t have a home to go back to.

He’s hovering in the middle of the office when Martin notices him, straightening up and smiling. “Going now?”

“Ah. Yes. I was just, um. Wondering if you’d…” He cringes inwardly. This is probably overstepping a bit. “Maybe walk me home? I think it’s raining, and I don’t have an umbrella. It could be good for you to get some air, too, after the day we’ve all had.”

Martin doesn’t seem at all offended by the offhand request. He actually rifles through his desk drawer and pulls out an umbrella triumphantly, smiling so wide Jon is reciprocating without thought.

They step out into the miserable London afternoon closely huddled together under the umbrella. The rain is coming down faster and harder than he anticipated, so it isn’t doing much for them except for keeping their hair dry. Which is a blessing, really, considering Jon’s locks get unbearably curly and tangled when they come into contact with it. There’s light conversation, but considering it’s getting closer and closer to rush hour the streets are more clogged, making them noisier. Jon can barely hear Martin over the chatter. They only get a chance to talk properly on the tube, but he embarrasses himself by falling on Martin as soon as the carriage lurches forward, leaving his hands pressed against his chest. His face feels so hot he can’t look him in the eye, nevermind speak. So, there’s that.

It’s only when they finally arrive at his door that Jon realises he has no idea what to do from here. He’s on the steps to the flat, meaning he’s actually at Martin’s height, and they’re both just...waiting. Martin has the umbrella, now, meaning Jon is now getting wet, rendering the whole time under there useless. He fiddles with his keys for a second. Martin passes the handle of the umbrella from one hand to another.

“Would you like to come in? You can dry off.” His whole right side is soaked through - he’d spent the whole walk sheltering Jon completely and only half of himself.

Martin looks relieved. “Yes, please. That would be nice.”

He unlocks the door with slightly shaking hands. It’s odd - he’s never been this nervous about anyone entering his home, and has never cared about what they thought. But what if Martin hates it? What if it’s too messy? Too cramped? Too dark? He really should open his curtains once in a while, let some light in.

Really, it’s just an ordinary place, aside from the books piled high on what could be called a dining table shoved in the corner of the living room, left over from research jobs. There’s nothing much else that signals he lives there. His bed is unmade, there’s a few chargers plugged in, a small TV he rarely uses. No photos of family and friends, though. No little trinkets like he spied at Sasha’s place when he visited years back. He could probably fit all of his deeply personal belongings into one cardboard box. It’s never bothered him before, but now he’s feeling a little self-conscious. Martin doesn’t comment, though.

Jon makes a beeline for the bathroom to grab him a towel, then goes to the kitchen and putters around in there while Martin takes off his shoes and gazes around the room. He washed up last night, thank God, so there’s no evidence of his meagre dinner alongside around four cups of coffee.

“Do you want something to e-” He realises quickly that his fridge is basically empty, pathetically so. “Something to drink?”

Martin shakes his head. “Not really thirsty.”

Jon closes the cutlery drawer he’s been messing with and makes his way to the tattered sofa situated in front of the TV, sitting down, and Martin follows suit. The rain is coming down in sheets outside, and he really hopes he won’t wake up to a leaky roof in the morning. His landlord still hasn’t gotten around to fixing the boiler after two months of complaints.

“What a morning, eh?” Martin says quietly. He’s toying with the wet sleeve of his jumper, and Jon silently hands him the towel he slung over his shoulder. “Oh, thanks.”

Jon watches as he tousels his dripping wet hair with it, making it stick up and frizz. A little droplet of water hangs off the tip of his nose.

“It’s good,” Martin says suddenly, snapping Jon to attention. He makes a noise of interest. “That Sasha has Tim. He really cares about her.”

His glasses are skewed and a little fogged up. Jon’s fingers twitch, wanting to clean and adjust them.

“Yes. He does.”

He wanted to be that for Martin, when he was hurt. He tried eventually, but it wasn’t really the same, what with everything that came before. His own bitterness mostly overshadowed his good will.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out. “I’m really sorry.”

Martin sighs and puts down the towel. “Jon, we don’t have to do this now. Emotions are running really high, and-”

“I’d like to. Please.” Before I chicken out.

Horns blare in the background, fury fuelled by traffic interrupting the tense quiet. Jon can only take the lack of response as an invite to continue, so he takes a deep breath.

“I just- I’m sorry.” He sounds like a broken record. “For the way I’ve acted. Then, and now. It wasn’t fair.” When he looks up from staring at a suspicious stain on the sofa (the disadvantage to buying something from a secondhand place), Martin’s expression is completely neutral. “I was hurting. It was so sudden, and I know, I know that isn’t an excuse, not for that, touching you in that way, really, I’m no better than your mother-”

“Hey.” Martin’s tone is firm. “Let’s not go there.”

“Right. Sorry.” Now he’s said it once, it just rolls off the tongue, apparently. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

Jon swallows down the lump in his throat. “Yes. I did. I was so used to having all of your attention, all of your love, I...when it was being directed towards someone else, even your own mother, it brought something out in me. This twisted, ugly, selfish thing.”

He brings his legs up to his chest and rests his chin on his knees. “I didn’t want you to leave me.” He sounds small. He feels small, like a child, whispering an immature confession. Maybe if he squeezes tight enough, pulls his legs closer, he can just disappear.

Martin’s face crumples into something sad, sympathetic, understanding. “I didn’t want to leave you. I- I did want to hurt you a bit, after. I could’ve reached out and told you I was leaving, but I didn’t. It didn't sink in that that's how we left it until we were settled and moved in. I had a job and you weren't there, I didn't even have your number. I didn't think any of it would be permanent. But I had to do it, you know that, right?”

“Yes. It was incredibly selfless of you- and I can't be mad at you for that, really. When I think about it, I was just scared of being alone. And to be honest...I didn't think she was worth it. I still don't.” His mother still conjures up feelings of disgust, anger. The dejected expression Martin would sometimes wear when it all got too much, his happiness a phantom of what it usually was. “I don't know how you do it. Forgive her. Each time. I don't know how you can stand me after all this.”

Martin shrugs. "It's easier to love than hold a grudge, even if someone deserves it. And I don't think I could hate you, anyway. Not really. Not ever."

That’s the difference between them, with all this. For Jon, it's easier to pretend to hate. To blame Martin so he can hide the shame that’s been bubbling in his chest. For Martin, it's easier to love despite the hate. Push through the resentment, the attacks, come out through the other side as unscathed as possible.

"Anyways, getting angry, it…" Martin sighs and pulls his knees close to his chest, mirroring Jon’s pose. "I remind myself too much of my mum. Yeah, I know, it's daft, but. She wasn't always bad, you know? She only got that way after dad left and she became really sick. I always think that maybe there's going to be that one thing, that one thing that makes me snap, and that'll be it. I'll be just like her. So I try to be nice to everyone all of the time, and see them at their best, forgive them too quickly. I'm a sodding doormat, basically. You know that. Even though sometimes I feel this horrible anger inside me, so awful and cruel it makes me ill, I just push it down. Put the kettle on, have a cuppa, try not to think about it. I hate it. I should be allowed to feel things, you know? It's not bad."

"It's not," Jon agrees, voice gentle. "You're a good person, Martin. Maybe the best person I've ever known. And not because you're trying not to be like her. You just are."

Martin makes a frustrated noise and runs a hand through his hair, dispelling excess water from it. "But what if I'm not? What if you just think I am, and I've been lying to you this whole time? I feel like I'm lying to myself all the time."

"I don't think you're a good enough liar to pull off a con as long as this, honestly. Bad people don't worry so much about being bad, you know. You don't see the Green Goblin crying over blowing up Gotham City,” he jokes.

"Gotham City is DC, Jon."

"Same thing." He knew that, but him being ignorant of pop culture has always made Martin laugh, even when they were kids. Right on cue, Martin chuckles. It's barely there, but it's something.

“You can be mad at her,” Jon continues carefully. “You can be mad at me for as long as you want, too.”

Martin exhales slowly. “Thank you.”

The rain has settled into a light rhythm against the pavement, the horns outside have ceased. There’s a small smile on both of their faces, hesitant, but hopeful. Jon shivers a little at the cold seeping through his poorly insulated windows, and gets up on shaky legs.

“Tea?”

“That would be nice.”

Jon turns up the heating while the kettle boils, the radiators making the fog on the windows dissipate slowly, and he watches Martin as he settles on the sofa. He seems more comfortable, as if he’s at home.

They sit facing each other with the TV playing some nondescript quiz show chattering in the background, allowing themselves to talk without something hanging over their heads. Martin grimaces a little when he takes a sip of Jon’s tea, but both of them pretend not to notice. The steaming mugs let out little wisps of heat into the cosy room, fogging up their glasses and scalding their tongues a bit.

They share what has happened to them these past few years. Jon divulges what led to him being where he is now - he met Georgie, graduated with first class honours, somehow stumbled his way into the research job at the Institute. He’s almost embarrassed by how little he’s gotten up to in a decade. The Institute seemed to become his whole life as soon as he signed that contract under Elias’ cunning gaze.

Martin worked lots of odd jobs as soon as they arrived in Devon, taking care of his mother in his free time. Eventually, she cracked and asked to be moved into a home, leaving Martin to scramble and find one suitable enough for her...particular tastes. That led to him moving to London, since it was the closest city.

Jon pauses on his way to take a sip of his tea. “Oh. I thought-”

“You thought she was dead, didn’t you?” Martin asks, amused.

“I didn’t say that,” he hits back defensively. To be honest, he didn’t think about her at all, only the impact that would have on Martin. He finishes off his drink.

“No, it’s fine, she's…” Martin sighs. “She’s not who she was. I visit her on Mondays, but usually I travel all the way there and she turns me away. Then when she lets me in, it’s…” He trails off, leaving Jon to fill in the gaps for himself. His eyes flick to Martin’s exposed skin. Nothing there. He should leave it - Martin is an adult, now. If he wants to tell him anything, it’ll be of his own volition.

“My grandmother died,” he says suddenly, which really isn’t the best thing to bring up. But his mouth moves faster than his brain, apparently. A twisted effort to relate, somehow.

“I’m sorry.”

Jon waves a hand dismissively. “I mourned.”

He took the apologies from family members, the false offers to help. He attended the funeral and tried to cry, but the tears didn’t come. They lived together for so long and he mostly felt distance. There’s only a connection to her when he cooks, but it's a very vague thing. Like he's remembering a very old friend rather than someone who raised him, fed him. He never got to grieve like most people did with anyone around him who died. He doesn't remember his mother and father, wasn't close to his grandmother. There's a ghost of sadness that should exist. It tries to embrace him occasionally. It's easily willed away, though.

Sometimes, as a child, he would look at a battered photograph of his mother and father and try to smile like his mother - a little crooked, turned up more at the left side. The photo was blurry, but he might have his father’s thick hair. Does it really matter anymore? The only people who really knew them are dead or don't talk to him.

It's fine, really.

He's processed it.

Then they talk about more meaningless things, until it's getting completely dark outside and they're on their third cup of tea. At some point they order food. Martin hasn't mentioned leaving, but Jon spots him stifling a yawn. He’s feeling quite tired himself. Martin’s umbrella is by the door, still soaked through, and the clothes he removed to hang to dry are probably still damp.

“It’s still raining,” Jon says casually. Martin looks over his shoulder to the window, lets out a non-committal “Oh.”

“It takes a while to get back to the archives.”

There’s a long pause. “It does.”

“You should sleep here tonight.”

Another pause. “I don’t want to intrude.”

There’s no effort in Martin’s voice, no attempt to really convince Jon he should leave.

“I have spare blankets and pillows, you can sleep on the sofa.” He’s already getting up and heading for the airing cupboard, pulling down a few small pillows that he used to make his room look more inviting. He gave up when he got irritated by having to throw them off the bed before he could fall asleep.

The room is lit in a warm yellow glow, and Martin’s face looks cast in gold when Jon places the knitted blanket into his arms. His smile is shy when their hands brush against one another. Jon turns off the TV, plunging them into an easy silence, and he leaves Martin to make his bed for the night. He swaps his work clothes for large pyjama shorts and some band t-shirt from his youth, then takes the tie out of his hair. All of the tension bleeds from his head when he does so, and he sighs.

Martin is far too tall for the sofa, and he glares at Jon when he bursts out laughing. Though he’s tried his best to curl up, his legs are still dangling over the edge helplessly. He would probably be more comfortable on the bed, but Jon dismisses that thought as soon as it comes.

“Wake me if you need anything.” Though he very much doubts he’ll be getting any sleep tonight. His mind and heart haven’t stopped racing since Martin stepped through the door.

“I will. Goodnight, Jon.” Martin pulls the blanket right up to his chin, but it leaves his feet uncovered, again. He stifles another laugh.

The whole flat is illuminated only by moonlight when Jon turns his bedroom light off. He leaves his door ajar, and he can make out a Martin-shaped figure on the sofa, even with his glasses removed. His face is now cast in silver rather than the gold of before, the shimmering moon showcasing his slightly open mouth and closed eyes.

Jon shouldn’t be staring. It’s invasive. He pulls the duvet over himself and squeezes his own eyes shut.

The shriek of the smoke alarm is piercing. Jon stumbles out of bed, vision blurred, to seek out the cause of the noise.

Martin is standing in the kitchen, hurriedly fanning the smoke away from the toaster with a tea towel. Two slices of what could be called bread ten minutes ago lay stiffly on the counter, blackened and inedible.

“Um. Good morning?” He says sheepishly, the alarm finally ceasing.

“Good morning. May I ask why you’re trying to burn down my flat?” Jon pulls out one of the rickety stools he uses to eat at the small thing that could be called a breakfast bar and sits, resting his elbows on the counter. He raises an eyebrow.

“I was trying to make breakfast for us! But I guess I ballsed it up a bit.”

“A bit is being generous, Martin,” Jon smiles, a little giddy with the situation. If you told him months ago that he’d be waking up to Martin Blackwood making him breakfast he would’ve laughed in your face. “I’ll make breakfast, you make tea.”

He enters the kitchen and unceremoniously dumps the toast into the bin with distaste. Martin steps back a bit to give him room - he’s still wearing his clothes from last night, complete with new wrinkles from tossing and turning in his sleep. The sofa is back to normal, pillows straightened and blanket folded up, resting on the left arm.

There isn’t much in for either of them to eat, since Jon has neglected to go shopping for the past week or so. He manages to find a carton of eggs that thankfully don’t expire for another three days and settles on scrambling them. Martin hadn’t burned all of the bread, so it’ll work. He grabs a pan and sets the stove onto a low heat, then gets a bowl down from the cupboards and a tub of butter from the fridge. Martin works around him, using his height as an advantage to reach over Jon and take two mugs as well as tea bags, motioning for Jon to angle his hips right so he can get the carton of milk out. The little kettle bubbles away while Jon whisks the eggs, the knob of butter he spooned out sizzling in the pan. He can hear Martin humming some pop song that Tim has been blasting for the past week. The green vintage radio Georgie gifted him for his birthday is to his right, so he turns it on and twists the knob until it settles on a classic station, some upbeat sixties love song flooding the kitchen and making him smile. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Martin nodding his head along to the cheery rhythm.

He pops a few slices of bread in the toaster and pulls down two plates from the cupboard above his head. The eggs are then slowly added to the pan. Jon agitates them carefully with his spatula but otherwise leaves them be, letting them cook until they’re barely set. The host has decided to play a more somber song by some crooner, he thinks. He turns off the heat on the stove. Martin seems to have remembered his earlier fiasco, as he’s grabbing a knife and taking the toasted bread out, buttering the slices liberally and plating them. He then turns away to pour the boiling water into their mugs. Jon mumbles a soft “thank you” and deposits the eggs equally on both plates. His grandmother always said if you cook them right they don’t need additions or seasoning, but Jon has always liked a few twists of fresh pepper from a grinder on top. Usually if he were actually making an effort to have a full meal he’d chop up some chives and what have you, but any greens that are in his fridge are wilted and unusable. From the appreciative way Martin is looking at the dishes, he thinks this will be enough. He slides the plates over to the eating area, and Martin does the same with the steaming mugs of tea.

They silently settle beside each other, Martin’s legs planted firmly on the floor while Jon’s are swinging in the air (he didn’t realise how tall the stools were until after he bought them). Martin cuts off a bit of toast and piles some eggs on top, then takes a bite.

“Wow.”

“Good?” Jon smiles, taking a long sip of his tea.

“Very. You’ve always been a good cook.”

“It’s just eggs,” he counters, but feels proud nonetheless.

“I burned toast not even fifteen minutes ago, Jon.”

They both laugh. The radio continues to play in the background while they eat, old love songs interspersed with commentary from the host.

“I’ve been baking recently,” Martin says into the comfortable quiet. “Well, until my flat was taken over by worms.”

Jon puts down his cutlery and turns to him, interested. “Oh?”

“Mhm. The last thing I made was a blueberry cake. I can’t handle cooking, it stresses me out too much - but with baking it’s just measure, mix, oven, you know? There are some things you have to get just right, though. If you add too much fruit it makes the cake too wet, and sometimes all the blueberries sink to the bottom of the mixture. But it’s nice. I like knowing I can put something sweet out into the world.”

He’s pushing around the last of the eggs on his plate, cheeks dusted pink, and Jon’s stomach flips. Eating breakfast together, talking about baking. It’s all very domestic. A thought creeps into his head, one of Martin baking in his kitchen, Jon passing him ingredients and tasting the batter. Does he wear an apron? He probably does. A plain one? No, one with a cute pattern, like anthropomorphic spoons or something. Maybe they’d have this same radio station on in the background.

Maybe he would look at Jon the same way he’s sure he’s looking at Martin right now.

“You could use my kitchen, if you miss it,” Jon offers tentatively. “I don’t really cook all that much.”

Then Martin’s brow furrows a bit, and he puts down his fork. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Jon’s hopes are promptly destroyed, much like a knife repeatedly stabbing a balloon. “Right. Yes. Silly of me to suggest that. Ha.” He tries to laugh, but it comes out high pitched and weird. “I need to clean up. We’ll be late for work.”

“Jon…”

Jon grabs the plates and walks quickly to the sink, turning the tap on full blast so he can pretend he can’t hear what Martin is trying to say. “You can use the shower, if you’d like. There’s towels on the rack. If you need an iron for your clothes you can find it in the airing cupboard. We should probably get going in the next half hour or so.”

There’s a beat of silence, and Martin sighs. “Okay. Thanks.”

Jon nods and doesn’t look at him, fervently scrubbing the cutlery until he hears the bathroom door shut and the shower start running. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Always taking it a step too far. Just because Martin stayed over one night and ate breakfast with him it doesn’t mean he wants to come over for a baking session. He should probably rein it in a bit.

By the time he’s cleared away leftover ingredients and finished up with the dishes Martin is emerging from the bathroom, hair damp and last night’s clothes looking a bit more presentable.

“Jon, it wasn’t a personal thing, I’m-”

“It’s fine,” he interrupts, smiling tightly. It’s not Martin’s fault he can’t take the slightest bit of rejection. He carefully folds the tea towel he was using and puts it on the counter, smoothing out the leftover creases meticulously. “Already forgotten about. I need to shower and get dressed, then we’ll go.”

“Okay. Thank you for breakfast,” Martin says, voice warm, and he sounds so sincere Jon can’t bring himself to feel downtrodden anymore.

He’s getting very tired of these damn worms. Martin helps him squash the last of them when they arrive in the archives, and Jon silently hopes that Elias will eventually get around to buying more fire extinguishers. They’re perhaps their most valuable asset against the stupid things.

Tim is already working at his desk, looking more subdued now Sasha isn’t around. He realises that for once, he has arrived at the office late (at least by his standards). For anyone else, that would be a good thing, but it just serves to unnerve him. Martin makes some comment about needing to change into new clothes and disappears into the back.

Jon stops at Tim’s desk, though he’s itching to get back to work. “Morning. How is Sasha?”

Tim closes a tab containing a police report. His brow is a little furrowed, but he doesn’t look as worried as he did last week. “She’s fine. She’ll be taking the week off, but she’s not exactly pleased about it.” He smiles, fond. “Anyway. How are you?”

Jon squints. “I’m alright.”

Tim smiles wider. Jon squints harder. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He shrugs, leaning back in his chair and making it let out a concerning groan. “No reason. Just seems like you spent the night with Martin, that’s all.”

“I did. So what?” His tone is probably too sharp and defensive for the observation, but Tim has a smug look on his face, one that he always pulls when he thinks he’s in the right.

Tim throws his hands up in surrender. The chair groans again. “I’m just saying it’s nice! I was sick of you two looking so sad. Though now I guess I’m gonna have to deal with you looking like a lovesick puppy, but that’s not as bad.”

“I- you-” Jon sputters. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He only gets a knowing look in response, and it’s after a few seconds of standing there that Jon realises he has no real comeback. He sighs.

Back to work, then.

After Sasha returns (two days before she was supposed to, much to the worry of Tim), she’s a lot more good-spirited. They keep their office chat light, and Jon doesn’t feel like bringing up Michael for the time being. The tape is still sitting on his desk. It’s hard not to look at it.

