Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Statement ends,” Jon says, once Martin’s finally gotten everything out, spilled the entire story. The basement, spending two weeks trapped and afraid. The worms. Jane Prentiss. “You’re sure about all of this, Martin?”

Martin frowns at him. “Look, I’m not going to lie to you about something like this, Jon. I… I like my job." He makes a face. "Most of the time.”

“Very well.” Jon nods, something resolute and steady solidifying in his gut. Jon has read the reports, read the statements. “Obviously, if Prentiss knows where to find you, you can’t go back to your flat.”

“I— wait, really?” And he does look genuinely baffled, staring at Jon with wide owl eyes.

“Of course.” Even Martin has to realize how unsafe that would be, come on now. “You can’t risk another encounter like that.”

“No, uh… Yeah, that makes sense, I guess I just—” Martin shrugs, looks down at his lap, his hands curled there— “Honestly, I didn’t think you’d take it this seriously.”

Jon doesn’t fidget with his hands in the way he has spent a lot of time and effort practicing not fidgeting with his hands. It’s a tell he can’t afford to have right now (or ever, in this job). “You lost your phone two weeks ago?”

“Uh, yeah, about then. When I was in Vittery’s basement, I think.”

Jon takes his own phone out of his pocket, pulls up his text chain with who he spent the last two weeks believing to be Martin. He shows Martin all texts he now knows came from something he’s still trying very hard to pretend is entirely human, although definitely not Martin.

“So,” he finally says, “if this does involve Jane Prentiss, then I take it deadly serious—” His sentence is punctuated by a buzz, and Jon’s phone vibrates in his hand. “Hang on.”

When he looks at his phone, the way his stomach lurches with some awful mixture of dread and confusion must show on his face, because Martin leans over the desk anxiously.

“What is it?”

Jon takes a second to school himself back into practiced neutrality — or he tries to, at least. “Another text. From you.” He holds the phone out again, so Martin can read along with him. “‘Keep him. We have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist’s crimson fate arrives.’”

Martin blinks, swallows. Looks up to meet Jon’s eyes. He looks smaller than ever, here in Jon’s office, dark circles under his eyes only more obvious with the way his skin's gone almost feverishly pale. “What does that mean?”

“It means I ask Elias to hire extra security. I should also probably warn Tim and Sasha. And, again, it means you shouldn’t return to your flat.”

Martin nods slowly. “Right…”

“Have you got anywhere to go?” Jon asks him, briskly. “Friends, acquaintances, maybe, who you could stay with…?”

Martin flushes, deeply. “I, I mean— n-no, not really,” he stammers, and then goes even redder. “Or, just, y’know, not that I’d want to, to. Put in the middle of this. Put in danger of, of worms.”

“Ah,” Jon says, “No, of course, that makes sense.” Why drag anyone else into this mess? Seven people died during Prentiss’s initial hospitalization; the collateral damage of roping someone from outside the Institute into her orbit doesn’t bear thinking about. “In that case…” Jon feels like there’s some alternative solution, one that's hanging just beyond his reach, evading him, and Martin needs somewhere safe to stay now. “My sofa is quite comfortable. You’re welcome to come and stay with me until you figure something else out.”

There's a moment of loud, drawn out silence, where Martin just stares at him.

Jon frowns, and Martin blinks.

“I— Wait, what? Sorry. What? Really?”

Jon shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “It just makes sense.” There’s no reason for Martin to get so indignant. But then, there’s no reason for Jon to feel defensive about it; he’s not supposed to care what Martin thinks of him. “I would suggest asking Tim or Sasha since I believe you’re... closer with them, but it’s hardly fair to put them at risk.”

Martin nods slowly. “Right, yeah. Oo-kay… Uh. Okay. Okay, right.”

“… And as you were put at risk doing Institute research, it only seems fair that I ensure you’ve got somewhere safe to go.”

“Right.” Another slow nod, Martin’s stunned, brown eyes not leaving Jon’s the whole time. “Right. Uh, you’re sure?”

“I wouldn’t have offered otherwise.”

Marin opens his mouth, works his jaw for a moment, and nods. “I— okay. Um.” He looks down, then back up at Jon, and his voice is very quiet, frayed around the edges, when he says, “Thank— thank you.”

Jon hums, eyes slipping away. He lets his mind drift forward, skipping away from Martin, past this awkward moment, onto the next steps.

He’ll — unfortunately — need to schedule a meeting with Elias. He'll have to find time on Monday to sit down to explain all of this to Tim and Sasha. He’ll need to file this statement, maybe start looking into Jane Prentiss— he could swear there’s a statement from her around here, somewhere...

Martin is still in his office. Sitting in the chair opposite Jon’s across the desk, looking imploringly at him, fidgeting with his hands in a way that’s all too familiar to Jon. He feels an odd twinge; he supposes, this time, Martin has every right to his nerves.

Jon just doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

(Of all the things Jon counts himself to be good at, comfort is not, typically speaking, one of them. If he tries to take Martin’s feelings into his hands right now, they’ll slip through his fingers and shatter.)

So Jon just says: “Do you… need anything else, Martin?”

“Oh, er.” Martin shrugs. “I— no? I guess not? Um.” More fidgeting. “I don’t really… I’m not quite sure what to do now?”

“Oh.” Jon nods. “Well. I-I am, that is, I was in the middle of a case when you—” he gestures vaguely at the dead worms Martin’s deposited on his desk. “But… Ah. If you’d like to give me a bit to finish things up, we can leave for the day. Get, get situated.”

“Okay...” The fidgeting slows, hands steadying until only Martin’s right thumb is tracing idly over his left palm. He gives his best impression of a smile, even with exhaustion and fear making his face almost unrecognizable. “That, uh. Yes. Sure. That works for me.”

Jon nods again, more decisive this time.

This time, Martin takes the hint, stands up.

There’s a moment of awkward hovering; his hands slip apart, and he pats the back of the chair he’d just vacated as he goes. He pauses, for a moment, hand on the doorknob, not looking at Jon. “Um. Thanks, again.”

And then he slips out before Jon can pull together any kind of reply, the door clicking softly shut behind him.

-

Jon doesn’t keep good time. He never has; he loses track and lets hours slip away in what barely feels like minutes, or he’ll look up after what seems like hours of work to find maybe 10 minutes have passed. It’s — it’s been an issue he’s been aware of since he was young, but it’s not something he’s ever been very good at mitigating.

Anyway, the point being… Jon really meant to just finish up his end notes on the Moira Kelly case, maybe find some related material, locate that document on Simon Fairchild he’d vaguely recalled reading that name again today, and get everything organized and in one place so he can dive back into it on Monday.

But nothing is that simple in the Archives, and... things slip away from him.

It’s not that Jon forgot about Martin. He’s not that callous. The Prentiss incident has been itching at the back of his mind since Martin’s statement. It’s just. Well. These statements tend to suck the time right out from under Jon’s feet.

So when he next leaves his office and sees Martin still out in the Archive, he has to do a double take.

He’s sitting hunched over his desk, staring into a mug held tightly between his hands. His fingers are still in a way that feels very conscious, draws Jon up short. He doesn't think he's ever seen Martin entirely still; there's always some unconscious movement. Jon thinks this has to speak to Martin’s anxiety almost more than any amount of fidgeting, like the fear has become so pronounced he’s become aware enough of it to try and clamp it down.

It feels oddly private, makes Jon feel odd intruding. He hesitates for a moment, but his shoes scuffling the floor must’ve gotten Martin’s attention because he looks up, spots Jon, and straightens up in his seat.

He flashes something that Jon thinks is meant to be a smile. “Er, you ready?”

No. “Yes, of course.”

Honestly, he’d just planned to come out for another file, maybe a glass of water, before getting back to it. But the clock on the wall tells him he's done that thing again where he gets caught in his head and loses a handful of hours. It’s well past the end of the day, and Martin can’t leave without Jon.

“If, if you’re ready, give me a moment and we can go,” Jon tells him.

“Oh, yeah.” Martin pushes his mug away and stands. “I mean. I don’t really have anything, so. I’m, uh. I’m ready whenever you are.”

Right. Of course. Martin fled here this morning after two weeks of confinement. And he doesn’t even have a phone, because Prentiss stole it. Jon hums vaguely. “Give me… just give me a minute.”

“Oh, yeah." Martin nods tightly. "Sure, sure.”

Jon nods curtly, does a 180 and vanishes back into his office.

He flexes his hands into fists and then forces them to relax, smoothing them out and wiping his palms against his thighs, and gets to it.

He spends 30 seconds collecting all the loose papers scattered over his desk, crams them unceremoniously back into their folders. Normally, he gives the statements more care. All the pages will be out of order now and it will drive him mad when he gets back in on Monday, but that thought is so distant he can’t let himself worry about it right now when there are... more pressing issues to worry about.

He thinks about stuffing the whole folder into his bag and just bringing it home, but he doesn’t want to have to deal with work when he’s going to have so much else to deal with this weekend. Instead he shoves it into the top drawer of his desk to be dealt with when he has more time. (As if he ever has more time.)

He almost forgets his laptop, and has to turn on his heel at the last second to snatch it off his desk, and he’s still trying to cram it into his bag without taking anything else out or stopping when he leaves his office again.

Martin’s still standing just where Jon left him a moment ago, looking a bit like a last lamb in a rumpled jumper and old sneakers.

“Shall we?”

Martin starts, snaps up to look at him. “Yep.” He nods. “Sure.”

Jon returns the nod and heads out. Martin starts after him, just a few steps behind on the way out of the Institute. They’re silent most of the way, which Jon is grateful for. When things are tense Martin sometimes tends to babble, and Jon has an uncanny knack for finding the worst possible thing to say in any given situation. Even if you take away all the extra stress and awkwardness building up around them both, Jon doesn’t see these two things mixing well in their current predicament.

Jon is not normally one to let himself feel self-conscious. He does things a certain way and it’s okay if other people don’t exactly get it, most of the time.

But he hasn’t had anyone else in his flat for a very, very long time, and… he’s not sure how welcoming it’s going to be to a man freshly out of some kind of worm-imposed urban survivalist isolation.

They make it to the elevator before Jon finally breaks, tension cracking open like an egg inside of him. “Full disclosure, I am… not entirely sure how much food I have at mine right now. I can, I-I can order something for the both of us, when we get there, i-if you’d like.”

Martin opens his mouth, but the elevator dings before he manages any words. It’s not until they’ve crossed the lobby, and Jon’s about to let them out into the chilly March air that Martin says: “Um. I don’t— I kind of. I left my wallet at home? I don’t. I don’t have any money, right now. I mean, I can— I can go get it, at some point. B-but…”

Jon's fingers go white-knuckle tight around the strap of his bag. He is not going to snap, he can be civil.

It’s — look, it’s not that Jon feels guilty. He didn’t ask Martin to break into Carlos Vittery’s basement; it’s not his fault, he knows that.

It’s just… Well, every footfall sounds like knuckles rapping on hardwood, and when Jon blinks all he can see are spindly legs unspooling behind an unfamiliar door.

It is not Jon’s fault Martin was attacked. It isn’t.

But he can’t stop thinking about the blank, enraptured face of a man whose name Jon can’t even remember as he vanishes forever behind a strange door, the look on Martin’s face when he’d looked up at Jon and said I wanted proof, for you.

It isn’t Jon’s fault — it can’t be. It can’t be. He can’t deal with that on top of everything — but.

But Martin almost died because of Jon. He spent two weeks alone and afraid for his life because he wanted to find proof of something Jon’s known was out there since he was eight-years-old, and Jon didn’t even notice he was gone.

And anyway, the pay raise from researcher to Head Archivist may not have been lavish, but he’s fairly proud of the fact that he can shell out for delivery to feed a hungry co-worker when the need arises.

“It’s fine, really,” Jon tells him. “I can cover it.”

“Oh,” Martin says. “Oh. Are you sure?”

Jon pointedly does not look at him. “Yes. I said it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

Martin falls silent again, and with the evening traffic drowning out their footsteps Jon finally gives in and chances a glance at him to make sure he’s still following. He is, and thankfully he doesn’t look back at Jon. He’s got his arms crossed tightly over his chest and he’s looking down at his shoes, instead.

Jon looks away before Martin can catch him staring.

“Okay,” Martin finally says, “thanks.”

“It’s really not a problem.”

“Still,” Martin says, faintly. “Thanks anyway.”

Jon waves him off, humming noncommittally.

They get on the Tube at the station nearest the Institute, and only when Martin settles awkwardly on the seat beside Jon does everything start to feel real.

This— this could be a huge mistake. Jon, chronic over-thinker and class-A worrier can already conjure up a full list of ways he could fuck this up. And yet… There’s a small part of him that also just… Kind of likes being able to do— something.

There isn’t ever much he actually can do; he’s been at this job for months and he’s barely made a dent in the work Elias wants done. Even before the work became personal, before Jane Prentiss apparently made it her personal mission to terrorize his assistant, Jon had no clue what he was doing or if he was making any kind of progress. Every day since taking this job he’s felt like he’s wading deeper and deeper into something he can’t even see the shape of, and he’s already in so deep over his head he can’t see the surface.

He can’t un-read A Guest For Mr. Spider. He can’t erase the last two weeks.

But this? He can fix this. He can offer Martin a safe place to sleep, and he can keep them both fed. This one thing, he can manage.

So, even if it means sleeping on his couch and putting up with Martin Blackwood in his flat for the foreseeable future, then that’s okay.

This can be okay. Jon can make this okay.

Chapter Text

Martin is in Jonathan Sims’ flat.

He can’t decide what’s more surreal: being held hostage for two weeks by a woman made of worms, or this.

And maybe even weirder still: Martin is currently alone in Jon’s flat. The buzzer’s broken and Jon’s landlord hasn’t gotten around to fixing it yet (surprise, surprise) so he’s down in the lobby waiting for their Thai food to be delivered so he can meet the delivery guy out front.

It’s weird. Martin’s trying really hard not to feel too out of place, but it’s weird. It’s really weird.

It’s — Martin doesn’t honestly know what to make of it. These past… well, the past couple of weeks, really, have been so profoundly strange and terrifying that Martin’s still not entirely convinced all of this isn’t some massively complex lucid dream. It kind of feels like everything is going to vanish around him, like he’ll blink and wake up back in his flat, or maybe find out he’s passed out at his desk looking into Vittery and Prentiss was never even there to begin with.

Martin shuts his eyes and takes a deep, slow breath. When he opens them again, he’s still on Jon’s sofa, and he doesn’t feel any calmer.

Maybe this was a mistake. Martin’s already spent the last 13 days in a state of near constant panic, he’s never going to be able to relax here. Jon can barely stand to be around him at work, what’s he going to do with Martin in his space constantly, getting in his way, stopping him from… From doing whatever it is Jon does when he’s not at the Institute?

Martin really should’ve just — what, though?

This is where his thoughts keep stalling out.

What else could he have possibly done? Where else could he go? It’s not like he can afford to stay in a hotel, and it’s not like he’s got anyone outside work he can stay with. Maybe he could’ve asked Tim or Sasha to crash on one of their couches, but Jon’s right; it’s too risky, with Prentiss involved. Not like he’s keen on putting Jon in danger, but Jon did offer. This way Martin won’t have to actually ask one of the others, risk either some kind of polite rejection or, god forbid, an acceptance. He's not sure he could stomach the constant, nagging guilt and the worry that he’d bring some kind of supernatural worm queen to one of their doors, too.

So.

So he’s going to stay with Jon. Okay. It’s his only option, fine. Fine! It’s better than the alternatives. And, hey, at least the sofa feels comfortable. Martin gingerly adjusts his weight against it, squishes the upholstery. It’s not as firm as his mattress back at home, but he thinks he’ll adjust. It’s — surprisingly nice, really. It all is.

Martin’s not sure what he expected from Jon’s flat, but he doesn’t think this is it.

Martin shakes his hands out for the about the millionth time since Jon went downstairs, takes another steadying breath, and just… looks around cautiously. It’s all so… normal. It’s just— it’s just a flat. A little cluttered, a little untidy, but. Normal. Squashy sofa, coffee table that doesn’t match anything else, clothes and books and a droopy houseplant on the windowsill that looks like it needs a little TLC. There’s even a set of shelves that looks alarmingly similar to the set Martin got from IKEA a year ago.

It’s just a place someone lives. A place a person calls home and comes home to.

Martin swallows, looks back down at his lap. Jon-His-Boss and Jon-the-Person are beginning to feel like two different people. Boss Jon tells him his reports are sloppy and scoffs at statements like some kind of stuffy librarian. Person Jon invites Martin to crash on his couch and buys him Thai food, has a pile of old cardigans on his chair, watches television on what looks like a thrifted old TV with a sticker shaped like Saturn stuck in one corner.

Martin doesn't know how to reconcile these two people in his head. He hasn’t even begun to try when the lock clicks and the door opens, startling Martin so bad he jumps about an inch in the air, one hand shooting out to brace against the arm of the couch.

But there’s no knocking, and it’s just Jon, coming back to his own flat with a plastic bag with a red cursive Thank you! printed across it in one hand and his keys in the other.

“Right, so—” Jon stops when he looks up at Martin, sees him wide eyed and tense. He raises an eyebrow, and Martin holds his breath. “… So, I’m not quite in the mood to clear off the dining table right now,” he says, warily. “I usually eat on the sofa. I hope that won’t be a problem.”

Martin doesn’t even have an actual table back at his flat. He eats at his desk or on his couch or, if he’s in a particularly bad mood, in bed with his laptop and whatever he’s streaming on Netflix. “No, that’s fine.”

“Good.”

Jon joins Martin on the couch, and even though he leaves an entire cushion between them, Martin still scooches another few centimeters away into the corner. He leaves the takeout bag on the empty cushion between them, pulls out his Pad See Ew and sets it gingerly on his knee. Martin’s Pad Thai comes out next, handed over to him wordlessly. Martin takes it, careful not to let his fingers brush against Jon’s in the transfer, trying not to let the slight tremor in his hands show.

Jon doesn’t even look at him for longer than it takes to make sure he’s not going to drop his food. After another moment rummaging around in the takeout bag, Jon pulls out a stack of napkins — which he leaves on the seat between them, in easy reach — and plastic utensils. Wordlessly, he holds up a fork and a set of chopsticks.

It takes Martin a second but then he startles into motion. “Oh, um—” He carefully takes the little plastic fork. “Thanks. Er, again.”

“Mm.” Jon nods without actually looking at Martin.

The next handful of minutes are spent in silence while they eat. Martin’s thankful to have something to do, because he’s beginning to realize he has absolutely no idea what to say to Jon. He thinks the last conversation he really had with Jon was… when they argued over Carlos Vittery’s horrible, spider-y death. The few times they’ve seen each other outside of work, Tim and Sasha have always been there as a buffer. Martin’s not sure if Jon’s ever so much as aimed two non-work related words at him, much less any kind words, or words that looked anything like friendship.

“So I was thinking,” Jon says, breaking the silence and snapping Martin out of what was shaping up to be a truly killer anxiety spiral.

Martin’s eyes dart back up to Jon. Mouth full of noodles, he raises his eyebrows, waits for Jon to go on.

“Tomorrow — tomorrow I thought I might go to the store,” Jon continues, “pick up some actual food.”

Martin swallows. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” Jon stirs his food around with his chopsticks, not looking at Martin. It’s good; it’s easier to look at him when he’s not looking back. “You’re welcome to come along and get some things,” he adds, “since, um. S-since you’ll be… here… as well.”

“Um.” Martin looks down at his hands. “My wallet’s still — I can’t really… pay for anything, right now.”

“I am aware.” Jon waves him off. “I’ll pay. I can— I can cover it.”

Martin nods. Has Jon always been this generous? Or does it take a life-threatening supernatural encounter to unlock this side of him?

“I’ll get the next one, then?”

“Sounds reasonable,” Jon agrees. “And I can send Tim to your flat on Monday. For your wallet, and… anything else you might need.”

“Oh.” Martin blinks. Puts his fork down. “Oh, you don’t— I mean, I can go myself. You don’t have to— it’s fine. I can— It’s fine.”

This time, Jon is looking at him when Martin’s eyes inevitably flick back up to him, and he doesn’t look impressed. “The last time you were alone at your flat, you were attacked. At the very least, if you insist on going back, someone will need to be with you.”

Martin cringes internally. “Okay,” he lies, “but. You don’t have to, to make him go. I can just… ask.”

“Yes, alright.” Jon sighs, and then frowns, adds as seemingly an afterthought: “uh. Just. Be careful.”

“I— Yeah.” Martin ducks his head sheepishly. Is that all it takes to get in his head? Be careful? “I’ll try my best.”

They finish eating in silence, but it feels… less strained, this time. There’s less tension in the air, some of the weight easing from Martin’s lungs so he can breathe a little easier.

When they’re both finished, Jon stands, holds his hand out until Martin hands over empty container. He watches Jon take everything into his kitchen, throw their trash away, rinse his hands off in the sink. He keeps peeking up at him until he turns back around, has to drop his eyes quickly looks away so he doesn't get caught staring.

“So, er—” Jon starts, and then stops just as suddenly.

Martin looks back up at him, finds his face screwed up in concentration, almost like he gets when he’s pouring over a particularly difficult case at work that he just can’t seem to solve.

“I don’t, I don’t know if—” Jon gestures vaguely, like he’s trying to snatch the right words out of the air. “If you’re tired, or if you want to…”

He trails off, and eventually Martin decides that’s where he’s going to stop, leaving it up to him to fill in the blanks.

He sighs. That's fine, he can do that. “Actually, um. Do you think— could I use your shower? Uh. Y’know. I-it’s been a long day. Would be nice to wash it off me.”

“Ah,” Jon says, almost relieved, “yes. Yes, that’s fine. It’s, um. The, the bathroom is at the end of the hall.”

For a second, the mask cracks. The carefully composed Head Archivist façade slips, and Jon looks… scared. Genuinely worried, and almost painfully awkward. Martin tries not to feel too relieved, but… it puts something inside of him at ease, to know he’s not the only one fumbling his way through this. It makes things… just that much more bearable.

