Chapter Text
“… We still don’t have any evidence that Prentiss is actually paranormal,” Jon manages to say into the tape recorder around the lump forming in his throat and the itch under his skin. “It could just be an unknown, aggressive parasite. There are weird things out there that are perfectly natural.”
Jon runs a hand through his hair, shoulders stiff.
“It’s not, though,” he admits. “I know it’s not natural. Somehow I-I, I feel it. I’m sorry. My academic detachment seems to have fled me.”
He breathes out, shuts his eyes. “Something about this statement has gotten to me a bit. I’m… I’m going to go… E-end recording.”
Jon clicks the recorder off and pushes his chair back, jerking to his feet. Instantly, the world seems to tilt under him and he sways, vision going dark around the edges. He grimaces, shuts his eyes tight, and catches himself on the edge of his desk. His sweaty, shaking hands go white-knuckled on the hardwood, and he grips on tight until his head stops swimming enough for him to cautiously blink his eyes back open.
The Archives have no ventilation and very little insulation. Now that it’s summer, the whole basement has gone from frigid to stifling and sweaty, the stale air keeping it almost uncomfortably warm at all hours. And yet, Jon’s whole body is chilled and trembling. He shakes with every breath he tries to take, struggling to get enough air into his lungs.
He should — god, what he really wants to do is lie down. The thought of getting on the tube, going all the way back to his flat, almost makes his head start spinning again. He’s not sure why he never followed through on those half-baked plans to drag some kind of cot down to the Archives, but right now he’s wishing he had.
Maybe he can just… have a quick lie down on the break room sofa. Just until he gets his bearings back.
He opens the door to his office and blinks at the flickering fluorescent of the basement, hovering in his door until the world comes back into focus and he can see further than a foot in front of his face. And as soon as he does, he sees Martin looking up at him from his desk. Startled, Jon blinks. The other two desks are empty. Has he really worked past 5:00 again? Did he really lose track of time that badly? Christ, he didn’t even hear Tim and Sasha leaving. And he’s kept Martin past closing.
Damnit.
Martin’s brows pinch together, a frown tipping his lips down. “You okay?” He asks, standing up from his desk and hovering, like he can’t make up his mind about moving or not.
“Uh,” Jon says, bracing himself, hand still curled tight around the doorknob.
Martin finally makes up his mind and crosses the room, stopping close enough to Jon that he has to look up to see his face. “Mm. You look a bit peaky.”
“I, uh—” Jon rubs at his face. “Yes, uh. J-just a bit…” He trails off, can’t decide how to finish that thought.
The furrow between his brows deepens. “D’you… Need anything?”
Jon just stares up at Martin, unmoving.
Martin’s face, if possible, softens further. “Okay, c’mon, I’ll— I’ll make you some tea."
Without waiting for an answer, he puts a hand on Jon’s shoulder, guiding him to turn around and getting his feet in motion. His fingers slide down and settle, feather-light and gentle as anything, around Jon’s wrist, and Jon feels his fingers twitch, like for a moment he has the daft idea that he might like to slip his hand into Martin’s and hold it. Which is— absurd, obviously. He's just loopy from that statement.
Martin brings him into the break room, points him towards the couch. “Here, just— Sit down while I put the kettle on.”
Jon does as he’s told, and his muscles relax as he sags down onto the sofa. It’s a little embarrassing, really, how easy it is, how comforting it is to just watch Martin in the little kitchenette practicing the careful routine of making tea. To let himself be taken care of.
When did Martin become such a soothing presence in his life? When did he go from nuisance who slows down important Archival work to a person who can calm Jon down with just a few words and a kind smile?
Martin pulls down a mug and grabs a box of teabags from the cupboard over the sink. Martin’s taller than Jon, but he’s no giant. Tim and Sasha are both taller than him. So he still has to stand on his toes to reach to top shelf. It does odd things to Jon’s chest, like something in there is doing complicated summersaults.
Why doesn’t he just move the tea to a lower shelf? Or keep the things he needs out on the countertop? It’s not like anyone besides the four of them ever come into this room, anyway. It’s not as heavily frequented as the canteen up on the main floor. He wouldn’t be in anyone’s way.
In their flat — In Jon’s flat. The flat they currently share. Whatever — he keeps the things for tea in the low shelves right next to the stove where they’re easiest to get to. Jon feels a flicker of something warm inside him, that he’s carving out a little space for himself in a flat he’s stayed for a couple of months while he stubbornly leaves things as they are in the place he’s worked for almost a year.