When it comes to dealing with especially uncooperative visitors, however, Jon is more inclined to forget about whatever else is on his mind. Melanie King certainly knows how to get under his skin, if you’ll excuse the joke. He does the same back, because he has very little impulse control, and he feels a sort of smug satisfaction when she leaves. At least he knows there won’t be a repeat incident with a complaint over his poor behaviour - she seems to be the sort of person to deal with her own problems rather than go through someone else. He can respect that about her, at least. Even if she has to resort to cheap scares to make a living.

Cheap scares or no, it doesn’t change the fact that an uncomfortably familiar name was featured. Georgie’s ever-growing network of podcasters - and ghost hunters - means that she might have been involved in this at some point. He just wished she’d been lucky enough to evade it.

He uses his lunch break to go for a smoke and call her, for both social and research purposes. She picks up on the third ring.

"I got a statement from a friend of yours earlier," Jon says in lieu of a hello. "You were featured."

Georgie isn’t fazed by the lack of a greeting. "Oh? Who?"

"Melanie King."

"Oh, Melanie ," Georgie's voice sounds soft, dreamy. Jon narrows his eyes. "She's great."

"She's rude . Where are you planning to take her? A Chinese place? Thai? Moroccan?"

" Nowhere. I can't even imagine what a disaster you two being in the same room was."

Disaster is an understatement. Jon crushes the end of his cigarette under his heel with disdain. "You have terrible taste."

"You do realise that's a self-burn, right?" Her delighted laugh is musical.

"Oh, absolutely. Do you mind me asking a few questions? I said I'd do a follow up, though I'm sure Ms. King was talking nonsense."

Georgie can’t provide much information, and for once he’s glad of it. Only brief, work-related interactions with Sarah Baldwin, no tie-ins with her personal life. He can close the case, or at least hand it off to Tim, Sasha or Martin. Just seeing Georgie’s name on file makes him feel a bit ill.

“You coming for a drink tomorrow? You can bring everyone from work, if you want.”

Jon lights another cigarette and makes a noise that can be taken as a yes or a no.

“I’m not bringing along any of my spooky friends, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just want to spend some quality time with you. Is that a crime?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Great! I’ll meet you at the Last Post. Bye!” Georgie hangs up before he can protest, and he huffs out a laugh, looking at her smiling face on the picture she chose for her contact page. Maybe a drink would be good. The walls of the Institute seem to be closing in on him, oppressive and harrowing, and even when he leaves the office its presence seems to follow. They can talk about everything but work for one night, and it’ll help. Somehow. For now, it beckons him, and he allows himself another few minutes outside before being pulled through the fire exit and to his office.

Martin catches him an hour or two later to follow up on some mismatched dates on a statement, and he settles back into his work flow.

Or so he thinks.

“You okay?” Martin asks, fiddling with his ballpoint pen. He’s been taking notes on some paper while Jon rambles away about the filing system. It stops him in his tracks.

“Hm? Yes. Why do you ask?”

Martin looks pointedly at the empty carton of cigarettes and lighter next to two empty mugs. He forgot to take them to the kitchen hours ago. Many things have been escaping him, to be honest, and even though he handed Melanie’s statement off to Sasha as soon as Georgie hung up on him it's been playing on his mind. Everyone he cares about now has ties with the Institute, insignificant or not. The dread that’s been threatening to wash over him since last week is coming in full force, wrecking his usually methodical train of thought. It’s no longer about if someone is going to get hurt - it’s about when they are.

Jon plasters on a fake smile and takes the empty pack and lighter away. “It’s nothing. Just a little frustrated with the headache that comes with this job, is all. I think I’ll feel better once we have Gertrude’s - methods - replaced with our own. And I suppose that begins with sorting out mismatched dates, hm?”

Martin doesn’t look convinced, but understands it’s his cue to leave. He pauses before getting out of his chair.

“We’ll all be okay, Jon. We’re in this together.”

Jon’s eyes raise from the blank piece of paper he’s pretending to be fixated on and land on Martin’s sincere expression. “Together?”

“Yeah! I dealt with Prentiss for nearly two weeks, Sasha dealt with worms and that weird...Michael thing, you have loads of knowledge from the statements, and Tim is like...super buff."

He gets the feeling that this runs deeper than worms and weird beings that believe themselves to be a what rather than a who, but he appreciates the sentiment. Knowledge is power, after all. Martin does have a point. Maybe if he looks hard enough, goes beyond what any archivist has done before, he can stop these incidents before they happen. Save them all from more heartache. If he can’t, then what good is he as a friend or a co-worker?

“You may be right. Thank you, Martin.”

He smiles in return, taking Jon’s empty mugs in one hand. The day is nearly over, as he can see Tim and Sasha collecting their coats. They tend to leave together more often now - Sasha seems to be reluctant to travel home alone. Jon still feels a lingering fear on the nights he doesn’t fall asleep in the archives. His bed is almost always abandoned, and he’s grown used to his office chair being its substitute. What if he isn’t there, and Michael returns? It’s not like he’s the strongest person in the world, but two sleepy employees against some strange entity is better than one.

But maybe having both of them out of the archives for most of the night would be even better.

Jon bites down hard on his lip, and raises himself out of his chair to catch Martin before he’s out of earshot.

“Wait- before you go. How would you feel about having a drink with me tomorrow night?”

Martin seemed flattered at the invitation, and was even more receptive to the idea when he discovered that Georgie was the one who suggested he come along. Jon is a little bitter about that. It’s not like Martin would want anyone to think it was a date, after all. He gives Georgie a little heads up, and she replies with a string of emojis that he can’t see because he never bothers to update his phone. He can only assume the little empty squares portray some kind of excitement, considering they’re accompanying a lot of exclamation marks.

Jon shudders at the idea of spending a night out in Chelsea, so is thankful that Georgie picked some random Wetherspoons outside of the borough. They find her in the back corner of the place, a pint of lager in front of her and her bag placed strategically on the seats so no one attempts to sit there but them. She jumps out of the booth when she spots them, waving over the top of the crowd and jumping a bit due to her short stature. Jon thinks she’s wearing his jacket - or was it hers to begin with, and he stole it? He’s not too sure. She wears it better than he does, anyway.

Georgie envelopes them both in a big hug, Martin more receptive to it than he is. The atmosphere is a bit less tense than their first meeting, at least, considering Martin doesn’t outright dislike him. There’s a little good-hearted squabble about who should bring in the first round, and the duo eventually relent to Martin’s insistence that he should buy them because he’s the “guest.” Jon is certain that means it should be the other way around, but it’s fine.

He rests his chin in his palm and turns his head towards his friend’s retreating figure - he’s wading through the crowd to get to the bar. Rather than use his height to push in front of everyone else, though, he parts the groups a little to allow shorter people to get their orders in first. They all touch his elbow, his back, thanking him profusely, and he just gives them a shy smile and gestures for them to step forward. He’s probably going to be there for ages. It makes Jon break out into a smile.

“Well. Isn’t this a surprise?” Georgie says, a little genuine shock in her voice, but mostly she just sounds pleased.

“I’m full of surprises, as you know,” he fires back flatly. Martin has let yet another person go before him. “I actually talked to him.”

“Like, talked? Wow. How did that go?”

“Better than I thought, considering he’s here.”

Georgie pats his hand. “I’m proud of you.”

Jon rolls his eyes, feeling a tad patronised.

The bar is roaring with activity, people from various offices around the city loosening their ties and bringing in round after round, celebrating the end of the week. Nothing says Thank God it’s Friday more than Liam from accounting ordering ten shots of sambuca to the table. The concept of getting so hammered you piss away a week’s wages in a night hasn’t appealed to him for many years, now, so the scent of the spirit makes his stomach twist. He’s usually more of a social drinker than a habitual one at this point, going along with the crowd, but not following them drink for drink. It’s not fun being the only sober one in the room. Martin is coming back to the table with their more pedestrian pints of lager, admirably stopping the amber liquid from spilling over the rims of the glasses, and he sits close to Jon after placing them down. He feels a little victorious over the fact that he chose Jon’s side of the booth over Georgie’s, and he’s so embarrassed by that he snatches his glass and takes a few long gulps of his drink.

“So,” Georgie smiles, taking a cheap coaster and fiddling with the rips in the material. “Martin. I am very excited Jon invited you tonight, because the man is determined to never share any stories about him as a kid. So. You have anything good for me? Wild drinking stories from your youth?”

The reason Jon most likely didn’t divulge any memories is because they were all tainted by their break-up, and before that he had dead parents, a distant grandmother and an encounter that left him mentally scarred, but that’s not as fun for casual chat. So he just smiles tightly and looks at Martin.

“Oh, no. Not really,” Martin is bright red, as if he’s embarrassed. “We were super boring, right?”

Georgie pouts and boos, but it’s the truth. With Martin’s early growth spurt, he probably could’ve bought alcohol from an uncaring shopkeeper at their local off license, but just the suggestion of it made him anxious, so they never bothered. They didn’t want any of their precious time together marred by alcohol, anyway, since it was so rare. So, yes. Maybe they were boring, in the conventional sense.

“I don’t even think I had my first drink until I was, what, 23?” He laughs. “I don’t really make a habit of it, either.”

Jon hums in agreement, and Georgie’s gaze swivels to him, eyes alight with mischief, and his heart sinks. She’s up to something.

“You weren’t like that in university though, were you, Jon?” She says, tone light and innocent. She’s taking her phone out of her bag and scrolling slowly. It’s then that Jon remembers.

Georgie decided to have a stint as an amateur photographer through university, took a camera with her everywhere, catalogued everything they did with a click and a flash. Jon hated it most of the time and would instinctively cover his face or scowl to ruin the shot. She eventually learned that if she wanted a good photograph, she couldn't alert him. Thus, she probably has a lot of dirt on him that he isn’t even aware of.

"They're all print outs from a digital camera, but I swear I took some pictures of them, just in case,” she sing-songs.

"Georgie, no,” Jon says, pained.

"Georgie, yes,” Martin cuts in, delighted.

Her laugh is downright devilish, and she makes a noise of triumph when she presumably lands on something that will make Jon explode with embarrassment. “Here we are!”

She zooms in on the image and turns it to face Martin. It’s bad quality, considering it’s a picture of a picture, but not blurry. To Jon’s horror, it’s a picture of him curled around a cheap purple electric guitar he recalls buying from a cash converter in second year. One hand is resting against the body of it, while the other is wrapped around the neck, fingers making a bar chord. Jon’s tongue is poking out in concentration, and his outfit- oh, Christ, his outfit. He’s almost entirely dressed in black, the only pops of colour found on his red converse and the font of his t-shirt for some underground band he must’ve seen in a basem*nt at some point. There’s eyeliner smudged around his lids, probably in a way that he thought looked cool at the time, and his hair is longer than it is now. He notes that there’s a half empty bottle of vodka next to him, and his eyes are indeed half-lidded because he’s drunk out of his mind.

“I hate that,” Jon scowls. “Delete it. Burn it."

“I don’t think so,” Georgie giggles, and Martin leans forward, fascinated.

“Jon, you look-” He bursts out laughing, covering his mouth to stifle his giggles. His shoulders are shaking with it, and Jon feels his face heating up. “You don’t look bad, but- were you in a band? ”

“Nope! He was terrible! He just played the same awful three chord songs and Nirvana riffs!” They erupt into another bout of laughter.

Jon groans and lets his head fall onto the table with a thunk.

“You’re both awful people," he declares. “Abhorrent, terrible people. I don’t know why I’m friends with either of you.”

“Not only that, you dated us!”

Jon huffs and looks at the two of them, matching gleeful expressions on their faces. He tries his best to school the smile off of his own face, but fails. There isn’t enough alcohol in his system to say this out loud, but he doesn’t think he could have picked any two better people to have loved in that way. He drains the rest of his pint, the other two following suit before Georgie goes back to her phone.

She tuts. “Less embarrassing ones here than I thought. You’re just too photogenic. Oh! This one is sweet!”

Another one Jon doesn’t remember, this time with Georgie in frame. They’re in bed, the sheets pulled up to their chests. His head is turned to the side, eyes shut, and he’s kissing Georgie’s jaw, who is smiling wide and winking at the camera. They dated for over a year, starting halfway through their time as students and abruptly ending in an amicable way. Friendship suited them much better. She was good for him. Still is. Maybe too good, but she’d kill him if he actually said that.

“That’s nice.” Martin’s voice is near a whisper, but sweet and soft.

Something like guilt stirs inside Jon. They never got to take any pictures together, really. It didn’t seem important at the time. He just assumed he’d never have to lose Martin, so what was the use in cataloguing their time together? They’d constantly be making new memories. Due to this, his mind allowed him to slowly forget Martin’s face, just a little. Seeing him in such blinding clarity now only makes that more obvious.

"You remember this?" Georgie tilts her phone to show Jon, cutting through his somber train of thought. He turns his attention to the screen.

It's him outside the Bodleian Library. They'd spent most of their day there, both of them taking down stacks of books to read through for assignments, fuelled only by coffee (Jon) and redbull (Georgie). One would shove the other awake if they caught them falling asleep, and vice versa. It was stressful, but nice. Just quietly existing with his friend. When they finally put down their pens, Georgie suggested a walk. Spring was coming in full force, and it was an unusually hot one. The warm, muggy air hit their faces as soon as they stepped outside, and while Georgie fussed with her backpack, Jon paced back and forth along the cobblestone, occasionally stopping to trace the shapes of them with the tips of his boots. The sky was cast in an orange-red glow, the sun close to setting for the day. Though he was bone tired, the exhaustion making him ache, he felt at peace for once. He let his eyes fall shut and tilted his head to face upwards. His hair slipped from around his shoulders to his back, tickling his neck and creeping under the collar of his shirt. The warmth of the fading sun caressed his cheeks, and he allowed himself to enjoy the moment.

That must've been when Georgie chose to get a picture, because his eyes are completely shut in it. His whole body is dripping in orange light - it looks as if the sun itself is being projected from his fingertips. His lips are parted just a little, as if he's sighing, but not in the exasperated way he usually does these days. He's relaxed, not hunched over or too ramrod straight. Worry lines hadn't even thought about appearing on his face yet, but he'd already started going grey, the flecks of silver manoeuvring easily through the dark brown. He looks...nice? Yes. Nice.

"I think that's the only picture of myself I don't completely hate," he murmurs.

She angles the phone towards Martin. “Doesn’t he look gorgeous?” It’s teasing, just something to make them both flustered.

Martin is bright red in the face and fiddling with his empty glass. “Um. Yes. He does. It’s a good picture.”

Georgie grins. Jon stands up so abruptly the pair look up at him with surprise.

“I’ll get us more drinks,” he blurts out, wanting to press his hands to his cheeks to dispel the warmth radiating from them. “We need- yes. Drinks. Bye.”

Georgie decides to stop with the pictures, knowing Jon’s limits, and he’s grateful. He uses his time at the bar to compose himself. It’s annoying, getting so flustered at a kind, throwaway comment. He’s not even drunk, for crying out loud.

It’s made worse when he sits back down and Martin leans over, looking a little apologetic, a little wistful.

“I wish I knew you back then,” he says into Jon’s ear, and Jon feels hot all over again. His shirt is suddenly far too restrictive for his chest.

He barely manages to push out his reply, a solemn “Me too,” followed by him very purposefully avoiding Martin’s gaze.

It’s okay to mourn for the time they lost, even if it was partly caused by him. He allows himself to feel sad, to grieve a little. To wonder what they could have been.

The mood is lightened by Georgie’s enthusiastic plugging of her podcast - Jon looks on, amused, as she descends on a confused Martin.

“It’s called What the Ghost, have you heard of it? We recently hit 1,000 followers on twitter, actually! Big milestone. We have a few sponsors now, too, even though they’re- yeah. I’m proud of it, but some people say it’s ‘gimmicky.’” She glares at Jon.

“I said that once. One year ago.”

“And I still haven’t recovered.”

He snorts at her dramatics. At the time, it was actually a big deal, considering Georgie was trying her best to get the podcast off the ground. His snarky comments weren’t helpful. Now she seems to be doing relatively well for herself, though, it’s forgotten about. Nearly. She brings it up now and then for leverage.

“I’ve actually been interested in that stuff recently, probably because of my job at the Institute,” Martin admits. “It freaks me out, but I kinda can’t get enough of it? I don’t know.”

“A new fan!” Georgie cheers. “You can have a free t-shirt.”

Jon is pretty sure he has about five of the t-shirts in his wardrobe somewhere.

“I’ve always wanted to do podcasts, too, but I don’t think I have the kind of voice that anyone would want to listen to.”

“You have a lovely voice,” Jon interrupts. Because he’s an idiot, and his body can’t handle alcohol, but also because he’s right. Martin’s voice is nice.

Martin looks at him quizzically due to the outburst, but his mouth is twisted up in a smile. “Thanks, Jon.”

Georgie jumps in to take Martin’s attention away from him, asking for his opinion on an upcoming episode. Jon leans back against the booth, letting their chat soothe him like a balm amongst the rowdy patrons and only adding a comment when either of them ask for it. Mostly, he just stares at Martin, because he’s lost the one bit of shame he possessed at the beginning of the night. He gets caught once or twice, but can’t bring himself to tear his gaze away or be embarrassed by the whole thing.

He likes how attentive Martin is when he’s listening to what Georgie has to say. His body language signals his genuine interest, and he makes little hmm ing noises when she says something particularly intriguing. He also likes the way his hands wrap around his pint glass, the long line of his throat when he tips his head back to drain the last of his lager. Occasionally he’ll move close to Jon to talk to him - the pub is getting louder with every hour - and when he does so Jon can smell his cologne, feel his hot breath against his neck. Once or twice he pretends to not hear a snippet of conversation so Martin will lean in even more, and they get so close it’s even more intoxicating than the alcohol.

Jon ruminates over Tim’s silly comment from before as he watches Martin stumble through a bad joke he’s told many times in the office. Lovesick puppy. Interesting. He’s certainly been happy to be around Martin again, and hasn’t tried to hide that. He’s not ashamed to say he enjoys his company. But he would never attach such a title to himself. He’s had- thoughts, yes, sometimes. About Martin’s looks, the way he feels when he’s around him. Love is too strong a word, though, surely. That was something he felt for him a long time ago, when he was a person he wouldn’t recognise as himself today. He’s become a little more hardened, cynical. It’s not pleasing to admit. Not that he doesn’t have the capacity to love, anymore. He does. He loves Georgie, he loves the Admiral. Martin paired with the alcohol is making him feel a little dizzy. A bit more sentimental than usual. It’s just conjuring up lingering feelings from the past, that’s all.

The duo in front of him break him out of his rumination by sitting up and stretching exaggeratedly, Georgie mentioning something about a taxi and Martin saying he wants to get back to the archives before it turns midnight. Jon gets up clumsily, following, feeling that quiet, bittersweet thing that arrives at the end of a good night. Before he knows it the abrasive, fresh air is hitting him in the face, and they’re saying their goodbyes.

“I guess I’ll be going this way.” Martin points in the opposite direction to the taxi rank, towards the Institute. He’s shrinking inside of his coat to hide from the cold, and Jon absently thinks that he should buy him a scarf. “I’ll see you Monday?”

He wants to ask him to come home. It’s so late, and he’s probably walking the whole way to save money, when it would just be easier for him to take Jon’s sofa. But even with the alcohol muddling his brain a bit, he knows it’s a rash decision that’ll be followed by an awkward morning after. Instead, he nods. “You will. Goodnight, Martin.”

“Goodnight, Martin!” Georgie chirps. “It was nice seeing you!”

Martin’s smile is clumsy and earnest. His cheeks are ruddied from the cold already. Jon wants to wrap him up tight in blankets. “You too.”

He watches Martin's retreating frame for as long as possible until Georgie has to pull him towards the long row of cabs waiting for them, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. They get into the first one that’s available, Georgie giving the driver both of their addresses and leaning back into the leather seats as they set off, sighing.

Jon rests his head against the car window, the coolness of it seeping through his hair to his scalp. The roads are uneven, so his body jerks with the rhythm of the bumps in the tarmac.

He should’ve walked Martin back, regardless. To make sure he was safe. Like a friend would.

However, a little part of him is afraid that his loose tongue will be the death of him tonight. That he’ll spill all of the little secrets he’s been discovering over their time together, a simple few hours in the pub making him even more confused than before. He wants friendship with Martin, of course he does. Friendship was the goal. What if Tim is right, though? Just because old feelings are resurfacing, it doesn’t mean they can’t still be authentic.

Maybe he does-

Maybe he is-

Jon puts his head between his legs, sighing. He feels a weight on his back, most likely Georgie’s hand.

“Georgie,” he groans, prolonged and frustrated.

“Hm?” She’s rubbing slow circles into his skin. She probably thinks he’s going to throw up.

“I’m still in love with him.”

The motion on his back stops. Georgie lets out a little laugh.

“Yeah. Yeah, you are.”

Chapter 8: oh klahoma

Chapter Text

Denial is a very impressive, powerful thing.

It’s carried Jon through a lot of his life - all the way up to the present day. So, up to a point, he can convince himself he’s fine.

No, really, he’s fine!

It isn’t like he’s just realised he’s still in love with his friend, his co-worker, his ex (who he hurt, very badly).

It isn’t like he can’t stop thinking about him - which is an inconvenience, perhaps even a major hindrance in his everyday life.

Except that it is, and denial can only get him so far before he feels like exploding. It’s awful, and it’s not fine, and he wants it all to go away.