“I— hmm. Obviously I haven’t really— that is, I would offer you something clean to wear, but. I-I don’t think I’ll… have anything that fits? I, I might have—” Jon talks with his hands, animated and chaotic in a way that makes everything very solid and real. “My, my ex might’ve. Left some things with me that may fit? She’s not, er. She might have been a bit smaller, but sh-she liked the whole… oversized look, so. So I might be able to dig something out. If you’re alright with… band hoodies and track pants.”

“Um.” There is way too much information to process here, so Martin tucks my ex and all the implications therein carefully away to be dealt with later. “Track pants and band hoodies. That is… quite a look,” he says instead.

“Yes, well,” Jon grumbles, looks away. “It was uni. You know how it is.”

Martin very much does not know how uni is. “Right,” he says, with a forced breeziness and a chuckle he hopes says fond nostalgia and not awkward panic. “That’s, yeah, that’s fine. Can’t really be picky at the moment, can I?”

“Mm.” Jon nods. “I’ll just… ah. I’ll be back. Erm.” He flutters his hands in Martin’s direction, and then disappears down the hall and into his bedroom.

Martin picks at his thumb nail, trying to chip away the last bit of polish that’s somehow survived 13 days of isolation. How did he ever pass time before he had a cellphone to scroll through? God, it would be nice to have something to hide behind right now. Just tuck himself away and disappear for a little bit, unobtrusive and out of the way. Jon’s already doing so much for him, it feels like the least he could do is just —

“Right,” For the second time that night, Jon’s voice snaps Martin out of a painful near miss with an anxiety spiral. Martin’s head whips up, and he’s standing there, clutching a bunch of clothes in his arms, holding them out to Martin. “Here you are.”

Martin blinks. He forces himself into gear, rushing to stand and gingerly take the proffered bundle from Jon. “Thanks.”

“Yes,” Jon responds. “Um. There should be clean towels under the sink. Spare toothbrushes... somewhere. Uh, use whatever you need.”

“Okay. Right, yeah. Cool. I’ll just—” Martin scoots around Jon. “I’ll see you in a bit, I guess.”

“Yes,” Jon says again, and then frowns, although this one feels more self-directed.

A tiny, tiny portion of the nerves crawling around Martin’s chest quiet, and he escapes down the hall, shutting the bathroom door behind him with a quiet click.

—

When Martin comes back out, feeling clean and light and sleepy and only a little out of place in bright red joggers and a screen-printed hoodie for what's got to be some very cool obscure band he's never heard of, Jon is fussing around the sofa with a stack of sheets and pillows.

Martin freezes, socked feet silent against the hardwood hall floor, until his brain finally catches up with his eyes.

“Oh, um, I— you don’t have to— I can get that.”

Jon gives him a thoroughly unimpressed face. “I’m a grown man, Martin, I’m perfectly capable of making up my own bed.”

And just like that Martin’s brain sticks and freezes again. “Wait.” His hands fall back to his side. “Hang on, hang on.”

Jon does not hang on. He goes right back to smoothing a sheet over the cushions with long, steady fingers.

Martin takes the final few steps until he’s standing — hovering, really — right beside Jon. “When you said your couch is comfortable, you didn’t mean—”

“That I’d sleep on it for the duration of your stay? Yes,” Jon answers decisive and defensive. “That is exactly what I meant.”

Jon has done a lot of baffling things in the time Martin has known him — has done quite a few of those over the past handful of hours, really — but this has got to take the cake.

“Jon,” Martin says, stunned. “That’s insane. It’s your house, I’m not— I-I won't— no.”

“Martin, be reasonable,” Jon says, with just as much frustration. “You’re a guest here. You were— put out of your home, you could’ve— I’ve slept on this sofa before, it’s comfortable, I’ll manage.”

“You’ll— Christ.” Martin pushes his glasses up and rubs at his eyes. “We don’t know how long I’ll need to be here. This, this Prentiss thing might not be so easy to... resolve. I’m not gonna kick you out of your own bed indefinitely.”

“You won’t be kicking me out.” Finished with the sheet, Jon straightens up and reaches for a quilt piled on the coffee table. “I’ve already vacated of my own accord.”

Martin is too tired to do this right now. He’s had a long week. He’s already feeling guilty enough taking up Jon’s space, and Martin is— just exhausted enough to not let Jon intimidate him into backing down.

Before Jon can do anything else, Martin pushes between him and the couch and sits down, crossing his arms and leaning back.

It’s a bit satisfying when Jon stops dead. He blinks, gives Martin a long, searing look. “Are you serious?”

Martin is quite impressed with himself when he doesn’t look away from Jon’s harsh eyes. “Yes.”

They spend a long, silent minute having a pretty intense stare down before Jon’s shoulders slump, his slender fingers curling around the blankets in his hands. “You’re being stubborn.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

Martin barely suppresses a snort. “Wow, alright.”

Jon’s brows pinch together, a familiar little crease appearing between them. “What do you mean by that?”

“Just… a bit, pot calling the kettle black there, yeah?”

Jon rolls his eyes. “I am aware I can be stubborn as well.”

“Right… So, what?” Martin asks. “We be stubborn at each other till one of us caves?”

“I can stay here all night,” Jon tells him.

Martin huffs. “So can I.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

A beat passes, and Jon sighs. For a moment Martin thinks he’s won, but then Jon sits down, too, half a seat between them, quilt clutched tightly against his chest like a kid with a security blanket. It would be disarming if not for the determined scowl on his face and the rigid set to his shoulders, reminding Martin exactly what he’s up against here.

“I think I’ll just—“ Jon leans forward and snatches a remote off the coffee table, switching the TV on and flipping through channels. There can’t be anything good on this time of night on a Saturday, but Martin figures it’s more about making a point.

That’s fine, Martin can make a point too.

“You do that,” he says simply.

And then, because spite and pettiness are the most powerful antidotes to fear and uncertainty Martin has ever encountered in his life, he reaches over, pulls the blanket out of Jon’s arms, and throws it over himself. With Jon on the couch, he can’t exactly lie down, but that’s fine. He’s slept sitting up plenty of times. Mostly when he passed out after particularly late nights with his mum or at work, but. Jon’s sofa is much more comfortable than hard desk chairs, so he’ll manage.

Martin turns over, away from Jon. He pulls his glasses off and sets them on the arm of the couch, buries his face against the backrest and tucks his legs up to his chest. He shifts, pulling the blanket up over his shoulders, settles down against forgiving cushioning.

For a moment, he feels so cozy he almost forgets to be annoyed.

See, he’s spent all night feeling so wound up and nervous, it hasn’t hit him till now, with stubbornness finally chasing away the last vestiges of that humming terror in his bones: this is the first time he’s felt safe in two weeks. This is the first time he’s really been safe in two weeks.

“I’m not moving,” he hears Jon say from his end of the sofa.

“Okay,” Martin says back, voice going soft and thick around the edges with a sleep that’s already nipping at his heels, trying to drag him under.

“The bedroom’s just down the hall.”

“So it is,” Martin agrees, staying exactly where he is.

It really has been a long few weeks.

He really is tired.

Martin pulls the blanket up around his shoulders, feels the soft, quilted cotton against his cheek, and lets his eyes shut.

He’s in Jon’s flat. He’s in Jon’s flat, on his squashy sofa, and even though Jon’s never liked him much he brought Martin back here anyway so he would be safe. The lights are on, and the low chatter of the TV and the slight dip of Jon’s weight on the other end of the sofa remind him he’s not alone. He’s full from dinner and still warm from his shower, and Jane Prentiss isn’t waiting on the other side of any door.

This might be the strangest thing Martin’s ever had to deal with, but for the time being, at least, he really is safe.

It’s with that realization, the deep-down surety that settles over him, that Martin finally lets sleep pull him under.

Chapter Text

Jon wakes up feeling comfortably warm, with a distinctly uncomfortable crick in his neck.

The crick neck he’s used to — after so many long nights spent hunched over his desk, a nearly perpetual ache has taken up residence somewhere between his shoulderblades.The warmth is new, though. The archives run chilly in the winter as a side effect of working in the basement with very little ventilation. Even if he wears his jacket, he’s used to an ever-present shiver and a chill the settles deep in his bones.

But today, he feels surprisingly snug as he drifts, slowly, into waking. It’s a nice change of pace; in those hazy in-between moments, the few drowsy seconds before wakefulness fully takes hold, he chases after that warmth, burrows closer to the comfort that he so rarely manages to find these days.

He sighs, buries his face in the soft material in front of him, fists knitting in the quilt, until… until, slowly, Jon starts to wake up in earnest.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep last night. He vaguely remembers sliding down on the sofa, trying to get comfortable against the arm of the couch with all his limbs pulled up close to his body without disturbing—

Martin.

Jon blinks his eyes open, jerks his head up. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he knows for certain he’d ended his night firmly on the opposite end of the couch from Martin, with an entire empty seat cushion between them.

He very, very clearly remembers Martin curling in on himself, facing away from Jon. (He remembers how struck he’d been by just how small Martin can make himself when he tries, especially considering the half-foot and change he has on Jon when they stand. It’s not exactly a revelation; Martin’s always hunching or slumping around the office, shrinking himself quite effectively. But asleep beside Jon last night, tucked up under his spare quilt, it was like he had been about a second away from just vanishing completely.)

Still, he’d fallen asleep quick and stayed asleep, so Jon hadn’t bothered him, even after he’d stubbornly refused to take the bed. A good night’s sleep had seemed sorely needed, with the haunted look to Martin’s gaunt face and the deep purple shadows under his eyes.

Even though Jon can’t remember when he’d finally given in to sleep, he knows it hadn’t been with his face hidden away between Martin’s shoulders and his hands fisted in the quilt wrapped around him.

Thank god he’s still sleeping now. Jon’s not sure what he’d do if Martin had woken to find him… Here.

Martin’s just— he’s warm, that’s all. He’d taken Jon’s blanket and left Jon to try and keep himself warm on his end of the couch all night, so he must’ve just… gravitated towards the warmest thing in the room unconsciously. He’s always been like this — Georgie once compared him to a cat sleeping on a radiator — seeking warmth, even when it’s inconvenient.

It’s fine. It’s, well, it’s embarrassing, but at least no one else has to know. Jon is well practiced at living with his own mortification. He can just forget it ever happened, move on with his life, and never, ever let it happen again.

Gingerly, as slowly as he can manage so as not to wake Martin, Jon pulls himself away.

Or, he tries to, only to find that he’s somehow managed to wedge his other arm between Martin and the sofa, keeping him rooted very firmly where he is.

Jon freezes, braces himself. How light of a sleeper is Martin? Will he notice if Jon moves now? He supposes it’s a risk he's just going to have to take. What are his other options? Wait for Martin to wake up? He grimaces. Obviously he can't do that. Cautiously, starts to slip his arm free.

There’s a second where Martin stirs, and Jon has to stop, go still as the dead, until Martin sighs and settles back against the sofa, still firmly asleep. Jon lets out a breath of relief, manages to shimmy his hand the rest of the way out and break free. He flexes his fingers against the tingle of pins and needles running up to his elbow where his arm’s fallen asleep.

Carefully, he scoots back away from Martin, and the cold rushes back in straight away, enveloping him like a shroud the second he leaves Martin’s cozy little bubble.

Jon shivers, and his neck twinges in complaint. With a grimace, he rubs at his nape with the hand that’s not half-numb still, kneads at a knot in his shoulder until movement from the other end of the sofa snaps his attention back up.

Martin shifts again under his blanket, less subtle this time, with a faint, hoarse hum.

For the second time, Jon stops moving, wills Martin to stay asleep. But it’s no use, Martin's already rolling over, pushing the quilt down and blinking up at Jon's ceiling. He shifts, and then Jon sees him make a face, fingers poking out of Georgie’s old hoodie to prod at his own neck.

“Ow,” he manages, throaty and hoarse and sleepy in a way Jon never anticipated hearing Martin Blackwood’s voice. (At least Jon already managed to escape, to put space between them, before he woke. Small mercies.)

“Stiff neck?” Jon guesses, sleep still thick in his own throat.

Martin starts with a twitch, turns to face Jon with wide brown eyes and splotchy pink cheeks. “Jon! Uh.” He clears his throat. “Um. Yeah.”

Jon hums in dissatisfaction. “Mine as well.”

“Heh.” Martin huffs. “Thought you said your sofa was comfortable.”

“It is, if you actually lie down on it like a normal, sleeping person.”

“Yeah, well—” Cut off by a yawn, Martin stretches his arms over his head. Jon watches his knuckles bump lightly against the wall behind him. “Whose fault is that?”

Jon stares at him, mouth opening and closing while he fights off the last vestiges of sleep to try and formulate a response. “Whose— Martin! You— I— I told you to take the bed! Y-you, you wouldn’t—“

Martin groans, rubs his hand over his face. “Please, I just woke up. I can’t do this again.”

Jon slumps back against the arm rest, pulls his legs up and crosses his arms. The pinnacle of defensive posture. “Fine.”

Martin huffs, pulls his hand away and finds his glasses where he left them on the armrest last night. “What time is it?”

“There’s a clock on the wall,” Jon tells him, although he checks it himself anyway and nearly has to do a double take. “Nearly eleven.”

“Wow. Really?” Martin follows Jon’s gaze to the clock over the television. “Haven’t slept this late in ages.”

A little astounded, Jon admits, “neither have I.”

He doesn’t want to think about how the best sleep he’s had in recent memory came at the expense of spending the night quite literally curled up on his couch with Martin. Stiff neck and aching back aside, this is the first time he hasn’t kept himself up tossing and turning or woken at random intervals throughout the night since— since taking the Head Archivist job, really.

Jon shifts uncomfortably. He knows he’s been lonely lately, but Christ. This has to be some kind of new low.

“I’m, uh.” He slips off the sofa, socked feet making almost no noise on the floor. “I’m going to. To go shower. You can…” He trails off, looks around his apartment and laments how dull it is.

He looks at Martin, finds him already looking back with an expectant, confused sort of expression.

“Ah.” Jon waves his hand about. “Yes.”

Martin blinks at him. “Um. Okay?”

Jon nods, and vanishes down the hall. He fishes some clean clothes out of his dresser, casts a grudging glare at his invitingly made bed, and locks himself in the bathroom. He doesn’t normally shower in the mornings. Not enough energy, not enough time before work. He normally saves it for the evening, but obviously he'd had other priorities last night.

Jon won’t admit to hiding, per se, but it does take him about twice as long to get ready than it normally does. He stays in as long as he can get away with, before he steels himself and heads back out to the living room.

Martin isn’t on the sofa anymore, but Jon can hear clinking from the kitchen, so curiosity draws him in. He finds Martin standing at his stove, kettle brewing and two mismatched mugs laid out on the countertop.

“You’re making tea?”

Martin jumps. “Jesus.” He turns, huffs. “Didn’t even hear you come in.”

“Mm.” Jon waves him off, points at the mugs. “Tea?”

“Oh, yeah,” Martin says, flushing, ducking his head. “Didn’t find much food, but I found some tea in the cupboard. I, er, hope you don’t mind?”

Jon finds that he actually doesn’t. “No, that’s— I said you could— I don’t mind. It’s fine.” He looks at the wall over Martin’s shoulder. “Make, ah. Make yourself at home.”

And Martin, for the first time since he came back from Prentiss, smiles. Not the anxious thing he puts on reflexively, but something cautious and small and real. “I, um. I’m making you a cup, too.”

Jon is not surprised. He points to the two mugs. “I can see that.” 

Martin huffs. “Right. Duh.”

Jon rolls his eyes, but finds it’s with… less annoyance, and more… well, he refuses to call it fondness. Camaraderie, maybe? Something like that. Maybe it’s just a little comforting to see Martin nervous in the way he’s always nervous and not nervous because he’s under threat from something sinister. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.

He looks away from Martin, scanning the room. He tries to look through a stranger's eyes, like he hasn’t lived here for over a year, doesn’t see this place everyday. Or, well, most days. Some days he… doesn’t quite make it back from work, but. A good portion of days.

Jon’s not sure if he’s ever used his dining table for its intended purpose. He bought it because it seemed like something a professional adult his age should have, and then almost immediately relegated it to a receptacle for papers and files and old pens and other miscellaneous garbage he doesn’t know what else to do with. He doesn’t have a problem taking his meals on the sofa.

But… He’s not the only one here, now. Martin’s here. Martin, who’s… A grown up. A grown adult who isn’t very good at his job but who always thinks to make tea for everyone else and uses coasters and probably doesn’t want to spend the foreseeable future eating on Jon’s ratty couch. Especially if they’re going to be cooking, making proper meals that don’t come in plastic containers.

Martin is — what, in his late 30’s? Older than Jon, if his resume is anything to go off of. He had to be… almost through with his master's degree while Jon was still putting on bad eyeliner and doing punk shows with Georgie and their friends at crowded house parties and skeevy dive bars.

Jon doesn’t even own coasters.

Jon makes a mental note to clean off the table, and does his best to at least rearrange some of the detritus so they’ll have a place to sit and drink their tea. It’s— it’s probably the best he can do right now. He's stacking some old spiral notebooks and setting them off to the side to leave a little bit of free space when a mug clinks gently on the tabletop by his elbow.

Jon looks down at it, then up at Martin, standing beside him with his own cup held between both his hands. “Thank you,” he manages to make himself say.

Martin smiles at him, again, just as timid but twice as soft as the last one. “No problem.”

They sit at Jon’s table, and sip their tea in silence. Even though Jon can’t think of a single thing to say, it doesn’t feel as horribly awkward as last night’s silences. If Jon were to let himself think about it, he might even say it feels… peaceful.

—

Jon doesn’t cook often. When it’s just him, he just doesn’t see much of a point. He can keep himself going on microwave noodles, boxes of biscuits, and takeout. It’s. It’s just easier. Takes less time. Besides, with the hours he keeps, produce and meat tend to spoil in the fridge before he can get around to actually using them, so he just doesn’t do it if he can get away with anything else.

But he can cook, if he chooses to. He used to cook for Georgie, when they lived together. When he was a teenager, he would even cook the odd meal for his grandmother when she was too tired or wasn’t feeling up to it. He’s— actually, he’s not bad at it. He tries not to let it swell his head, but he’s received a fair amount of compliments on the food he’s prepared.

That night, Jon does something he hasn’t done in quite some time: he cooks dinner. He pulls all the old cookware he salvaged from his gran’s house out of the cupboards, rinses off months of collected dust, and puts them to use.

Once he gets into it, it’s actually kind of soothing. It’s like riding a bike: he’s a little rusty, but once he gets going it’s all right there. The routine of it is one he’s familiar enough with that he doesn’t have to worry, doesn’t get nervous about getting it wrong, but it demands enough of his attention to feel engaging.

“Do you, um,” comes Martin’s voice from the doorway. “Do you need any, any help there?”

It goes to show how at ease Jon feels like this that Martin’s sudden appearance doesn’t startle him. “No,” he answers, and then tacks on a, “thank you,” for good measure.

“Okay. Well. L-let me know if you do?”

Jon looks away from the potatoes and onions he’s got nearing a boil for a second to look up at Martin. He’s hovering back by the table, hands deep in the pockets of his borrowed hoodie.

“I will,” Jon tells him, though he has no intention of actually doing so. It just seems like the easiest way to appease Martin in the moment.

And he’s right, because Martin relaxes, shoulders slumping. “Alright. Alright, good.”

Jon chances another glance his way. “Actually,” he says, “would you mind. Er, would you clear off the table a bit more? Just. Just to make some room.”

“Oh! Yeah, sure.” Martin flashes a smile, and vanishes from Jon’s periphery.

Jon likes cooking for other people. He doesn’t like having an audience. Well, he does, sometimes. Georgie used to sit on the counter, swinging her legs, poking fun at him when he asked her to open a stubborn jar. But Martin is — he barely knows Martin, he doesn’t need him hovering awkwardly, trying to be helpful when his self-admitted diet mostly consists of cans and ready-meals.

“Where, uh. Where should I put everything?” Martin calls.

“Just…” Jon frowns. “Leave it all on the coffee table. I’ll sort through it later.”

“Can do.”

Jon tunes out the sound of Martin shuffling around his living room in favor of getting back to cooking. He’s got everything for this recipe piled up beside the stove, ready for when he needs it. After their trip to the shops today, Jon thinks he's probably got more food in his flat than he has since he moved in.

Looking at a bag of cashews, Jon purses his lips. “You don’t have any food allergies, do you?”

Martin stops where he is, hands full of notebooks from the table. “Hm? Oh, er. Nope. Just bees, and I’m assuming you don’t plan to cook with any of those.”

A snort is pulled from Jon’s lips, and Jon’s not sure which of them is more surprised. “No, there are no bees in the recipe for dum aloo.”

Martin huffs a startled little laugh. “Cool. Good to know.”

Jon very nearly smiles when he turns back to his cooking. With the sounds of Martin moving around in the background, oil sizzling in a pan on the stove, it’s easy to get a bit entranced, and before he knows it Jon’s staring at a finished pot of steaming potatoes in rich, creamy sauce.

He can’t remember the last time his flat smelled like home cooking, and it’s… It feels nice, he has to admit. Makes it feels less like somewhere he comes back to at the end of the day out of sheer necessity, and more… Warm. Open. Welcoming, almost. More like some place a person might actually live.

“That smells good,” Martin tells him, as Jon brings the food over to the — now nearly completely empty — kitchen table.

Jon hums noncommittally, trying to hide the way his chest swells with something like pride. It’s just Martin, someone whose opinion Jon has never put much stock in, but. It feels good, to be praised for something he made with his hands.

Jon fetches utensils and plates, sets them on the table with the food, and then tells Martin, “Help yourself.”

“Oh, okay.” Martin nods. “Thanks.”

The next couple of minutes are quiet, save for the scrap of metal on metal as the both of them spoon rice and dum aloo out onto their plates.

Dinner is mostly quiet, too, but not shrouded in total silence. It’s easier to talk to Martin after spending the whole day navigating grocery shopping with him, when it’s not about work, when there’s fewer reasons for Jon to be frustrated or annoyed with him. When they finish, Jon stands to bring his dishes to the sink, but Martin makes a noise of protest.