In what seems like no time at all, Martin’s holding a steaming mug out to Jon. Jon looks up at him, pulls his sleeves up over his palms to protect against the heat, and takes the cup in both hands. He takes a moment to savor the way the hearty warmth seeps out into his palms, his fingertips.
With his hands now unoccupied, Martin holds the back of his palm up to Jon’s forehead. Jon’s brain does a full system reboot in the span of the few seconds those fingers are on his skin.
“Hmm.” He makes a face. “You don’t feel feverish.”
“I’m not ill,” Jon manages, although the rawness of his voice seems to be doing its very best to contradict him. He’s not, though. Really. He’s just...
“Sure about that?” Martin asks. “You look a little… green.”
“Yes,” Jon grunts, “I’m quite sure.”
“Okay.” Martin sits down next to him, tilting his head. “Do you have a headache? I think Tim keeps ibuprofen in his desk. Should I go get some?”
Jon shakes his head. “No. It’s nothing like that.”
Martin sighs faintly. “Alright. What is it, then?”
Jon frowns and takes a slow sip of his tea. Chamomile, his mind supplies. With honey. Jon’s whole chest feels hot in a way that has nothing to do with the tea, a pang of something big and saccharine sweeping through him. He swallows, twice, before he finds his voice. “I… I found Jane Prentiss’s statement,” he admits quietly.
“You— oh.” Martin’s eyes go wide. “Oh. Oh, god.”
“Yes.”
“That must’ve been— wow.”
Jon nods. He doesn’t have it in him to pretend like he’s not a little bit of a wreck right now. “It was… it was a lot.”
Martin hums sympathetically, and suddenly Jon finds himself opening his mouth, words he hadn’t even planned on saying falling right out.
“She was just so scared. B-before. When she was. Normal. Before the, th— before whatever happened to her that made her— like this. She was afraid, she wanted our help, and we…” He looks up at Martin, desperate, like he might find something— anything, any kind of answers— waiting there.
And he does find something, definitely: concerned, gentle eyes, soft and brown and startlingly easy to feel safe looking into.
Jon has to look away again, focusing on the tea steadily warming his hands. “Now we might die, because no one would help her, and now she’s—” He jerks his shoulders in some kind of shrug. What is she, now? What does she want with them?
“Hey,” Martin says, and Jon cautiously looks back up at him. “We’re not going to die, okay?”
“We might! We’re being— what, haunted? Hunted? By some horrifying supernatural worm woman, and we have no idea how to stop her!”
“Okay, first— Wait.” Martin raises his eyebrows. “You’re admitting this is supernatural now?”
Jon sighs, drags a hand over his face. “Please, Martin, that is not the point.”
"Uh. It kind of is?"
"Please," Jon repeats. He's desperate.
“… Fine,” Martin relents, “but we are coming back to that later.”
His tone leaves no room for argument, but Jon doesn’t have it in him to fight right now anyway. That is a problem for some future version of himself that doesn’t exist yet.
“Look,” Martin says, “believe me, I know this is— this is scary. She’s scary. I’m scared, too. But we know a bit more about her now. Like, we know the worms are weak to CO2, right?”
“It just feels like we’re not making enough progress," Jon insists. "It’s been— what? Three months? And she’s still… After us.”
“We’re doing what we can,” Martin assures him, “that’s all we can do right now.”
Jon sighs and slumps back against the sofa, takes a hefty swig of tea. “I just don’t— I don’t like feeling like I’m… always a step behind.”
“I know,” Martin tells him gently. “But we, we’ve got this, okay? You don't need to do this all by yourself. We aren’t just…” He huffs a nervous laugh. “… Charging off into dark basements alone, anymore.”
Jon frowns, and shakes his head, staring down into his half-empty mug.
“Hey,” Martin says, when Jon’s silence stretches on for too long. “Why don’t we just go home? Rest. Not think about Jane Prentiss for tonight.”
Jon doesn’t want to not think about Prentiss. Well, he does, but not like this. He wants to solve the Prentiss situation, wants to be able to tell Martin he’s safe and finally get rid of all the worms once and for all. He wants to not think about Prentiss because there’s no Prentiss to have to think about.