Unfortunately, though he wishes otherwise, he recalls the night out perfectly, given the alcohol had little effect on him. He forces himself to act natural, as if he didn’t have an epiphany in a f*cking wetherspoons about Martin, who is around him all the time. It’s hard to do, considering he’s now hyper aware of his every action, and how much his day orients around Martin. Can he see how much he looks at him? Does he look for too long? Should he just avoid eye contact completely?

He tries, he really does. Unfortunately, Martin understands him, even after all this time, picks up on Jon’s nervous quirks. A few times, he’s tried to put a bit of distance between them - though he was reluctant - and Martin looked so devastated, so worried, he stopped almost immediately. It’s not like he wants to cause Martin any more pain, he’s just terrified of what will happen if he ever finds out. He doesn’t believe he has the right to love Martin, that he’ll be disgusted if Jon’s feelings come to light. How could he have the nerve, the audacity, to fall in love with him all over again after what happened between them? The shame runs deep, and he has to stop himself every time he spends too long admiring Martin’s smile, leans in too close when he tells a story, or laughs too hard when he makes a joke.

After everything he’s been through, he doesn’t need to deal with Jon’s emotional baggage on top of that. He’s done enough. He’ll just keep all of his feelings locked away until they destroy him from the inside out, because it’s the safer option for everyone involved. Or the one Jon is most used to, at least.

And Tim- oh, Tim. Jon wants to hurt him, so much. He winks at Jon when he’s in deep conversation with Martin, even when he’s just standing near him, and it makes him see red.

“You may not like hearing this, but we’re friends,” Tim said to him one afternoon. “I know you, Jonathan Sims. You can’t hide anything from me!”

Jon locked himself in his office for the rest of the day.

Hours consisting of little worm interference and standard research leads Jon to storage, where he finds an unmarked file containing a statement. 0142302.

He opens it to find the paper stained with...something. Slime, grease, perhaps? The handwriting is shaky, the ink smudged. To his excitement (and horror), the author reveals herself to be Jane Prentiss. Finally. He nearly drops the thing in his haste to get his tape recorder.

The excitement dulls upon his first read. He’s drawn in like never before, the fitful, warped poetry of Jane's words falling from his mouth like a kind of performance. A ritualistic declaration of insanity. When he finally completes the reading he’s exhausted, finding that he’s gripping the paper so hard it’s nearly torn in his hold.

He’s sweating. Is he sweating? Or is he crying? He’s definitely shaking. He certainly needs to lie down. He takes the statement with him, not knowing why - he can’t bring himself to let go.

He sits down on the cot and stares at it. Not to read it again, he doesn’t think he has the strength. His eyes simply pass over the desperate, rushed script, near incomprehensible, the imprints on the paper that signals Jane's descent into infestation, madness, is indeed tangible. He looks until his eyes cross and are stinging with the effort of staying open. Through the pounding of his head and the ringing of his ears, he can hear two distinct voices murmuring outside - it’s Martin who comes through the door, muttering something about a statement number as Sasha walks away. Because of course, it’s always Martin who walks in when he’s at his worst.

“Oh, Jon! I thought you were in your office. You alright?”

Jon simply sighs and holds out the document, weary, and Martin takes it cautiously. The room is plunged into silence as he reads, and though it only takes a short time for Martin to close the file, he assumes he’s got the gist. He sits next to Jon and exhales slowly.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

The statement hangs limply in Martin’s hand. "She just wanted to be loved,” he says softly, sadly.

Jon scoffs. "That is not love. Allowing yourself to be destroyed from the inside out doesn't even come close."

Martin makes a noise of frustration, a low growl, as if he’s angered by Jon’s lack of understanding. "I’m not saying it's a good love, or a right love. But I think I get it.”

He turns to look at Martin in horror. The fact that he can understand this, relate to it, doesn’t sit well with him.

"I don’t want to be taken over by worms!” Martin blurts out, defensive. He sighs. “It's just that...when you're so lonely, well. Any kind of attention can feel like love. Even if it kills you."

Jon aches. Did I do that? he wants to ask. Did I blur the line between love and destruction for you?

He doesn’t ask.

“Well,” he ventures carefully. “She didn’t kill herself. Not yet. She did, however, kill seven others, perhaps more, in her quest for...whatever she wanted. And I don’t think you of all people would do that.”

He doesn’t like that look on Martin’s face, the deep sadness and empathy. He has to know he’s not like her. He carefully takes the paper from his grasp and puts it on the floor by his own feet, away from both of their gazes. It seems to take Martin out of his train of thought a bit.

“I guess so. Sorry.”

Jon shakes his head, dismissing the apology, and immediately hates himself for it. His fingertips go straight to his throbbing temples, and he grimaces.

“Jon?”

“Yes, uh- sorry. I actually came in here to use the cot. I know it’s...yours, for now, but my head hurts quite a bit.”

“Oh, okay! That’s fine! I’m sure we can survive without you for a few hours.” Martin stands up, giving Jon room, and he instinctively moves into the warm spot he left behind. He swings his legs up onto the cot, pulling the blanket over them and allowing himself to settle.

“I actually have some files on the desk I meant to give Tim,” Jon mumbles, his head making contact with the pillows. “Would you mind handing them over?”

“Sure.”

He fusses with the pillows a bit. They smell like Martin - generic supermarket brand shampoo with a bit of pine scented shower gel. He subtly presses his nose against them, inhaling the mixture of scents. When he pulls the blanket up to his chin, that smells like him, too. He sighs with satisfaction.

“Don’t hesitate...to wake me up...if you need me,” he slurs, the world around him already becoming hazy.

“We’ll be fine, Jon. But okay.”

He’s almost sure Martin is out of the door, but in his sleep-addled state, he murmurs:

"Martin. You're not like Jane. Never have been.” His eyes are finally closing completely, and all he sees is black. "You're loved without...without consequences. Need you to know that.”

Unconsciousness takes him, and if he does get a reply, he doesn’t hear it.

Sleep does nothing to soothe his headache. If anything, it makes it worse. He powers through the rest of the day, taking Jane’s file from the floor and putting it away like he would any other statement. When he finally succumbs to sleep again later on in his chair, cardigan bunched up behind his head, he awakes in the early hours of the morning to a glass of water and some painkillers on his desk. He knocks back the pills, sips the water, and determinedly does not think about who definitely left them there for him.

The archives have very little connection to the building, given that they’re in the basem*nt. They receive most of their correspondence through emails (supposedly from Elias, but they’re very clearly from Rosie). They’re rare, because the Institute is a rather boring place to work.

If you ignore the worm infestation and general spookiness.

This morning, though, when Jon is having a cursory glance through his inbox, he stops at an email from Elias with an unfamiliar subject line. Intrigued, he clicks on it.

Dear all,

No. No, no, no. No, no, no, no, no.

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes!" Tim cheers from the other room. Jon groans, waiting for him to burst in.

And burst in he does, arms raised in triumph.

"Did you get the email?" He's practically bouncing up and down, grinning from ear to ear.

"I did.” He glares at his computer screen.

"This is going to be great."

Sasha walks over, intrigued, and Jon sighs. “Yes, everyone, please congregate in my office.”

"What’s going to be great?" Martin then decides to join them, peering round the doorway and looking into the now crowded room.

Tim holds his phone in front of Martin's face, so close that Martin has to rear back and squint. The email is presumably displayed on it. "Elias has arranged a party for next week."

“A gala,” Jon corrects.

“Nah, a party.”

Martin looks a little confused and wary. “What does that mean for us?”

"It means," Sasha chimes in, a stack of books in her grip, "that we're Jon's arm candy for the night."

Jon grits his teeth. He can already feel another headache coming on. “It doesn’t mean-”

"Basically!” Tim interrupts. “Now that Gertrude's popped her clogs, the vultures who keep this place running are gonna want to see who replaced her. I mean, they weren’t exactly in love with her or anything, they’re just a bunch of nosy bastards. Jon is Elias' prized pig for a few hours."

"When we were just lowly researchers he didn't really care much if we attended or not, but now Jon is Head Archivist and we’re his assistants…”

The more they speak, the closer Jon is getting to losing his mind. Tim pats his back sympathetically as he rests his head in his hands.

“Wait, don’t you give employee awards out and stuff at a gala?”

“Nah, not here. I told you, it's just a party - a way to keep the patrons pleased so they're not worried they're wasting all of the money they earned from mining, like, blood diamonds or something.”

Sasha snorts. “Really, though, these families have been donating for centuries. It really is just an excuse for alcohol and food. So enjoy it!”

“I don’t think Jon is going to enjoy it. He looks kind of...sick?”

That seems rather accurate, to be fair to Martin. He’s sure if he were a cartoon character, he’d be turning bright green by now. Tim crouches down by Jon’s chair so he’s eye level and gives him another pat on the back, his expression genuinely apologetic.

“It'll be okay! Elias will just drag you about for a while - smile, look pretty and we’ll save you some of those nice mini quiches.”

Jon’s head migrates from being in his hands to the cool wood of the desk. He lets out a gargled, indecipherable complaint that even he can’t make out.

“Martin, if you don't want to go, you don't have to! I know it's kind of weird and isn't in the job description, two out of three assistants will be fine,” Sasha offers.

Jon stops and looks up again, eyes bleary. He wants Martin to be there very badly. For support, if nothing else. Also because he just has a need for him to be around him at all times. But mostly for support. He makes an expression that’s as close to pleading that he’s ever gotten, his chin resting in his palm and his head tilted upwards.

“You’ll come, won’t you?” He asks.

Martin’s mouth moves wordlessly, and before he can answer Tim wraps an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close and squeezing.

“Course he will! He’s not gonna leave his boy out in the cold!”

Martin sputters and wriggles away from Tim’s grip, face turning bright red. He directs his gaze to Jon, his smile gentle. “Yeah, I’ll come. It’s not like I can beg off and say I was stuck in traffic, anyway,” he laughs nervously, gesturing backwards to the storage room. “I don’t know what I’ll wear, though.”

“A suit will be fine.”

“I haven’t worn one in years. I don’t even think I own a suit.”

“Well, you have a week to figure it out!” Sasha says cheerily, already on her way out of the room. Martin follows her, and it’s only Tim left, smiling down at him, leaning against the desk.

“What do you want,” Jon says, flat.

“Oh, nothing,” Tim fiddles with the plant on Jon’s desk nonchalantly. “Just wondering if you need any advice on which colour palette suits your skin tone, you know, to impress-”

Jon grabs the nearest thing to him (some balled up post-it notes) and launches them at him, causing paper to hit him square in the face. “Out.”

Tim bursts into laughter, unfazed, raising his hands up in surrender and sauntering out of the office. He turns on his heel and grins, taking a few steps backwards.

“I think purple would be good!”

Jon slams the door. He leans against it, sighing.

A suit, okay. He can do that. Not a big deal. Martin in a suit? Also not a big deal. He saw him in a blazer and tie constantly for five years, for God’s sake. On top of that, it’s just an outfit, and he’s a grown man with a semi-respectable grip on his emotions.

It’s one night.

Nothing to worry about.

Jon owns two suits, and he’s worn both of them once. A black one, which he bought for his grandmother’s funeral, and a burgundy one, which Georgie forced him to buy when she brought him along to a networking event. That seems like the better option, since he’d rather not go into this thinking of a silent church and wet soil beneath his feet.

He wouldn’t ever call himself a vain person, but he does make sure his tie is knotted correctly and his hair is somewhat presentable. His general lack of care for his appearance is going to be more apparent tonight if he doesn't at least attempt something. He takes the brush and hair tie which lay on his bedside table and schools his hair into a neat bun on top of his head, then strategically pulls out some strands to frame his face. They descend down his cheeks in waves, curling and stopping just below his chin. Thankfully, the suit still fits well, and he finishes the look off with a pale pink tie. His hands move automatically to knot it, years of making sure he looks neat for school paying off.

He looks in the mirror and tries to smile. It comes out more like a grimace. There’s no hiding the bags under his eyes, unfortunately. Oh, well. That’ll have to do.

There’s a few minutes of fussing with his shoes and prolonging the search for his keys until he forces himself out of the door, finding his way to the Institute and feeling mildly uncomfortable the whole way there.

The doors to the building are flung wide open, bright yellow lights from inside illuminating the steps warmly. There are a few people chattering outside, champagne glasses in one hand, cigarettes in the other, their heads flung back in laughter. They are considerably more dressed up than he is, though he feels ostentatious enough - their shoes are more expensive, they’re adorned with jewellery, their suits tailored to perfection. None of them pay him any mind as he weaves through their little groups and enters the foyer.

It’s beautifully lit, and appears much more welcoming than usual, the usually desolate halls filled with people, candles placed strategically around, the chandelier swinging proudly above him. Elegant classical music is playing from some hidden speaker, floating about and travelling from the high ceilings to the polished wooden floor. Above the music, there’s more laughter, the clinking of glasses and well-worn jokes being tossed back and forth. The foyer is the most populated area - however, to the left is a hall that is only really used for these kinds of events. It contains long tables covered with lace cloth around the edges, used to elegantly present the endless plates of food and champagne. A few tall tables have been placed in the middle, stray glasses and half full plates abandoned on some. A small amount of illumination is being provided on each one through tea lights.

To Jon’s dismay, Elias is the one he spots first (he’s easy to make out with his trademark light grey suit). He ducks behind some guest, thankful for his short stature for once, and manages to make out the outline of Tim, who is waving frantically from the hall. Ducking and muttering small apologies, Jon eventually stops in front of his friends.

Then all of his brain activity ceases to exist, because Martin is right in front of him, appearing just as uncomfortable as he feels. Why he does is beyond Jon, because he looks amazing. His suit is a deep forest green, a matching tie bold against the white of his shirt. Red curls of his hair are perfectly tamed, though the tell-tale sign of an overdue trip to the barbershop is shown through the way some strands wrap behind his ears and trail down his neck.

“Jon,” he says faintly, his eyes wide. His own gaze seems to be moving over Jon’s frame, flickering across his shoulders and to his chest, then back up to his face. He smiles.

“Martin, you…” he pauses. “Your tie.”

Martin blinks. “Excuse me?”

“Your tie, it’s crooked. May I?” Jon's hands are hovering cautiously near Martin’s collar.

"Oh, sure."

Jon gets on the tips of his toes for better leverage. He takes the base of the tie with his right hand and the knot with his left and pulls carefully, tightening it so it settles better around his neck. Ever since school, he’s never been able to do it properly. No matter how many times Jon tried to teach him.

"There," he says softly. His hands come to rest on either side of Martin's chest as he absentmindedly smoothes out the small creases in his shirt. He must've bought the thing and put it on straight out of the packet, going by the lines across the sleeves and neck. Jon tilts his head up to look at him directly. "Perfect."

"Um," Martin squeaks. His face is bright red. "Yeah. Thank you." His eyes are still wide - with surprise, or something else, he isn’t really sure.

Jon's thumbs make small, circular motions against the material, something that could pass for still adjusting the clothing. When he presses down a bit, he can make out a little shiver beneath his hands, and his breath catches. Martin makes an aborted attempt to clear his throat that comes out as a weird grunt. Jon smiles. He's still on the tips of his toes and his calves are aching with the strain, but the way Martin is looking at him means he can't bring himself to drop down to his regular height. Is that- did his eyes just go to Jon's mouth-?

Tim coughs loudly. "Hi! We exist."

Jon falls back, jumping in surprise, his hands leaving Martin's chest hastily. Tim is smiling at them, the little sh*t.

"Yes, ah. Hello, both of you."

"Hi!"

"You look beautiful, Sasha."

She really does. Her hair is put up in bantu knots rather than twisted up in a bun or left to fall naturally like when she's in the office, her skin dusted with gold highlighter and glitter. It's strategically placed on her cheekbones and clavicle, making her glow with the lights above. She's traded her usual large, round glasses for contacts. A dark red dress leaves her shoulders bare, straps falling naturally to the sides, the material pulling in tight at the waist then flaring out dramatically. It stops just after her knee and the skirt bunches and rustles as she moves. With her three inch black heels, she comes up to Tim’s shoulders. Various gold rings adorn her fingers on a hand wrapped around a champagne glass. She beams at Jon. "Thanks!”

"And I look…?"

Jon sighs. Tim always looks good. Tim knows he always looks good. He gives him a once over anyway, exasperated.

The suit is a sleek combination of dark red and blue in a plaid pattern, accompanied by a red tie (close in colour to Sasha’s dress) and matching waistcoat. His almost black hair is styled to near perfection, sculpted to fall in an inky wave to the right side of his scalp. The whole ensemble wouldn’t be far out of place with the rest of the patrons. Jon recalls him saying that he attends a lot of weddings, so it isn’t surprising that he’s so used to formal wear.

"You look...great."

Tim snorts and rolls his eyes. "f*cking hell, mate, no need to sound so constipated."

Jon shrugs in return, uncaring. He notes that both he and Sasha are holding onto champagne glasses, but Martin isn’t. Jon doesn’t feel like touching alcohol tonight either, really.

Sasha turns to the growing crowd around them, humming as if deep in thought. She takes a long sip of her drink.

"Right, lads," she says, "how we feeling?"

"Fine," Martin shrugs.

"Fantastic," Tim grins.

"Terrible," Jon huffs. He was sure the suit fit fine before he left the flat, but now he feels like his collar is choking him. The more people flood in, the more anxious he gets.

“So who exactly are the patrons around here?” Martin asks, and Jon relaxes a bit. A safe question for him to focus on.

“We’re never really sure. They’re very elusive. The only ones we really know about are the Lukases, given Elias has a strange fixation on them.” He took great care not to make too many snarky comments in the notes of the latest statement including Peter Lukas. He didn’t seem all that interesting, anyway. Not much to go off when the man rarely spoke.

“We don't really care to ask, either.” Tim chimes in. “It's just rich dickhe*d after rich dickhe*d.”

Sasha raises her glass. “Hear, hear!”

Martin glances around the room, eyes darting between groups. “It’s much more...friendly now it's filled with people. It always seems so empty any other time. Freaks me out.”

Elias always does a good job when it comes to galas, he must say. He manages to put across the illusion of the Institute looking like a welcoming place to work, rather than a building steeped in academic scandal (and worms, and worm infested people, and mysterious deaths).

“Nah, still spooky. Do you think the ghost of Jerry Moonstone haunts this place?"

Sasha laughs so hard champagne comes out of her nose, and Tim turns to her, his face the picture of innocence.

"Sorry, did I say it wrong? I mean Jackson Mongoose. Oh, no, Josiah Magnum. Wait, Judah Mix and Match?" He taps his chin and looks to the sky, pretending to think on it.

"Shut up," Sasha wheezes, her hand smacking his chest, and her choked laughter causes Martin to crack up, the trio’s joy breaking through the monotonous conversations surrounding them. Jon looks at them, thoroughly unimpressed. He tries his best to hide the quivering of his mouth, the smile that is threatening to show.

“Ooh, Jon is gonna laugh, I can see it.”

“I am not,” he fires back, stubborn.

Tim steps closer until he’s facing Jon and they’re nearly nose to nose. “C’mon. Laugh. Just a little. It’s funny.”

Jon stares.

Tim waits.

Jon smiles a little, then a lot, and then he’s letting himself chuckle at their antics, laughter bubbling up in his chest and escaping his lips in waves. Their giggles cause a few groups to look over, surprised, and that only makes Tim even louder, his obnoxious, booming cackle piercing Jon’s ears. Sasha is leaning against Tim’s chest for support, tears forming in her eyes.

She then proceeds to let alcohol spill over the rim of her glass so it covers Tim’s waistcoat. “sh*t, I’m sorry,” she says, voice strangled, then bursts into fresh peals of laughter. Martin’s cheeks are red with the effort of trying to keep himself composed. It’s only when Elias’ sharp gaze makes its way through the masses of people that they stop, his disapproval making itself known. Tim hides his glee behind a raised arm, Jon turning to the side to school his expression into something professional.

Sasha swallows down the rest of her champagne, finally quieting down. “Whew. Okay.” She pretends to clink a fake spoon against her empty glass. “Question for the room?”

“By all means, Miss James, proceed.”

“Ritual sacrifice.” Her tone is so serious Jon almost starts laughing again. “I think it's plausible to say the Institute is not above doing it. Out of the four of us, who do you think it would be?”

“Interesting. Well, clearly not Martin.”

Martin looks at Tim, offended. “What?! Why?”

Then Jon actually laughs once more. “Why on earth are you upset? ”

“It would be nice to be considered, that’s all!”

“I’m sorry, Martin, it’s just that you’re fresh blood. You don’t have the forbidden knowledge required.”

“For this completely hypothetical sacrifice?”

“Exactly.”

Jon rolls his eyes.

“It couldn’t be Jon.” Sasha points out. Tim has handed her a fresh glass of champagne, which she uses to gesture to him. Some of it spills over the rim again, and Jon fears for the safety of his own clothing. “He’s the golden boy. So that leaves…”

“It’s clearly me.”

“Bullsh*t, Tim!” Sasha yells. She must have been drinking before the event if she’s being this loud. “Why would it be you?”

“Because Elias is jealous of me, obviously. We’re fighting for the position of office hottie.”

The three other archival employees screw up their faces in distaste.

“You think Elias is hot?” Martin sounds pained.

“I mean- in a greasy rat kind of way, yeah.”