“Oh, let me get the dishes." He hold sup a hand to stop Jon. "You cooked. It’s only fair I clean up.”

A part of Jon wants to protest out of principle, but a bigger part of him doesn’t have it in him. When it comes to cooking, the cleanup is easily his least favorite part, so he relents. He helps carry the dirty dishes over to the sink, and then goes back out to the living room. He looks at the pile of notebooks and files and whatever else he’d let gather up over months on his kitchen table now waiting for him on his coffee table, and decides this is something he can deal with later, instead pulling out his bag.

They have work tomorrow; Jon should make sure he’s caught up before he’s back in the office with a million and one new things to add to the already monumental pile of tasks that need doing. He pulls out his spiral notebook— open to a page of followup notes for a statement he needs to record next week— gives it a once over, and grimaces. He smooths out the pages, shuts the cover, and tucks it back in his bag.

He takes his laptop out next. Opens it, stares at the screen, the blinking little cursor asking him to type in his password. He should at least check his email. Good lord, he’s going to have a lot to do tomorrow. He’ll have to fill in Tim and Sasha. He doesn't even know what to tell them yet, but he'll have to give them some kind of warning, and then he’ll have to — god help him — go to Elias and explain the whole situation.

For all that Elias boasts about wanting to be there to support his archival staff, it’s like pulling teeth just trying to get him to shell out to replace a lightbulb down in the basement. Jon doesn’t even want to think about the headache it’s going to be to convince him to up security against something that, technically, didn’t even threaten the Institute itself.

Jon sighs.

It’s been… strange, to say the least, having Martin here with him. But it’s also been… Well, with Martin here, Jon hasn’t really had the chance to think about the Archives. For a day and a half, he’s been able to forget about the weight of being Head Archivist and all the mountains of work that come along with it — work Jon’s still not 100% sure he’s even doing right, frankly.

For these past 36 hours, Jon’s main concern has been making sure Martin is comfortable. Making sure he’s fed and warm and has a place to sleep at night. He’s just needed to buy groceries and cook dinner and try and give Martin a place to lay his head. All of these things are doable. They are real, tangible things Jon can do to make something better. He knows Martin probably isn’t having the best time of his life right now, but Jon can hope he's at least made things a little easier for him.

So, it’s been almost like... like a real weekend. A brief break from the amorphous knot of fear and anxiety and that prickly, observed feelings that plagues him whenever he’s in the office.

The couch dips, and Jon starts, blinking over to see Martin sitting down across from him. With a sharp inhale, Jon shuts his laptop, shoves it off his legs onto the empty cushion beside him, shakes his fingers out until he feels something like normal again.

“Everything alright there?” Martin raises his eyebrows. “… Rude email, or something?”

“No, it’s—” Jon shakes his head. “Everything’s fine.”

“Ooo-kay," Martin says, shrugging. “If you say so.”

Jon watches Martin settling against the sofa, pulling his feet up. His fingers tap against his knee, but apart from that he looks about as close to relaxed as Jon has seen him thus far.

“Martin,” Jon starts, brow pinching.

Martin looks back over to him. “Hm?”

“This… This situation isn’t sustainable.”

And now Jon watches Martin go very still, save for the way his lips thin out. “Oh?”

“Look,” Jon says, looking away from Martin, down at his hands, cheeks heating up. “We can’t keep— we’ll throw our backs out if we have to keep doing—” he gestures to the sofa— “Like last night.”

“Oh?” Martin says again, with an entirely different tone this time.

“I— I know this is. Um.” Jon clears his throat. “I think, uh. I, I have an idea. Just— it's a bit— hear me out, alright?”

“Okay?”

“I think… Given that we, we already. Well.” Jon does not say slept together, doesn’t want to conjure images of this morning, his face close pressed into Martin’s back, the solid warmth he radiated even through the quilt. “My bed is a queen. If you’re going to be stubborn about it, I just. I think it’s big enough for us to share.”

“… Share,” Martin repeats, deadpan.

Defensive and bristling, Jon snaps, “We already shared last night, at least this way we won’t completely destroy our spines.”

“I. Well. Okay. That’s— that’s. True?”

Jon studiously does not look at Martin, although it does feel good to stake a win. “It’s not— we can be adults about this, can’t we? It’s, it’s— I know it’s. Unusual. But, it’s just. The simplest option, isn’t it?”

Martin goes quiet, for a moment. “I…” He trails off, but Jon’s got nothing else to say, so he waits. “I-I mean. I guess? That, um. Makes… sense…”

“Thank you,” Jon says.

Martin sighs. “I just… Are you sure about this? Like, are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t have said anything if I wasn’t,” Jon almost snaps, although now he’s definitely proper flushing. It’s, it’s just— not a situation he’s familiar with, and he isn’t good in situations he’s unfamiliar with.

Martin sucks in his lower lip, looks away, looks back to Jon. “Um. Sure, yeah. Okay.”

“Okay,” Jon repeats, shoulders sagging with— something. Maybe relief, of some kind. “That’s settled, then.”

“Yep,” Martin agrees, thin and strained. “Guess it is.”

—

Going to bed is — Jon won’t pretend it’s not awkward. But he brings his pajamas into the bathroom to change, and by the time he gets back to his room, Martin’s under the covers facing away from him, either asleep already or faking it, so at least there’s no dancing around each other.

Jon crosses the room as quietly as he can, gently pulls the duvet back from his side of the bed. Or, the side he’ll be sleeping on, anyway. In all honesty, Martin’s taken the side Jon prefers to sleep on while he wasn’t around to protest, but he’s not about to rouse him to tell him to switch.

Gently, Jon slips under the covers, settles in, with his back to Martin and enough distance between them a third person could reasonably fit in the empty space. Jon takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. They’re both adults, they can handle this like grown ups. No possibly supernatural parasites will get them here. They’re both comfortable, they’re both well fed, and they’re both safe.

They can make this work.

Chapter Text

As a general rule, Martin does not describe himself as a morning person.

He thinks, to actually be a morning person, you have to get some kind of enjoyment from waking up early. You have to be the type of person whose circadian rhythm has you going to bed at sundown and waking up at the crack of dawn to listen to birds and putter around the house until you have to get ready for work.

And when it comes down to it, Martin despises the early morning. If he were given any say in the matter, he thinks, he’d be the type to sleep in till noon, to grumble and pull the blankets up over his head and hide in his pillows should anyone try to rouse him any earlier.

It just… turns out he's never actually been given any say in it. (It’s hard to sleep in when you’re spending every free hour you’ve got working and taking care of a sick parent.)

Martin’s mum is — was? No, is. He imagines she still likes getting up at 6:15 on the dot in the care home, even if he’s not around to see it anymore — a morning person. After a certain number of years of being forced awake by uncaring alarms and the weight of an entire household tottering on your shoulders, the habit eventually kind of sticks with you. So now it’s hard for him to sleep in, even if he wakes up with exhaustion clinging like lead weights around his ankles.

It’s a useful habit, anyway. Even if it does make for some miserable early mornings and a lot of yearning for mid-afternoon naps he never has time for.

So, on Monday morning, Martin blinks himself awake well before Jon.

Groggy and sleep-heavy, Martin squints into the cold grey light of morning in an unfamiliar bedroom. There’s a disorienting moment where he has to give his brain some time to fit all the pieces back together to make sense of where he is: Jon’s flat. Jon’s bedroom. Jon’s bed, at— without his glasses, it’s hard to tell, but he thinks the little digital clock on the nightstand is saying it’s nearly 7:00 AM.

Right, he remembers now. With a gentle sigh, Martin stirs. Or, he tries to. It’s with this feeble attempt that he becomes aware of… an unfamiliar weight.

Jon’s got a lovely duvet. Real feather down and reassuringly heavy. Martin had spent a good few minutes last night before he fell asleep just appreciating it, but this is distinctly not that.

Maybe he’s not really awake, after all. Maybe he’s dreaming, or so deliriously sleepy that he’s started actually hallucinating. There’s no way he’s actually waking up with Jon Sims’ hand curled into the fabric of his borrowed hoodie, right over his heart, breath on Martin’s neck and one of his ankles hooked around Martin’s.

Martin shuts his eyes again, like maybe he can open them and be back in a reality where things make sense.

Nope.

Jon’s still — really, it’s the only word there is to describe this — snuggled up with him, warm and loose and very much still asleep.

Okay. So this — this is actually happening. Okay! He can just… handle this. He’ll have to.

Martin starts to ease himself out from under the covers, and Jon makes a small, plaintive noise in his sleep, and tightens his grip on Martin.

Martin’s heart skips in his chest. He takes a slow, measured breath, and then another when the first does nothing to stabilize him. Martin is not a morning person. He isn’t. He doesn’t know how to deal with the man who he — the man who’s his boss and up until about two days ago has honestly not treated him very well, clinging onto him for dear life when it's this early. He’s not sure if this would be something he could deal with at any time of day, but with the haze of sleep still weighing on him and the comforter warm and heavy on top of him, it becomes close to impossible.

Maybe it’s the unreality of waking up in Jon’s bed with gray morning light peeking in at him. Maybe it’s that he’s just come from one of the most isolating experiences of his life (which is, honestly, saying something) and he’s just starved for any kind of human contact.

Maybe, it’s just that — and he’ll drop dead on the spot before he admits this aloud to anyone — this exact scenario is one of his most indulgent daydreams, only in his daydreams Jon is awake and aware and holding onto Martin because he wants to.

When was the last time anyone held him like this? When was the last time someone even wanted to?

Ouch, okay. This is getting way too mopey. Martin really hates mornings. As firmly as he dares, he manages to pry Jon’s fingers free and slip out of his grasp. Almost as soon as he’s out, Jon makes another sleepy, plaintive noise, and curls in on himself, pulling the covers up to his chest and holding them like a security blanket.

Martin has to tear his gaze away after that. Jon just looks so… vulnerable like this, his face open and his limbs all tangled together, hair a mess and pajama T-shirt slipping off his shoulder.

Martin gives his head a firm shake, picks his glasses up from the nightstand, and leaves the room as quickly as he can without making any noise.

—

Tim and Sasha are both already in when Jon and Martin make it to the Institute. Martin doesn’t think they’re that late, but it did take a minute to get themselves sorted before they left Jon’s this morning. Undoubtedly Jon, who practically seems to live in his office, hates those few minutes they lost to the morning commute. Martin very nearly cringes when he sees the two of them hovering by Sasha’s desk and chatting over cups of togo coffee from the little café down the street.

“Woah,” Tim says with a grin when he looks up and spots Martin. “Nice outfit. Long night?”

Martin frowns. He’s still wearing a hoodie and sweats pilfered from Jon’s supposed uni ex, which is, yeah, not exactly a spiffy business casual look. He opens his mouth, but he doesn’t even know where to start.

He shrugs, scuffing his toes against the dingy gray carpet. “Something like that.”

“Actually,” Jon says, coming up beside him. “About that. There’s something we should all discuss.”

Tim’s eyes slide off of Martin and onto Jon. “Oh? Sounds serious.”

“It is,” Jon tells him gravely.

Sasha raises her eyebrows, and she and Tim exchange one of their looks. “… Alright.”

Jon bites his lip, turns to Martin. “Would you like to— Or, should I—”

“Oh. Right,” Martin cuts him off, “No, uh. I can— I can…”

“Go on,” Tim prods gently, smile fading around the edges.

Martin looks down at his hands, pulls his sleeves down over his knuckles and fidgets with the fabric. “I, uh. I kind of… had a run in with… Jane Prentiss.”

“Jane Prentiss,” Sasha repeats, in a neutral tone.

“Where do I know that name from?” Tim asks, tapping his fingers against his coffee cup.

Sasha scoffs. “She’s an open case. We have a whole file on her. Remember? Timothy Hodge," she prompts, "Harriet Lee, exploding into—”

“Oooh, yeah,” Tim says, “that’s right. Spooky worm woman?”

“She is not... ‘spooky.’” Now it’s Jon’s turn to scoff. “Jane Prentiss is just, just… A woman with a very dangerous and highly contagious parasite.”

Martin stops his fidgeting, drops his hands to his sides, looks over at Jon incredulously. “Just a— Jon! She trapped me in my flat for two weeks! Sh-she’s made of holes! She’s— you can’t really believe she’s just a—” He makes pointed, over-the-top air quotes, drops his voice in a bad approximation of Jon’s accent— “‘woman with a parasite.’”

Jon frowns. “We have yet to uncover any concrete proof to say otherwise.”

“Okay.” Martin shoves his fingers under his glasses and rubs at his eyes. “How ‘bout the fact she stood outside my door and didn’t eat or sleep or drink anything or move for thirteen days?” He insists. “Do you think any normal person would even still be alive after that, much less standing there and knocking like some kind of, of creepy trick-or-treater?”

Jon opens his mouth to respond, undoubtedly with something smug and ridiculous, but Tim cuts in. “Wait, hang on. Thirteen days? Back up a bit, I’m lost. What the hell happened?”

Martin sighs, whatever indignation had been building up shattering and ebbing away just as fast, replaced with a remnant of that weariness he remembers keenly. He slumps down into his own chair, leans his elbow on his desk.

“I saw her when I was out doing some research, and she followed me home,” he explains. “Stood outside my door. Jon says she stole my phone, even— there’s. I, I made a statement about it, if you want to listen. That’s fine.”

“You probably should, actually,” Jon says, standing awkwardly right where Martin left him in the door to the Archives, hands twisting on the strap of his messenger bag. “You should be brought up to speed on Prentiss’s latest whereabouts, her behaviors. Regardless of if she is truly supernatural or not—” He does not look at Martin, but Martin doesn’t even have it in him to fight this time— “She is dangerous, and she has the wherewithal to stalk people to their homes, and to send text messages believable enough she managed to convince me she was Martin for two weeks.”

“Creepy,” Sasha says.

“… Very,” Tim agrees, sounding more subdued now. “Maybe stick to phone calls from now on, eh, Sash?”

“That actually might not be a bad idea,” Jon agrees. “The both of you might want to take… precautions. She had access to Martin’s personal cellphone. She might have gotten hold of your contact information.”

Martin’s face burns. “I, I don’t have your addresses in my phone,” he's quick to assure them, “she— I don’t think she’ll be able to track you down, or anything.”

“Still,” Jon says, “I advise caution.”

“Gotcha.” Tim nods. “We’ll be careful." He nudges Sasha's ankle with his foot. "Right, Sasha?”

“Right,” she says, nudging Tim back with considerably more force. “Will do.”

“Good.” Jon gives a sharp nod. “If you’d like to listen to the statement, I can get you the tape. Or the two of you can just come listen in my office.”

“Oh, god.” Martin drops his face into his hands, digs his fingers into his eyelids. “I don’t want to hear all that again. Please.”

Tim snorts, stands and offers Sasha a hand up. “Guess we’ll take this party to the boss's office.”

Jon shifts his weight from foot to foot. “Alright, yes, come with me.”

Together, the three of them head back over to his office. Jon ushers Tim and Sasha inside, and shuts the door quietly behind them, where Martin stares for a handful of moments before  he manages to look away.

He tries to keep himself occupied, but all the cases he was on before his absence have been wrapped up, his laptop’s still at home, and obviously his phone’s not an option. The longer he has to wait, alone in the quiet Archives, the more antsy he gets. By the time the door to Jon’s office finally opens again, Martin’s hair’s a proper mess from all the times he’s run his hands through it, and his foot’s tapping so much he’s knee is starting to tingle.

Tim and Sasha slip out of the office, but Jon must stay put, because Sasha pulls the door closed behind her. Her eyes land on Martin’s, and then slip away again, as she settles stiffly back in her desk chair. Tim bypasses his desk entirely and comes over to hover by Martin.

“Listen, Martin…” Tim purses his lips, stuffs his hands in his pockets, eyebrows drawn together. “I— we didn’t know.”

“Oh, yeah.” Martin nods, although his chest feels tight. “Of course! I know.”

“No, but. Like, we really didn’t know,” Tim insists. “Jon said you were sick, and you weren’t answering his calls. I figured you were just feeling too lousy to talk to anyone. If— If we’d known, we would’ve…” he trails off. “I dunno. Done something.”

“I know, Tim,” Martin assures him, even though he thinks they both know that’s not true. He’d spent two weeks absolutely convinced no one he knew cared enough about him to even notice he’d gone missing, and it had been… way too easy for him to believe.

Either way, Tim seems to take the hint. He doesn’t say anything else, although he hovers persistently in Martin’s space, even though he’s not even looking at Martin anymore. Martin follows his gaze over to Jon’s closed office door, then carefully looks back to Tim, just in time to see his face shift.

Tim’s eyes flick back to Martin, and the expression he sees there now is one he’s much more familiar with. “So,” he says, “are you really crashing on the bossman’s couch?”

Martin’s eyes go wide, and his cheeks go very hot. “I— Did he—”

“He forgot to stop the recording,” Tim interrupts, “caught your whole… interaction on tape, right after the statement.”

Martin’s face gets even hotter, flushing up to the tips of his ears. “I see.”

Tim snickers. “It was pretty cute, not gonna lie.”

“You— shut up.”

“No, I’m serious,” Tim pointedly does not shut up. “You’re both so painfully awkward, you’re kind of perfect together.”

Martin shakes his head. “Sasha,” he calls, very firmly ignoring Tim now, “what are we working on right now?”

Luckily, ignoring Tim is one of Sasha’s specialties. She gives Martin some statement about a woman who got sucked into some freaky cult and disappeared up at a creepy chapel in Hither Green, and Tim finally gives up and gets back to his own work.

At lunch time, Tim and Sasha start packing up, ready to get out of the basement for an hour. Predictably, there’s absolutely no signs of life from Jon’s office. Good. He can worry about Jon later. For once, that suits Martin just perfectly.

“Sure you don’t want to come with us?” Tim asks, for about the 20th time, as he slips his jacket on. “I’m buying.”

“No,” Martin assures him, “I-I’ve got, um. Got some calls to make.”

Which isn’t a lie — there are plenty of calls he needs to make, he just… doesn’t plan on making them right now.

Tim and Sasha share a look. “If you say so,” Sasha says.

“I’ll bring you back a pastry,” Tim offers, which manages to make Martin smile, and then they’re off.

Martin watches them go, keeps staring at the empty doorway until he hears the lift doors ding at the end of the hall, and then there’s silence.

Martin sighs, and gives it another five minutes before he gets up and gets ready to leave, too. He almost wishes he had asked someone to come with him. The idea of going back to his flat, alone, is — it’s not fun, okay? He doesn’t like it. He can admit that. He’s scared. What happened was scary. He’s allowed to be scared, it’s normal to be scared. It would be weirder if he wasn’t a little scared.

He steals himself, and makes himself stand, crossing the Archive and then almost jumping out of his skin when Jon’s office door opens at almost the exact second he’s passing right in front of it. It’s some consolation, at least, that Jon looks just as spooked as Martin to see him standing there, and they both jump at the sight of each other.

“Martin,” he breathes, wide-eyed. “I thought— I thought I heard Tim and— I thought everyone had left.”

Once Martin’s heart-rate returns to a normal human level, he remembers to be sheepish. “Uh, yeah. Tim and Sasha left for lunch. I, uh, I was just going to…”

Jon narrows his eyes. “Were you going to your flat? By yourself?”

Martin purses his lips, but his silence damns him.

“Martin.” Jon makes a truly spectacular face at him. “Do you remember what I was just saying? About using caution when dealing with Prentiss?”

“I do, yes.”

“And do you remember promising me you wouldn’t go back there alone?”

Martin hums. “I don’t think I ever promised anything. Tim and Sasha had lunch plans. I can handle this on my own.”

Jon pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Christ, Martin, I thought you were smarter than this. You know how dangerous this situation is. She followed you—”

“Followed me home, yeah!” Martin throws his hands up. “I remember! I was there, and I know exactly how dangerous she is! That’s the point!”

Martin’s tone must surprise Jon enough to shut him up, because when Martin stops, shakes his head, breathes out, he doesn’t say anything.

“Look, it’s— She didn’t just follow me. She wasn’t there when I went to bed. She tracked me all the way across London, overnight,” he explains. “If there’s even a chance she’s still hanging around, and I bring Tim or Sasha back with me, what’s to stop her doing that to them and showing up at their front doors, too? What if they’re not as lucky as I was? What if—” He shakes his head. “I, I can’t— I can’t do that to them, put them at risk like that.”

Jon’s face is unreadable, and he’s quiet for so long Martin's indignation has time to fade into a vague, bubbling anxiety. “Alright,” he finally says, looking back up at Martin with something like determination. “Give me a moment to grab my things, and I’ll come with you.”

Martin opens his mouth, but it takes him a few tries to find words. “You— what?”

“You’re living with me, Martin,” Jon calls over his shoulder as he dips back into his office. Martin moves instinctively to stand in the doorway and watch. “Prentiss has been speaking with me directly for weeks. If she wanted to come for me, she easily already could have done so.” He snags his jacket off the back of his chair, stuffs his phone in his pocket, and comes back over to Martin. “I won’t be at any extra risk if I come with you.”

“I— Oh. You, you don’t have to—”

“You don’t even have a phone,” Jon says, “I’d prefer it if I knew you were safe.”

Martin looks away, stares at a stain on the wall by Jon’s door. “W-we might not be back before lunch ends. I live kind of far.”

“So we take a long lunch. If Elias is fussed, we stay late tonight to make up for it.”

Martin swallows. The thing is, he really doesn’t want to be alone for this.

“Alright,” he finally relents. “We should go, then.”

Jon nods, and they head for the elevator together, side-by-side.

—

The tube ride to Martin’s flat is quiet, and Martin spends that whole time trying very hard to not think about Jon or Jane Prentiss. Martin doesn’t have his keys, but it’s okay: the door isn’t locked when they get there. He bolted without bothering to lock it behind him. In the moment, the need to be far away from Prentiss seemed to outweigh any fear of housebreakers, but now Martin feels like it was a monumentally stupid move on his part. What if he gets inside and she’s just there? Waiting for him, because he left the bloody door open for her?