This isn't right. Jon is the one who's supposed to be fixing this for Martin, not the other way around.
... Still, though. Jon can already feel his resolve crumbling. With everything he's trying to balance on his shoulders, there is something so deeply tempting about the idea of letting Martin make it okay for one night.
He shuts his eyes and nods minutely, letting relief take hold.
"Okay," he says, hoarse, barely above a whisper. "Okay."
They’re halfway back to the flat before Jon realizes Martin called it home.
—
The flat is dark and quiet when they make it back, the world outside the windows muffled and far away.
The worms still haven’t found them here, so it’s almost easy to pretend they really are safe when the front door shuts with a quiet click behind them. Jon kicks his shoes off unceremoniously and leaves them by the front door, drops his jacket in a heap a few feet away to deal with later.
“I, I’m sorry,” Jon manages, “I don’t really… feel up to cooking anything tonight.”
Martin sighs, not unkindly. “Jon, that’s fine. You don’t have to cook for me at all, much less every night.”
Jon frowns. “I like cooking,” he says. For you, he doesn’t say.
“I know. Still. It’s okay,” Martin assures him. “Are you hungry, though? Do you think you could eat anything?”
“I told you, I’m not ill.” He doesn’t feel hungry, but he doesn’t think food would be the worst thing in the world, especially given how woozy and drained that statement left him feeling.
“Okay.” Martin nods. “Then how ‘bout I order us a pizza and you just relax?”
Jon can’t find any reason to argue, so he just nods. Martin guides him over to the sofa, sits him down and pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Er, any preference on toppings?”
“Pineapple,” Jon answers.
Martin blinks up at him. “Pineapple? Really?”
Jon bristles. “Yes. I like pineapple. It’s a fine pizza topping.”
“No, no, I like pineapple too.” Martin looks almost like he's trying to fight off a smile. “I just… Didn’t expect you to.”
Jon deflates a little. “No one does.” He sighs. “Tim and I had a fairly heated debate over it back in Research.”
Martin looks at him with something Jon doesn’t dare call awe on his face. “You’re joking.”
“I assure you, I am not.” He almost smiles, thinking about it now. “He is not a fan.”
“No, yeah, I know,” Martin tells him, with a surprised chuckle. “I, uh. We had a bit of a tiff about it awhile back, too.”
Jon stares at him. “No.”
Martin nods enthusiastically. “We did! I swear!”
Jon huffs. “Well. Good to know at least one of my assistants has some taste.”
Martin smiles, one of those honest, crooked ones that always seem to take the both of them by surprise. Jon counts each and every one of them like some kind of victory.
“You know, really, Tim has no right to judge us,” Jon says. “I mean, h-have you seen the abomination Sasha orders?”
Martin’s eyes go wide, almost conspiratorially. Like they’re friends sharing a secret. Which, Jon realizes with a pleased little jolt, is exactly what they are. “I know, right?"
"Absolutely inedible."
"Totally." Martin nods emphatically. "Tim's so biased when it comes to Sasha.”
“Completely,” Jon agrees, with a somber nod.
“Ah, oh well.” Martin shrugs. “More good pizza for us, I guess.”
And now Jon can’t help but give him his own wobbly smile. “You’ve got a point there.”
Martin hums, pleased. “Alright, I’m gonna call now. One large Hawaiian sound good?”
“Sure.”
“Great.” Martin smiles, presses a few buttons, puts his phone to his ear.
Jon watches him, standing in place but turning around in a little half-circle, shifting from foot to foot while the phone rings, and has to stifle a smile. Something that Jon has come to appreciate: neither one of them seem to be able to sit still for very long. Jon’s known this for awhile, but the way it endears him down to his very core is new.
Except… it kind of isn’t? When Jon really digs at this feeling, gives the warmth in his chest and the deep sense of calm spreading through him a moment of examination, it isn’t new at all. He thinks about the talk he had with Sasha in the stacks, and somehow realizes this is how Martin’s been making him feel for… Goodness, for weeks now.
Jon’s breath hitches, sticks in his throat. Martin, listening to someone on the other end of the line and nodding politely along, doesn’t notice.
Martin relays their order, running his hand through his hair while he talks. Jon sometimes still thinks about that… incident, a couple of weeks back, where he learned first hand just how soft Martin’s hair really is. With an awkward twist in his heart, Jon can’t stop himself from thinking just how much he’d like to touch it again, maybe bury his hands and hold him there for awhile.