Jon shudders. “Just for that, I’m on your side. You’re the sacrifice. Congratulations.”

Tim cheers and clinks his glass with Sasha’s, who is scowling.

The night continues in a similarly chaotic way, the four of them firing off ridiculous hypotheticals to each other until they’re arguing over the most mundane things, one of the group occasionally wandering off to bring back a plate piled with food. Jon did manage to have some of the mini quiches, and they are very nice. They’re in the middle of an awful debate concerning a kiss, marry, kill that includes many of the unsuspecting patrons in the room when Elias decides to descend on them, eyes aglow. His gaze goes to Jon first. He swallows nervously.

“Jon. Our patrons would be very pleased to see you and talk about your work,” he says smoothly, offering no greeting to the other three.

sh*t. Jon plasters on a professional smile and follows Elias as he turns his back, throwing a panicked look over his shoulder to his friends. Martin gives him a shaky thumbs up, Tim a big smile, and Sasha mouths a ‘Sorry.’

He’s led to a group of older men that he barely recognises, and whose names he doesn’t bother to learn when Elias introduces them all in turn. There’s a Lukas in there who doesn’t seem very keen to interact. On the whole, though, Tim is right, they are rather like vultures - in both appearance and attitude. They descend on him with questions, leaving him claustrophobic and overwhelmed.

Awful what happened to Gertrude, but you seem very capable. Have you been having any trouble with the position?

What methods are you using to ensure the Institute’s records are well kept?

Do you regularly come into contact with artefacts?

How closely do you work with other areas of the institute?

Who are your assistants?

How do they help?

I don’t know! Jon wants to scream. I don’t know because I don’t have a degree in Library Science, though I really should! I majored in History, for crying out loud! I took this job because it paid a little more per hour and I live in Central f*cking London! Also because I have a deep interest in the paranormal that I don’t want to admit to myself otherwise I’ll have a huge breakdown!

They stare at him with their beady, hungry eyes, anticipating his answers. He exhales slowly, shoulders tense, head throbbing, and opens his mouth. He gives them what they want rather than the truth, the replies that Elias would want him to provide. They’re doing well, they’re very successful, no worries at all, your money is safe. Time crawls on, a dreadful, monotonous slog, and Jon feels like he’s there for hours. Anyone but him would be perfect for this part of the job. He’s almost certain being a ‘people person’ was not a requirement, not stipulated anywhere in his contract, but here he is. Telling some crotchety old man about tape recorders, though he was certainly alive for their invention. Every time he goes to slip away, believing they’re satisfied, he’s dragged back in.

It’s only when there’s a flash in the corner of his eye that he’s saved.

“Oh, um, sorry, can I-” and Martin is at the edge of the small group, cutting through their incessant chatter. “Hello. Sorry. I need to speak with J- Mr Sims for a moment?”

They all turn to Martin at the exact same time, suspicious, and Jon shivers at the action. So strange.

Martin is staring steadfastly at Jon. “There’s an emergency downstairs. In the archives. We need you down there right away.”

He’s never felt more love for a person in his life than in this exact moment, because it’s clearly a lie, given how calm Martin is, but it’s an excuse. He leaps at the opportunity.

“Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Martin.” Jon is already walking away and towards peace, smiling apologetically. “So sorry, gentlemen, I have to check on this. Statements are very fragile, lots of issues with paper and what have you, you understand.” He doesn’t bother to see their responses and takes Martin by the forearm, practically dragging him out of the hall and away from the noise. The chaos of it all dulls as they move to an empty hallway near the library, populated only by them and a stray mop and bucket.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do.” Martin says breathlessly. “I just blurted out something.”

“God, no, it’s fine, you’re my hero.” At this moment, Jon doesn’t even think that’s hyperbole. His head is spinning with the confusion of it all, so he backs up against the nearest wall, using it for support. The music is much harder to hear in this spot, giving him room to actually think.

“Tim and Sasha offered to step into the lion’s den for a bit. We can probably only buy you ten minutes or so.”

“Better than I could’ve hoped. Thank you.”

Martin smiles, bashful, and Jon’s heart quickens. Even without the clear, blinding light from the hall and foyer, he still shines.

“So, um. What did you get up to while I was away?”

“Oh!” Martin perks up. “I was actually talking to Diana! I think I probably would've liked working in the library. Do you think it's too late to ask for a department change?” He laughs, but the joke falls a bit flat. Shadows flicker across their feet, guests milling about, probably hoping to get a glimpse of something paranormal in the quieter areas. They have no idea what really goes on around here.

“Would you have taken the job if you knew it came with...all this?” Jon gestures to their outfits, the whole building, in the general direction of the archives.

Martin seems a little taken aback by the question, the descent into earnestness. “Hm. Well. I would’ve taken anything when I was looking, to be honest. I just needed the money, and this was the best I could find.”

“But if you had a choice,” Jon presses.

“I guess I don’t exactly like the fact that my bedroom is temporarily in a basem*nt and I literally work from home. I don't like that there's a worm person out to hurt me.” He pauses, shoulders slumping, his smile from earlier dissipating. “So, no. If I knew from the start, I wouldn’t have.”

He’s actually a little disappointed by his answer. Even the thought of Martin not working here makes him feel down. But it makes sense, obviously. He’s just selfish.

“Would you have taken the job if you knew I worked here?” He continues - and that’s the real question, isn’t it?

Martin is quiet enough that Jon can hear the shuffling of people close by, plates being stacked on top of one another and men guffawing. He’s looking down at his shoes, tapping out a nervous rhythm. Jon holds his breath.

“I don't know,” he says finally. “But I don't regret taking it. I mean, I do when it comes to Prentiss, or Sasha getting hurt. I don't regret seeing you again, though. I’m glad I'm here. With you. Now. When things seem alright.” He wets his lips and lets out a shaky exhale. “It would just be nice to pretend for a night that nothing bad is happening. Like we’re just normal employees, at a normal place, with normal problems. You know?”

Jon nods in complete understanding. He just wants to be absolved of all of these issues, for all of them to not have to shoulder such a heavy burden.

“We can pretend,” he near whispers. “For a while.”

Then Martin is smiling again, tentative, kind, and Jon’s lips curl upwards in tandem.

Right on cue, the peace is interrupted. Two shadows seem to be approaching, with one nasal voice droning on about how he’d love to talk to Mr Sims about blah blah f*cking blah. Jon groans.

“Ready to go back out there?”

“Ugh. I suppose.” He pries his protesting body from its safe space on the wall, forcing himself to stand up straight once more. They round the corner to move towards the voices, revealing themselves just slightly to the crowd, but they’re still mostly shrouded in shadows and the angles of walls. Martin is fussing with the buttons on his shirt, which gives Jon pause.

“Your tie. It’s messed up again.”

“Hm? Oh.” Martin glances down at it. The knot is loose and skewed to the side. “I guess it is. It’s kind of hot, I must’ve loosened it to get some air.”

Jon hums, gesturing for Martin to take his hands away from his shirt so he can fix it. They gravitate towards the wall, Martin’s back pressed up against it.

“If I didn’t know any better,” Jon teases, his hands slowly travelling up to Martin’s collar, “I’d say you were doing this on purpose.” His fingertips dance across the green lapels, one hand resting at the end of the tie, pulling it to the center. The material is delicate and cold against his skin.

He’s flirting. A bit. As much as he dares to, at least. They’re being normal people for tonight, right? He can pretend he's a normal man, in normal love with his normal friend. His index finger skirts the border of the stark white shirt and comes to the knot. He hooks it through the gap and tugs downwards a fraction.

“Why would I do that?” Martin says, voice low, a little tremor running through his words. His breaths are coming fast, and Jon can see the rise and fall of his chest quickening beneath his palm.

Jon shrugs. “You tell me.”

The hand at the base of his tie meets the other to bring the knot flush with the collar, finally, but Jon pauses before he can do it. When his gaze meets Martin’s own, he can see that his pupils are blown wide, pitch black overtaking stormy blue, and there’s a moment where his tongue pokes out to brush his lower lip. Jon mirrors the motion, hypnotised by the rhythm of Martin’s heart so close to him. He’s unconsciously taken a tiny step forward - it’s enough for their bodies to be almost pressed up against each other completely. He releases his grip on the tie, allowing one hand to leave a trail along the opening of Martin’s shirt before they both fall down to his sides.

He’s sure, he’s sure Martin is leaning in this time, that he’s moving to press their mouths together. He’s not blind. There’s a ghost of a hand on his waist, his jacket being brushed aside so a warm palm can make contact with his shirt. Jon’s eyelids flutter shut, and his last thought before he grabs a fistful of Martin’s lapel is f*ck, I hope I don’t taste like cigarettes.

“Oh, Elias, I didn't take you for a man who allowed office romances?”

Jon pushes Martin away so fast it could be classed as superhuman, and when he rights himself he’s staring at a smug older man he met previously, and Elias beside him. His expression gives nothing away. He looks bored, actually.

“Jon.” Again, zero indication of how he feels in his voice. That makes Jon a little more concerned. “Mr Strickland is keen to hear more of your thoughts on how to handle the threat that comes with digital storage.”

Jon nods, hurriedly straightening his collar and running a hand through his hair (which only makes it worse). “Of course, yes, I apologise. Lead the way.”

The scene eerily parallels the one from earlier in the night, him being carted away from where he really wants to be. When he turns back, just for a second, he catches Martin with his fingers lightly touching his lower lip, looking dazed. His tie is still messed up, his jacket creased (from where Jon held onto it, so tightly). He shakes his hand a bit, trying to dispel the sensation of the moment.

Then he’s enveloped back into the throng of the mindless upper class for an hour or so, this time being watched carefully by Elias. When he finally returns to the group, the gala has died down, the table of food dwindling and guests slowly leaving. Tim claps him on his back rather forcefully when he approaches. He smells very strongly of champagne.

“Jon! Me and Sasha are gonna go to the pub, you coming?”

He shakes his head, grimacing.

“Martin! Pub?”

Martin does the same, and Tim sighs dramatically. “Fine.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jon says pointedly, raising an eyebrow at the couple.

“We won’t get too drunk, boss, we promise!” Sasha chirps. Tim winds an arm around her slim waist, and they head for the exit. There’s already a little wobble in both of their steps.

The hall is empty, now, aside from a few strays - and Martin, who is looking at him expectantly.

“What now?”

“Hm. If we were normal people on a normal night out - which we are - I would walk you home. As repayment for you walking me home, of course.”

Martin’s eyes sparkle with amusem*nt. “Alright.”

They leave the dregs of the guests behind and go for the lift, the musty archives a welcome sight. He actually enjoys the awful groaning of the mechanisms that bring them down to the basem*nt.

The storage room is still illuminated by that familiar, sickly yellow, and a few of Martin’s belongings are strewn about. A hairbrush, some gel, plastic wrapping for a white shirt (bought a few hours ago and put on immediately after, like he suspected). Jon stops himself at the door frame, wrapping a hand around the cold metal handle.

“From one normal co-worker to another,” he says hesitantly, “you looked very good tonight. I forgot to mention that earlier.”

He still does, even though he’s a bit sweaty from the strong lights, and his shirt is rumpled. Martin stops his task of wrestling the dress shoes off his feet, and proceeds to go beet red.

“Oh. Um. I kind of panicked and bought the first thing I saw? I don’t even think I like green on me. But thank you. You too. You looked very good, I mean. sh*t.”

Jon bites down hard on his lip. “Thank you.” The conversation is reaching a natural end, though he desperately doesn’t want it to. “Goodnight, I suppose.”

“Night. Oh, and sorry about what that guy said.”

His brow furrows. “What guy?”

“When we were in the hallway. The guy brought up the whole office romance thing. That was kind of weird, right? Could you imagine?”

“Oh, yes. Very weird.” Jon feels hot all over, but a sickly hot, his skin prickling with it. He’d like this conversation to end, actually. Right now. He’s changed his mind. “I should be going.”

He pushes the door open with more force than is necessary, and all of a sudden he’s in the lift again, loosening his tie and practically tearing his jacket off in his haste to get rid of that crawling sensation on his skin. The cogs and pulleys clunk and scream, and the floor feels sticky beneath his feet. On his way out of the Institute he snatches a stray glass of champagne from a table, downing it in one gulp and clumsily swiping the excess from around his mouth. The last few guests give him wary looks.

Has he made an idiot of himself, again? Imagined affection and reciprocation where it didn’t exist?

He just wants to go home. He doesn't want this love, heavy and overbearing, all consuming and addictive. It hurts too much. Living in oblivion was much more comfortable.

Maybe he should’ve taken Tim and Sasha up on that drink.

Chapter 9: no plan

Chapter Text

The mug slams against the desk with great force, the contact of ceramic against wood causing an awful, abrasive noise.

“Ow!” Tim yelps, hand flying to his forehead. “Be gentle.”

Jon looks down at him, a sickly sweet (and fake) smile plastered on his face. “Sorry. I wanted to be a nice friend and bring you something to wake you up. I take it you had a good night?”

Tim warily takes the mug and knocks back some of the strong, black coffee before gently settling back on the desk. “We did have a good night, thank you. Did you have a good night being all boring and sober, probably staying up late doing paperwork?”

None of that sentence rings true of the night before. First of all, he hates doing paperwork. Avoids it like the plague. There’s a large stack of forms he should’ve filled out when he first took the Head Archivist position that still lay abandoned somewhere in his office. Out of sight, out of mind. Second of all, what came after the gala was certainly not good. He grimaces, and Tim doesn’t seem to miss it. Before he can open his mouth to question him, there’s a yelp coming from the direction of the break room.

“Fire extinguisher, please!” Sasha yells, sounding more inconvenienced than scared. Jon takes pity on Tim in his hungover state and heads towards the noise, grabbing a canister from near the door on the way.

He finds Sasha in an offensive position in the back of the room, plastic fork assumedly being used for her lunch raised as some kind of weapon and one foot in the air, poised to strike. Relief floods her expression when he comes into her line of sight, CO2 erupting in a spray from the canister and banishing the eager worms from this plane of existence. They shrivel and twitch before laying limp. Sasha relaxes and pokes at one of them with her shoe. The now empty fire extinguisher is placed on the floor with an inelegant clang, and Jon pulls out a chair to sit, sighing.

“Thanks!”

Jon gives her a weary nod in response. Sasha takes her tub of salad from the table and twirls her fork idly, piercing a tomato then chewing slowly.

“There’s more of them by the day,” she observes.

“There certainly is.”

Sasha hms and pulls out the chair opposite Jon, looking thoughtful. She taps out a rhythm on the table top. Her head tilts to the side, and Jon feels like he’s being scrutinised for some reason.

“Something’s bothering you.”

“Yes.” He doesn’t elaborate.

She looks pleased by her small victory, leaning back in the chair and putting another forkful of the salad in her mouth. “Want to talk about it?”

Jon shrugs. “Not particularly.”

Sasha sighs and begins to box up her food, chair scraping backwards against the scuffed wood. He expected a little more pushing, to be honest. He’s almost disappointed. There’s a formula to the way she meticulously seals the near empty tub, how she pushes down the two seals at the sides in tandem rather than one at a time. The small heels of her shoes click on the floor as she exists, and Jon turns around hurriedly.

“Um.” He pauses, and she turns. “Could I- would it be alright if I...asked you for some advice?”

She immediately brightens, satisfied, as if she were waiting for him to ask. The seat vacated seconds before is occupied by her again, and she leans forward, eager. “Of course! Though I will warn you, Tim is probably better at this stuff. I’m more of a...rational problem solver rather than a romance expert. Also, I put salt in my coffee rather than sugar twice this morning, if that gives you a look into my mental state.”

Jon avoids the obvious prompt concerning romance. "Forgive me, but it always seemed to me like you were the most put together of us all."

Sasha throws her head back and laughs. "God, no! I'm just as much of a mess as you lot. I just hide it a bit better."

“I suppose anyone who can actually work a computer must seem competent to us,” he muses.

“Exactly. So, what’s going on?”

Jon’s right leg is bouncing up and down rapidly, the cheap chair squeaking under the stressed movement. He wets his dry lips anxiously. “You and Tim are...involved?”

“Will I get written up if I say yes?”

“No.”

“Cool. Then, yes.”

He takes a deep breath. “I- hm. Alright. So. Did you know he felt the same? How...how did you deal with the idea of rejection? Because I think I've been rejected...by Martin. But I was so sure he was interested. For a second. Now I feel- I don't know! Should I stop pushing it? Should I just accept it? Or tell him? Maybe? But what if he hates me, I- I just want it to go away somehow.”

“Okay, first of all, that was about ten questions at once.”

Jon winces. “Sorry.”

She rests her chin in her palm and thinks for a while, the quiet making him rather anxious. When she finally speaks, he jumps in place a little.

“We haven’t been in the same situation. At all. But I could tell you a bit about what I went through, I guess?”

“That’d be good. If it’s alright with you.”

"I guess you could say I’m more with Martin than you on this one. With Tim, at first, it was…" she sighs and fiddles with the strap of her watch a bit. "He loves very easily. Every other month I'd hear about some date that he was sure was the one, then there'd be someone else not long after. Which was fine! It- It was sweet. Kind of why I liked him so much, actually. But I didn't want to be one of them. So I told him I wanted to think about it, and he let me be for a while. And I was scared, Jon. Actually scared. Which is so daft, right? It's Tim. He wouldn't be mad if I said no, we'd just go back to how we were and that'd be that. When I realised that, after ages of going back and forth, it seemed a lot more simple. We're friends first. He'd always be my friend. I could never lose that. So what was the harm in trying?"

Jon’s brow furrows. “So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Martin is your friend more than anything else. I think we all know that. He won’t hate you for feeling...whatever it is you feel. Do you really think he’d be angry at you? Be honest.”

The floor is suddenly very interesting.

“No,” he admits. “Just a bit, uh. Anxious about the whole thing, I suppose. Easier to imagine something bad will happen so I can stop myself from doing anything about it.”

Sasha nods in understanding, expression sympathetic. “It’ll be alright, Jon.”

“Theoretically, yes. But it’s hard.” His tone is bordering on whining.

She shrugs in a what do you want me to do about it? kind of way, and his shoulders sink.

“Right. Thank you, Sasha.”

“No problem!” She’s leaving the break room again in a flash, her footsteps receding, and after a few seconds he hears an “Oh, hi, Martin!” as well as a familiar voice humming a little tune. He freezes.

“Slacking off again?” He’s warm, teasing. Jon is embarrassed by how much his body reacts, his breath quickening and a small smile already beginning to show. He's beginning to believe his heart isn't just an organ but is instead a vessel for a never ending declaration of affection, two thumps equal to one love you even when he’s just alone in a room with this man.

“Always. You know me,” he jokes. “Can’t wait to leave at the end of the day.”

Martin lets out a chuckle and comes into Jon’s line of sight, stopping at the sink and turning on the tap. He continues the song he was humming, rinsing the mug he brought in with him. He’s wearing a dark green jumper, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and Jon spends more time than is decent looking at the exposed skin of his forearms - muscles flex beneath the surface of them as he scrubs at a particularly stubborn plate left on the counter. “You get home alright last night?”

Jon snaps to attention. “Uh- what?”

Martin leaves the dishes to drain and leans against the counter, tea towel slung over his shoulder. “Last night,” he repeats. “You didn’t text me.”

Ah. Yes. When he left in a bit of a sulk, then shoved his phone in his drawer like a petulant child as soon as he got home. He finds it very easy to forget these sorts of things when Martin is over there looking like...that. All soft smiles and lovely jumpers, being concerned for his well being.

Damn him.

“Oh. Yes, fine. Just a bit of trouble on the District Line, is all.”

Martin nods in understanding. “Oh, great! That that’s all it was, I mean. Sorry if it’s a bit invasive, I just worry. Probably a bit too much!” He laughs. Jon echoes it faintly.

“No, it’s alright. I, um. Like it when you worry. It’s quite nice.”

Then Martin’s face does this thing that makes him feel a bit faint - his eyes widen, he catches his lower lip with his teeth, pink blossoms across his cheeks rapidly. “That’s good,” he squeaks, fiddling with the frayed end of the tea towel. “I like- hm. Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Now would be a good time. Just tell him, get it over with, then run back to his office straight after so he doesn’t have to see his face.

“Martin?”

“Hm?”

“I have something to tell you. It’s quite, ah. Delicate.”

That lovely expression gives way to something marred with worry, Martin’s brow furrowing in an instant. “Oh, hell, okay. Are you alright?” He sits in the chair Sasha was previously occupying, leaning forward so his forearms are pressed against the table, all of his attention on Jon.

“I’m fine, but, um.” The awful fluorescent lights feel very hot all of a sudden. “It’s. Uh.”

Martin begins to look even more concerned. “Jon?”

Say it.

“I’m- well-”

Just say it, idiot.

“We’ve run out of hobnobs,” he blurts out.

f*cking hell.

Martin gives him a strange look. Jon doesn’t blame him, to be honest. “What?”

“There’s no hobnobs in the biscuit tin. Thought you might want to know if you were popping to the shop or anything.”

He nods slowly. “O...kay? Is this your way of asking me to go to the shop and buy you biscuits?”

“No, no! They’re your favourite, so I thought I’d let you know.”

Martin seems to survey his general demeanour for a second, eyes flickering about, then smiles again, worry dissipating. “Well, thanks? I think I’m good though.” He pauses. “Anything else?”