Martin stops with his hand on the doorknob, stares down at the cold metal under his fingers, paralyzed with a sudden, plunging dread.

“Martin?”

Martin swallows, chews on the inside of his bottom lip. “Er. S-stand behind me?”

Jon huffs, and Martin slowly, cautiously, turns the doorknob.

It's dark inside, and so silent Martin thinks he can hear his own heart beating. He holds his breath, stands in the empty doorway, tries to find the courage to cross the threshold.

Behind him, Jon clears his throat pointedly. “Are you going to turn on a light?”

“Oh.” Martin blinks. “Right.”

He flicks the switch just inside the door, and the lights come on, flooding the living room with a butter yellow glow. Just like that, the ominous, foreboding void turns back into his cramped little flat. No Jane. No worms. Just two weeks of built-up clutter.

“Don’t close the door,” Martin tells Jon, as he finally takes a step inside. He’s barely been gone 48 hours, but it feels like entering another world. Like he’s stepping into someone else’s home that just happens to be completely familiar to him, the world's strangest case of déjà vu. “You can just… Wait here? And I’ll go and pack some things?”

All Jon does is arch an eyebrow at him, so Martin leaves him to undoubtedly judge the mess and the dingy furniture and Martin's dull excuse for decor while he vanishes into his bedroom.

He makes a beeline for his closet, roots around for his old duffel bag. He doesn’t want to be here any longer than he has to. Jane isn’t here; that dank warmth and musty smell she brought with her is gone, but he still doesn’t want to stick around. The longer he stays, the more sure he gets that he won’t be able to leave again. More sure he’ll walk back out to the main room to find it empty, save for the sound of methodical, rhythmic knocking.

So he stuffs everything he can think he might need into his duffel, grabs his work bag off his desk, and books it back to the living room as fast as he can without making it look like he’s actually fleeing.

He won’t lie: it’s a massive relief when he finds Jon still standing there, just where he left him, shifting his weight and staring at nothing in particular on the far wall.

“Ah.” He straightens up when he spots Martin. “Ready? Do you have everything?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Martin tugs on the strap of his duffel, trying for a smile. “We can go.”

Jon leads the way out. This time Martin locks up behind him, carefully stuffing his keys into his pocket even though he’s pretty sure he won’t be using them again for… who knows how long. It feels right to seal it up, though. Lock the whole flat away like the scene of a crime or some kind of biological contamination.

He’s lived here since his mum left for the home, and yet leaving it behind feels somehow easier than it should. This was his home, wasn’t it? Still is, technically. He should feel something more than just the vague discomfort of knowing he’s not going to be sleeping in his own bed again any time soon. But here he is, and he can't scrounge up anything but relief to be leaving.

It’s not until they’re both settled safely on the underground heading back to work, side by side, Martin’s things held tightly in his lap, before Jon says, “Did you want to stop somewhere to eat?”

Martin blinks. “What? Oh, uh. No, thanks. I’m good.”

Jon’s eyebrows knit together, and he tilts his head like he does when he’s trying to figure out a particularly tricky puzzle. “You didn’t bring anything for lunch.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You’re— are you skipping lunch?”

Martin shrugs. “I mean, the lunch hour’s almost over.”

Jon makes a face. “You should still eat.”

Martin stares at him. He stares long enough that Jon looks at him and looks away twice, and each time his brows are scrunched further together.

“Jon,” he finally says, “I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen you take a lunch break since we started working together. You have no room to talk.”    

Jon frowns. “I— that’s different.”

“It is not,” Martin insists, “you’re just a hypocrite.”

“I am not,” Jon says defensively, “I just have— a lot of work to be getting on with. I don’t have time to, to leave in the middle of it everyday.”

“Then you don’t get to lecture me about it, either.”

“Alright. Fine.” Jon works his jaw. “We’ll both stop somewhere and pick up lunch before we get back to the Institute.”

Whatever Martin was expecting him to say, it certainly wasn’t that, and it stuns him into silence. “Oh,” he finally manages. “Uh.” He can’t… honestly find any rebuttal to that. It’s kind of a win/win, right? “Sure, okay.”

Jon looks just as taken aback by this easy acceptance. “Ah. Alright then.”

The train rattles on, pulls up to a stop that still isn’t the one they need. “There’s… there’s a sandwich place a few blocks from the Institute that’s pretty good,” Martin volunteers. “Sometimes Tim and Sasha take me.”

“Yes, I know the place,” Jon tells him. “I do occasionally leave my office, you know.”

“Do you?” Martin asks, before he can stop himself. “That’s news to me.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Ha-ha,” he deadpans.

Martin can’t help it. He smiles.

They ride the next two stops in a more companionable silence, and Martin pays for both of their sandwiches now that he has his wallet. It’s the least he can do, after everything Jon’s done for him these past couple of days. They’re late getting back, and Tim and Sasha are already at their desks, so Martin eats at his while he tries to get caught up. It’s not, all things considered, a terrible day.

The next day, there’s a tupperware in the break room fridge with Martin’s name on a sticky note, right beside a matching one with Jon’s.

Chapter Text

Since Martin moved in with Jon, save for that first awkward morning on the sofa, Martin’s been the one to get up first.

Jon has gotten used to waking to an empty bed, and really, that works just fine for him. The idea of Martin, rumpled and bleary, blinking sleep-soft eyes at him first thing in the morning is not one Jon is sure he’s prepared to contend with. It’s bad enough walking into his kitchen to a fresh cup of tea waiting for him on the table and the sheets smelling vaguely of Martin’s laundry detergent.

This morning, though, Jon finds himself waking early. He’s not even sure what did it. He’s been sleeping decently this past week, without all the tossing and turning that usually keeps him up well into the night and has him crawling out of bed with the first rays of dawn light.

Maybe Martin’s just sleeping in today; which is fine, in theory. The dark purple bags he’s been sporting since Prentiss still haven’t entirely faded, he’s obviously been exhausted. In practice, though, it means that this is the second time Jon wakes up clinging to Martin like a baby koala.

And today, it’s even worse than the last time: When Jon pries his groggy eyes open, Martin is laying on his back, and Jon’s got one of his arms slung almost protectively over his chest, fingers tangled in the fabric of the soft T-shirt he wears to sleep. As if that isn't bad enough, one of Martin’s hands is folded over his middle, and his fingers rest, light and delicate, on Jon’s elbow, a point of barely-there contact that almost gives Jon goosebumps.

Jon looks over at him — his face is turned towards Jon, his hair almost artful in how completely it’s been mussed, mouth half-open and face gone soft. Even the way he snores is quiet and unobtrusive, like he’s still trying to shrink himself when he's asleep.

Jon thinks, if he were just a few inches closer, he might be able to feel Martin’s breath ghosting across his skin.

There’s no pretty words to wrap up what Jon does next: he scrambles out of bed and flees the room.

He gets ready for work in record time, and he’s out the door before Martin even stirs.

—

Jon is half-way through a historical statement on the Schwarzwald forest in Germany when Martin barges into his office, startling Jon into stopping mid-sentence. 

“Martin,” Jon snaps, unable to hide all the surprise and irritation from his voice.

“Sorry,” Martin says, “didn’t know you were recording.”

“Yes, well.” Jon gestures to the recorder. “... I am.”

“Yeah. Sorry,” Martin repeats, “just, uh. Wanted to make sure you were okay?”

That deflates Jon just a little bit, knocks him off course in the way Martin is getting better and better at doing these days. “I’m fine.”

“Good, good.” Martin nods, rocks on his feet. “I just— Uh. I got a bit worried? Woke up and you were just. Gone.”

“Ah, yes.” Almost sheepish, Jon looks down at the statement, fidgets with the edge of the page, tugs it out of alignment, straightens it again. “I. Uh, I’ve been here.”

“Maybe just… let me know next time? Leave a note, or something?” Martin asks. “I mean, you nearly bit my head off when I tried to go home alone.”

Jon makes a face. “Alright, alright. Yes, I get it.” He is the one hammering his assistants with don’t go anywhere alone’s and be cautiouses every time one of them leaves his line of sight. “I was hoping the early start might help me sort through all of this—” He gestures broadly around his office— “before I die of old age.”

Martin wrinkles his nose. “It’s not even seven yet.”

“No, but we’ve been leaving early,” Jon explains, “this might make up for that.”

“Okay, we’ve not been leaving early,” Martin argues, “we’ve been leaving on time. You know, like, when the Institute’s actually meant to close? When we stop being paid to be here?”

Jon sighs. “Did you need anything else, Martin?”

Martin’s eye roll is pointed and brutal. “You forgot your lunch today,” Martin tells him. “Don’t worry, I brought some left overs from last night. They’re in the fridge.”

“Oh.” Jon fidgets. “A-alright. Thank you, Martin.”

“Right-o,” Martin says, flashing one of his nervous little smiles. “Um. I’ll just— Leave you to it, then?”

“Please.”

Martin nods, retreats out of Jon’s office, shuts the door behind him.

Jon gives himself a moment to shove away any thoughts of this morning, and gets back to it.

Christ, and the tape recorder caught the whole exchange.

—

Jon is having trouble staying on task.

This is not a unique experience. Focus has never been one of Jon’s notable character strengths. If something doesn’t catch his attention straight away, it’s likely it never will, and he’ll find himself like he is now: re-reading the first sentence in a statement over and over and not absorbing a single goddamned word.

It’s no use. He couldn't even begin to tell you what the statement’s even about. Jon sighs and pushes the whole file away from him. Nothing is sticking, the words like dull static behind his eyes.

It’s okay, really, he tells himself. The statement records fine on his laptop, so Jon isn’t exactly holding his breath that it’ll give him anything all that exciting. If it wasn’t literally his job, he might not even bother recording it.

Lord, but this job gets tedious sometimes. He can forget, getting lost in the rea— the corrupted statements, the ones that go on tape, the statements that get his assistants terrorized by worms— that most of this job is repetitive to the point of misery.

Yes, he’s still deeply uneasy with the way certain statements grip at something deep inside of him. The way he loses himself to their words. But sometimes, after reading through a stack of obnoxiously fake statements, he almost finds himself wishing for one of the more… solid ones. At least they’re captivating enough to be interesting.

Jon gives the tape recorder on his desk a dirty look, like it’s taunting him. After the Schwarzwald statement this morning, it’s been sat, dull and lifeless, off to the edge of his desk, almost buried under files at this point. He gets the feeling he won’t be needing it again today.

It’s probably for the best. The tape statements do drain him, and it’s not like he got a lot of sleep last night what with—

Jon flushes.

Okay. He can’t think about that right now. Or ever, preferably. Maybe the pull of a statement would at least keep him distracted from— that.

Spitefully, Jon picks up the recorder and stuffs it in his desk drawer. It’s— Christ, is it really past noon already? Jon very nearly does a double take, stares at the little numbers in the corner of his laptop screen. No wonder he’s antsy, he’s been reading badly written wannabe horror movie scripts for nearly seven hours now.

With a grimace, Jon stands from his desk. About 18 joints pop and crack as he goes, complaining at being stuck in one place for too long. He stretches his arms over his head, but it doesn’t do much for the ache settling over his bones and stiff muscles. This past week he’s almost forgotten this ache— with Martin incentivizing him leave on time, and all the extra sleep he’s been getting, he’s felt… well, he’s still stressed and tired and on edge almost all of the time, but… less so, when he’s at his flat. Going home has become something of an actual respite. He's almost started to feel his age again.

Okay. Okay, lunch time. He’s got leftover dumplings waiting in the fridge right now.

Oh, yeah. This is a thing he does now. He eats lunch. In his office, usually, because he tends to lose track of time so it just winds up being easier to take his tupperware back in with him and nibble on it while he works, but he still eats. Prepping lunch for the both of them every day seems to be the easiest way to get Martin to eat, too, without risking him calling Jon a hypocrite again.

He pulls open his office door, and for the second time in as many weeks he has to pull up short to avoid bumping right into Martin.

Martin starts, a golden brown droplets of tea escaping over the rim of the mug he’s got in his hand. “Oh! Hey!”

“Martin,” Jon says.

“I. I was just bringing you some tea.” Martin holds the mug out.

“I can see that.”

There’s a moment of awkward eye contact, and then Martin looks away, rocking slightly up onto the balls of his feet and back to his heels. “Were you, um—”

“Yes, just—” Jon cuts in. “Uh. I was going to get some lunch.”

“Oh! Oh, good.” Martin perks up. “Er. Here, I’ll just—” He looks down at the cup, and Jon holds out his hand.

“I can take it.”

“Okay, yeah, sure.” Martin hands the mug over, and in the clumsy hand off, with the careful, fumbled effort not to spill, there’s an unfortunate moment where Jon’s fingers overlap with Martin’s. It’s just a second, a quick brush of hands, but after this morning Jon’s keenly aware of how soft Martin’s fingers are when they touch him, and he does not need nor want to be reminded of that right now.

Jon carefully pulls his sleeves down over his hands and holds the mug very close to his chest, as far away from soft, gentle hands as he can get, and follows Martin down the hall to the break room.

Jon pauses in the open doorway. Tim and Sasha are already there, squished around the wobbly little round table in the corner and chatting about — something Jon doesn’t even try to follow. Martin slides back into a vacant chair and joins them at a spot that already has an open tupperware and an abandoned mug of tea set out.

Jon can’t help a split second’s hesitation. The idea of interrupting his assistants mid-lunch makes him twitch uncomfortably. He’s starting to weigh the merits of eating at his desk again, but then Martin catches his eyes and smiles at him. Before he can talk himself out of it, he crosses the room, gingerly sets his tea on the table, and goes to fish his lunch out of the fridge.

Really, he isn’t looking forward to getting back to the mess of files waiting for him in his office, anyway.

He sets his lunch down gently, settles into the one vacant chair left across from the other three, and studiously pretends to ignore the way they stop their conversation to look over at him. (He puts even more effort into ignoring the way Martin was already looking at him, and more still into pretending the way it makes his skin prickle is annoyance.)

"Hey, Jon," Sasha says. "Joining us today?"

“Yes.” Jon finally chances a look up at her, finds her looking back at him with her head tilted and a mild expression on her face. “Is that a problem?”

“No, no problem. Just… unexpected.”

Jon makes a face. “I eat lunch with you... Sometimes.”

Sasha raises an eyebrow at him.

"Well." Jon looks away, staring down at his tupperware like it's the most fascinating thing on earth as he draws his fingers around the lid and delicately pulls it off. “I’m eating lunch with you now.”

“And we’re thrilled to have you,” Tim says, sounding genuine enough it takes some of the edge off. “You and Martin and your cute little matching lunches.”

Jon frowns. “They’re not— we’re living in the same place. We bring the same lunch. It’s—” He gets the feeling saying it’s perfectly normal will, in fact, do nothing but drive home the exact opposite point, so he just punctuates his sentence with a shrug.

“Sure, yeah.” Tim nods. And then, in a tone that is very deliberately blank, he adds: “Nice jumper, by the way."

Jon's shoulders tense. He feels like he's seconds away from sticking his foot into a bear trap. “… Thank you?”

“Looks cozy,” Tim goes on breezily,  “familiar, too.”

Jon looks down at himself, pulling at the hem of his comfortable knit jumper. “Uh—”

“Yeah. Could’ve sworn it look just like the one Martin was wearing yesterday.”

“I— wh—” Jon does a double take, tries desperately to conjure an image in his head of what Martin wore into work yesterday. With a sense of mounting mortification, Jon realizes that yes, actually, it does look familiar. “Ah.”

He’s not sure what’s worse; that he went until mid-day without noticing he isn’t even wearing his own clothes, or that Martin has now seen him in it twice and didn’t even say anything. (Or, a treacherous part of his brain supplies him, the fact that this is the warmest and most comfortable he’s felt in the chilly, dingy basement all winter.)

“Are you two sharing clothes now?” Tim asks gleefully, unable to keep his voice neutral any longer.

Martin makes a noise somewhere between a cough and a squeak, and Jon does not look at him.

“I, uh. I-I was in a hurry to get out the door this morning,” Jon says weakly. “I didn’t notice…”

“It’s no big deal,” Martin finally pitches in. “I mean, Sasha’s come in in your shirt before, I've seen it.”

Tim snorts. “Yeah, but that was literally after we— Ow!” He snaps around to glare at Sasha. “Did you just kick me?”

Sasha raises her eyebrows, gives Tim an innocent smile. “No.”

Tim snorts, pointing his fork in her direction. “Liar!”

Sasha shrugs and takes a sip from her mug — undoubtedly tea, undoubtedly prepared by Martin — and levels him with a blank, unimpressed stare. “Maybe it was Martin.”

“Hey!” Martin complains. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Nice try,” Tim says to Sasha. “You’re not that smooth.”

“Now you’re just trying to hurt me,” Sasha snipes back.

And then they’re off, doing their Tim-and-Sasha thing, bickering back and forth too quickly for Jon to even try and keep up with.

Back in research, when they would get like this, Jon would put his head down, tune them out, and try to get back to work. This time, when he looks away, he catches Martin’s eyes on the way. Martin bites his lower lip, gives Jon a faint, crooked smile. He raises his eyebrows, tilts his head toward Tim and Sasha, like, can you believe this? Like he’s letting Jon in on some private joke.

Except, no — it’s more like this is a private joke just for them.

A week ago, he might’ve found a way to be annoyed, wave the whole thing off as just Martin being Martin. Today, it feels like some kind of offering, and Jon can’t seem to stop the corners of his lips from twitching up. Maybe it’s not the effortless back-and-forth Tim and Sasha have, but it’s… something. Something real. Maybe Martin can be a — something like an ally.

Someone… on Jon’s side.

Chapter Text

In the mornings, Martin and Jon walk to work together, now.

It’s become routine. Their new normal — or at least as normal as things can get, given their circumstances: They get up (Martin before Jon, usually) take turns getting ready, and head out together, Jon locking the door behind him as they go.

Most days the commute is made in a silence that Martin has cautiously started calling companionable. Some days they talk. It’s mostly about work, or about the flat, but it’s getting easier than it used to be. It’s even easier now that he has his own clothes back and he’s finally managed to replace his phone. (With a cheaper model than the old one, but it’d been all he could do at a moment’s notice and it’s better than nothing.)

When they get to the Institute that morning, Martin almost doesn’t notice anything remiss. He’s fallen into habit, is operating mostly on autopilot, so he almost misses it. It’s not until Jon almost steps on one that Martin sees them: wriggling at the base of the old stone steps, are a handful of slender, silver shapes; burnt-looking at one end like spent matches and wriggling on the pavement like fish out of water.

No.

No, no, no, no.

They can’t be—

The sound that rips out of his throat, strangled and high-pitched, is entirely involuntary. They can’t be here. It’s been weeks since Prentiss left him alone, and they’ve been fine! He’s only just stopped having panic attacks when something so much as brushes his skin the wrong way, he still has to fight the urge to stop and run his hands over every inch of himself anytime his mind starts to drift or he wakes up from a worm-heavy dream.

Martin wraps his hand around Jon's arm and pulls him backwards, as far from the Institute as they can get without walking into traffic.

“Martin, what—”

“T-tell me you see those,” Martin stammers, cutting him off. “Tell me— tell me what those look like.”

Jon looks at him, alarmed and openly baffled, mouth agape. “What are you—”

With the hand not still gripping Jon like a lifeline, he points towards the steps.

Reluctantly, Jon shuts his mouth and follows his line of sight. Martin’s pretty sure he catches the exact moment Jon realizes what he’s looking at, face going slack and eyes widening.

“Are those…” He tugs on his arm. Martin doesn’t let go, but he does allow a handful of steps closer so they can get a better look. “Are these the ones you saw? Is this what they look like alive?”

“They can’t be here.” Martin shuts his eyes against a wave of wooziness, as what feels like all the blood drains out of his face. “Why are they here?”

“I-it’s only a few of them,” Jon says, but his voice, somewhere buried so deep Martin almost misses it, is shaking, straining to stay level. “We can handle a few of them.”

“There was only one outside Vittery’s building,” Martin reminds him. “The rest were— inside, with her.”

“I— I think we’d know if she were inside the Institute,” Jon says, but he hesitates all the same. “There’s— more people in there than some old basement.”

“Unless she snuck up on them and they’re all dead. How long did it take her to kill all those people in the hospital?”

Jon purses his lips into a fine line, takes long, slow breath. “I’m sure we’d— we’d know. There would have to be some sign if—”

“Some sign of what?”

Martin and Jon both jump. Martin makes a noise he is not too proud to admit is a yelp, and Jon finally yanks his arm free when they both turn to see Tim, standing just behind them.

“Good lord,” Jon snaps, hand flying to his chest over his heart like an offended Southern lady. "Tim!"

“Wow, you two are jumpy this morning.” Tim raises his eyebrows. “Any reason we’re standing around on the sidewalk outside work? Oh, are we finally going on strike? Because, let me tell you, I think we need it. The benefits in this place are lousy, especially considering the whole evil worm lady situation. We all know Bouchard could shell out more hazard pay if he wanted, he just likes us to be miserable.”

Martin’s head slumps forward. He does appreciate Tim’s ability to diffuse a tense situation. “Um, sorry, t-that’s not it.”

“It would appear we have… company,” Jon elaborates, slowly turning to point out the handful of shapes writhing eerily on the sidewalk.

Tim tilts his head and follows Jon’s direction. “Ew. That’s not very pleasant, is it?”

“They’re hers,” Martin says, a little desperate, “the same ones I saw.”

“Wait, these are Prentiss worms?”

Martin purses his lips, nods quickly.

Tim makes a face. “Okay. Ick.”

And then he strides purposefully over to them, ignoring the wordless shout of protests that come from Martin and Jon both. He stomps deliberately on worm after worm (Martin can hear each sickening wet pop all the way back where he and Jon are stood) until he’s gotten them all. It… doesn’t take long. All told, there were probably less than ten of the things in total, and Tim reduces them to disgusting little stains on the concrete in less than a minute.

“There.” He turns around, flashes a bright smile. “All gone.”

“Unless there’s more inside,” Jon protests.

“Unless she’s inside,” Martin adds.