Jon blinks, tearing his eyes away from Martin and slamming his gaze down to his hands, curled awkwardly together on his thighs.
See, the thing about Jon is: he’s really, genuinely, well and truly excellent at denial. He knows himself well enough to know that. He’s not so deep in it that he can pretend the denial isn’t there at all. He can pretend and pretend, but once he knows something’s true, he can’t make himself believe it isn’t. He denies that the statements are real, but he knows somewhere in his gut when he finds one that is. He knows there’s something there, even if fear clutches at his throat whenever he thinks of admitting as much to anyone.
And he denied, for a very long time, that Martin meant anything to him. It’s safer that way; if Martin is just a coworker, Jon doesn’t have to worry about scaring him off. If Martin’s just a friend, Jon doesn’t have to dive into the terrifying, complicated jumble of emotions that come with… Well, everything else.
In a way, this is scarier than the statements. Even with the worms, and the Michaels, and the spiders, and the books, and the ever-present feeling of being watched and scrutinized, the stakes feel higher when it comes to… Feelings.
And, okay, even if Jon does something to destroy this — as he is wont to do, in these situations — it’s not like anyone will die. No one will be menaced by flesh eating parasites or attacked by men with knives for fingers or get lured to their death by a children’s book. But someone could still get hurt. And Jon… Jon is used to the hurting, if he’s being honest, but he doesn’t want anyone else to hurt because of him.
Beside him, the couch dips, and Jon blinks, head snapping up.
Martin smiles, holds his phone up. “Pizza’s coming. They’ll call when they’re downstairs. I’ll go grab it since, y’know. Buzzer’s still busted.”
“Ah.” Jon nods, does his best to smile back, feels the way the expression falters on his face. “Right. Thanks.”
Martin studies him for a minute, makes a considering face. “The Prentiss statement really bothered you, huh?”
“Hm? O-oh. Y-yes,” Jon says, thankful to have an excuse for the way his stomach has twisted itself into a series of knots. “It was… quite draining.”
“Mm.” Martin hums, reaches out, puts his hand on Jon’s shoulder, and gives a gentle squeeze. His fingers brush gently down Jon’s arm as he pulls away, and Jon feels every single point of contact like a match on a strike board. “I’m sorry.”
Jon wants to yank Martin's hand back and hold it until his whole body feels this warm and electric. “Thanks.” He feels mighty impressed how steady he manages to keep his voice. “I’ll be alright, just. Um…”
Martin bites his lower lip. “Here, just relax. Stay there, I’ll… go get you a glass of water.”
Martin starts to get up, and Jon’s insides lurch. Before he even notices what he’s doing, he’s snagged his fingers in Martin’s sleeve, clinging to him with a fierceness that even surprises himself.
“Sorry.” Jon flushes, ducking his head and forcing himself to let go, flexing his fingers. “I don’t, um— I, that is— I’m, I’m not—”
He stops, swallows. He doesn’t want to be alone, but he also doesn’t think he can just come right out and say that. And yet, somehow, Martin seems to get it, because a second later he settles back down on the couch.
“Okay,” Martin says gently, “yeah, that’s okay.”
Jon relaxes, slumping back against the back of the sofa.
“Do you… want to talk about it?”
“No,” Jon snaps, and then cringes. The last thing he wants to do is talk about his f— This with Martin, but that doesn’t mean he wants to push him away. He makes a conscious effort to soften his tone. “Er, no, thank you. I’m okay.”
“Alright, well... I’m here if you change your mind.”
“I know, Martin.” Carefully, delicately, like he’s treading on thin ice, Jon leans over. It’s only a couple of inches, if even that, but it feels like he’s spanning oceans before his shoulder nudges against Martin’s, and he tentatively leaves it there. "... I know."
Thankfully, miraculously, Martin doesn’t move. Jon looks up just in time to catch the soft smile Martin gives him in return, and maybe it’s just Jon’s imagination, but he swears Martin leans back into him, just a bit, their arms pressed together from shoulder to elbow.
Jon swallows, the tension draining from his body.
So, okay, this is his life now. At some point in the last three months, Martin went from coworker to friend to someone Jon can’t imagine his life without. Alright, Jon can manage this, and maybe if he’s lucky, the only one who might risk getting hurt in the process is himself.