“No.” Please, nothing else. He wants Martin to leave as soon as possible so he can put his head in the mini fridge then promptly slam the door. Repeatedly. “You can go.” Now it sounds like he’s dismissing him after a workplace scolding or something, christ. “If you want.” He cringes internally.

One more quizzical look, and Martin is out of the room. Jon takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes, sighing. When he puts them back on, his gaze focuses on something. A peeling poster, probably put there in the seventies, is plastered on one of the beige walls. It’s a kitten hanging from a rope, a crazed expression on its face. The text reads hang in there, baby!

He glares at it.

He thinks about Sasha’s advice some more. He thinks about it a lot. It’s rather counterproductive, actually, and if he weren’t head of the department he’d probably write himself up.

He wants to tell Martin. It’s only right. Transparency, and all that. Maybe it’ll lift some of that crushing weight from his heart, and honestly, when did he start thinking about his heart so much?

There’s no use in orchestrating something, making it a whole thing. He’ll just say it when it’s right. He’s never been much of a planner, anyway, leaning more towards spontaneity.

Over the next few weeks, he tries.

He wants to tell him on his birthday, after that heart-attack inducing surprise party. A few hours after the festivities die down Martin comes into his office with a gentle knock and a mini trifle complete with a candle stuck in it.

"I know you prefer this to cake, but the other two insisted it was tradition," he shrugs, placing the small dessert on the desk close to Jon.

He then spends the next five minutes searching for a lighter, then realises he hasn't brought one, which means he has to ask Jon to light his own birthday trifle, leaving them both dissolving into helpless giggles. It takes Jon about three tries to get the thing lit, and he’s laughing so hard it’s extinguished before any sort of birthday proclamation can be made.

He wants to tell Martin even more when he brings the last of the wine along with the dessert. There’s no glasses or mugs to speak of, so they just pass the bottle back and forth and chat for a while. Martin's mouth is glistening from the alcohol, and Jon never stops staring. That is, until a small, childish part of his brain whispers something like if you share a bottle it's almost like you're kissing, and he then proceeds to choke on thin air. This leads to a coughing fit so forceful Martin has to thump him on the back a good few times. The embarrassment causes him to leave (run) from the office, hiding in the bathroom for a bit until his shame level has fallen to a respectable amount.

He wants to tell him after that strange encounter with the two men who left them the strange table. They’re in artefact storage, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, staring at it, the intricacies of it fascinating.

“Were you scared?” Jon asks, eyes not leaving the thing.

He can feel Martin’s shrug. “Nah, not really. I mean, they were intimidating. Pretty big. Bigger than me. I can look after myself, though.”

Jon is sure of that. Martin is deceptively strong under it all, no matter how sweet his personality. Their fingers brush, and he gets the sudden urge to take Martin’s hand. His chest feels tight. He continues to look at the table.

“Have you been alright recently?” Martin says quietly. His fingertips graze Jon’s skin. “You’ve been...spacey. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

This could be it. He takes a deep breath.

“Well.” Dust particles dance around the room, the mustiness of it making his nose wrinkle. Martin has turned towards him a fraction, but he does not mirror the action, unmoving. “There has actually been something on my mind-”

“Weird table!” Comes a loud, booming voice. Jon’s hand balls into a fist. Tim is behind them both, peering over Jon’s shoulder, a cardboard box poking into his back. His jaw tenses.

“Yes,” he says through his teeth, “very weird.”

After that disaster, he decides that there's no rush. They have time. As far as he knows, Martin isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Neither is he.

Unless something bad happens, of course.

Jon is eyeing the hole punch. The spider sits, unsuspecting, fat body bulging, spindly legs barely supporting it. He cautiously reaches for the weighted object, grimacing, then rises from his desk chair and blindly throws the thing in the general direction of the creature.

As far as he can tell the spider is crushed on impact, but the trajectory of his throw sends the shelves crashing down, various cardboard boxes falling to the floor and displaying untouched documents. He jumps in surprise, rearing back and letting out an undignified yelp.

When Sasha pokes her head in, intrigued, she immediately crouches down and pokes at the supposedly dented wall.

“No, it, it goes right through. I- I thought this was an exterior wall?” She reaches further into the newly found hole, the tips of her fingers disappearing in the blackness. Jon crouches down beside her, now, head tilted at an awkward angle to see what Sasha is talking about. He aids her in moving some debris aside - it is, in fact, plasterboard, causing white dust to coat his fingers and some of his clothing. Sasha moves aside to give him some room, getting up from her crouch to peer over Jon. He grabs another chunk of plaster and throws it to the side.

Then there’s the familiar, wet sound of them. Rapid movements. Glints of strange silver. Jon stumbles backwards, practically tripping over his own feet, arms flailing to beckon Sasha to move with him.

“Sasha,” he says, trying to hide the fear in his voice. “Run. Run!"

She doesn’t stop to question him, instead heading straight for the door - the worms are spilling out of the hole in a writhing mass, the slickness of them invading Jon’s office and covering the dingy carpet. They move in tandem to crawl up his desk, eating through papers and-

The recorder. He’s reaching for it before he can give it a second thought, bare skin making contact with the creatures. They don’t give him a chance to pull away, greedily sinking themselves into his flesh, some writhing their way up his arm and trying to invade his clothing. He winces and pushes his hand in further, desperate to make contact with the recorder.

“What are you doing?!” Sasha yells, pulling on his shoulder. Jon grunts with the effort, trying to wrestle out of her grip while also trying not to fall into the pile of worms who threaten to devour him. The ones that have already made their mark are making him itch and squirm. He tries in vain to shake them off, then finally, finally, his fingers come in contact with something solid.

“I got it!” The recorder is slick with- something. The worms have completely enveloped the wood, now, the room unrecognisable. “Right, okay, let’s-”

There’s the sound of frantic footsteps, heavy and fast, and despite the circ*mstances Jon just feels a wave of relief when he sees Martin in front of them, panicked and holding a manila folder. “Oh, christ!” The papers fall to the ground in a flurry, the creatures undeterred by the foreign intrusion.

Jon surges forward, taking Martin’s shirt in his hand and pulling to grab his attention. “The extinguishers. We need the CO2. Go!”

Martin leaps into action without question, going for the stash they have in the corner of the main office, Sasha and Jon trailing after him. Their stock is depleting, in this room at least, and only Martin is able to grab a canister.

The things wither beneath the unrelenting spray, cowering and drying up, but it won’t do. They can’t keep going on like this. He and Sasha hide behind Martin, his stance protective, but the ones left alive are beginning to wrap around their ankles, leaping at their chests and faces. Jon feels another one make contact with his cheek.

“We need to go,” he says, desperate, strained, his mind racing as he frantically rubs at his face.

“Where?!” Sasha looks genuinely, properly scared, and Martin is throwing the empty extinguisher at the remaining worms, which does very little aside from make a very disgusting noise. They all silently agree to move closer to the entrance of the office, Jon’s hands hovering around both Martin and Sasha’s waists (though he doesn’t know what the hell he can do to protect them). His stomach rolls with the fact that he can’t actually think of anywhere they can go - the lift is old, clumsy, isn’t fast enough to take them out of here if Prentiss is around. Which she most certainly is. Most of the rooms in the archives are cramped, with zero escape routes to boot. They’re completely, utterly trapped. Best they can do is run.

Martin’s voice cuts through the rushing, impending doom, sending Jon’s thoughts to a screeching halt.

“This way! Come on, come this way! This way, this way!”

Sasha and Jon exchange a look then follow blindly, putting total faith in Martin taking them somewhere, the worms hot on their heels, one crawling up Jon’s trouser leg and burrowing. They round the corner out of the office, and Jon feels like every step is in slow motion, his clumsy feet carrying him as best they can. He can hear Sasha’s ragged breaths, Martin’s panicked mumbling, and he’s so lost in them getting the hell out of there he doesn’t have enough time to warn them of the hive coming towards them from the other end of the hall.

“Look out!”

Martin makes a noise that is half surprise, half terror, and the sudden halting of his steps leads to a collision of bodies that knocks Jon to the ground, causing him to be surrounded by exactly what they were trying to avoid. More fall down the collar of his shirt, some even crawling into his hair, but most going for his face and arms. The recorder falls from his now loose grip, and that’s the last thing he notes before Martin and Sasha haul him up. There’s no time to thank them because they’re running again, weaving around the obstructions as best they can until they reach the storage room, of course, how could Jon not realise? Martin ushers them in frantically and the door slips shut, submerging them all into a strange silence, cutting them off from outside. Jon is immediately tugging at his clothes, pain and frustration the driving force of his motions.

“What can we do?!" Sasha yells, assumedly to Martin rather than him.

“Wait, okay, uh, I think- sh*t, where is it, where is it-” Jon collapses onto the cot and lets out a groan, followed quickly by Martin’s triumphant cry. He’s by Jon’s side soon after, some kind of implement glinting silver in the light.

“Where are they?”

“f*cking- everywhere.” Jon grits out. “Face, legs, torso.”

Martin winces. “Okay. This is going to hurt, I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t bother to give a verbal response, instead setting his jaw and nodding. Martin exhales slowly, lifts up Jon’s sleeve, then causes a pain so blinding he has no choice but to cry out.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry-” Martin continues to push into his skin. He pushes, and pierces, and continues, until Jon’s clothes are smattered with blood and Sasha takes over for a while. The coppery smell of it all invades his nose, red dripping down his cheeks and neck.

“f*cking sh*tsh*tsh*t, you motherf*cker,” he spits. Hopefully Sasha doesn’t take it personally. It doesn’t seem like she even notices, looking so focused on the task at hand. She’s working on his left leg. He’s pretty sure he’s twisted his ankle, too, given the dull throbbing that accompanies the sharp pain of the corkscrew.

“Oh, god, is there anything I can do? Jon? I have a tape recorder in here somewhere, do you want me to-”

“Yes- ah!”

Sasha drives the corkscrew in once more, her tongue poking out in concentration. “Tricky one,” she mutters. “This is gonna be bad, sorry.”

“How can it get any wo-”

Thank the heavens the room is soundproof, otherwise Jon would’ve alerted Prentiss to their location immediately.

“There!” The corkscrew falls to the ground. By this point Jon has migrated to the floor, his back propped up against the cot, his legs splayed. They had to tear his trousers to get better access to his calves, so one leg is exposed up to the knee. He isn’t in the right emotional headspace to be humiliated by this. Blood is still pulsing from some of the wounds, but most of it is dried by now. If he moves, the ragged holes are all too keen to let him know. Martin is looking at him sympathetically. He’s only just noticed he’s put one hand on his thigh, thumb moving over it soothingly. The rhythm of it is comforting.

Sasha’s curiosity surrounding the corkscrew only serves to make Jon feel more guilty about Martin’s situation. No matter how much he stayed behind in the archives, making up excuses to sleep in his office despite not having the energy to work, checking on Martin excessively, he was still alone. Alone enough that he couldn’t confide in Jon and instead resorted to preparing for this without him. It hurts a little.

The storage room is actually a good room to stay in, and he wouldn’t want to take that away from Martin. But they are sitting ducks, in a sense. Leave, they die. Stay, they might not die now, but maybe later.

With more prodding from Sasha, he tells them of some of his concerns. That niggling in the back of his mind about Gertrude and the reality of the statements. He may as well come to terms with it all before he’s worm food. With all the sharing, and the honesty, it doesn’t occur to him in the moment that Tim isn’t there until it’s brought up. Sasha is gone, making her mind up in an instant despite Jon’s protests.

And then there were two.

Martin is panicking, babbling about Tim dying and Sasha leaving, and as much as Jon wishes to comfort him he also needs to get this recorded - so he puts it aside for now and calmly asks him questions.

He mentions hiding the CO2, and he scoffs on instinct, so used to leaning into the comfort that comes with scepticism.

“God, will you stop?!” Martin snaps. He turns away from the murky window. “Don’t just- dismiss me! I’ve seen how worried you’ve been getting as soon as you press stop on those damn tapes-” he looks scornfully at the recorder placed next to Jon, “and I’m sick of you acting like you don’t believe in it when you gave me a place to stay, when I’ve comforted you while you try to hide how you’re really feeling-”

“Okay, okay! Yes, fine!” Jon hits back. “Do you know how hard it is? How often I feel like it will know, find out that I feel like something is watching me? Do you know how scared I am that you’ll all get hurt, again? It’s all I can think about, all the f*cking time. I may not buy into the sh*tty tales from random people about- scooby doo ghosts or some sh*t, people who come in for a prank, but I do believe that the things that record on the tape recorders are real. Dangerous. Lethal. Like her. You do know me. You’re right. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry I’m not acting how you want me to.”

Martin sighs. “It’s okay. I didn't mean to push like that, I just listen to the tapes sometimes and. I don’t know. I- oh, there's Prentiss. Lovely. Just- yep. Vomiting.”

Jon pulls a face, the mental image more than enough to fuel his nightmares for a while. Feeling stiff on the cold, hard floor, he adjusts his legs. Which is clearly a mistake, considering the pain that shoots up them, rapidly surging through the muscles right to his thighs. He can’t muffle the cry he lets out.

Martin is beside him almost instantly, keeping a safe distance so he doesn’t jostle anything.

“How much does it hurt?” He whispers, sympathetic.

“A f*cking lot.”

Martin laughs. He cautiously reaches for Jon’s calf, aiding him in stretching out his leg to a better position. Every time he groans from the ragged holes being pulled and contorted, Martin shushes him quietly. Not in a way that suggests any impatience, but more of a comforting thing. His touch is gentle, always so gentle, and Jon melts beneath it.

“Think it might be a sprain,” Martin murmurs. “It looks swollen already.”

Jon couldn’t care less. He’s too distracted by the easy way Martin’s hand envelopes his ankle and handles the tender injury, and the dramatic shadow of his eyelashes casting against his skin as he looks down.

He could tell him now. They could die any second, this might be his only chance. They have as close as they'll get to peace before everything goes to sh*t again.

He could. He should. He's going to.

His mouth opens. Nothing comes out. He clears his throat and tries once more.

"Since we're being honest, I, ah. Ought to tell you something else."

Martin makes a noise of intrigue. His hand goes to Jon’s face, and he tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. “Sorry. Didn’t want it to get caught in one of the wounds with all the blood. Go on?”

Jon swallows. His face tingles from the contact. "I'm in love with you. Have been for a while, actually. Maybe I haven't stopped loving you since we were kids, but I haven't really taken the time to think about it, I suppose. So. There we go. That’s it.”

He has prepared himself for a lot of different outcomes. Being ignored, laughed off, maybe even a large rush of anger and insults. He's factored in every single possibility, knew that this one could occur.

But he's still surprised by Martin bursting into tears right in front of him.

Intense, large sobs shake his whole body, and Jon is alarmed.Is it that bad? He places a hesitant hand on Martin’s bicep.

"You don't have to reciprocate, I just wanted to tell you-"

Martin sniffles and wipes his eyes, his breath stuttering. He shakes his head frantically. "I-It's- I do, I do love you, but I'm- God, I've f*cked this all up," he sobs again and hides his face in the crook of his arm.

Jon shakes him, urging him to look up. "How?"

"Because I spent so long denying it, and I thought if you didn't say anything it'd be fine, I could ignore it, but you've said it and now I'm- I'm so sorry," Martin hiccups. The tears roll down his cheeks fast, each one coming quicker than the last.

"Why are you- this is good, isn't it?" The confusion is clouding his brain almost as much as the pain from his wounds is.

"No! No, it isn't, because I love you and you love me and we both know that and now we're going to get eaten by worms."

“Wh- how long have you known? That you, y’know…?”

Martin exhales shakily. “Oh, a while. A long time. It’s- I don’t know.”

“I thought you hated me.”

“Yeah, I mean, I was mad at you and that's why I was distant at first. But then we were friends again, and I realised I loved you still and that was somehow worse and I knew, I knew you felt the same somehow and that made it even worse so I- god, Jon, you're right in front of me but I could lose you so easily. I thought it'd be easier to push you away. I don't think I could take losing you again.”

Jon’s mouth falls open. He takes Martin’s shaking arms and slides the grip down to reach his wrists.

“Martin,” he whispers, voice hoarse. “Look at me.”

Their eyes finally meet properly. The dark blue of Martin’s irises are glistening and obscured by tears. Jon’s thumbs brush over his pulse points. His heart is beating impossibly fast.

"We could be happy together."

Martin sniffs. "I know," he croaks. "That's why I'm scared. I haven't been happy in so long."

He sighs. "Me neither."

He loosens his grip and cradles Martin's face. His cheeks are pink, his nose bright red.

“I can't promise anything. I can't even promise that we’ll make it out of here alive. But if I can, for as long as I can, I won't leave you. Ever. I know I want to stay by your side for as long as you’ll let me. I think we both deserve that, don’t you? We’re not kids anymore. I don’t want to run away. I refuse to run away. Alright?”

Martin nods tearfully and leans into his touch. “Yeah. No running. I want you with me.”

Then they just breathe together, shaking breaths and rapid hearts, stray tears still falling and dripping onto Jon’s hand. For a moment, there’s peace.

The fire alarm begins to blare, and they both start.

Not long after comes the intense banging on the wall, the once secure room crumbling around them. Jon’s heart sinks. Martin looks at him, eyes wide, then pulls himself up on shaking legs. He offers out a hand to Jon. He takes it, and they stand beside each other. The wall is threatening to collapse, now. Jon looks to Martin.

“Really? He sighs, exasperated. “The corkscrew?”

Martin scowls. “Fine.” The thing falls to the floor with a clatter.

If whatever is behind that wall is coming to kill them, then anything they could have been together is being snatched away. He wishes things were different. But they're not, and life has never been kind to him, so he accepts it.

The wall explodes in a grand display of dust and debris, and Jon tenses, his grip on Martin's hand painfully tight. There's no army of worms, low growls of a madwoman on the hunt, some other malicious being arriving to finish them off. Of all the things, of all the people, it’s Tim.

He’s ghost white from the plaster, smiling like a maniac, two fire extinguishers in hand. “Hi guys!”

They agree, albeit reluctantly, to head into the tunnels. Jon limps along, Martin hovering close by, with Tim at the front, one extinguisher raised defensively (Martin was given the other). It’s near pitch black, with the only illumination being their collective phone torches. Their batteries will run out eventually, though, so Jon is preparing himself to get used to the dark. Occasionally, he’ll stumble over his bad ankle and cry out, the sound reverberating around the area. Soon after, he lets Martin keep one arm around him. Just in case he falls. The weight of it is reassuring, and although it doesn’t alleviate his pain, he relaxes somewhat.

The tunnels are twisted and strange, made even more so by how much CO2 they all inhale. Tim has the worst of it - his voice is just a little too high in pitch and he’s making stupid jokes every other minute. Which alleviates the mood, but it’s getting a bit tiring. The turns change constantly, and they all find themselves walking into walls or heading in a direction they didn’t know it was possible to go in. There’s no wrong or right turns, just turns. They have no idea what they’re looking for. An escape, maybe? But this place isn’t designed for that.

“Sasha,” Tim says into their uncomfortable silence, voice hard. “Did you see her? After?”

“No, we just saw her after you fell. I’m sorry, Tim. She’s probably found Elias, at least?”

Tim sighs. “Yeah. Okay. I just hope she hasn’t walked into more trouble.” He sprays at a group of worms, and they are decidedly much faster than those above ground, so much so that Jon barely manages to dodge one that leaps at him. He catches himself, to the detriment of his lower half. Martin grabs him to make him stable.

“You okay?”

“Not really,” Jon huffs. “It all just- hurts. But we need to spread out properly, so we can make sure we’re secure from all sides. I’ll be fine.” He removes himself from Martin’s side grudgingly.

They continue that way for- minutes, hours? He recalls checking the time on his phone once or twice, but he feels so woozy he doesn’t really take it in, and when he checks again he doesn’t know how much time has passed. Having zero light filtering through the solid walls is isolating, unhelpful, and cold.

Jon is squinting in the darkness, straining his eyes for some sort of end to it all.

“Look out!” Tim suddenly yells, and in the blur of CO2 he can make out another rush of worms, the biggest group they’ve seen so far. The whole thing is a mess that Jon can’t keep track of, his vision at its worst, so when he hears distant calls of this way! and come on!, he follows whichever voice is the closest, hoping desperately that he’s going the right way. He limps as fast as possible to a wobbly outline of a figure, his thighs burning, sweat beading on his forehead. Tim is bent over, panting, the fire extinguisher absent from his hand. He’s happy to see that he’s safe, of course, but…

“Martin?”

Tim just gives him a sympathetic look. “Must’ve gone in the opposite direction. Maybe if we keep going, we can find him.”

Jon doesn’t buy it. Regardless, they continue down the impossible hallways, now being extra careful to look out for anything that could harm them now that they’re defenceless. They occasionally have to stop and just breathe, the musty air being a slightly better alternative to the constant inhalation of CO2. Jon uses these pauses to recount events into the tape recorder, which is still safely tucked in his back pocket, thankfully. Tim doesn’t berate him for it. He probably knows it’s the only thing keeping Jon stable at the moment.

He’s in the middle of giving some detailed description of what the tunnels look like, the speed of the worms, etcetera, when Tim stops, poking at something.

“What is it?”