“Right, yeah.” Tim hums, nodding slowly. “Well, only one way to find out, huh?”

Before they can stop him, he wheels around and marches right through the door.

Jon calls out his name, and Martin makes an aborted attempt to go after him, stopped only when Jon grabs his sleeve and yanks him to a stop.

“Okay. Okay,” Jon says, watching the door swing shut behind him. “If he’s not out in thirty seconds, we— we go in after him.”

“Or call someone,” Martin agrees.

Jon hums and nods, just as tense at Martin’s side as Martin feels. “Do we have the number for the ECDC?”

“I’m sure if we call nine-nine-nine they can- can direct us, somehow.”

“Probably, yes.”

A beat of silence.

“He’ll be fine,” Martin mutters, mostly to reassure himself more than anything else.

“Of course,” Jon says stiffly.

Still, Martin practically holds his breath until, finally, after that feels like ages, Tim pops back out, waving cheerily. “Rosie says hi.”

The tension that spills off both himself and Jon is so intense Martin swears it’s nearly tangible.

“Christ,” Jon mutters.

“So it’s clear?” Martin asks.

“All clear,” Tim confirms. “No Jane. No worms. Well, no more worms. No live worms.”

Tim’s holding the door open, but neither Martin nor Jon make any moves straight away. Martin risks a glance sideways, and is a little shocked when Jon looks back at him.

“Hey,” Martin says, “m-maybe now Elias will start taking you seriously about the worms?”

“Perhaps.” Jon nods unsteadily. "But I'm not going to give him that much credit, yet."

“You guys,” Tim calls, “c’mon. No worms, let’s go.”

Jon blinks, gives his head a stiff shake. “Right.”

He starts forward, and after a second, Martin follows after him. His heart’s still lodged somewhere in the base of his throat and beating on hummingbird wings, but he’s also not about to be left out here alone with all the worm corpses.

Tim holds the door open. Martin braces himself before stepping into the Institute, only to find it… completely normal. Exactly as it was yesterday morning, and every morning before that. Rosie gives him a smile from the front desk, and Tim lets the door swing shut behind them once he’s finally inside.

“See?” He says, squeezing between Martin and Jon and putting a placating hand on both of their shoulders. “Everything’s fine.”

Jon hums skeptically. “I’d say that’s a bit of a stretch.”

“Yeah, well.” Tim points a finger in Jon's face. “You’re a pessimist.”

Martin gives Tim a look, and he sighs, shoulder slumping. “Alright, fine. At least there’s no evil worm queen!”

“Okay,” Martin relents, sharing a look with Jon. “There is that.”

—

The rest of the day drags on and on and on. Martin spends the whole time twitchy and anxious, every brush of fabric on skin making his whole body itch. He's lost track of how many times he’s patted himself down to make sure there aren’t any worms.

By the time lunchtime finally rolls around, Martin feels like he’s already spent about three days down in the Archive.

“Martin, I’m telling you,” Tim says, leaning back against the old, tattered break room sofa, “you’re fine.”

“Okay, but. But what if more of them got in?” Martin's hands twitch, fingers curling. It’s not like he's ever very good at staying still, but he feels particularly fidgety today, after seeing those things out front. “This place is so, so— There’s, there're so many places to hide in the Archives.”

“Were there really evil worms outside this morning?” Sasha asks, peeking around the open fridge door over in the kitchenette.

“Yes,” Martin tells her.

“Hand to god,” Tim adds. “Saw ‘em myself. Squashed ‘em myself.”

Sasha raises her eyebrows, ducks back into the fridge to scrutinize its contents like new, better food will have appeared in the handful of seconds she spent looking away.

“And there could be more,” Martin insists, because, really, it feels like he and Jon are the only ones taking this seriously, like they're the only ones who realize how scary this whole thing really is. “You guys didn’t see her. There were just— so many. Like, they just, just kept coming.”

“We heard the statement, Martin,” Sasha assures him, “we know how many worms there were.”

“You know,” Tim says, holding up his leftover takeout, “I am trying to eat. Can we save the worm talk for after lunch?”

“You know what? Fine.” Martin crosses his arms tight. “Give the worms plenty of time to, to burrow in and—”

“Jon!” Tim interrupts, making both he and Jon jump a little. Martin didn’t even see him come in, and by the looks of it, Jon didn’t expect to be noticed. “Tell Martin he’s not going to be eaten by worms before lunch is over.”

Jon freezes mid-step, a deer in headlights if Martin’s ever seen one. “Er. What?”

Sasha shuts the fridge, leans back against the counter with a yogurt in one hand. “Martin’s paranoid he’s got worms crawling all over him, Tim’s too lazy to get up and help him check.”

“I’m not paranoid,” Martin protests, “I’m just…” There’s no dignified way to say it. There just isn’t. You can really only say it the honest way. “Itchy?”

Jon, recovering from his initial surprise, raises his eyebrows.

“Tell Martin he’s not infested,” Tim pleads. “He won’t believe it from us.”

“Why would I believe you? All you’ve done is sit there and eat Sasha’s lo mein.”

Sasha blinks, whirling around to face Tim, swearing at him. “Tim!”

Tim cringes. “Thanks for that, mate.”

Martin feels a spark of vindictive satisfaction, but it’s quickly extinguished, replaced by something else just as warm when Jon steps right up into his space. He tilts his head, makes a contemplative little humming sound, his eyes focused on Martin. Suddenly, Tim and Sasha seem about a million miles away, the whole room falling out from under Martin's feet when Jon puts his hand on Martin’s face.

“Hmm...” Jon's thumb settles on his chin, the tips of his fingers like little moths at Martin’s neck. With a light but decisive grip, he tilts his head this way and that, eyebrows knit in concentration. “I don’t see anything. Turn around?”

Martin is hopeless to do anything but oblige him, even though his cheeks are burning with a feverish intensity when he turns back to face Jon.

“You’re clean,” Jon tells him, “no worms.”

Somehow, Martin manages to make his mouth move enough to form words. “Ah. Good. T-thanks.”

Jon nods. “Have you checked the room?”

“Yeah.” He did, first thing when he came in for lunch. Finally, someone gets it. “Seems clear.”

“Good.” Another nod. He looks so serious, like this is actually important to him, which is... Maybe Martin shouldn't be surprised. Jon's been taking him seriously since he first came back, hasn't he?

They both go quiet, making eye contact for just a second too long before they both seem to realize and look away in the same instant.

“Right—”

“Well—”

“No worms,” Jon says.

“No worms,” Martin agrees, glancing furtively back up at him.

“Good, good,” Jon repeats. “Uh. Glad to hear it. Let me know if that changes.”

And with that he turns and leaves. Just like that!

“Wait, Jon, aren’t you going to—” Sasha calls after him, but he’s already out the door before she can finish, leaving her talking to an empty doorway. “… get some lunch.”

Tim snorts. “Guess not.”

All Martin can do is stare after him, rooted to the spot, any and all itchiness entirely replaced by the phantom brush of Jon’s fingers, warmth prickling like static across his skin.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, gawking like an idiot, before he becomes aware of Tim and Sasha’s eyes boring holes in the back of his head. His shoulders hunch, and he slumps into one of the chairs around the dingy little table in the corner. He catches Tim’s eye and scowls. “Don’t say a word.”

Tim holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Wasn’t going to!”

“Yeah, you were,” Sasha says.

Martin turns to her. “Don’t you say anything, either!”

Sasha hides what is quite obviously a smirk behind her hand, mimes zipping her lips closed.

“If I could just—”

“No,” Martin snaps, “you cannot just anything.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “I would just like to point out,” he barrels on anyway, ignoring the look Martin gives him that he can only pray is more dark and venomous than flustered and embarrassed. “… that he basically just came in here, manhandled you a bit, and left without even getting anything to eat.”

Martin ducks his head, already warm face heating until he all but goes supernova. “Maybe he was weirded out by all the worm-talk.”

“Or maybe—” Tim suggests.

“Don’t—”

“— you’re just that distracting.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” Martin grumbles.

So Tim responds with a raise of his eyebrows and an easy, “Not joking.”

Martin bites back another cutting remark. Sometimes arguing why someone just doesn’t like you is tiresome, and Martin's not quite up for it. “Just once I’d like to have my lunch and not have anything weird or horrifically awkward happen.”

Sasha snorts, plopping down on the sofa beside Tim, stealing her carton of leftover Chinese right out of his slack, unprepared hands. “Working here? Yeah, good luck with that.”

Martin pushes his fingers under his glasses and rubs at his eyes, resigns himself to a life of quiet brooding misery until the worms are gone and/or they finally kill him. “Yeah, okay, fair enough.”

Chapter Text

If you look past the initial strangeness of the whole situation, having Martin in his flat becomes just another facet of Jon’s life.

The last time he lived with another person was back in uni, but it comes back easy enough. The vaguely rusty but not-entirely-forgotten habit of cohabitation. They leave work together, and they eat together. They share a bed every night. It’s slowly getting easier to just exist, separate but in the same space.

It’s… almost nice, really. Jon can’t pretend he doesn’t like having someone around to cook for and keep him company when he gets too far into his own head, even if that someone is Martin.

Even the little spider plant on the windowsill is looking better. Martin is much better about remembering to water it than Jon ever has been, and it’s even growing new leaves already. It hasn’t started budding yet, but Jon is feeling cautiously optimistic.

It’s getting into April, and the weather has just started turning. Early afternoon sun filters in through the windows in just the right way to make the whole flat feel softer, more open. It’s one of those days where a quiet sort of peacefulness has spread its way through the room, seeping into Jon and Martin alike and leaving a — dare he say it — comforting haziness everywhere it touches.

They’re both in the living room, the television playing some gameshow in the background on low volume because, much to Jon’s relief, neither of them like things totally silent. Martin is in the armchair by the window, doing god only knows what in one of his tattered old spiral notebooks. Jon’s on the couch with his laptop. Ostensibly, he's working, but he’s not been paying much attention to his work files for about 20 minutes now.

It’s just… hard to focus on Archive Work when the sun’s hitting the sofa just so and warming Jon from the inside out. He feels a bit like — and he would never admit this aloud, too many people would have a good laugh at him, or say ‘I told you so’ — a cat, stretched out for a nap in the best patch of sunlight.

He’s calm, for maybe the first time in recent memory.

So when Jon’s phone, forgotten on the coffee table, starts ringing unexpectedly, it startles him badly enough he nearly knocks his laptop off onto the floor. He swears under his breath and shuts the computer, leaning forward to snatch his phone up and glaring at the screen, only relaxing a fraction when he sees Tim’s name.

He mutes the TV, picks up the call, presses the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

Tim’s voice comes out shaky on the other end of the line, strained in a way that Jon doesn’t think is just a bad connection. “Hey, Jon.”

“Tim?” Jon’s brows pinch together, and he sits up a little straighter. “I-is everything alright?”

Tim... bluntly sidesteps the question. “Do you think you could come down to the Institute?”

Jon blinks. “What, now?”

“Yeah,” Tim breathes out, “yeah, um. If you can.”

“What’s going on?” Martin asks quietly, looking curiously at Jon from his seat.

Jon shakes his head. “I don’t— Tim, did something happen?”

“I—” Jon hears Tim huff out a tired sigh. “It’s Sasha, she’s— She wants to talk to you.”

“O-okay.” Something about his tone sets Jon on edge. “I’ll… be right there.”

“Great. Thanks.” And then he hangs up without saying anything else.

Jon pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at the black, empty screen. “Um.”

“What is it?” Martin asks, and when Jon looks over at him, his notebook has been forgotten in his lap. All that sedate tranquility has washed well away, been replaced with a familiar nervous uncertainty. “What’s up?”

Jon looks back down at his hands, turns his phone over in his fingers. “I, uh. I’m not really sure? Tim was… vague…”

“That doesn’t sound great,” Martin says, with a weak, forced laugh. “When’s Tim ever vague about anything?”

Jon hums. “I think- I think something might’ve happened to Sasha?”

“Oh, god.” Martin's eyes go wide. “Is-is she okay? Is she hurt? Is she—”

“I don’t know, Martin,” Jon can’t help but snap, even though an unfamiliar bubble of something hot and unpleasant wells up immediately after.

Martin gives him a distinctly unimpressed face. “Okay.”

Jon spends a few seconds chewing on the inside of his cheek. “It’s just— Tim didn’t specify— he didn’t say much.” He frowns. “He wants me t-to meet them both at the Institute.”

Martin perks up, and Jon does a very good job at pretending he isn’t relieved to see it. “Oh, okay. Um.” He looks around, gingerly sets his notebook and pencil on the ground by the chair. “We should— Let me just— I’ll go get ready, and we should go, then.”

“Oh, you— you’re coming?”

“Uh, yeah.” Martin gives him a look like it’s obvious, like Jon’s the one who isn’t keeping up. “I’m not just gonna sit around here all day wondering if our friend is okay.”

“Alright. I suppose that’s fair.”

“Thanks.” Martin smiles. “I know.”

—

When they reach the Institute nearly half an hour later, Jon and Martin squish all the worms waiting for them outside. Or, all the ones they can see, anyway. Everyday there’s more and more of them, and Jon’s not sure if they’re even capable of getting all of them anymore. It’s more than likely that there’s scores of the things lurking off in the bushes or hiding in the cracks of the foundations or something, but he’s not about to say as much with Martin here. He understands why Martin is so afraid, obviously, but he doesn’t want to spend another 20 minutes patting him down to make sure there’re no worms on him right now.

The Institute is dark — it’s Sunday, there wasn’t meant to be anyone in — but the lights are on in the Archive when Jon and Martin make it down to the basement, the door slightly ajar. Inside, everything looks… fine, really. The same as when he left Friday evening. (Including, unfortunately, all the evidence of Tim’s April Fool’s Day prank, which Jon studiously ignores.)

Jon's not sure what he expected after Tim’s phone call, but at least some small fraction of knotted anxiety in his gut eases and untangles itself.

Sasha’s leaning on her desk, slumped forward in her chair, elbows supporting her. Tim’s sat on the desk itself, a cup of coffee from that café they both like sitting to his right.

This is fine. This is normal.

Perched unsuspectingly to his left, though, there’s an open first aid kit.

This is less fine. This is less normal.

With a more thorough inspection, Jon can see a splash of stark white against the brown of Sasha’s skin, the corner of a bandage peeking out under the sleeve of her overlarge T-shirt.

Jon suddenly feels like all the air has been sucked from the room. “Good lord.”

Sasha and Tim look over at him in one motion.

“It’s nothing,” Sasha says in the exact same moment Tim says, “She’s been stabbed.”

“What?” Martin demands.

“It’s nothing,” Sasha repeats, rolling her eyes. “Just a scratch, really.”

Tim scoffs, throwing his hands up. “A scratch! Sure, a scratch. A scratch that cut all the way through your jacket and made you bleed through your shirt! I had to come into work on a Sunday and bring you a new one!”

“Oh, it wasn’t—” Sasha smacks Tim’s leg and fails to hide all of a wince. “It’s not that bad. I’m not bleeding anymore.”

“Sash! That’s not as reassuring as you think it is!”

Sasha opens her mouth to respond, inevitably with something cutting and sharp that’ll send the two of them down one of their rabbit holes and then Jon’ll never get anything out of either of them.

“Er,” Jon cuts in, “what exactly happened here?”

Sasha slowly lets her mouth shut, turns to look at Jon like she’s just remembered he’s here. “Oh, right. Um, yeah, about that.” She takes a breath in, lets it out slowly. “I… think I need to make a statement.”

Of all the things Jon expected to hear, this takes him so completely by surprise that he needs a moment to collect his thoughts enough to respond. “I see,” he says. Nice. Eloquent as always. He bites his lower lip to stop a frown. “Ah, a-are you sure?”

Sasha nods, resolute. “Yes.”

“Alright. Would you… like to come to my office?”

Tim sighs, but Sasha stands. Tim scowls, and Sasha cuffs him gently on the head as she shuffles around her desk, mussing up his hair in a way that speaks more of affection than actual irritation.

“Good luck with him,” she says to Martin as she passes, jerking her head back towards Tim.

Martin huffs. “I’m sure I’ll manage.”

Sasha shakes her head and sighs dramatically. “Always the optimist, aren’t you?”

Sasha follows Jon over to his office, waits with him while he pulls his keys out of his pocket, fumbles for the right one. The door offers a familiar creak on old, un-oiled hinges. He holds it open, lets Sasha in before him.

“Won’t even let me take her to A-and-E, but she has time for a bloody statement,” he hears Tim grumbling to Martin back out in the Archives. “She’s almost as bad as Jon, I swear. Christ, we sure know how to pick ‘em, don’t we?”

Jon shuts the door before he can hear Martin’s response. In an effort to hide the way his face is going very warm, he crosses the room and fusses around in his desk with his back to Sasha, pulling out the recorder and giving it his full attention as he slots in a blank tape.

Unbidden, he thinks about how seamlessly Tim and Sasha fit together. About the way he’s started carving out a place for Martin in his life these past few weeks. There’s a connecting thread between these thoughts, but Jon doesn’t want to follow it right now.

He gives his head a firm little shake, settles in his chair across the desk from Sasha. “Right.” He clears his throat, hits record. “Are you sure you’re alright to do this now? You can take a few days off to recover, if you need.”

Sasha shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. I’d really rather get this down while it’s still fresh in my head…”

—

It takes nearly half an hour to take Sasha’s full statement.

In the end, she leaves his office with promises of taking some time off to recuperate. Jon tells her to take the week if she can, but he’s pretty sure he’ll be seeing her again by Wednesday at the latest. It’s not like he has any legs to stand on to try and keep her away, but maybe Tim will be able to convince her to stay out longer. (Either that or she’ll come back sooner just to spite him. Jon can never be sure with those two.)

Jon locks his office up again and follows Sasha back to where Martin and Tim are waiting for them out in the Archives, still huddled around Sasha’s desk. When he sees the pair of them, Tim perks up, sitting up straighter.

“All done?” He asks. “Can I take you to the hospital now?”

Sasha rolls her eyes, goes to collect her coffee cup from where she’d left it. “I don’t need a hospital, Tim. I’m fine.”

“No, you are impossible,” Tim tells her, as he stands and starts to collect his things.

Sasha shrugs her jacket on — which has, Jon notices with some trepidation, a dark stain and a wide, jagged slash on one arm — and rolls her eyes. “Will you calm down if I let you make me lunch?”

“Oh, you’ll let me cook for you, and that’s supposed to calm me down?”

Sasha levels a steady look at him, raises her eyebrows. “I mean, are you telling me it won’t?”

Tim heaves a sigh. “God. At least this way you won’t wind up, I dunno, mugged by some evil poltergeist in a dark alley or something.”

Tim’s back is to Sasha, then, so he misses her smug grin, but Jon sees it just fine. At least she’ll be resting up, he supposes.

Tim catches Jon’s eye on the way out, gives him and Martin a weary little wave. “See you guys tomorrow.”

Jon nods. Martin offers a friendly little wave back. “See you.”

Sasha smiles. “Thanks, Jon.”

“Of course. I— take care of yourself?”

“I’ll do my best,” Sasha offers, eliciting another long-suffering sigh from Tim.

Before they leave, Tim rounds on Martin and Jon. “And don’t either of you go and get yourself… stalked or attacked by anything freaky and spooky, got it?”

Martin gives him a look. “I mean… Too late?”

“Ugh!” Tim groans. “You lot are going to send me to an early grave! Jon, make sure Martin doesn’t get stalked by anything spooky again.”

Jon blinks. “That is the goal here, yes.”

“Good,” Tim says, and then he turns and shepherds Sasha out the door. (Or, probably more accurately, Sasha lets him shepherd her away.)

Jon listens to them bicker all the way down the hall, and only when the lift dings softly shut do the Archives finally fall back into stuffy silence. Jon watches the empty doorway for a handful of seconds before coming back to himself. He turns back to Martin, still hovering around Sasha’s desk, a little more awkward now that it’s just him. Martin looks back at him, offers one of his tentative, gentle little smiles.

(Jon wonders what it will take to make Martin smile like he’s not afraid of being caught.)

“So.” He taps his knuckles softly on Sasha's desk. “Anything else you need to do here? Or should we… go?”

“Ah, right, yes.” Jon nods. “No, i-it’s all sorted. We can go.”

“Oh, great!”

They’re old hat at leaving together, now. They leave together every night, when the Institute closes. They even go home together. They have a whole routine built up. But for whatever reason, this time Jon spends the entire time looking down at his feet. He thinks about Tim and Sasha leaving together. Hears Tim saying we sure know how to pick ‘em on a loop in his head. Tries very, very hard to pretend the heat tingling behind his ribs is irritation. God, he misses the irritation. Annoyance, he can handle. He’s a pro at being annoyed. This — not that there even is a this, whatever this is — is infinitely more frightening.

It’s not until they pass the extinguisher tucked in its little nook on the wall by Rosie’s empty desk in reception that Jon snaps out of it.

“Oh.” He waves his hand around, knocking into Martin’s elbow by mistake, remembering one specific detail of Sasha's statement. “I think we should stop by the store on the way back to the flat.”

“Good idea.” Martin nods at him. “I think we’re out of garlic. And we’re running low on tea, I’ve been meaning to stock up.”

“No, that’s not— well, alright yes, we should get those as well,” Jon agrees. “But, no. We need to buy fire extinguishers. The carbon dioxide ones.”

"Um. Okay." Martin’s steps stutter for a moment on the steps of the Institute, almost coming to a halt before he falls back into pace beside Jon. “You’re not planning on burning the flat down, are you?”

“I don’t really think I’d be buying fire extinguishers if I was planning on burning anything down.” Jon shoots him a look. “But. No, er. According to Sasha, the worms are… vulnerable? To the gas.”

This time Martin does stop, and Jon makes it a good handful of steps before he realizes he’s not catching up and turns back around to wait for him.

His eyes, when they meet Jon’s, are wide. “What?”

“It, uh. She says it kills them,” Jon tells him, “fairly effectively. She killed an entire swarm living, um. In Timothy Hodge with one canister.”

Martin blinks, tilts his head. “Timothy Hodge? From the— that one statement, with the—”

“Yes, yes,” Jon says, the image of what Harriet Lee had… become still fresh in his mind all these months later. “The horrible disgusting worm incident in his bedroom, et cetera. The very same.”

Martin sucks his lower lip between his teeth, finally gets back into gear and catches up with Jon. “Okay, wait. Back up a bit? Sasha’s statement was about — Tim Hodge?”

“Er.” Jon makes a vague hand gesture. “Sort of.”

He gives Martin an abridged recount of everything Sasha had told him as they walk down the street. Martin watches him with wide, awed eyes, until Jon goes silent and Martin turns to stare forward. “So she just… Took them all out. With a fire extinguisher.”

“Except for the one Michael pulled out of her arm, I think.”

Martin makes a face. “Right, the guy with knife-fingers.”

“Something like that.”

“Okay.” Martin nods back, slow and considering. Jon can see him perking up, some kind of spark going off somewhere inside of him. “Okay! Right.” Jon can see the beginnings of a smile on his face. “Right, yeah, let’s-let’s get some fire extinguishers!”

“And garlic,” Jon adds. “Oh, and tea.”

“Yep. Yes, that too.”

“Oh, and I was, um—” Jon starts, and then stops, confidence sputtering like a broken record.

“Yeah?” Martin prompts.

Jon takes a slow, steadying breath. “Well. I was thinking…”

Martin hums. “Are you going to tell me about what?”

“Yes,” Jon answers defensively. “I just thought. S-since we’re out, anyway. You know—” He waves a hand, gesturing vaguely— “Taking care of things, we might, uh. G-get a copy of my key made. So you could, could have your own?”

Martin sucks in a sharp breath. “What?”

“We don’t know how long you’ll be staying,” Jon rationalizes, feeling his cheeks heating up. “There’re more worms outside the Institute every day. It just seems… useful, for you to have your own key. So you won’t need to rely on me to get in.”

Martin sneaks a glance at Jon from his peripheral. “This isn’t just your way of trying to get out of leaving on time, is it?”

“No,” Jon insists. Really, it isn't! He hadn’t even considered it until Martin said something, he swears. “No. It just seems if you’re to be staying awhile, you should. Should be able to come and go as you please.”

Martin’s quiet for a moment, but when Jon glances back over at him, he looks… pleased, Jon thinks. Maybe even happy. “O-okay. If you’re really alright with it, yeah. That-that sounds good.”

“It is,” Jon assures him. “Alright with me, that is. I think it would be. Good.”

“Cool, yeah.” Martin nods. “Good.”

Even Jon can’t pretend he doesn’t feel warm all over seeing Martin looking close to hopeful.

Chapter Text

Martin spends most of his morning trying to track down the former manager of a little corner market a statement giver used to work at. It’s one of those cases that even Martin has to admit is fake, but he’s worked enough minimum wage jobs that the tedium is familiar enough it's almost comforting. At this point, any due diligence that doesn’t get him stalked by evil worms is just fine by him.

Still, this kind of thing does drain the energy out of you. At least the evil worms got him out of the office. The monotony that comes from hitting a string of voicemail boxes and wrong numbers is so dull it makes time grind almost to a halt.

Martin sighs, hangs up his desk phone, and slumps back in his chair. How far does he have to dig before he’s allowed to just call it quits? A couple of months ago, Martin might say further than this. A couple of months ago, if Martin tried handing this statement over to Jon in the state it’s in right now, he’d get one of those looks and undoubtedly hear his name in some of Jon’s more… colorful post-statement commentary.

But! That was then. Things are... things are different now.

Jon doesn’t look at him with that tight, pinched brow anymore. Doesn’t grimace at Martin’s research like it’s offended him somehow. He’s even stopped asking Sasha to double-check his follow ups. Which might not seem like much, but... it feels like a turning point for the better.

So Martin feels fairly confident in calling this one here. He’s done all he can, and there’s clearly nothing here, no further he can reasonably go. He’ll make a note of it when he wraps up, but there’s not much to be done for statements like this. Some of them are just… well, at the risk of sounding mean— total rubbish.

He flips the file closed, stretches his arms out above his head with a sigh. It’s a little early for mid-morning tea, maybe, but Martin’s sick of sitting here getting nowhere. He could use something to do with his hands.

Tim and Sasha disappeared about 30 minutes ago to go hunt down a reference in the library, but the telltale drone of Jon’s Statement Voice carries from behind his closed door when Martin gets close. He smiles to himself; the attention Jon gives the statements would be enticing even if Martin didn’t already find Jon’s voice to be one of the most utterly transfixing things he’s ever heard.

He almost hates to interrupt, but. The tea won’t wait. (Well, it could, but Martin’s antsy and he doesn’t want to wait.)

“Jon?” Martin opens the door just wide enough to poke his head in, finds Jon sat at his desk with his laptop open. For some reason he feels a little bit better knowing he’s at least not interrupting one of the tape recorder ones. Those ones are always… Well, they’re something.

“Hi.” He waves awkwardly. “I’m gonna go make tea. Would you like a cup?”

“Oh.” Jon's shoulders go slack. “Yes, alright. Sure.”

“Great.” Martin smiles at him, turns to leave, lingering with his hand on the doorknob. “Um, door open or closed?”

“Ah, you can leave it open for now,” Jon answers. “Thank you.”

“Alright. Be right back.”

Jon’s already looking back down at his statement. “Mhmm.”

In the kitchen, Martin pulls two mugs down from the cabinet and gets two cups of tea ready. Milk and sugar into his cup, extra sugar in Jon’s. (No milk, because he likes to pretend he takes it black, but Martin knows he likes it sweet.) He drops his mug off at his desk on his way to bring Jon’s to his office, and then he stutters to an abrupt stop in Jon’s doorway.

Martin can’t decide if the sight waiting for him is funny or terrifying: Jon’s standing on one of Gertrude’s old filing cabinets, tucked up in the corner, balanced on the balls of his feet and holding one of the office’s freshly-acquired fire extinguishers like a battering ram, tongue between his teeth and brows knit fiercely together.

“J-Jon?”

Jon freezes, face shifting too quick for Martin to try and read, landing on a sort of guilty shock. “Ah. Martin.”

“What on Earth are you doing?”

Jon purses his lips. “I was— er. T-there was a spider.”

“A spider,” Martin repeats, incredulous.

“Yes, um, just—” He gestures, and then does a double take. The cabinet under him rattles and creaks under his shifting weight, and Martin’s chest lurches. “I-it was just here!”

He sets Jon’s tea on the edge of his desk — on the coaster that Jon’s started leaving there for him — and crosses the room. “Okay, okay, I believe you.” He hovers nervously, close enough to hopefully catch Jon if he slips. “You can get down from there.”

Jon frowns, gripping the extinguisher with one hand so he can push aside a stack of books on a high shelf, eyes narrowed and scanning the wall. “Not until it’s dead.”

“Not until it’s—” Martin makes an exasperated noise. “Christ, you don’t have to kill it.”

“I really would like to, though.”

“Ugh.” Martin takes the last few steps, grabs Jon’s arm, pulls the extinguisher from his hand. “These are for killing evil worms, not innocent spiders.”

Jon goes very still, and, with the aid of the filing cabinet he’s still stood on, slowly turns to frown down at Martin. “There’s nothing innocent about a spider, Martin.”

“Look, I’ll get rid of it for you,” Martin offers, “just get out of the way.”

Jon sighs, grumbles something under his breath, but he reluctantly climbs down, safely back to solid ground. Martin sets the extinguisher gently on the dingy carpet, flashes Jon a bright smile.

“So, where’d you see it?”

Jon frowns, points up above the shelf. “Just there. On the wall, behind that shelf.”

Martin nods. “Right. On it.”

The cabinet looked like it barely survived Jon standing on it, and Martin’s definitely not as tiny as he is, so he doesn’t even bother. Instead, he wheels Jon’s office chair over.

“It… scuttled off behind some books when you came in,” Jon grumbles.

“Yeah, 'cause it didn’t want you squashing it with a fire extinguisher.” Martin snags another mug, this one full of pens and pencils, and a manila statement folder, holds them both up to Jon. “May I?”

Jon grimaces. “If you must.”

Martin takes a cautious step up onto the chair, throwing a hand out when it wobbles and starts to spin.

“Good lord.” Jon lunges to grab onto the back of the chair, holding it still. “Be careful, Martin.”

“I’m fine, Jon, I’m fine,” Martin assures him. He straightens up, more confident with Jon holding him steady. He starts shifting books around the shelf, eyes on the wall. “You know, spiders really aren’t so bad.”

Jon scoffs. Loudly.

“They aren’t,” Martin insists. “I mean, they’re creepy, I guess, but. They’re not… bad. Most of the ones you see inside can’t even hurt you.”

“I’m inclined to disagree,” Jon says dryly.

Martin pauses, gives Jon a look over his shoulder, finds Jon scowling up at him. “It’s true! They just want… a warm place to hang out. And they get rid of other pests for you.”

“Oh, do they?” Jon sounds dry and skeptical. “Talk to me when they handle our worm problem for us.”

“They might,” Martin muses. “Like… They already take care of, of things like cockroaches, and millipedes, and flies, and… and stuff. So… Worms might not be too far off.”

Jon sighs. “Well, this one is obviously not pulling its weight.”

Martin snorts, shifting the last of the books on the shelf in front of him. “I guess that's fair enough. But you shouldn’t just go around killing them. They’re really important parts of—” A small, gray shape shoots out from behind an old, thick book about Italian architecture and scuttles across the wall. “Ah! I see you, there.”

Jon sucks in a sharp breath behind him. “Alright, alright! Get it!”

“I will.” Martin smiles reassuringly. “Look, it’s a little out of reach. I’m going to get down, move the chair and try again, okay?”

Jon nods mutely. Martin steps down, purses his lips together to keep himself from giggling at the look Jon is giving him.

“They’re important to the ecosystem,” Martin continues, bracing one hand on the back of the chair and smiling at Jon. “Other bugs would get totally out of control without spiders around. Dangerous ones.”

Jon shakes his head. “I believe you.” He steps back to let Martin scoot the chair over where he needs it before taking hold of it again to keep it steady. “But my office is not an ecosystem for anything other than… dust bunnies.”

“Some spiders catch pollen in their webs,” Martin tells him. “So. Could get rid of your dust bunnies for you. Help with allergies.”

“I think I’ll just stick with antihistamines.”

Martin can’t help but huff a laugh, climbing back up onto the chair. “Some scientists think spider venom could be used in medicines. Or as, like, an eco-friendly pesticide,” Martin explains. “Hand me the mug?”

Jon hands it up to him, and Martin carefully covers the spider on the wall. “There, got you.” He holds his free hand back towards Jon. “Statement?”

Martin feels paper slide into his hand and snags it. “Ooo-kay. Now let me just…” He carefully lifts the edge of the mug and scoots the paper under it.

“Did you get it?” Jon asks warily.

Slowly, Martin pulls the mug up, with the statement held firmly in place at its rim. The wall beneath is distinctly empty. “Yep. All spider free.”

He smiles down at Jon, who gives him a cautious, tight-lipped glare in return. It’s almost unfair how adorable he is. It might have been distracting, if Martin’s hadn’t spent the last handful of weeks up close and personal with all of Jon’s cutest habits.

With no free hands, he’s a bit wobbly getting back down to ground level from the shaky old office chair, and almost loses his footing.

“Careful,” Jon snaps, and suddenly his hand is on Martin’s elbow, tight and steadying. Martin did the exact same thing to Jon just a few minutes ago, but it’s funny how when it’s turned on Martin it makes every muscle in his body feel like jelly.

Martin clears his throat. “T-thanks.”

Jon hums, and then, seeming to realize his proximity to the mug and what lurks within, jerks his hand back, giving it a distasteful glare, like Martin’s holding something radioactive instead of a small wolf spider in a mug. “Are you going to get rid of that now?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.” Jon shrinks back as Martin maneuvers around all the boxes and files and make-shift spider catching stations. He pauses, just shy of Jon’s still-open door. “You know, spiders have been around for like, two-hundred millions years, and some of them are honestly quite sweet. Like, there are certain spiders that carry their babies around on their backs and drink nectar from flowers and stuff.”

“Don’t they also decapitate their mates and eat them?”

“Hmm. I think that’s praying mantises.”

“No, I’m fairly certain spiders do it as well. Black widows, at least.”

Martin scoffs. “You’re impossible.”

“Yes,” Jon agrees, even though Martin’s fairly sure he sees something that looks like the beginnings of a smile on his face. “And you’re still holding a spider in my office.”

So Martin sighs, shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and carries the spider out through the Archives. He manages until he hits the stairwell before the grin he’s been fighting himself finally breaks out across his face.

—

Martin’s good mood holds almost right up to the end of lunch.

Tim and Sasha went out together and haven’t come back yet, and Jon went back to his office after he finished eating about ten minutes ago, leaving Martin in the break room alone. It’s fine, at least Jon actually ate. And took a real break, even if he called it early. Martin counts that as a win.

Martin finishes washing out his tupperware and leaves it on the drying rack in the kitchenette before getting back to his desk. With the others out, and Jon holed up in his office with his statements, Martin pulls his headphones out of his bag and spends a few minutes distracting himself on his phone, taps his foot to the music he puts on in the background.

When his ankle starts to tickle, Martin’s so zoned out he doesn’t even think twice about it, just scratches at the itchy spot with the toe of his shoe. When that doesn’t help, and that irritating, persistent tickle just gets worse, he frowns and leans down, and that’s when his hand brushes —

A sudden, gripping terror washes over him in an icy wave, and Martin’s up out of his chair like a shot with a terrified shout. He swipes furiously at his ankles, hopping around in a way that probably looks really funny to anyone but him.

For all these long weeks spent dealing with Jane and her infestation, all the paranoid, excruciating moments Martin’s spent obsessing over them, listening for that awful wriggling, that warm, rancid smell they carry with them… Martin has never actually touched one of the worms with his hands before. Has never properly felt them on his skin. He's not sure if it’s the noises they make, or the slimy stains they leave behind when you step on them, but for some reason he expected them to be cold.

They aren't.

Instead, the slick, damp flesh is body-warm. Almost the same temperature as the skin on his fingers that brush over it. And something about that is even worse, upsets Martin down to his core, feels wholly and distinctly wrong.

Martin’s dimly aware of the sound of a door opening, three voices crowding the space around him:

“Martin?”

“Did something happen?”

“Jesus, what’s up with—”

And then Martin feels hands braced on his shoulders, steadying, and when he looks up he sees Jon’s wide, worried eyes staring back at him. Over his shoulder, Tim and Sasha hover a few feet away, still holding their bags and café cups from lunch.

“Martin,” Jon repeats, “what happened?”

Martin works his mouth for a few seconds. “There was— t-the—” He shakes his head, and instead just points. Jon follows his gaze to the worm quickly enough; it wriggles pathetically on the floor, a few inches away from a little writhing knot of its fellows.

“Oh, god,” Jon exclaims, “Tim, get an extinguisher.”

Tim actually startles. “Right. On it, boss.”

He hands his cup off to a frowning Sasha and vanishes.

“There was one— one of them was— i-it was o-on me, it was, it was on my ankle,” Martin babbles, wild and shaken.

Sasha makes a face. “Ew. That’s not good.”

Martin makes a noise.

“Not helpful,” Jon snaps, at the same moment Tim arrives back with a fire extinguisher in hand. He pulls the tab and douses the worms — and his shoes, and most of Martin’s desk, and Sasha — with a heavy dose of CO2.

Sasha coughs and tugs the hem of her shirt over her nose. “God, Tim! Watch it!”

“Here, you should check—” Jon’s hands flutter, stammering out a few syllables that die before they can make any actual words.

Hands shaking, Martin rolls his jeans up, runs his fingers over his ankles. There’s nothing; no worms, no bite marks, just unbroken skin and the smell of gas. He stands back up, running his hands over his arms, flexing his fingers. “Can you, um. W-will you help me check—”

“Yes, yes, here.” Jon gestures at him, and Martin turns around. He looks over his shoulder while Jon pats down his shoulder blades where Martin can’t reach, checking and double checking.

"Welp." Tim sets the extinguishers on the corner of his desk, huffing. “Think they’re dead.”

“And you’re clear,” Jon tells Martin. “No worms.”

Martin’s shoulders slump, and he sighs in relief.

“They’ve never come inside before,” Sasha comments, scuffing her shoe against the carpet and poking a shriveled, dry worm corpse with her toe.

Martin huffs, a dry, near-hysterical sound that could potentially be read as a laugh. “No kidding.”

Tim makes a face. “That’s… probably a bit concerning, yeah?”

“Yes, Tim, I’d say it is,” Jon bites out, turning around to face him and Sasha. It’s only then, when it falls away, that Martin realizes his hand had still been resting on Martin’s elbow that whole time.

“How’d they get down here?” Sasha asks, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, we’re all the way in the basement.”

Martin’s heartbeat picks up speed in his ears. He swallows. “W-well,” he says, looking over at Jon. “Maybe the spiders were keeping them under control this whole time.”

Jon’s head snaps back to Martin, and Martin watches his face swing from bewildered, to shocked, to a sudden, sharp realization. “You are not serious.”

“I’m just saying, it might’ve—”

“They weren’t anywhere near my office—”

“Maybe he was helping out around the whole Archive—”

“One spider would not have dealt with all of these worms—”

Martin can’t quite bite back a smile in time. Jon narrows his eyes, scoffs, and actually shoves at Martin’s arm.

“Wait,” Tim pitches in, “uh. Am I missing something here?”

“No,” Jon says.

Martin nods. “Don’t worry about it.”

Sasha arches an eyebrow. “So you’re feeling better now, Martin?”

“Hm? Oh, um. Y-yeah.” Martin gives a shaky laugh. “Thanks. Just, just got a bit freaked out there.”

“Yeah, they’re not fun to remove,” she tells him, scrunching up her nose. “Trust me.”

Martin shudders. “Yep. Yes, d-definitely not keen to learn what that’s like.”

“Right.” Jon sucks in a sharp breath. “well. We should— um. If that’s all settled, we should get back to work.”

Sasha makes a face. Tim rocks back and forth onto the balls of his feet. “Just another day at the office, huh? I’ll… get a broom, or something. Clean—” He gestures distastefully at the worm corpses— “Those up.”

He walks off, and Sasha follows not long after. Jon turns to go, too, but hesitates. He stops, half-turns back to Martin, eyes flickering over to him. “I, uh.” His voice is softer, quieter. “Are you— you’re sure you’re alright?”

Martin can’t help but soften just a bit, too. “Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll be okay.”

Jon nods. “Alright. Good. If, er. I’ll be— L-let me know if you need anything.”

“Sure, yeah, I will.” Martin smiles. “Thanks, Jon.”

After a good amount of nervous fidgeting, Jon smiles cautiously back, before he disappears back into his office.

Chapter Text

The weirdest thing about this new arrangement is that, now that the seasons are turning and summer’s coming up just around the corner, Jon actually gets home before dark.

It’s strange; like getting out of the movie theater and stepping into daylight. There’s something vaguely wrong about leaving the Institute when the sky’s still light. Not that he’ll say as much to Martin. He’s already heard enough lectures on his work habits, thank you very much.

Besides, it’s not, strictly speaking, a bad weird. He’s got more time in his day, now. Time to… do things that aren’t Institute-related. That’s supposed to be good, right? Even if Jon’s kind of drawing a blank trying to think of anything he could actually to do outside of work.

It was easier with Georgie; they’d had people. Had a… group. They’d had hobbies, things they did together.

He used to be a person, before the Magnus Institute, he swears.

It just feels like there’s so much day left, and his flat expects him to fill it somehow. The cooking helps. He’s even picked up two new recipe books from that little used bookshop he likes down the street that he's excited to dig into. Still, after dinner, even with the sky darkening outside the windows, the hours yawn open ahead of him.

Jon sits on the floor in front of the sofa, phone, laptop, and a statement folder he’d smuggled out of the Institute sitting on the coffee table in front of him, barely even seeing any of them. He sighs (again), runs a hand over his face, lets his head drop back against the cushions.

“Bored?” Martin asks.

Jon starts, blinks up at Martin. He hadn’t even noticed him come in, but there he is standing in the kitchen doorway, holding a yogurt and a spoon and looking at Jon with something he can only describe as a fond smile.

Jon relaxes, slumps back. “Perhaps a bit, yes.”

Martin hums sympathetically. He comes over and takes a seat on the sofa with his legs crossed under him, leaning sideways against the arm. Jon tilts his head up to watch him. In flannel pajama pants and a faded old T-shirt, it strikes Jon that he looks about as relaxed as Jon’s ever seen him. Remembering the mess of sleepless nerves Martin had first come to him in, he can't help but think it feels like a hard-won prize.

“We could play a board game, or something,” Martin suggests, gently peeling the lid back from his yogurt. “Maybe play cards?”

Jon makes a face. “I… don’t think I own any board games. Or playing cards.”

Martin pauses, looks over at him, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”

Jon shrugs. “Not much use for them. Never expected a, an infested worm woman to give me a roommate.”

Martin snorts, stirring up his yogurt with his spoon. “Okay. Well, what did you do before I was staying with you?”

“Um.” Jon looks away, taps his fingers on his kneecap. “… Mostly work?”

Martin sighs. “Actually, why does that not surprise me?”

“I suppose I’m just becoming predictable.”

That earns Jon an actual laugh this time, albeit a quiet one. “Maybe you should get a dog, or a cat or something. Keep you company.”

“My landlord doesn’t allow pets. Believe me, I have checked.” Jon frowns. “A-anyway, I spend so many hours at the Institute, i-it would hardly be fair to inflict that on a cat.”

Martin tilts his head in consideration. “I mean, you’ve been keeping pretty sane hours lately. Since I moved in, at least.”

“Yes, but what happens after you leave?” Jon asks. “The poor thing just gets neglected again.”

“Hm.” Martin ducks his head, looks away. "Yeah, right."

It’s only then that Jon really realizes what he’s just said. He can feel the moment something shifts uncomfortably, and suddenly wishes he were capable of pulling words back inside his mouth, unsaying them entirely.