Tim hums and runs a hand over the surface of it. His torch illuminates the area, and it seems to be some sort of panel made from metal rather than concrete. When it’s poked again a little harder, it seems to open up a fraction.

“I think- it looks like a trap door.”

He feels a rush of relief. Finally. “It could lead to the archives.”

Tim stops prodding at it and turns to him. “Yeah, and to Prentiss.”

“Ah. Yes.” He thinks of Martin alone in the dark, near defenceless.

"You're going," Tim says. It's not a question. "One of us has to."

"I am." They both know he's the one who has to find Martin. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I’d do the same. I'll see you up there, yeah?"

Jon can't promise anything, so he smiles tightly and nods.

“Go. Before she realises you’re here.”

He hopes this isn’t the last time he sees Tim. “Thank you.”

With the hard push, the trapdoor is flung open, and light floods the tunnels. There’s the slick, wet sound of Jane Prentiss and her family.

“Archivist,” she hisses, voice raw.

“Nope, just me!”

That’s all Jon allows himself to hear before he limps away as fast as he can, taking a random turn into more blackness. He takes his phone from one pocket and turns on the torch, using it to survey the area. There's dead things hanging around in every corner. Rats, spiders. Some webs in corners. The place is eerily silent without someone else’s breaths and idle chatter besides his own. He distantly recalls that the tape recorder is still whirring. He switches his phone to his left hand, reaching for it.

“Tim exited the tunnels. He was right, the trapdoor led to the archives. Prentiss too.” He sucks in a sharp breath, the simple movements of his jaw just from speaking agitating his wounds. “I might have just left my friend to die.”

Jon takes a left turn, clutching the recorder tightly. His leg is screaming for relief, so after checking the ground for any dangerous insects, he crumples to the floor. The cold of it seeps into his bones.

“What if I don’t find Martin? What if he’s already out, escaped some other way, and I’m just wandering, trapped, waiting to be devoured?”

The tape recorder continues to whirr, unsympathetic to his plight. He presses stop. It’s no use. He has to keep pushing on, whether Martin is here or not. His knees creak with the weight and exertion, but he gets himself up slowly, bracing himself against the wall for support. For once, his stomach acknowledges his gnawing hunger, gurgling angrily. He hasn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.

“If I don’t die down here, I swear I’ll start eating breakfast,” he mutters. The darkness beckons him, and he continues to be enveloped by it.

Then, a scream.

"Martin? Martin!" Jon runs towards the noise, his feet carrying him faster than he thought humanly possible with his injury, the looping and sharp turns of the tunnels making his empty stomach lurch. He searches through the pitch black, his phone glowing weakly. His eyes land on a little room, messy and covered in dust. There's a figure, hunched over and shaking.

"...Martin?"

Martin turns to him. His hand is over his mouth, and his eyes are wide, the whites of them obvious in the dim light.

"Thank god, I-"

Jon stops.

There's something on the chair. Looks like a mass of clothes, smells rancid , it's-

Someone.

"Oh, sh*t. Oh, sh*t."

Martin turns to the side, away from the scene, and promptly vomits. Jon would, too, if he weren't so shocked. Gertrude Robinson's rotting corpse is sitting there in front of them, rigid, cold, damp, bloody and oozing. There are bullet wounds in her chest, leaving holes in her shirt that are only slightly obscured by the large cardigan shrouding her body. Her mouth is agape in some constant, silent scream.

"That's- that's-" Martin stammers, pointing shakily at Gertrude's form. "I've never met her, but it must be-"

"Yes. Yes, it is." Jon swallows and carefully moves towards Martin, keeping Gertrude illuminated with the poor light. It's not like she has the capacity to move, but with the day everyone is having he wouldn't say it's unrealistic. He kneels so they’re eye level.

"How are you? Are you hurt?" Jon raises Martin's chin to search for wounds, his hand moving over the exposed skin anxiously, his eyes scanning his face for bruises or cuts. When Martin fails to answer, he pats his cheek a few times. “Martin?”

His absent gaze seems to focus a little, and he shakes his head. “God, yeah. Sorry. I’m fine. I think. Where’s Tim?”

“Oh. He found a trapdoor. It led to the archives.”

“You didn’t go with him? Why?”

Jon cups the back of Martin's head and gently pulls him close so their foreheads are touching. He sighs. "And leave you?"

Martin smiles a little, then sniffles. “Thank you. Um, do you know the way out?”

“Absolutely no clue.”

“Me neither.”

“Brilliant. We’ll just figure it out as we go, then.”

They brush themselves off and begin to head off - but not before Jon takes a look at Gertrude. Nothing that he hadn’t noticed before. Aside from the boxes, filled to the brim with tapes. He goes to bend down to grab one, maybe pocket a few - but his legs are well and truly ruined by the running, so he just falls down.

“Right, okay, no,” Martin scolds. “You’re not doing a detective thing right now. We’re leaving.”

“I just want one- stop!” He’s being swept up into some kind of carry, Martin’s arms placed under his knees and around his neck. He pushes at Martin’s chest weakly. “Put me down.”

“Nope. I’m not having you pass out down here.”

Jon huffs. He would protest more, but he seems to be slipping in and out of consciousness with each step Martin takes - who knows what he’d do if he were actually placed on the ground.

It’s also quite nice to be held.

He’s being jostled as Martin walks, but not enough to cause more pain than usual. Thankfully, his phone hasn’t given up yet, so there’s some illumination for their route. They take random turns, Martin choosing the directions half the time, Jon the other half.

“Take a left- ow.” His ankle twinges.

Martin carefully adjusts Jon in his arms. “Sorry. Can I do anything?”

“I would love a cigarette right about now.”

He snorts, then pauses for a beat. “If we get out, or- when, no, when! What do you want to do? Really.”

It’s almost definitely just an effort to keep Jon distracted and conscious. He appreciates it. "I- hm. Sleep, probably. But after that? I'd like to take you on a date. A proper one."

"Yeah?” Even though he can’t see his face, he can tell Martin is smiling. “Where?"

“God, I don’t know, a restaurant? Where do normal people go? Some place where we don’t have to get our own cutlery. With unlimited bread rolls.”

“I do like bread rolls,” Martin says thoughtfully. “I can’t believe this is what it took for us to talk about a date.”

“Mmm. We’re not too big on the whole communication thing, eh?”

“Tell me about it!”

Jon chuckles and leans more into Martin’s side. He’s soft, and warm, and good. He lets his eyes fall shut a bit. “Mostly I just want to be with you. If you still want that. If you meant what you said.”

“Oh, Jon. Of course I did.”

There’s more walking, and walking, and walking. A little bit of sleeping for Jon, too, though he insisted Martin keep him awake. They hardly encounter any worms, and when they do, they’re shrivelled up. She must be dead. That’s something, at least.

He just hopes everyone else made it out alive.

He’s doing his best to remain conscious by playing with Martin’s collar and making idle conversation when a small sliver of light casts itself across his face, making him squint. The area looks familiar, and if he really strains to listen, there’s actual noise coming from close by. It’s almost alarming to be near something other than the oppressive silence of this place.

“Is this it?”

“I think so.”

Martin moves a little quicker, still being careful not to hurt him, until they approach the light. It is the trap door. The fire alarm is no longer blaring, either.

“Is it safe?”

“I don’t know,” Jon shrugs. “But it’s better than being down here. Put me down, I think I can walk.”

They push on the door (or rather, Martin does, and Jon pretends to), and it opens with ease.

There’s thousands of corpses of the things that have plagued them for months on the floor, and Prentiss is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Tim. Jon doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. He doesn’t know much of anything at the moment, given how much his head is swimming. The fatigue is finally catching up to him now he’s breathing in fresh air, and he feels every inch of his agony. The wounds in his arms, legs, and face begin to sting again, previously lulled to a dull throb by Martin’s presence. He goes to take a step, and he feels like a newborn deer, weak and trembling. Bile rises in his throat.

“Actually, I don’t think I can-”

The last thing he hears is Martin's panicked yell before everything goes black.

Chapter 10: a lover's sigh

Chapter Text

The squeaking of leather beneath him and the white overhead lights in his face are enough to rouse Jon from unconsciousness.

First the pain hits, then the fatigue. He groans and tries to sit up, but is immediately stopped by a firm hand on his chest. Wherever he is smells clinical, the taste of disinfectant hitting the back of his dry throat. He winces.

“It’s probably best you stay horizontal for a while, Mr Sims,” an unfamiliar voice says, not unkind, but stern in its instruction. He cracks one eye open and finds a paramedic standing over him. The hand is removed from his chest, and they smile. When he properly opens both eyes, he finds himself in the back of an ambulance, reclined back in one of the seats.

“How are you feeling?” The paramedic asks.

Jon lifts himself up a fraction, then groans. “Terrible,” he replies, “but I’ll live.”

The person tuts. “I’d say you were lucky. Hell of an infestation down there.”

They can certainly agree on that, though it’s unlikely they actually know the extent of what went on. Elias is probably covering it up as they speak.

“Any allergies?” Jon shakes his head, and the paramedic heads to the front of the ambulance, close to the driver’s seat, and the sound of rustling can be heard. They come up to his side with a blister pack of tablets.

“You need help getting up?” He shakes his head again, but upon attempting it is immediately struck by a sharp pain in his torso, causing him to flop down. The paramedic doesn’t comment, instead fiddling with the recliner so he’s sitting up a bit. They pop out what looks to be painkillers from the blister pack, unseal a small cup of water, and hand both to Jon. He accepts them gratefully, swallowing them down without question.

It’s then that he notices he’s completely covered in bandages, skin obscured by off white. He glances down to see he’s still wearing his torn trousers, and his legs are wrapped up too. There’s a few more bandages around his ankle, wound tight, and a small pillow propping it up. He reaches up to touch his face cautiously and winces. Small patches of gauze are stuck down with medical tape. He must have been out for a while, considering how long it must’ve taken to clean and wrap up just about every part of his body. The ambulance doors are slightly ajar, and he can make out a few other ones as well as a fire engine. As far as he can tell, no one else is around. Martin, Tim and Sasha are absent, which is what causes him to lurch forward and try to get up again, then he’s stopped, again.

“Woah, woah, woah!” The paramedic yelps, taking him by the shoulders. “What’s the rush? Sit down.”

Jon squirms in their grasp. “My friends. They’re hurt. I need to-”

“I think you should be worrying about yourself first, sir. We’ve had you checked out by the ECDC, but you still have a very bad sprain as well as countless wounds.”

“But-”

“I would strongly advise you to remain in that chair. You could hurt yourself even more.”

He glares, and they sigh, unimpressed. They cross their arms. “I know you might not want to hear this, but I've been faced with bigger men who are much more intimidating than you. I had no trouble keeping them here.”

Their face is like stone, unrelenting, their stance strong, and Jon decides to let it go for a while. “Fine. If I give you names will you at least tell me if they’re alright?”

They nod and busy themselves with putting away medical tape and scissors, each item slotting into shelves attached to the sides of the ambulance. He can see a lot of bloodied tissues and wipes, as well as scraps of his own trousers.

“Martin Blackwood? Red hair, glasses?”

The paramedic wrestles off a pair of latex gloves and squeezes out some anti-bacterial, then pauses, thinking. “He’s fine.”

Jon breathes out, relieved.

“He was given a quick once over but showed no signs of infection, no wounds. There was a bit of dizziness from the CO2 inhalation. He’s been released.”

“Well, where is he now?”

“Still inside the Institute, I think. Refuses to go home. Almost knocked down a few of our guys trying to get to you, actually. He wouldn’t leave until he got a look at you. Your friend’s a stubborn git.”

He can’t suppress his smile, but presses on. “Um, Sasha James?”

“One of my colleagues took care of her, but I think she was...quite shaken. Physically, though? She’s alright. Didn’t have to quarantine.”

She was isolated from the rest of them for a long while, which made her a lot more vulnerable, so Jon isn’t surprised by their answer. “Tim Stoker?”

The paramedic frowns this time, and Jon’s heart is in his throat. “Is- is he…?”

“He got the worst of it,” they say, tone sad, apologetic. “Absolutely covered in wounds. Has to quarantine as well. I reckon he’ll be out soon, but he’ll have a lot of scarring. Much like you! I was told about your very innovative removal method.”

“Better than the things staying in there.”

“Touché. Now! You’ve got a bad sprain and lots of dressings, as I'm sure you've noticed. I'm gonna need you to rest your ankle - no exercise. Ice it regularly, 20 minutes every three hours for the next week or so.” They rattle all of this off in a practised way, counting out each instruction on their fingers. “You'll need to replace your bandages and keep it supported. Oh, and keep it elevated, of course.” They gesture to the small pillow. “Do you have anyone to help you with all this?”

“Maybe? I think so.” The painkillers are beginning to kick in, and the throbbing of his head is slowly fading into the background. He imagines he’s going to need something stronger soon enough. “Can I go now?”

“Are you going to keep complaining if I keep you?”

“Oh, most certainly.”

They roll their eyes and reach for a tablet hooked onto the wall, fiddling with the screen then handing it over to him. “Gonna need you to sign this first.” They tap on a small box for his signature at the bottom of the page. “Tells us that you’re fine with being released. If you find that your ankle isn't getting any better, see your GP. It doesn't seem like you're the kind of person who enjoys following instructions, but I’m telling you anyway.”

Jon is almost offended by how they know that after a few minutes of conversation. He scribbles his signature with his bandaged hand clumsily. The paramedic helps him with his jacket and shoes, the whole thing rather humiliating, but he can barely crouch down without something hurting. With a quick thank you he carefully steps out of the ambulance, and almost instantly his phone (thankfully still in his pocket) is buzzing with a call.

“Tell me why I had to hear you were a worm’s lunch from Martin and not you?” Georgie asks, sounding half hysterical, half relieved.

“How did you get Martin’s nu-” he stops himself and lets out a breathy laugh, just happy to hear her voice. ”I was unconscious, Georgina.”

“Excuses, excuses. How you feeling?”

He shrugs even though she can’t see it. “Been better. The painkillers have kicked in, though. Look, I can’t really talk right now.” He weaves through the small group of paramedics and policemen, phone held between his shoulder and ear. “I promise I’ll keep you updated. Everyone is okay.”

She sighs. “Okay. Please go home. Listen to Martin, alright? Love you.”

The call ends, and he limps towards the Institute on shaky legs, the light breeze cool against his calves due to his trousers becoming shorts. He must look awful, a complete mess, but all that really matters right now is getting to the archives. The place is swarming with people in hazmat suits, and he shoulders past them to reach the lift. There’s a few worms in there - well and truly dead. The sight doesn’t comfort him, though.

The basem*nt smells rotten, damp, and musty. He wades through the mess of papers, insect corpses and empty fire extinguishers to get to the office. At two desks sit Sasha and Martin. Sasha looks absolutely miserable, hunched over in her chair with a worn blue blanket thrown over her shoulders. She gives him a weak smile as he enters. Martin, however, looks remarkably chipper at the sight of him, considering the circ*mstances, immediately going over to him and enveloping him in a huge hug. It’s very nice, very comforting, but-

“Martin,” Jon wheezes, “you’re crushing me.”

“Oh, sorry! Sorry.” Martin moves back and loosens his grip, still keeping his hands on Jon’s upper arms. “You’re alright! I was so worried, you just hit the deck as soon as we got out and I barely managed to catch you, then they took you away and wouldn't tell me anything!”

He smiles up at him. “I was told you made quite a fuss over that.”

Martin scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. “Well, yeah. Obviously.”

Jon just smiles wider and goes in for another hug, gentler this time, his cheek resting against Martin’s shoulder. He can do that now, hold him whenever he wants. He’s going to abuse the privilege as much as possible as soon as this is all over.

When they part he makes his way over to see Sasha, who is clutching a tape recorder in one hand.

“How are you?” He asks, gentle.

She pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulder and adjusts her glasses. Her eyes are wet with leftover tears that haven’t been brushed aside. “Been better.”

“I think Tim is going to be out soon. I asked.”

Sasha just gives him another half-hearted smile and nods. “Thank you.”

Comforting people has never really been his specialty, so that’s all he can offer. He doesn’t go for the awkward shoulder pat or hug, instead opting to head for his office, mind buzzing with theories and ideas. It’s best to take statements while he’s still able to remain conscious. Martin is close behind him, hovering anxiously. “What are you doing?”

“Statements,” he says, rummaging through his drawer for a spare tape recorder. “I’ll need one from everyone. Could you get Elias for me? I think I saw him at reception earlier.”

“Can’t you do that later?”

Jon shakes his head and sits down, brushing aside the filth to make enough room for some paper and tapes. “Have to do it while it’s still fresh in everyone’s mind,” he mutters, blinking away the black spots in his vision.

Martin sighs and crosses his arms. Jon looks up at him pleadingly.

“Please. I need this.”

He looks at him for a few seconds, mouth tilted downwards in a frown. Then, with another sigh, he leaves the room. Thankfully, he comes back with Elias about fifteen minutes later, who reluctantly sits in the opposite chair and kicks away the dead worms with a flourish of his shoe. Elias has always looked strangely out of place in the archives, so sharp and polished compared to the dinginess of it all. It’s almost like he’s a cardboard cutout. The sight never fails to unnerve him.

Jon waves away the protests and concern, pushing on to get as much information out of his boss as possible. Everything is completely in order.

“Sasha must have alerted the fire department and such before I did,” Elias recounts, fussing idly with his cufflinks. “They arrived before the ECDC. Very good thinking on her part.”

The last sentence seems to be a compliment, but it comes out in an irritated tone. Jon hums and gestures for him to continue.

“I met up with her and she was babbling about some...monster, but I figured it was just the CO2 messing with her head. We went down to the archives and found Tim collapsed on the floor, Prentiss beside him. He was taken to quarantine, Sasha and I were looked over by the paramedics. Shortly after we heard Martin yelling for help with you in his arms, then something about Gertrude, etcetera. Nothing else to it.”

He nods, scribbling down some notes on paper to supplement the recording, his hands aching with it.

“It’s interesting.” Elias says airily.

Jon looks up. “Excuse me?”

“You were so keen to get rid of Martin in the beginning, and now here you are.”

He drops his pen, frowning. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” There’s an attempt to keep the edge out of his voice, but Elias raises an eyebrow regardless. He always looks down at him, in an emotional as well as a physical sense. It makes him seethe.

“Workplace relationships are certainly my business, Jon. But I meant no offense.”

Jon moves past the weird comment, swallowing down the small spike of anger, and prods at him for more answers. On Gertrude, specifically. He just recalls the same rehearsed account that he’s asked him for countless times in a dull, bored voice. When it’s clear he won’t be getting any more out of Elias, he’s dismissed shortly. He has no time for workplace formalities at the moment.

Tim wanders in after, covered in bandages much like Jon’s own. “Alright, boss?”

It doesn’t come out as light-hearted as it usually does, but Jon manages a laugh anyway. He gives a decent account of what happened when they were separated, including that odd pseudo door that he destroyed.

“Prentiss was there, had her murder face on - or what was left of it - but the CO2 had gotten to my head so much I blacked out almost instantly, probably a few seconds after you left. I think she vomited some goo all over me, though. Gave me a lot more injuries, bit of nerve damage.” He gestures to the more heavily bandaged side of his body. “Sasha told me she's dead? Actually dead?”

Jon nods solemnly, and Tim sighs with relief.

“So, you found Gertrude?”

His stomach rolls at the thought of the body. “Yes. Nasty business.”

“Must have been quite bad for you and Martin.”

“Yes, ah- I’m sorry I left.”

Tim shakes his head dismissively. “I told you, it’s fine. I’m just glad we’re all alive - zero fatalities! Well, aside from Prentiss. Could be worse.”

He doesn’t particularly want to consider what could be worse, considering Tim already looks rather awful. There’s bruises beginning to bloom on his face, probably due to his fall, and Jon knows the pain and itching that is going on underneath his bandages.

“I suppose you’re right. Get some rest.”

“Uh- yeah. Do you need to speak to Sasha?” Jon nods. “Right, okay. Just be gentle with her, alright? She’s...worked up. I’m gonna wait outside ‘til you’re done.”

He exits, and Sasha follows almost immediately, tape recorder still in hand. She barely acknowledges him and sits down, her entire body slumped and loose. Without much prompting, she offers some details that Elias had already provided.

“Elias rushed off to set off the suppression system, and I thought it'd be best to call the fire department at least. More CO2, and all that. I grabbed my phone and did it while running from the worms, which took me to...artefact storage.” She exhales, her grip on the tape recorder turning her knuckles white. “Look, it’s on tape, I have it here-” She pushes the thing towards him as if she can’t bear to touch it any longer, as if it has suddenly become red hot. Her breaths are ragged and furious, and her now free hands are balled into fists. Her leg bounces up and down rapidly. She’s staring just past Jon, as if she’s looking for something behind him. He tries not to follow her gaze. It might scare her.

“Sasha,” he says, keeping his voice as soothing as he can manage. “What happened?”

Sasha swallows hard and screws her eyes shut. “It was awful, Jon,” she whispers. “I was recording myself, just some chatter to keep myself calm. I managed to take a fire extinguisher that was stashed in a maintenance cupboard beforehand and went into storage to get away from the gas. I just wanted to be prepared if any worms managed to get in, you know?”

Jon doesn’t respond, not wanting to interrupt her.