“I, I only meant—”

“No, you’re right,” Martin cuts him off, with a hint of levity that ultimately falls flat. “Not like I’ll just be here sleeping in your bed forever. Poor cat would get lonely.”

“Right,” Jon agrees, ignoring the twisting, sinking feeling in his stomach.

A beat of silence passes, neither of them looking at each other. Jon… hasn’t really thought about Martin leaving, but it isn’t like this was ever meant to be a permanent situation. He's already been here longer than either of them expected. This was just supposed to be a place to lay low and catch his breath until Prentiss gets taken care of. Somewhere safe to hide until things are normal again.

Except that now... this is what feels like normal. After nearly two months of living together, Jon can finally admit to himself that he is not eager to go back to the way things were. Now that he knows what it's like to have something more, the thought of coming home to a dark, empty flat fills him with something that feels vaguely like dread.

Martin breaks the silence, shattering the uneasiness that’s settled over Jon. “You could always just… Leave on time, even after I’m gone.”

Jon huffs. “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

“Right, so, just… the second I’m out of here, you’re back to staying in the Archives ‘till midnight?”

“Hey, I didn’t stay till midnight,” Jon protests, then looks down at his hands. “… Often.”

“Jon!”

“If it gets that late and I’m still working, I just stay in my office over night,” Jon explains. “No use going home at that point.”

Martin gives him a look somewhere between ‘scathing’ and ‘astounded.’ “Okay, you get that that doesn’t actually make it better, though, right?”

Jon can see his point, but he still gives no more response than a noncommittal hum, because he knows that’ll get a rise out of Martin. He isn’t wrong. Martin makes a delightfully squeaky sound, and Jon barely manages to bite back a smirk in time.

“What on Earth am I going to do with you?” Martin asks.

“It's not that bad. I-I do things. Outside of work. Sometimes I even go out.”

Martin raises his eyebrows.

“I do!” Jon insists. “I— oh, actually. Er.”

Martin slowly sets his now half-empty yogurt on the coffee table. “Yeah?”

“There’s a, um.” Jon clears his throat. “Actually, there’s a new exhibit opening at the museum next weekend. I-I was thinking of heading down on Saturday?”

“Oh?”

“Yes.” Jon bites on the inside of his lip. “I actually meant to. That is, I was going to ask. Um. You can come along with me, if you’d like.”

“Really?”

Jon nods. “Yes.”

“I…” A gentle pink dusts Martin’s cheeks, and a smile peeks out at Jon. “Yeah. I-I’d like that.”

Jon feels a startled, pleased warmth bloom somewhere inside him. “You would?”

“Yeah, that, that sounds fun. I—” Martin starts, only to cut himself off suddenly. His face falls so dramatically it’s like someone flipped a switch somewhere inside him. “Wait, did you say Saturday?”

“Um, yes?”

“Oh.” Martin sighs, looks down at his lap. “I— Sorry, I can’t. I’m… busy on Saturday.”

“Oh?” Jon pitches his voice up, aiming for polite curiosity and falling dreadfully flat even to his own ears. “You, uh. Do you have somewhere to be?”

Martin frowns, rubs at the back of his neck, shoulders slumping. “Yeah, um. I, I do, yes.”

“Ah.” Jon nods. “Right, that’s— yes. Alright.”

Martin opens his mouth like he wants to say more, then shuts it again. Jon isn’t sure if he’s meant to ask, but the nervous energy Martin’s practically radiating is making him agitated enough his patience runs dry.

“Where are you going?”

Martin's eyes stay averted, trained on the carpet in a way that's too intense to be anything but deliberate. “I. I need to go and see my mum.”

Jon raises his eyebrows. He thinks this might be the first time Martin has mentioned anything about his family. Jon’s not sure why that surprises him, it’s not like he’s ever asked, or made any effort whatsoever to get to know anything about Martin’s life outside of work before this Prentiss ordeal.

“Just, um. I don’t know if you know this,” Martin goes on, picking at the chipped yellow polish on his thumbnail. “But she’s-she’s in a care home. Up in Devon. She’s, ah. She had some… issues, a-awhile back.”

Jon opens his mouth, but this is one of those situations where he’s rapidly finding himself out of his depth. “I’m— sorry?” he tries.

“No, it’s— it’s okay,” Martin tells him. “I mean, it's not, but. It’s… a nice place. She actually, er, suggested moving up there herself. She’s happy, I think. Y’know, she has friends. And the staff’s lovely.”

Even Jon can tell the cheeriness in his voice is fake, brittle and thin and crumbling like walking very thin ice. “Right.”

“I, well. I try to go up and see her at least once a month, but… I-it’s been awhile. I haven’t gone since before the Prentiss thing.” He shrugs. “I really can’t put it off any longer. A-and I go on Saturdays. Y’know, don’t like to worry about work after the train ride, so…”

Jon nods. “No, I understand,” he assures Martin.

Martin shoots him a strained smile. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Jon tells him. “It’s alright.”

And it is. It’s fine. You’re meant to go see family when they’re ill, right? And after two months away his mother must be missing him, must be worried about him. He and Martin are only barely friends, Jon can’t monopolize all of his time. A few weeks ago he would’ve been grateful to have a full afternoon to himself. He used to favor solitude, not dread it.

Either way, Jon’s — whatever it is must be well hidden, because the smile Martin shoots him next is slightly less strained. “Thanks, Jon,” he says. “I would like to go, really.”

Jon swallows. “There will be other weekends. The museum isn’t going anywhere.”

“Oh, you don’t — no, you don’t need to reschedule. You can go without me." He shrugs halfheartedly. "I don’t mind.”

"Maybe." It’s almost embarrassing how quickly the idea loses its shine when Jon thinks about going alone. “We’ll see.”

—

Saturday dawns grey and overcast, the sky threatening a gloomy drizzle which seems to fit the mood in the flat as Martin gets ready to leave for Devon and Jon gets ready for a long day sitting around by himself. He’d toyed with the idea of just going to the museum without Martin, but when he thinks about having to walk through the halls alone, silent and awkward, surrounded by strangers in pairs and groups clustered around exhibits sharing excited chatter, the idea leaves something knotted and cold somewhere deep in his gut.

It’s fine. He really has been falling behind at the Archives lately, and he tells himself it’ll be nice to have a day to himself to just get caught up on work with no interruptions.

Martin leaves just before 10:00 in a flurry of barely-concealed nerves, forgetting his phone and then his umbrella and having to double back twice before he’s out the door for good. With the thick, dark clouds out the window, and the sudden silence of finding himself all alone, it feels a bit like being enclosed in a cheap, vaguely cozy mausoleum.

Jon shivers. It’s like the temperature dropped with Martin’s departure. Like he took the warmth with him. With a frown, Jon gets up and turns up the thermostat until the heat clicks on, pulling thin cardigan sleeves down over his knuckles. Shouldn’t it be warmer in here? Maybe the Archives are just so cold it makes anywhere else feel warm in contrast.

Jon sighs, spins on socked heels and stands awkwardly in the middle of his flat, the whole day stretching out empty and aimless before him. Strange, how it now feels more alien to be alone in his own home than it does to be here with Martin.

Jon makes a face.

“Right,” he says to no one. Enough standing around feeling out of place. He does plenty of that when there are other people around, he doesn’t need to subject himself to it when he’s on his own. Maybe he’ll get started on his and Martin’s lunches for the week. Normally he’d wait until Sunday night for that, but it’s not like he has anything better to do today. Maybe he can even experiment a little with no one around to judge him if it goes badly. Maybe the heat of the stove will finally warm him up, too.

Yeah, he can do that. Mind made up, he pushes his sleeves back up to his elbows, and heads into the kitchen to kill a few hours.

The sun has nearly set before Martin gets back. Jon’s in the living room, phone in his hand when he hears keys in the door. He looks up in time to see Martin slumping into the room, hair damp and frizzy from what Jon assumes must have been one of the showers that have been hitting on and off all day.

“Ah, I was about to text you,” Jon says, smiling faintly.

“Mhmm?” Martin hums indistinctly, facing away from Jon as he shrugs out of his coat and toes his shoes off.

“Er. Yes,” Jon goes on, “I was just wondering if I should start dinner or wait for you.”

“Oh.” Martin nods mechanically. “Yeah, um. Whatever you like, really.”

That’s when Jon starts to register the hollow quality in his voice. The fact that Martin still hasn’t even looked at him.

“Um. Okay…” Jon nods, keeps his eyes on Martin. Now that he’s paying attention, he notes everything out of the ordinary about him: the way his shoulders are hiked up around his ears, the stiffness in his every move, how perfectly closed off he looks. Jon frowns. “Martin?”

Martin finally looks at him, raising his eyebrows but otherwise completely impassive.

Jon fidgets, somewhere between alarmed and wrong-footed. Is he supposed to ask? They’re friends, right? It’s easy to spend time with Martin in a way Jon’s always attributed to his friends, so he figures they have to be. And friends ask each other things like this, don't they? He swallows. “Are you alright?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, fine.” Martin flashes Jon a tight smile that doesn’t reach his eyes and slips away much too quickly to be sincere. “Just, uh. Just a bit tired from the trip, I guess.”

“Oh. Alright. Yes.” Jon can’t decide if he believes him or not, but he doesn’t want to push it, doesn’t want to risk stepping across some unseen line and ruining whatever they’ve been been building here.

“Actually,” Martin says, “I think I’m gonna take a nap, if you don’t mind?”

Jon blinks. “Of course not. Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” He crosses the room, pauses in the hall. “You can start dinner without me, if you’re hungry.”

Jon watches him carefully. “If you’re sure…”

“Yeah, I am. It’s fine,” Martin tells him. “You don’t need to wait.”

Jon thinks about saying something — thinks he should say something — but before he can figure out what that could be, Martin’s already vanished down the hall, leaving Jon staring after him, not sure if the worry lodged in his throat is warranted or not.

It’s just — the last time Jon saw Martin looking so wrung out, they’d been sitting in Jon’s office over a handful of dead worms and a tape recorder.

But! Martin has asked for space, in about as direct a manner as Martin is capable of asking for such a thing. Jon gives his head a little shake and turns back around. He can leave Martin be.

And he does a pretty good job of it until his laptop flashes a low battery warning, and he remembers he left his charger in the bedroom. With a sigh, Jon picks himself up, stretches his arms over his head with a few loud pops. How is it he never notices how long he’s been stagnant until he moves and suddenly his whole body’s complaining at him? When he checks the time, it’s been over an hour since Martin got home. Plenty of time for him to fall asleep, and hopefully be asleep enough that Jon won’t disturb him by coming in.

Jon’s had a lot of practice moving around silently, so he slips quietly down the hall, leaving the lights off as he goes, guided by the ambient light filtering in through the windows.

Martin’s left the bedroom door open, and Jon pauses briefly just outside. The light is off in there too, and there’s no sound coming from inside. From where he’s standing, he can just make out Martin’s silhouette, buried under the covers on the bed. Jon watches for a moment, but Martin is completely still, so he relaxes.

The plug with Jon’s laptop charger is around Martin’s side of the bed, so Jon takes extra care to muffle his footfalls as he crosses the room. Martin’s turned away from him, facing the far wall, everything but the very top of his head covered up under the thick duvet. Jon keeps half an eye on him while he bends down, fumbling for just a second in the dark until he manages to yank his charger out of the wall.

When he stands back up, Martin moves along with him, rolling over so now he’s turned towards Jon. Jon goes very still, but Martin seems to settle again. He burrows into the pillow, blankets pushed down around his chin. Apparently still sleeping, even if it doesn’t look peaceful the way his brows pinch together, face drawn tight.

Jon doesn’t really know why he does what he does next.

There’s hair sticking to Martin’s face, pressed to his forehead from sleeping on it funny. Jon swallows. He shifts his laptop charger to one hand, reaches out towards Martin, and delicately brushes his hair back, pushing it off his face with one careful finger. Martin’s skin is sleep-warm and just a little clammy, his hair perfectly soft where Jon’s fingers card it back behind Martin’s ear.

It’s just as Jon’s finger sweeps against the shell of Martin’s ear that he shifts again in his sleep, face twitching. Realizing exactly what he's just done, Jon snatches his hand back, heart leaping into his throat. He leaves the room with as much stealth as he can manage while actively fleeing, blood hammering in his ears as he slumps back down onto the sofa back out in the living room.

Good god, what was he thinking? Obviously, he wasn’t. Jon is very good at rationalizing things to himself, but he is drawing a blank right now. It was… Just a fleeting and almost automatic response, a spontaneous, spur of the moment thing. And one Martin will never have to know about, thank god.

Whatever embarrassing impulses led him to do that, nobody needs to know but Jon.

Chapter Text

Despite everything, Martin’s never really been the type of person who gets nightmares.

See, even though Martin’s always known he’s kind of not okay, it’s the sort of not okay that’s… boring.

Lots of people have problems with their parents. Lots of people have trouble with money and drop out of school and don’t have a lot of friends. It’s sad and probably more than a little pathetic, but it’s not… It’s not something anyone has to worry about. It’s the normal kind of sad and pathetic, the baseline kind that comes with being a person.

It’s a dull, everyday kind of hurt that maybe sort of smarts sometimes but doesn’t incapacitate. Even the thing with Prentiss — which is, Martin’s pretty sure, the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, objectively speaking — wasn’t too terrible. He had to stay indoors for a couple of weeks and eat some bad canned food. It was scary, but he made it through and he’s okay now.

Even when his life’s in danger, it’s boring. It’s not the kind of thing that he thinks should give him nightmares. It’s like he hasn’t earned it, or something.

But that doesn’t stop him from waking in the middle of the night, sweaty and trembling like he’s breaking a fever.

There’s always this moment of uncomfortable disorientation. He’ll wake up and forget where he is, forget he’s safe in Jon’s flat and not restless and terrified, stealing a few minutes of sleep on his sofa between the knocking.

He blinks into the heavy, stifling dark, heart pounding in his ears so loud that for a second it really does sound like Jane. It takes a good handful of seconds for the adrenaline to fade, for Martin to feel like he can breathe again, for the fear to recede enough for him to start thinking straight again.

It’s okay. He’s okay. He’s in Jon’s flat, in his surprisingly comfortable bed, facing the closet on the far wall, Jon pressed warm and snug against his back. He gives himself a handful of stolen seconds to let the truth of it settle over him before it all becomes too much.

Restless and itchy, Martin slips out from under the covers and out of bed. It doesn’t wake Jon, thank god. Martin has come to learn that he’s a heavy sleeper, and so far he’s managed to sleep through every one of these nights Martin’s had. (And every morning when Martin has to disentangle whatever octopus hold Jon’s got him in to get up and get ready for work.)

There’s a selfish, shameful little part of him which is a lot harder to bury in these unguarded moments late at night, that wishes Jon would wake up; that he’d sit with Martin and murmur words of reassurance, touch Martin's face, push his hair back from his clammy forehead. Maybe hold him on purpose, for once.

But this isn’t Jon’s problem. It’s just a bad dream, Martin can handle it himself.

With just the lights of a city at night from the windows to guide him, Martin pads quietly out into Jon’s kitchen. There’s a scar on his’s palm, only weeks old, still pink and shiny. Martin got it a week into his ordeal with Prentiss, when the kitchen knife he had been falling asleep holding had slipped out of his grip, dug into the soft skin of his palm. He hasn’t slept with a knife since, but he misses the sense of security it had brought him keenly.

Martin leaves the overhead light off and just flips on the little light over the oven instead, filling the kitchen with a dull, orange glow. Without his glasses on it makes the whole room feel… Not ethereal, per se; the fear and paranoia don’t leave room for anything so soft in Martin’s world right now, but ephemeral in the way a horror movie might be, all ominous mood lighting and crawling, amorphous shadows.

Martin shivers, gives his hands a good shake. He vaguely knows his way around Jon’s kitchen by now, even if he doesn’t really use it for much more than making tea. He pulls open a drawer and rummages through it as quietly as he can.

He’s just started on the second drawer when the kitchen floods with the stark gray-white of harsh fluorescents. Fear and adrenaline gripping his heart for the second time that night, Martin jumps, jerks around to find —

"Jon!"

Squinting and frowning against the light, he stands in the kitchen doorway, hair sticking up on one side and loose sleep shirt hanging off his clavicle in a way that would be terribly distracting if Martin wasn’t still so shaken.

“Martin?” He manages, voice thick and scratchy.

“Jesus,” Martin breathes, putting a hand on his chest. “You scared me.”

Jon blinks, tilts his head. “What’re you doing?”

“Just— just—” Martin almost doesn’t want to say; it sounds completely insane with the lights on and Jon ‘Skepticism’ Sims staring him down in sleepwear. “… Looking for something.”

Jon makes a noise, advances further into the kitchen. “Oh? What?”

“A, uh.” Martin sighs, slumps. “A corkscrew.”

“A corkscrew?” Jon looks up at him, brows pinched together. Martin can almost see the calculations going on behind his eyes. “We don’t have any wine.”

Martin looks away from him, twists his fingers in the hem of his T-shirt. It's not like the truth is any better, but. “It’s not for wine.”

Jon gives him a moment, but when he finally seems to decide Martin isn’t going to elaborate on his own, he asks, “What do you want it for, then?”

“The… Um. For the worms,” Martin admits.

“The worms…” Jon frowns. “Martin, we haven’t seen any worms here.”

Martin sighs. “I know.”

“And we’ve got the extinguishers.”

Martin bites the inside of his cheek. “I know.”

Jon tilts his head to the side. “And I don’t think— I mean, a corkscrew doesn’t seem like the most effective weapon?”

“Yeah, I know, okay?” Martin snaps. “I know it sounds crazy, I get it! But, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and I just figured— Okay. We’ve got all these defenses to stop them getting at you, but. If they, if they do get you, h-how do you get them out? A knife isn’t the best way to… remove them. Why cut laterally when you can just—” he mimes the twisting of a corkscrew with one hand— “Go in and dig them out?”

There’s a moment of silence that seems to Martin to drag on for ages, even if in reality it’s probably only a few seconds.

Finally, Jon breaks it. “I… don’t think that sounds crazy.”

Dubiously, Martin risks looking back up to meet Jon’s eyes. “You don’t?”

Jon gives his head a slow shake. “You were… you were trapped in your home, for weeks. I-I imagine it would be… hard to feel safe anywhere after that. You— it makes sense. To think about that.”

Martin swallows. He’s still not used to this version of Jon that takes him seriously, the Jon who looks at him with concern instead of scorn. God, life was so much easier when Jon was just his prick boss who also just happened to be a little bit sexy. Contending with this person who also, for whatever reason, seems to care about Martin is starting to overwhelm him.

“I don’t think I own a corkscrew,” Jon tells him.

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s—” Martin shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“We can… Get one. Tomorrow.”

“Oh. Okay. Erm, thanks.”

Jon makes a noise, discontented but trying very hard to hide it. Martin doesn’t think Jon is used to being a person who cares about Martin, either. “I, um.” He clears his throat. “Right.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Martin’s not sure what to fill it with. Now that his initial panic is fading, he’s starting to just feel… silly. Embarrassed.

He’s starting to wonder he he can say ‘right, forget all this, let’s just go back to bed’ without sound A) too self-deprecating, and/or B) like some kind of old married couple, when Jon looks at him and asks: “Would you like some tea?”

Martin stares at him.

He can't really explain why it feels like the floor is tilting askew under his feet. Jon cooks for him (for them. For them both, Jon's not doing anything for Martin specifically) every night, and yet. It's... it's something, having him stand here in the middle of the night and offer... comfort. A simple, steady comfort.

Martin swallows. All he can say is, “Um. Okay.”

Jon gives a decisive nod; it loses a lot of his usual gravitas when his hair’s sticking up on one side and he’s wearing rumpled sleep clothes, but it’s still such a Jon gesture it soothes something inside Martin just a little bit.

With a quiet, sleepy determination, Jon slips past Martin to his stove, hand ghosting over Martin’s back on his way by, there and gone quick enough Martin might think he imagined it if not for the echo of Jon’s fingers lingering on his nerve endings like an burn. Martin turns with the touch, follows Jon with his eyes, hopelessly caught in his orbit.

He gives his head a small, jerky shake, and goes to sit down at the table. Jon’s kitchen is… not that big. Best not to hover, to just let him get on with it. He can still see Jon from here, so he watches him get everything ready, set the water boiling.

“How do you feel about chamomile?” Jon asks.

Martin blinks. “Like, in general?”

Jon huffs. “Do you like chamomile tea?”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure, it’s fine.”

Jon gives another nod, and pulls a box out of the cupboard by the stove. He leaves it on the countertop, and moves to fetch a clean mug — sky blue, with little white blobs that could either be clouds or flowers painted on — from the drying rack by the sink. Martin watches him set the mug gingerly down beside the box of teabags with a gentle clink of ceramic on tile, muffled by the delicacy of Jon’s movements.

Jon lets out a quiet breath, leans against the counter. Martin watches his thumb brush the mug handle before his hand falls to the countertop, imagining what those fingers might feel like on his own hand, or his cheekbone.

"When I, uh." He clears his throat, looks studiously away from Martin. When his voice comes out next, it's fleece-down soft, and Martin almost stops breathing so he doesn’t miss a single syllable. “When I was a child, my, um...” He sucks in his bottom lip, something delicate and vulnerable crossing his face. “Whenever I was ill, or when I woke up from a nightmare, or even if I was just… sad, my mother would. S-she would make me chamomile tea.”

The little orange-yellow bulb over the oven is still on, highlighting Jon in soft gold where he stands by the stove. A moment of silence passes, and Martin watches him closely, motionless in his seat. He doesn’t think Jon’s ever shared something so… intimately personal before. He wants Jon to keep talking. He never wants him to stop, even when a pang of something almost painfully soft shoots through him.

“I’ve always liked it with honey,” Jon finally goes on, carefully pulling a teabag out of the box and setting it in the mug. He fiddles with the label, twisting it between his fingers. “It, um. Sort of makes it feel… more comforting?”