“I was looking at the table, the one Martin signed for, and, and...I saw something. I walked forward, and it was- god, it was horrific, I can’t- I can’t even describe-” she begins to shake visibly, pulling at the blanket anxiously and chewing on her lower lip.

“We can stop,” he offers. He would usually push, but she has a look in her eyes that he’s never seen before.

“No! No.” She wipes away the tears forming in her eyes. “Jon, it was...it was becoming me. It- I don't know. At first it was this spidery thing with too many mouths, too many heads, too many eyes , it was mimicking my speech and I was starting to look at myself. I screamed so loud and just did the first thing I could think of, set off the CO2 in one of its faces and threw the can at it afterwards. It did nothing, I know that, it was only a very small distraction, but it was enough for me to run a bit. It's a tiny room. I went for the door and managed to fling it open and thank god, thank god, some of the fire department had already arrived.

I looked back at artefact storage and it was still there. I could see it through the little window. It just- smiled at me. As if it knew it would get me eventually, so it didn't matter that I got away for now. Then it disappeared into the darkness, and when I asked some of the firemen to follow me back in it was gone. Look, it- it's on the tapes, like I said, you can listen, but please. Not in front of me. Later, or something. Then I managed to find Elias and we found Tim and took him somewhere safe. I was checked over, and that's it.”

Jon is rather dumbstruck. His mouth hangs open and slams closed like a fish. He’s at a loss for words, unable to offer any sort of comfort. His experience appears to be a walk in the park, now. He takes the recorder Sasha is all too keen to relieve herself of and pulls it close.

“I’m sorry.”

She just shakes her head. “I’d like to go now.”

“Of course.”

With a final nod, she shuffles out, the door closing behind her.

He can’t resist hitting play as soon as she leaves.

“Jon, I think there’s someone here,” Sasha’s voice is urgent. “Hello? I see you. Show yourself.”

“I see you,” comes another voice. This time it’s warped, foreign, making Jon’s ears ache. A pale imitation of Sasha’s tone. There’s a few slow, agonising steps forward, then a piercing scream from Sasha. Next comes the sound of spraying and some garbled noises, heavy breathing followed by a hollow, metal sound, a whoosh of air, and what sounds like...scuttling? What you’d imagine a crab sounds like walking across a wooden floor. The thing certainly has more than two legs. Sasha screams again, but in anger rather than terror. There’s a wet crunch, something like bones snapping and cracking. Tendons tearing, muscles straining.

If he were to describe what came next, it could only be summarised as a congregation of thousands of animals dying, screeching in pain, a mess of humans and lions and gazelles, a feral thing being released into the air.

Panting, loud sobs, fast footsteps, the jiggling of a door handle.

“Help, help!”

Muffled voices follow, becoming clearer and more concerned as the tape continues.

Click.

Silence.

Jon drops the tape recorder and sits back, stunned. Surely they would have noticed something like that lurking in the archives, or artefact storage at least? It sounded big, intimidating, and from what Sasha told him it’s still in there.

He looks at the tape recorder again. It lays on the desk, familiar and unassuming.

He places it in a drawer hastily, then puts his head in his hands, exhausted.

The door creaks open, and he tenses. Martin is there, brow furrowed.

“Alright?”

“Yes, yes. Just a bit of a strange day, that’s all,” Jon tries to laugh. He doesn’t look at the drawer. “I would ask for your statement, but we weren’t really separated…” he mutters to himself more than Martin, scribbling down a few quick notes about Sasha so he doesn’t forget. His memory is slipping away from him the more tired he gets, and it wasn’t the best to begin with. “Unless you have something to tell me?”

Martin moves into the office, closing the door behind him and shaking his head. “Nope. Just the room, and Gertrude. Nothing about her changed before you found me.” He pauses. “You’re gonna need to speak to the police as well, you know.”

Jon scoffs and crouches down to search through the papers on the floor with the collapsed shelves. “They can wait. For now, I need to get to work. I have this tape from Sasha, it’s- it’s complicated, and Gertrude was, well, so I think there should be something useful around here to give me more of a lead, really get stuck in…” Martin’s figure is a blur in the corner of his vision as he throws a few files to the side, all of them useless.

“Jon.”

He lets out a noncommittal hum and continues to search. The filing cabinets are still standing, and some of them are organised. They could actually be useful. He rises from his crouching position and pulls open a creaking drawer.

“Jon.”

“If I could somehow get back down there and grab a tape, just one would be a good start.” He snatches up a statement from a few months before Gertrude’s death and leafs through it quickly, the text a blur. He’s feeling rather dizzy, but he blinks the black spots away for the second time. There has to be something in this mess. If not, he might have to slip past the police, maybe wait until the officers change shifts and head into the tunnels. Maybe Tim could use a connection? He pats down his pockets for his phone.

“Jon!”

Jon starts, nearly throwing his phone in the air. He turns to face Martin, whose face is red.

"Please. Can we go home?"

There’s a tremor in his voice, and tears gathering in his eyes. This is far too familiar a scene, and it makes Jon’s stomach twist. He wets his lips nervously, surveying all the work he has to be getting on with. He just needs to make sure Martin heads home, then he can begin.

“Yes, uh, sorry. You can leave. I didn’t mean to keep you.”

Martin shakes his head. “No.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re leaving.”

Jon goes to laugh, but Martin appears to be deadly serious. He gestures to the items around him. "I can’t, I’m-"

"For god's sake, Jon, look at yourself!” Martin explodes, his voice loud and high pitched with frustration. He jams his hands into the pockets of his trousers and lets out a big sigh. “Look, I- I'm tired, and everything hurts, I saw a dead old lady today, and I miss sleeping in an actual bed. With Prentiss gone, I could go home! It would be so easy to leave you here, but I can't. You didn't leave me, so I'm not leaving you. Now. Let's. Go. Home."

Martin’s chest is heaving due to the outburst, his hands clearly balled into fists in his pockets. He looks exhausted, can barely stand, but he’s still here. Still taking care of him, even when he’s throwing it back in his face.

Jon’s shoulders slump, and he rests a hand on the high back of his chair. It would be nice to get some sleep. There’s an awful taste in his mouth like something died in there (which it probably did), and his temples are throbbing. Every time he moves, he opens up another wound.

Maybe he can take a break, just for a little while. For Martin’s sake, at least.

"Fine."

Martin’s eyes widen. "Wow. Didn't think that would actually work."

Jon barks out a laugh and grabs his coat, gingerly pulling it over his frame. “I don’t really feel like being carried out of here like I was in the tunnels, and I had a feeling that was where you were going.”

Martin grins, bending down to take Jon’s bag for him and slinging it over his shoulder without a second thought. “You liked it.”

He furiously buttons up his coat and avoids Martin’s look. “Shut up.”

Hesitantly, he holds out a hand, and feels his face heat up when Martin takes it without a second thought, linking their fingers together. It’s a shame Jon can’t really enjoy it properly because of all the bandages, but it’s still nice nonetheless. He does look back wistfully at the work left in the dark room, but with one tug on his hand from Martin they’re heading towards the lift and out of the archives.

They exit the Institute and are confronted with the darkness of the sky, London itself still brilliantly illuminated by headlights and shop fronts. It must have been silently agreed that they were heading to Martin’s place, given that he follows him drowsily onto the line that will take them to his flat. He’s pretty sure he falls in and out of sleep a few times. Martin gently shakes him awake when they reach their stop. The walk is short, no more than ten minutes, but it still takes a toll on Jon’s legs. He occasionally has to stop, or allow himself to be a little propped up by Martin as they continue on. His hand is tight on his hip, strong and reassuring.

When they reach the door, the silence is long and slightly awkward. They hadn’t exactly agreed on whether or not Jon is actually staying. He mentioned them going home, but maybe that was just a spur of the moment thing he just blurted out to make Jon come with him?

“Are you alright?” He asks. Martin is fiddling with a plastic green tag attached to his keys, his gaze downcast.

"Yeah! Yeah, it's…" He slots his key in the lock, but doesn't turn it. "I know I said I miss my bed, but I'm actually kind of scared? Of being alone. It's daft."

Jon’s heart pounds. "It's not. I am too."

Martin looks up, his mouth set in a firm line. “I want you to stay. I didn’t exactly, um, ask, but it would be nice. If you did. If you don’t want to be alone either.”

“I want to stay,” Jon replies, faint. He’s not sure whether he’s out of it due to the invitation or the sheer amount of blood he’s lost. Perhaps a bit of both.

Martin smiles then, eyes alight with something, and twists the key.

The curtains are shut, and the whole place is in disarray. Well, mostly the kitchen - the bin is overflowing with tins of food and there’s piles of dishes to be washed by the sink. Martin hastily makes his way over to it, as if he’s trying to hide the mess before Jon can see it, taking a plastic bag and stuffing it full of wrappers and the like. Jon would tell him not to bother, but he seems quite lost in the rhythm of it. He hesitantly steps into the living room, wary of stray worms hanging around. There doesn’t seem to be any. He keeps his steps light and careful regardless.

It's awfully plain, the only decoration being small trinkets that he could identify from Martin's old home in Bournemouth. They belonged to his mother, probably. Little ceramics of various animals and such. A presumably newer one that Jon doesn't recognise is perched right next to a lamp - a highland cow. His mouth crooks upwards at the sight, and he pats it on the head.

There's a worn wooden bookcase in the corner, pushed up against the wall right next to the window that opens out onto the busy street. Jon traces his index finger along the shelves absent-mindedly. Nothing much there, really. A few books that look barely touched on western esotericism - probably purchased as soon as Martin got the job at the Institute. Some classic literature, Pride & Prejudice and what have you. Then something catches Jon's eye, something that flickers in the light of the city.

His breath catches in his throat, and his hand is reaching for the green, gilded volume before he can stop it.

Poems of John Keats.

It's as thick and weighty beneath his grasp as he can remember. The cover is still bright and eye catching, the gold of the apples, oranges, flowers and vines remaining vibrant and pronounced. They're textured beneath his reverent touch. He slowly, carefully opens it up a few pages in. His handwriting is still there - the ink a little faded with age, of course, but there's no mistaking his looped script and the message that's been burned into his mind since it was scrawled onto the paper. When he shifts his grasp to look at the back cover the book falls open to a place somewhere in the middle, obviously used to being held at this page multiple times.

Right there, in black type, are the verses to Bright Star, just as beautiful as he can recall. He can still taste the sugared words on his tongue, how they were made sweeter by Martin's embrace (even though he would never admit it, would never say that on that day he knew why the Romantics wrote so much about love, would've died for it, killed for it.)

"You kept it," Jon says weakly, turning to face Martin. The paper feels delicate beneath his fingertips. He can barely bring himself to move again, this moment is so fragile.

"Huh? Wh- oh." Martin is loosely holding onto an empty box of PG Tips, dumbfounded, and in any other situation the sight would be silly, but Jon is just as dazed. He's struck by Martin's expression. His smile is sad, almost, and Jon wants to know why, fears that he's said something wrong and so desperately wants to take it back.

"Of course I kept it," he responds, voice low. "Why wouldn't I?"

Why wouldn't I? he says, as if Jon had asked why his heart is beating, why he's breathing. It's a fact of life. Of course.

It’s impossible for him to come out with anything dignified, anything other than I love you so much it’s ridiculous, so he simply smiles and tries to stop his hands from shaking when he slots the volume back into his rightful place. It seems so much brighter compared to everything else on the shelf. Jon tears his gaze away.

Martin fusses with little things around the flat, straightening the few coasters he has piled on his coffee table, opening and closing kitchen cupboards without taking anything from them. Jon just watches, eyes half lidded, sinking into the soft sofa. He hasn’t been home in months. Probably best for him to get settled in his own way. This continues for a while, until Martin catches one of his stifled yawns, letting out one of his own in return. They both laugh.

“Time to sleep, eh?”

Jon mumbles an affirmation and pushes himself up carefully using his elbows, trying to sit properly. His weary joints creak and groan in protest. He plucks at his stiff, bloodied clothes and frowns.

“I’m not exactly keen to sleep in this outfit. I didn’t bring anything along with me.”

It’s a private complaint, mostly, him quietly berating himself.

“You can…” Martin coughs awkwardly. “You can wear some of my clothes?”

The thought of it makes Jon’s insides turn to mush. He smiles weakly. “Yes, please.”

Martin disappears into the bedroom, still shrouded in darkness, and returns with a small pile of clothes which he hands over. “Bathroom is down there.”

He’s given Jon a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, both of which are far too big. The t-shirt falls down to his thighs, and the shorts are loose around his hips, forcing him to keep one hand on the waistband, but he doesn’t mind all that much. They smell of detergent - lavender, maybe, and the fabric of both is soft beneath his fingertips.

Jon opens up the medicine cabinet, desperate to rid himself of that awful taste in the back of his throat. He grabs a little bottle of mouthwash and swirls it around for a few seconds. It works well enough, leaving a faint taste of mint and alcohol behind. Better than that rotten scent that seems to have seeped into his skin and embedded itself into his tongue. A shower would be good right about now.

When he looks at himself in the mirror, he commends himself for not reeling backwards in horror. He looks terrible. There’s around five small pieces of gauze on his face, each one a mark of where he will no doubt have scars. Even where he hasn’t been bandaged is irritated from his various falls. Some dried blood still lingers on his skin, so he runs the tap and gently daubs it off with the pads of his fingers, the redness flaking away and swirling down the drain. He doesn’t persist for too long - the medication has completely worn off now, so every touch to the affected area is painful.

Leaving the bathroom, he follows the small, yellow beam of light to Martin’s bathroom, his bare feet freezing against the wooden floor. When he peeks in he finds Martin fussing with some pillows and pulling back the duvet. He’s in pyjamas too, and it seems like every move is a struggle. Jon clears his throat delicately. Martin immediately looks up and gives him a weary smile.

“I just wanted to say goodnight. I’m going to, um…” he gestures backwards to the sofa.

Martin looks unimpressed. “Jon.”

“What?”

“Get into bed.”

Jon’s eyes flicker to the pillows propped up on the left side of the bed as well as the right, one side clearly having been prepared for him. “Oh! Right. Okay.”

He slowly heads towards the mattress, waiting for Martin to stop him. When he realises he isn’t even looking at him, instead rifling through some drawers, he slips under the duvet, immediately sinking into the soft nest that has been made for them both. Once he’s removed his glasses, it’s a little harder to discern what is Martin and what is the pile of clothes in the corner, but he can make out his figure walking to the door and switching off the light, the room now pitch black. There’s a bit of shuffling, a weight dipping the mattress, then Martin is right beside him. Heat radiates off of him like a furnace.

They're face to face, and in the moonlight Jon can see Martin's eyes are still open. He sees the steady rise and fall of his chest, a sign that he's still alive, as safe and close to him as Jon can get. Just his presence is enough for him to relax. Even if it's only for a night.

"I'm glad you came back for me," Martin says into the night. It's soft, but the little warm puffs of air hit Jon's cheeks.

"I would've stayed in those tunnels for as long as it took to find you,” he replies, voice firm.

“Thank you.”

Jon nods sleepily and yawns. His eyes flutter shut for a second, but he opens them again. He can't fall asleep until he's sure the man in front of him is as well, hopefully lost to some dream where he can escape all of this for a while.

"Jon."

"Mm?" Martin is hazy in his fatigued head, but still so beautiful, shrouded in the liquid silver that pours through the window. He feels a hesitant hand settle on his waist, a touch so light it's barely there. It doesn't have to be acknowledged if Jon doesn't want it to be. Jon can shrug it off if he wants to.

Instead, he takes his own hand and settles it on top, gently pulling Martin's up, up, up to his chest, his neck, then finally, to his cheek. Martin's thumb moves over Jon's cheekbone carefully, catching his lower lashes just barely with the motion.

"Jon," he says again, quieter this time. He's holding him like he's made of glass, like if he makes any sudden movement Jon will shatter right before his eyes.

Jon breathes out. It seems too loud for the room. "What is it, Martin?"

Martin's thumb moves from his cheek to his mouth for just a second, brushing his lower lip before he lets it fall onto the pillow. Jon aches for the touch again, almost goes to protest, but he's stopped by the way Martin is looking at him.

“Can I kiss you?”

It’s near impossible for him to choke out a yes , but he manages, and he doesn’t know who really leans in first, but their lips finally meet. Jon’s hand immediately goes to Martin’s hair and threads through it, and as he winds a finger around a stray curl Martin’s mouth opens up beneath his own, careful and easy. There’s no rush, it’s indulgent and slow, and eventually Jon moves closer to tangle their legs together until they’re completely intertwined, a mix of gentle touches, clumsy kisses, hushed laughs.

It’s only when Martin breaks away to get air that Jon remembers to breathe, his lungs working double time to suck in some oxygen. He places his hands on Martin’s chest and kisses him again not long after - this time they’re small, chaste ones, each one gracing different parts of his face. He clumsily presses his lips to a fluttering eyelid, then a freckled cheekbone, then the corner of a smiling mouth.

“I love you,” Martin says, breathless, his nose bumping up against Jon’s as he seeks out his lips again, “so much.”

Jon can only nod, compliments and affections clogging up his throat so much he doesn’t feel like he can speak. Martin’s hands on his waist are grounding, keeping him anchored even though he believes he could float away. When they finally part, it’s reluctant.

“Um,” Jon says.

Martin nods understandingly, a smile playing at his lips. His hair is stuck up on end with the way Jon was running his hands through it. “Yeah.”

He exhales shakily. “So. What now?”

In all honesty, Jon was expecting to die today. He didn’t expect this, of all things, him being mostly unharmed, in bed, with Martin. The whole situation is making him feel quite dazed.

Martin hums in thought. He has a hand on Jon’s hip, and is rubbing slow circles into his skin with his thumb. “Well, it's like you said earlier. First, sleep. Then maybe that date?”

“Now that you mention it, I might have to check my calendar first,” he teases, leaning into the touch like a cat, the rhythm of it soothing.

“Smart ass.”

Jon would agree, but he’s too busy burrowing his face in Martin’s chest drowsily, sleep beckoning him. Martin’s arms then come around to envelop him completely. He sighs, content.

He’s faced with a lot of uncertainties right now, danger coming from all sides. There's something looming over them all, something deadly, something bigger than what threatened them today. He's sure of it. He's going to get lost in his own head, lost in his work, because that's how he is. There's going to be stumbles, relapses, the ache that goes beyond the injuries he's suffered trying to destroy him. However, with Martin beside him, he won’t have to carry the weight of it all on his own.

And that’s enough.

Chapter 11: epilogue

Chapter Text

Jon wakes in bed, the duvet twisted around his waist and arm reaching out to the empty space beside him. The sheets are still a little warm beneath his palm, and he makes a fist to hold them limply. When he opens his eyes and turns to the door, he can see that it’s slightly ajar, a strip of light streaming in and stretching out across the bed. There’s a bit of shuffling about and humming coming from the kitchen - the sound of the kettle bubbling, the clattering of dishes. Jon forces himself to get up and props up the many pillows he’s gathered to situate himself up against the headboard, his limbs clumsy and weak from just waking. When there’s a lull in the fussing from the other room, he clears his throat then sighs - loud and dramatic, a small smile on his lips. The motions cease completely. He smiles wider, and sighs again. When he strains to hear, he can hear a laugh, then the sound of a cupboard opening.

Not long after, the bedroom door opens wider, revealing Martin in his pyjamas with two mugs in hand, sunlight illuminating his tousled hair. Jon taps a finger against his chin and tilts his head to the side.

“Excuse me, have you seen my boyfriend? Goes by Martin, very handsome, was in this bed right next to me last time I checked?” His tone is light, teasing.

Martin smiles crookedly. "Hm." He clicks his tongue, then makes a show of looking around the room. "Nope. Haven't seen him. Maybe I should go check in the living room?"

Jon bursts out into delighted laughter, reaching out his hands in a grabbing motion. "Come here."

Martin obliges, placing the mugs on the bedside table and getting back into bed. He settles against the headboard too, mirroring him, and Jon settles into his side without thinking about it. Martin makes a noise of contentment and tilts his head a little so Jon’s hair is probably tickling his cheek.

When he looks out of the window it’s light outside. That doesn’t say much about the time, considering they’re well into summer at this point. The birds are chirping, but the atmosphere gives off the very distinct impression of this being an early rise for them both. Martin also almost never wakes up before Jon. He checks his phone, then frowns.

“Why are you up? It’s not even 6am.” He pulls away from Martin’s side to cup his cheek with his palm, then notices the dark bags under his eyes.

Martin puts his head down and sighs. “There was- it’s stupid. Someone knocked on the door an hour or so ago, and it really spooked me. It was loud. Made me think of…”

Jon’s heart sinks. “Oh, love,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you wake me?”

“You haven’t exactly been getting a lot of sleep either. I didn’t want to bother you. I didn’t answer the door, either. Might’ve been a neighbour or something. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he soothes. “Whoever the hell was knocking at that time doesn’t deserve an answer anyway.”

Martin huffs out a small laugh and nods, leaning into Jon’s touch and closing his eyes for a few seconds before moving back and resting against the headboard again. Jon takes a mug from the table and silently places it into Martin’s fidgeting hands, then gets the other one for himself.

London comes to life below them as they drink together quietly, the orange glow of the sun turning more yellow, the sky becoming brighter. It’s probably going to be a hot day, hotter than usual. He kicks off the duvet and crosses his legs over Martin’s own.

This has been their routine for nearly a month now, a lovely thing that’s as comfortable as a worn blanket. They should really be getting back to work soon, but it’s nice to be with the man he loves without some ominous statement pressing down on them for once. It’s also been hard to move much with all of the injuries he sustained. He only felt comfortable enough to walk long distances a few days ago. Martin has suggested a cane, actually, but he’s still thinking about it.

They both decided to migrate to Jon’s flat rather than Martin’s, mostly because of his poor memory and therefore frequent need to go back to his place and retrieve something he needed. Martin made some offhand comment about his flat being more his mother’s than his, anyway. Plus, they’re closer to work now. Less of a commute. Jon doesn’t mention that.

He drains his tea quickly (he’s grown used to getting it immediately in the morning, and now always wakes up thirsty), rubbing at his eyes drowsily. Martin yawns beside him.

“Do you think you can go back to sleep for a while?” He asks, taking the other empty mug and putting them both back on the bedside table.

Martin shrugs. “Dunno.” He lays down on his side anyway, his back to Jon, an invitation for Jon to curl around him. This is something he does when he’s feeling particularly vulnerable and upset, and Jon is keen to accompany him.

“Only another half hour or so,” Martin mumbles into his pillow, voice hazy with exhaustion. Jon hums and presses his nose to the nape of his neck, planting a kiss on the warm skin shortly after. He rubs small circles into Martin’s side until his hitched, unsteady breaths even out to something relaxed and slow. Once he’s sure he’s asleep, he allows himself to drift off as well.

They end up sleeping for over three hours, and when Martin rolls over to face him he looks a little better. There’s pillow creases etched into his cheeks, which are flushed with the heat, and he’s smiling softly.

“What’s the plan for today?” Jon says, peppering small kisses along Martin’s jaw. He asks this question every morning, because he needs a routine, something to do, no matter how small. Even if they just decide that they’re going to order food and watch TV, it’s good to know in advance. Just to know that his day will be occupied by something.He promised Martin he wouldn’t go into the office, and he hasn’t, but he still does a bit of investigating when he’s otherwise occupied. Only for an hour or two, and he hides the notes in his desk drawer straight after. He still feels guilty about it, though. He still looks at that key he took from Elias' drawer and has to stop himself from disappearing in the dead of night to explore the tunnels.

“I think it’s time to go for a food shop.” Martin puts an arm around Jon’s waist. “Last I checked we had half a mouldy baguette, some grapes, and expired chicken liver pâté.”

“Some would call that gourmet.”

“I would call it a cry for help.”

Jon laughs and stretches, feeling his joints pop and his shirt ride up. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Their mornings almost always follow this kind of rhythm. Jon will pass Martin his glasses, Martin will (begrudgingly) pass Jon one of his own jumpers, and they’ll stumble to the bathroom together to brush their teeth. It’s silly, and they don’t have to do it, but Jon likes it. He likes bumping up against Martin in his too small bathroom and kissing him with minty fresh breath.

He enjoys other little things too. Like how Martin will turn on the shower as soon as they go in because he knows Jon likes to shower first, and the water takes forever to heat up. It’s as much Martin’s place as it is his, now. Which is becoming a problem, because he doesn’t actually live here. Jon is reminded of that when Martin occasionally goes back to his flat to grab more clothes and is gone for a few hours. He’s startled when he comes into the living room and doesn’t see him settled comfortably on the sofa. They haven’t talked about it much, if at all. Martin doesn’t leave and spend the night elsewhere, but he doesn’t have a key, either, so he clearly doesn’t want-

Jon shakes his head and grabs a t-shirt from the wardrobe, where Martin’s clothes are mixed with his own. The whole rack smells of Martin’s detergent because Jon bought it for him, preferring it to the brand he used previously.

Martin pokes his head around the bedroom door, showered and dressed. He seems brighter. “Ready?”

Jon smiles and picks out some jeans to complete the outfit. “Nearly.”

They head out not long after, hands linked comfortably. When they exit the flat the insistent sunlight spills onto their faces, the glare reflecting off of Jon’s glasses. The heat seems to be drying the stray damp parts of his hair that he missed while getting ready, but there’s also a nice breeze that brushes past his cheek and is gentle against his exposed forearms. Under a tree just down the street is a black cat stretched out languidly in the sun, limbs long and paws spread. Jon is immediately interrupting their usual route and heading straight for it.

"Hello, little one," he coos, holding out a hand for it to sniff. "Aren't you beautiful?"

The cat lets out a curious mrrp?, head tilting upwards to nudge his fingertips. It’s bright pink nose is wet, tongue rough when it pokes it out to tentatively lick his palm. Jon smiles. He fusses for a little longer, carefully scratching it behind the ears, working out which parts he can stroke and where the danger zones are. So far, the cat seems to love the attention everywhere. It flops onto the pavement and meows long and loud, stomach exposed.

“I know a cat who wouldn’t even let me touch his back when I first met him,” Jon explains, hand running over the shining fur. “So this is certainly an honour.”

Another enthusiastic meow. Then, a not-so-subtle cough from behind him. He turns to look at Martin.

"I have to go now because Martin is rushing me," he says conspiratorially, taking a small paw between his thumb and forefinger like a handshake. "He's so mean, isn't he?" The cat meows again. "Yes, he is."

Martin laughs. "I think it's adorable, and you're adorable, but I'd rather get home before midnight, maybe?"

"Well, this kitty- what's your name, hm?" Jon feels around for a collar under it’s thick fur, letting out a little aha when he grabs a tag. His eyes scan over the engraving. "Chainsaw and I believe you're being rather unreasonable."

"That cat is not named Chainsaw,” Martin says, incredulous.

"I swear, look!"

He crouches down beside Jon, glancing at the tag. “Oh my god.”

“Right?”

Martin makes no move to get up, instead following the same routine as Jon, holding out a hand to Chainsaw and eventually making even more of a fuss than he did.

“You are very cute,” he admits, smiling as it bats at his wiggling fingers raised above its head. A few people have begun to walk around the obtrusion in the street, muttering complaints and brushing against them. Jon ignores them because the sun is out, Martin is with him, and this cat is very keen to keep them there for as long as possible. He’s busy admiring the way Martin’s nose scrunches up as he laughs when he turns to look at him.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.”

They reluctantly leave a while after, Chainsaw immediately moving onto another pedestrian by the time Jon has walked away. As they continue down the street, he thinks about seeing Georgie soon. Another good thing about staying off work is getting to spend more time with her. Martin accompanies him more often than not, and much like the other times they’ve met, the visits consist of Jon being teased and Georgie laughing her head off. It’s nice. The Admiral has taken a shine to Martin, too. Even though he talks a lot about being a dog person he takes to cats a lot easier. He's basically used as a glorified pillow, and Martin is all too happy to let the Admiral doze on his stomach while he idly strokes his orange fur.

If they were living together, Jon would suggest that they visit a shelter sometime. But they’re not, so he doesn’t.

Tesco is, thankfully, very quiet, considering the fact that it’s a weekday. He can see a few shoppers wandering about in the aisles while he grabs a trolley, but nothing panic inducing. They try not to come during busy hours, mostly because Jon can’t walk fast enough to duck and swerve around frantic mothers and the elderly who use their baskets as weapons. Right now, he’s designated driver, leaving it up to Martin to grab things from the shelves (mostly a height thing) while he navigates the place.

“Do you want anything particular for dinner tonight?” Jon successfully manoeuvres around a wet floor sign - rather impressive, considering this trolley has a faulty wheel.

Martin hums noncommittally. “Whatever you want is fine.”

Jon clicks his tongue and turns into the poultry aisle, fingers tapping against the plastic handle. “I saw a recipe for paella online earlier. We’ll need chicken, prawns, chorizo, maybe?”

He does that now. Looks up nice things to make for them both. It’s good to actively care about what he eats, surprisingly enough.

Martin bends down to scrutinise a packet of chicken thighs. “Sounds perfect.”

There was no exaggeration behind just how little they had in the kitchen. The trolley gets harder and harder to steer with the sheer weight of the contents, and Martin ends up lightly hanging onto the end to help Jon move it around tight corners. He mentions something about wanting to bake as they pass by the fruit and veg section.

“Banana bread?” Jon asks, hopeful. He’s been messing around with that recipe for a while, and it’s delicious every time. Jon usually ends up eating a lot of it the morning after it’s been baked, dunking it into his tea. Martin is a bit more critical, though, always frowning over it being too dark or not adding enough eggs. There’s a worn bit of paper attached to the fridge with his various scribblings, amounts switched over from 150g to 165g, etcetera.

Martin shakes his head and lingers over the fruit, passing his hands above them as if deciding something. “Cake, I think. Maybe blueberry? Or Lemon. Or both!”

“I’ll just have to grow another stomach to accommodate, I suppose. What a shame.” Jon lets out a put upon sigh and shuffles a bit closer, wrapping his arm around Martin’s and leaning against him. “I think the market will be opening up right about now. We could probably get better fruit on the way back.”

It takes another 20 minutes or so for them to finally reach the checkout, because:

“sh*t, we need eggs-”

“I forgot the rice-”

“Teabags! How did we forget teabags?!”

Jon fishes out his wallet while Martin loads things onto the conveyor belt, the cashier lazily scanning everything and making no effort to make small talk, which he always appreciates.

“Need any bags?”

“Oh, no thank you. My boyfriend has some.” He tries not to sound too smug when he says it. Boyfriend. It never gets old. The cashier looks at him, completely apathetic, and continues to scan their shopping. Jon feels Martin bump his shoulder against his own and grins.

The sun is beating down even harder when they exit the air conditioned supermarket. The small market not too far from the flat is obvious with it’s bright bursts of yellows, reds and greens, grocers weighing items out and passing them over in brown paper bags. Jon takes a small basket and hooks it on his arm before wandering towards the fruit. He asks the grocer to weigh out some blueberries, then some cherries (they won’t be in season for a while, so why not?), and before he knows it the basket is practically overflowing. He perches a few oranges on top, too, and they balance precariously on the lemons he picked up previously.

“Hey, Jon.”

Jon turns to see Martin cheerily holding a banana, and groans. “Don’t do it.”

Martin just grins. “I think you’re pretty a- peel- ing.”

He takes a lemon from the basket. “If you tell another joke, it’ll make me sour.”

The grin on Martin’s face only gets wider when he laughs, and Jon responds in kind. There’s a few bananas added alongside everything else, so he takes that as a win for future baking endeavours.

“Ready to go home?” Martin asks when everything is bought and packaged. It makes Jon’s grip on the paper bag tighten. A slip of the tongue, surely, so he smiles and nods, allowing them to carry on down the street. There was a fair bit of arguing about how much both of them should carry as they walk, which resulted in Martin practically wrestling two of the bags away from Jon. He privately welcomes it, given the strain it had on his arms. He’s sure Martin knows that, but doesn’t say anything.

There’s no rush to get anywhere, so they take the long way back, Martin occasionally pointing out the usual London oddity or firing off some ideas about the quantities for the cake he’s going to make. Jon fishes out an orange from the paper bag and peels it, offering a segment to Martin before taking one himself (he has to get on his tiptoes to feed it to him, given his hands are completely occupied). The equal taste of sweet and sour bursts on his tongue pleasantly. Before he knows it he’s discarding the peel and they’re approaching the front door of his flat, both of them a little sweaty from the heat.

Martin seems keen to get on with the baking as soon as they get in - so it’s ready after dinner, he explains, so Jon busies himself with putting the other items away and opens the kitchen window to let the small breeze in. When that’s done, he hops up onto the counter and watches Martin.

He’s wearing an apron that Jon insisted he buy for him a week ago. It’s cream coloured and has little cupcakes holding wooden spoons on it. Jon thinks it’s precious.

“You look very cute,” Jon informs him, just because he can, and Martin tries to swat at him with a tea towel because neither of them have learned to take compliments well yet.

The heels of his socked feet hit the lower cupboards as he swings his legs and watches the blueberries being rinsed, then the butter and sugar being creamed. He’s busy thinking about buying Martin an electric whisk for his birthday when his phone buzzes beside him. He snatches a few blueberries from the nearby bowl before unlocking it.

Sasha: Hope you guys are okay! We miss you :)

Attached is an image of Tim and Sasha grinning at the camera, the beaming sun nearly obscuring their faces entirely. Tim has a pair of sunglasses perched low on his nose, one hand up in a peace sign, and Sasha is holding an ice cream with her free hand. In between them is Sasha’s dog, whose tongue is lolling out ecstatically. It looks as if they’re in the park just behind Sasha’s flat.

Jon smiles softly and taps Martin on the shoulder, turning the phone towards him. Martin pauses his task of cracking eggs to let out a soft “aw,” moving his face closer to the screen.

“That’s sweet. What’s her dog’s name again? I don't remember her telling me.”

“Ophelia, I think,” Jon taps off of the photo and pulls up the keyboard. “What should I text back?”

“Miss you too? And some emojis.”

“Of course,” he says drily. He has those now, since he updated his phone.

Jon: We’re good. Martin is baking. Miss you too.

After a bit of thought, he adds emojis of a dog, a cake, and a smiley face, then switches to the camera and takes a picture of Martin looking quizzically at the scales for good measure. He makes sure to save the photo for himself after hitting send.

Martin steps back from the counter and glares at the bowl of mixture as if it’s personally offended him.

“Do you think I’ve added too much lemon?” He asks, handing Jon a teaspoon. Jon hops off of the counter and dips it in the bowl.

“Hm. It’s good, but don’t add any more. These blueberries are pretty tart.”

“Stop eating the blueberries,” Martin says exasperatedly, rolling his eyes and reaching for a baking tin.

It continues in this vein - Jon insisting he needs another taste of the batter, just to check, until Martin is forced to wrestle the spoon from him.

"Give it- here-!" Martin laughs, lurching forward to take it. With a final tug, he vastly underestimates his strength - leading to the spoon hitting Jon square in the nose and covering his face with batter.

“Oh my god,” is the first thing Martin says after, followed by another bout of laughter.

Jon clumsily swipes at his face, only managing to catch a bit of the mix. “I can’t believe it,” he complains, trying to stifle his laughter, “I’m being attacked in my own kitchen.” He turns around as if to leave the room.

"No," Martin giggles, "wait."

"I will not-"

Before he can finish, there's a hand around his wrist pulling him back, a small tug beckoning him until he’s nearly chest to chest with Martin.

“That was rude.”

"Shut up," Martin huffs, somehow making those words sound much sweeter than they actually are. He swipes a thumb over the batter smeared across his cheek, then takes Jon's chin in his hands and angles his head up before capturing his mouth in a kiss. Jon makes a pleased noise and moves forward, causing Martin to back up against the counter.He tastes of the orange from earlier mixed with the cacophony of cake ingredients, sugar lingering in Jon’s own mouth every time he goes in for another kiss. He hooks a finger around a belt loop in Martin’s jeans and settles the other hand on his hip.

“I really need to put this in the oven,” Martin mumbles, not making an attempt to move.

Jon hums and kisses him on the nose before reluctantly parting them, smiling at the way Martin’s hand clings to his forearm for just a second longer, his thumb grazing his wrist gently.

The cake does eventually go in the oven, Martin sprinkling a few blueberries on top and chattering about how you need to let them sink in on their own rather than fold them in beforehand. After a bit of half-hearted cleaning they retreat to the living room to wait, Jon’s feet in Martin’s lap as daytime TV drones on in the background. The monotony of it makes him feel a bit fidgety, so he decides to pick up a book he abandoned by the sofa a few nights ago. Something about Brutalism and the utilisation of communal space in the 20th century. It does help to calm him somewhat, and he lets the words sink in as he drums his fingers against the hardcover absentmindedly.

“Jon?”

“Hm?”

“Do you miss work?”

The question catches Jon off guard, and he freezes. He feels like he’s been caught, somehow.

“Well,” he says slowly, fiddling with the page he was reading, “in a sense. Not so much the mortal peril, but it was good to have a routine.”

Martin nods in understanding. He’s tracing patterns on Jon’s shin with his index finger. “I get that.”

“Do you?”

He shrugs. “Not as much as you, probably. I don’t like sitting around feeling useless, but being home with you is better.”

There it is again. Home. Jon’s grip on the book tightens. He clears his throat and smiles. “Um- yes. Anyway, we don’t have to think about it right now. I don’t think either of us are really up to it.”

Martin nods again and turns his gaze back to the TV, hand still on Jon’s shin, and Jon tries his best to get back to reading.

It’s about half an hour later when Martin takes the cake out of the oven when he decides to get dinner ready, just for something else to do. The passages in the book seemed to get drier as time went on, and it was practically sending him to sleep again. He falls into the lull of familiar preparation after giving the recipe another once over, the short instructions easy enough to recall. The oil sizzles pleasantly, golden bubbles bursting when he adds the meat. He crushes a bulb of garlic beneath his palm and adds more cloves to the pan than is advised, because recipes are always wrong when it comes to garlic, then tips in the chopped onion. It doesn’t take much effort at all to throw it all in the slow cooker alongside the tomatoes and rice, and before he knows it he’s flopping back down onto the sofa and leaning into Martin’s side.

He thinks the haze of heat and the ache in his legs after the walk sends him to sleep (it’s a lot easier to drift off with Martin around again). By the time he opens his eyes there’s another crime drama on the TV, and the table is being set. Jon wipes the sleep from his eyes and heads for the kitchen, noting the cake cooling on a rack while he takes out some plates and begins to serve dinner.

Their time around the table is mostly comfortable silence, the quiet clink of cutlery against ceramic, Martin’s enthusiastic chewing and occasional compliments. He hesitantly mentions going to see his mother next week, and asks if Jon wants to come along. The way he stares resolutely at his plate rather than into Jon’s eyes makes the whole thing rather fragile, so he can only respond with a nod. He tries hard not to make a big deal out of it, but- well. This is the first time he’s asked. It’s only when their plates are nearly empty that Martin speaks again, sounding much more cheery.

“I was thinking we could go out for a long walk tomorrow, if you’re up for it? Maybe go see a film, get some dinner? It feels like a waste of good weather if we stay at home all day.”

Jon stills. He reaches for his glass of water and takes a long drink, dispelling the dryness from his mouth. “You say that a lot.” His voice is quiet.

“...What?”

“Home,” he elaborates. The fork in his hand taps against the plate in a rhythmic tinktinktinktink. “You call the flat home.”

“Oh,” Martin laughs nervously, “I guess I do. I’m sorry, is that-”

“It’s just made me think, is all.”

“God, Jon, I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“No! No.” He exhales slowly. “I suppose I want- I want- um.”

What does he want? Nobody has ever really asked him, and he never dares to ask himself that, at least not very often. It’s a foreign concept, because wanting something and getting it means he deserves it, and his many complexes don’t allow for that to compute. But Martin is here, and he seems happy, and he calls this place home, so. Maybe just once, he can say it.

“I would like you to live with me. Permanently. I want to see you every morning and be sure you’re going to be here all day, wake up to a mug of tea - or wake you up with a mug of tea, but we both know you wouldn’t have that.” Martin laughs at that, which makes him eager to continue. “I like hearing you call my flat a home, that didn’t upset me. I want to cook meals together, bake bread, split chores 50/50 or not do them at all in favour of staying in bed all day. I suppose I want the life I imagined for us when we were both a little less, uh- scarred.” He gestures to his body, still healing. “And a lot more optimistic. We can still have it, though. I think. If you want it too. Oh, and it would also be better for both of us financially. That’s a bonus, though. I just love you, and want you here. Very much.”

When Jon gathers the strength to look up, he’s taken aback by Martin’s wide smile.

“You- yeah, of course I want to live with you. Obviously.”

All of the air escapes him in one big breath, and he practically deflates in his chair. “Oh. Good.”

There’s a beat of quiet where Jon takes stock of himself. He presses the backs of his hands to his cheeks to cool down the heated skin, brushes a bit of hair from his eyes. The whole time, Martin is looking at him, gaze soft.

"I kind of expected this to be a lot more dramatic,” he confesses.

Jon snorts. "I can get down on one knee, if you'd like."

Martin goes bright red, which is interesting. He stores that piece of information away for later- much later, mind you.

“That’s- okay, uh, cake?”

“Yes, please.”

The slice is far too much for Jon to eat- then again, he says that every time, and every time he finds himself staring down at an empty plate not long after. When he presses his fork against the sponge it springs back easily, and when he takes a bite he knows for sure this is the best thing Martin has made yet. He’d probably say that anyway, though, even if he'd accidentally switched out the sugar for salt. Brow furrowed as he chews, Martin is clearly critiquing himself, and he couldn't look more endearing if he tried. There'd been this space next to Jon that he hadn't figured out the shape of, some absence that he didn't take care to examine too harshly for fear of realising just how lonely he was. Then Martin came along, and he fits in so perfectly in this flat that was never seen as anything but somewhere to sleep and eat - he has his own side of the bed, a favourite mug, a particular hook to hang his coat on. He made it somewhere he wanted to live rather than just survive in. Jon didn’t know he could be happy like this, could almost explode with the way he’s feeling right now. Martin turns his attention away from the cake to look at him.

“What do you think? Is it alright?”

Jon rests his chin in his hand and smiles, letting the joy in for once.

“It’s perfect.”