Martin swallows thickly. “I-I like honey in tea,” he volunteers, and his own voice is so soft it even surprises him, like he’s afraid if he speaks too loud he’ll spook Jon out of — whatever quiet reverie he’s found himself in.

Jon hums. “Good.”

Martin watches Jon, utterly transfixed, while Jon watches the kettle. “I, um. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention your parents.”

And it’s not like Martin’s been exactly tripping over himself to share anything about his own private life, but it still feels like he's been handed some kind of rare bird. Hopelessly beautiful, but unspeakably delicate.

Something to be handled with great care.

“No.” Jon shakes his head. “They died when I was quite young.”

“Oh,” Martin can’t help but say. Did he know that about Jon? He doesn’t think he did. Something unnameable inside of him aches. “I-I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I, uh. Honestly don’t remember them much. Just little things... like the tea.” He shrugs. “But I-I grew up with my grandmother.”

“Is that why you’re such a good cook?” Martin hazards a guess. That’s what grandmothers are meant to do, right? They cook. Feed you. Grandmas always have food. Martin never met either of his (his mum's parents were back in Kraków, haven’t spoken to his mum since she left home, and his dad's mother died before he was born), but he remembers his grandad, and he’s heard stories from other people.

“Oh, no,” Jon tells him, then makes a face. “Well, maybe a bit. She did teach me the basics, made sure I knew how to take care of myself before I left her house. Taught me a few recipes. Her raisin cinnamon challah is still one of my favorites.”

“Right,” Martin says, nodding.

“But. She was white. The things I cook now were rather out of her scope, I believe. I, I mostly taught myself.” His words tilt up at the end, almost a question — like he’s not used to saying the words, has to seek some kind of permission to share something about himself.

Martin is so breathtakingly, endlessly endeared it feels like a tangible thing, something treacly and warm that he could pluck from his chest and hold if he tried. It takes a lot of effort to keep his voice steady. “That’s really impressive.”

Jon shrugs, huffs quietly. His shoulders seem to loosen, though. “Hardly. I just… Happened to find an old cookbook of Indian recipes at the used bookshop I liked and practiced. Felt like, ah…” He purses his lips, trails off.

The water in the kettle is ready, so Martin waits patiently while Jon carefully pours it into the mug on the counter. While the tea steeps, Jon leans against the counter. He’s still looking just absolutely anywhere but at Martin himself, but Martin doesn’t mind. Sometimes it’s easier to say something when you don’t have to worry about how your words are received.

“I don’t remember much about my mother,” Jon admits, “but I remember that she cooked. How she made tea. I don’t even remember what she would cook, exactly, i-if it was anything like the things I do, but I thought just the cooking might help me, um. Y-you know…”

“Yeah, I do,” Martin tells him. In this moment he thinks he understands Jon so clearly he aches with it. “I, um. When I was—” He falters, stops himself for saying something that might give away the truth about his life pre-Institute— “After my mum left for Devon, I tried to make, like, knishes and challah and even those— You know, those jam donut, things—"

Jon nods, hums the affirmative.

"— yeah. Anyway, it, uh.” He breathes out a hesitant laugh. “It did not go very well, but. I remember my dad used to like them when I was a kid, so. It still felt good.”

Jon finally looks at Martin, raises his eyebrows. “Is your father, er… I-I mean—”

“He’s alive,” Martin supplies. “Well, I mean, I assume he’s still alive? I guess he could’ve died by now, but no one’s bothered to tell me if he did. He just, y’know. Left when I was young.”

“Oh.” Jon pulls out the teabag and sets it aside, slowly stirring honey into the mug. “I’m… sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.” Martin shrugs. “I just meant… I-I get the, um. Wanting to do little things to feel. Connected. To someone that you, er. Lost.”

Jon nods, slowly. “Yes.”

He finishes the tea, carries the mug over to the table, setting it in front of Martin. Martin pulls it close, wrapping his hands around it to leech out some of the warmth. Jon sinks down into the only other chair at the table, folding his hands together on the tabletop and leaning forward just so. Martin can only hold his gaze for a second before he lets his eyes fall down to the burnt-honey brown of the tea.

Martin's cheeks are warm enough to match the cup in his hands. “Thanks.”

Jon hums, ducks his head. Jon’s almost worse at accepting praise than Martin is himself.

Martin hides his smile behind a sip of his tea. It’s a little watery, and perhaps a bit sweeter than Martin would’ve made it himself, but Jon is right: the heat that spreads through him is distinctly and uniquely comforting.

“Oh.” He takes another sip even though it’s almost too hot to be drinkable. “That is nice.”

Jon makes another humming sound, but this one is distinctly more pleased. “Good.”

“You can go back to bed, if you like,” Martin offers. It must be — what, 4:00 in the morning by now? He must be tired. “You don’t need to stay up with me.”

Jon shifts and fidgets in his chair. “I’m quite alright right here.”

Martin hides another smile in his tea, soft and almost sentimental, a warmth completely unrelated to the drink spreading outward from his chest. “Okay. If you say so.”

“I do,” Jon says, so decisive it’s almost defensive.

It’s hard to hold onto any of the residual anxiety Martin’s nightmares left him with when he’s sitting here, drinking tea Jon made him, and watching him pout over being asked if he’d like to sleep at 4:00 AM.

“I… thank you, again.”

Still looking resolutely down at the table, Jon says, “It’s really not a big deal.”

“No, I mean. For all of…” Martin pulls one of his hands off his mug and gestures vaguely. “This was. Um. I-I appreciate it.”

“Ah.” Jon shrugs one shoulder meekly. “Yes, well. Least I could do, really.”

Martin wants to tell him that can't possibly be true, that it’s more than anyone else has ever done for him, and it’s already overwhelming. But he doesn’t think he can open his mouth without something else coming out, something stupid and reckless that would wreck every fragile little connections he and Jon have been tentatively building between them.

So he doesn’t say anything. He just sits quietly with something bright and heavy growing in his chest, and he drinks chamomile tea Jon made for him with his bony, gentle hands.

By the time Martin has finished his tea, Jon’s slumped down onto the table, chin resting on his folded arms. His eyes are heavy, but still trained on Martin as he drains the last of his cup. When he pushes his chair back and stands, Jon perks up, blinking rapidly.

“C’mon.” Martin leaves his mug in the sink and shepherds Jon up and out of his own chair. “I’ve kept you up long enough. Let’s try and get some sleep so we’re not totally useless at the office tomorrow.”

Jon groans. “Oh, god. I forgot we have work tomorrow.”

Martin can’t help it; he giggles. “Wow. Do my ears deceive me? Is Jonathan Sims actually not looking forward to work?”

Martin can practically feel Jon rolling his eyes, even in the dark of the hallway. “Believe it or not, Martin, I don’t actually yearn to spend all of my free time reading statements about the greater London area’s collected bad acid trips and unimaginative cries for attention.”

Martin hums. “Actually, I don’t quite believe that.”

Jon huffs, voice going quiet and soft as they cross the darkened threshold of the bedroom. “I… suppose I can’t really fault you for that.”

“Yeah, well. Get some rest,” Martin says, his own voice softening to match. “More acid trips and ghosts await you.”

“Joy of joys,” Jon mutters.

In the quiet dark that no longer feels quite so oppressive, Martin slides into bed, smiling where no one else can see, acutely aware of the weight of Jon’s body, the heat of him as he lays down just inches away from Martin on the mattress. Martin holds his breath until both he and Jon are settled, facing away from each other on their pillows.

“Goodnight, Jon,” Martin whispers.

After a moment, Jon gives him a murmured reply. “Goodnight, Martin.”

“Sleep well.”

Jon hums sleepily. “You, too.”

For just a second, Martin itches to turn around. To face Jon, look into his eyes before they fall asleep. He knows he can’t. Not without giving too much away. And even if he could, it’s not like Jon would be looking back at him.

Instead Martin pulls the covers up to his chin, tucks his face into his pillow, and shuts his eyes tight, willing sleep to pull him under before the formless ache that lives inside him takes shape and overwhelms him entirely.

—

Early the next morning, when Martin wakes, it’s hard to convince himself last night really happened. He walks through the flat like he’s still dreaming, the sunrise coming in through the living room windows coloring everything with a sweet, gentle surreality.

The only evidence Martin has that he didn’t just dream the whole thing up is the heavy feeling behind his ribs, the blue mug with its delicate little painted flowers left dirty in the sink, and the container of honey sitting out in the middle of the counter, right where Jon left it.

Chapter Text

The Archives are a mess.

Not that that's exactly breaking news to Jon. The shrine to chaos Gertrude Robinson spent the better part of half a century building has been one of his biggest headaches since the day he took the job last year. It’s just a little easier to ignore when he’s just holed up in his office, recording whatever statements grab his attention first from the boxes and boxes of the things left lying around. But when he actually has to go back into the stacks, or dig through document storage, the disarray is the only thing he can focus on, sticking out and demanding his attention.

Jon’s been looking for Jane Prentiss’s statement for weeks now. He swears it’s here somewhere, he knows it is. The only problem is he just can’t for the life of him remember where he saw it. He knows he’s read her file, remembers exactly where he left it in his desk drawer. He re-read the whole thing after Martin came back in, but he can’t exactly remember where a statement was ever specifically mentioned.

Maybe it just passed his desk when he was up in Research? But he’d remember that, wouldn’t he? Sure, his memory isn’t the best, but if he had ever done any digging on Prentiss first-hand, that feels like the type of thing that would stick out even to him. Prentiss isn’t exactly easily forgettable. So he must’ve come across it down here, in the Archives, at some point during his first few chaotic weeks on the job. He just needs to find it again.

So Monday morning finds Jon sitting cross-legged on the floor buried somewhere deep in the maze of shelves and boxes Gertrude called an archive. He’s digging through a box with a smudged label that looks like it has some year from the 2010’s written on it. So far half the statements in it are from the mid-80’s, a good portion are from spring of 2006, and there’s even one dated as far back as November, 1972.

Jon sighs, grumbling indistinctly to no one, a fluorescent light a few rows over flickering irritatingly. He knows, theoretically, he could get his assistant’s help with this sort of thing. This seems like exactly what a Head Archivist should have assistants for, right? Digging through files to find the right one so Jon can… archive it properly, whatever that even means.

But the thing is… Jon just doesn’t feel right asking Tim or Sasha. It doesn’t seem fair to ask them to give up their time to look for a statement that might exist and could have been taken at any point in time between the mid-late 2000’s and early 2010’s. He’s already piling so much work on their shoulders.

And he can't ask Martin. He won't, won't burden him with Prentiss anymore than he already has.

So Jon will find it. It’s fine. It’s just one thing. He can do one thing.

Even if there’s a new one thing almost every day.

Even if he has to steal time to do it between the work he’s actually being paid to do.

Christ, why has he been letting Martin drag him out of here so early? He should’ve put his foot down. He was barely making progress when he stayed here till 9:00, how’s he meant to do anything if he’s leaving at 5:00 everyday?

Jon pushes his hair up out of his eyes — he really should get it cut soon. It’s been awhile since he took a trip to the barber, and it’s started doing that thing he hates around the ears again — and stares bleakly down at the last file from this particular box, held loosely in his left hand. It’s from 2010, with a name that doesn’t mean anything to Jon, and none of the marks that it might be… one of the ones that goes on tape.

Okay. Another dead end. Right. Wonderful. Maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise; are the Archives not where statements go to die? When everyone up in Research hits a dead end and gives up, they come down here to gather dust. Jon shuts his eyes and lets his head slump backwards, letting out a long, slow sigh.

Hitting a dead end is not an option here. Dead ends mean no solutions, no answers, for the wriggling parasites threatening everyone and everything Jon cares about.

He drops the file back into the empty box in front of him, and stands up slowly. At random (because apparently order and sense are not things that exist here) he grabs another box of files down from the nearest shelf. Lifting it is harder than he cares to admit — it’s just paper, why does paper weigh so goddamn much? — and he nearly drops it even before he’s interrupted.

“Jon?”

Jon barely manages to stifle what would have been a frankly rather embarrassing noise, whips around, heart in his throat, to find Sasha standing in the aisle a few feet away, kept back by the halo of files and papers he’s left scattered on the floor.

“Christ, Sasha.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Uh, you good there?”

Jon shuts his eyes, takes a deliberately steadying breath. “Yes. I’m alright. You just— You startled me.”

“Sure, yeah.” Sasha nods skeptically. “Need some help with that?”

“Ah, no, thank you. I’m alri—”

He doesn’t even get to finish his sentence before Sasha’s stepped carefully over to him and snagged the box out of his arms. She makes it look almost annoyingly effortless. “Where do you want this?”

Jon opens his mouth, but all he does is sigh, shoulders slumping. “Anywhere, really.”

“Right.” Sasha sets the box down in the empty patch of floor Jon had been sitting in moments before, casting a judgmental look around. “Y’know, Jon, I thought you were aiming to make this place more organized, not set off a bomb in document storage.”

Jon crosses his arms. “Did you need me for something, Sasha?”

Sasha huffs. “Yeah, actually. Do you have any spare extinguishes in your office? Tim found a nasty bunch of worms by his desk, and we had to use the last of the gas we had to get rid of them.”

“Ah.” Jon nods. “Yes, I-I think I have one or two in there? You’re welcome to use them if you need, and I think Elias should be sending more down here in the next couple of days. You can also ask Martin. I have reason to believe he might be hiding some from other departments around the office somewhere.”

Sasha snorts. “Right. Thanks.”

Jon expects her to leave, but instead she stuffs her hands into the pockets of her wooly cardigan, rocks back and forth on slippered feet, arches her brows at him over her glasses.

“So.” Sasha eyes him. “Any reason you’re trying to tear the Archives apart with your bare hands?”

Jon frowns at her. “I’m not— I’m just looking for something.”

“Mm,” Sasha hums, “there’s that special Jon Sims brand unhelpful vagueness I love so much.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “A statement. I’m looking for a statement.”

“Like, a specific statement, or are you just hoping to find one that strikes your fancy?”

“Yes, it’s a specific statement.”

Sasha laughs under her breath and shakes her head. “You know, Jon, maybe if you actually told me what it is you’re looking for, I could help you find it.”

Which is exactly why Jon isn’t telling her. “I don’t need any help, I can find it myself.”

“Jon.”

“What?”

“Jon,” Sasha repeats, punctuated with a sharp glare.

“What?”

Sasha rolls her eyes. Instead of saying anything else, she sits on the floor, tucking her feet under her thighs and gathering a few scattered papers back into their manila folder. “What did you want to do with these?”

At first, Jon just stares at her. Sometimes it’s easy to get so lost in this job that he forgets Sasha and Tim are his friends — probably his oldest friends, now that Georgie doesn’t talk to him anymore — and they’re just as stubborn as he is.

He swallows, gingerly scoots some papers out of the way so he can sit down, too. “Um. You can just… Put them back in the box.”

Sasha grins at him. “Will do.”

For a moment, Jon watches her shuffle papers around, going so far as to make sure everything’s in order before closing the file up. “Oh, um.”

Sasha looks back up at him. “Mhmm?”

Jon clears his throat. “Would you mind, well. S-since they’re already—” He sweeps a hand across the avalanche of tattered old case files— “Would you mind. Sorting by date when you’re put them all back?”

Sasha huffs. “Sure. No problem, Jon.”

“Thank you.”

Sasha shrugs. “This is literally what I get paid to do.”

“I suppose,” Jon allows, running a hand through his hair again, pushing it up off his forehead where it refuses to stay put.

“Also, it seems like you could use the help,” Sasha teases, not unkindly. “I mean, no offense, but you look, er…”

“Terrible?”

“Frazzled,” Sasha supplies, “I was going to say frazzled, but…”

“Well, in recent memory I’ve been… screamed at by a ghost hunter, had to throw out my lunch and my good tupperware because somehow the worms got in the damned fridge, and to top it all off, I’ve had to have three meetings with Elias in the last week,” Jon tells her, huffing. “So. Yes. I’d say I’m fairly frazzled.”

Sasha grimaces. “Ouch. That’s rough.”

“I know,” Jon agrees. “I swear, the way that man says ‘budgets’ will haunt my nightmares until I die.”

“Oh, so on your list of stressors, your boss ranks higher than the evil worms and getting screamed at by Melanie King?”

Jon levels his gaze at Sasha. “Absolutely.”

“You know what?” Sasha nods. “That’s fair, actually.”

“I’d rather spend an hour getting shouted at by every YouTuber in the UK than spend another minute listening to a pompous, white Tory complain at me about unexpected departmental expenses.”

Sasha snorts, dipping her head to muffle her laugh in her hand. “Oh, god.” She’s smiling when she straightens up again “It’s so bad, isn’t it? Okay, remember when he just showed up at your birthday party?”

Jon shivers. “I am actually trying my absolute hardest to forget that, thank you.”

“He ate your cake, Jon!” She throws her hands up. “Tim and I paid for that ourselves! Out of our own pockets!”

“Ah, well, there’s your first mistake,” Jon tuts. “Next time, expense it to the Institute. If he’s going to be eating the lion’s share, he should at least pay for it.”

Sasha nods, hums somberly. “Aahh, we’ll have to think of that next time. Maybe for Tim’s birthday we’ll put the whole thing on the Institute’s tab.”

“See, now you’ve got the right idea,” Jon encourages, actually managing a smile as he pulls the lid off the new box of documents.

Sasha laughs. “Wow, Jon, I’m impressed. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“What?” Jon asks. “Speaking ill of Elias?”

“Oh, no.” Sasha shakes her head. “That’s easy. I’d be more alarmed if you didn’t speak ill of him. I meant speaking ill of work.”

Jon makes an indignant, undignified noise. “Hey, I’m not that bad.”

Sasha looks up at him over the file she’s shuffling into place, raises her eyebrows.

“I’m not,” Jon insists. “I just. Don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a professional.”

“Mhmm. Sure.” She definitely does not look convinced.

“Well, I’m getting better about it, anyway,” Jon relents.

“That’s... fair.” Sasha nods. “Martin’s been a good influence on you, I think.”

Jon feels his face going very warm and hopes the dimness of the stacks will hide his flush from Sasha. “Martin is going to be the reason we never get anything done.”

Sasha scoffs. “He’s going to be the reason you don’t keel over from overwork before you hit thirty.”

“Okay, you can’t pretend you weren’t staying late with me every night back in Research,” Jon protests.

“Yeah, sure, in Research. But now I have Tim,” Sasha tells him. “If I try to overwork myself, he just annoys me until I leave and eat a nice meal.”

“Oh.” Jon abruptly looks up at her, dropping the file he’d been about to examine. “So you and Tim are— You're, um...”

Cautiously, Sasha shuffles the papers in the file she’s holding into order, closing the folder carefully. “… We’re what?”

“Ah, I just— you said you. Have Tim. I assume that means you two are. Er…” Jon makes a face, clears his throat. He can’t pretend he didn’t see this coming a mile away, but even when they belong to other people these types of… feelings are hard for him to talk about. Especially when it's his two friends he's been watching dance around each other for two years now. “An item?”

Sasha makes a noise like a punctured tire. Jon can’t decide whether it’s funny or alarming. Mostly it just startles him. “I— w— you— An item?”

“Or however you want to say it!” Jon waves a folder in her direction. “Partners? Together?” He suggests. “… Hooking up?”

“Oh, god,” Sasha groans, “that’s worse.”

“Well, what would you call it then?”

“I wouldn’t call it anything! Because we aren’t,” Sasha insists, eyes wide.

Jon nods awkwardly. “I see.”

Sasha averts her eyes, movements suddenly becoming jerky and erratic. “I— Tim and I are, we— we’re friends.”

“Okay,” Jon says flatly.

Sasha chews on her bottom lip. “You don’t sound very convinced.”

“You don’t sound very convincing.”

“Mm.” Sasha grimaces. “Not very sympathetic, either.”

Jon frowns. “Should I be sympathetic?”

“I mean, given we’re in similar situations, I expected at least a little…” She twirls her free hand by her head. “Commiseration?”

“I’m sorry?” Jon says blankly.

“Well, y’know.” Sasha shrugs one of her shoulders.

“… No, I’m afraid I don’t. I’m lost.”

Cautiously, a smile starts tugging on the corners of Sasha’s mouth again. “Wait, really?”

“… Yes?”

“Huh.” Sasha huffs. “Alright, well. Never mind.”

Jon sits up straight, spine stiff, glaring indignantly at Sasha. “Wait, no. If this involves me, I want to know. What is it?”

“No, thanks.” Sasha shakes her head. “I don’t feel like incriminating myself on purpose right now.”

“That’s not fair,” Jon complains, “tell me.”

“Yeah, um.” Sasha laughs awkwardly. “Hey, did you know I used to have such a crush on Melanie King?”

“No, d—” Jon blinks, stops short as he processes what she just told him. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah,” Sasha admits. “She gets so into it on GHUK. It’s very captivating. And charming.”

“Sasha,” Jon says, wounded and betrayed. “You watch Ghost Hunt UK?”

“‘Course I do,” Sasha answers. “It’s fun. And Melanie’s cute.”

“But.” Jon looks around him like he might find the right words sitting on a shelf between boxes of statements. “I thought you were— skeptical. You don’t, um. Believe in these things.”

Sasha shrugs. “Thought I didn’t, but then some… creepy, distorted monster man dug a worm out of my arm with his knife-hands.”

Jon groans. “You don’t know that was supernatural,” he tries to argue. “Maybe you were… seeing things? It was dark, and— t-the gas—”

Sasha sighs dramatically. “It’s not about the seeing, it was— I felt it. When he pulled the worm out. I wish I’d imagined it.”

Jon swallows, shifts uncomfortably.

“Anyway,” Sasha goes on, “I don’t have to believe in ghosts to get a kick out of the show.”

“I suppose,” Jon allows, even though he can feel the way his nose wrinkles. He pointedly does not mention the fact that he’s nearly caught up on the backlog of What the Ghost? episodes. Or at least he was before Martin moved in; there’s less time to listen now that his commute isn’t made alone, when it’s filled with friendly chatting instead. “Uh. You were saying — Melanie King?”

“Melanie King,” Sasha agrees.

“You… used to have a crush on her?”

Sasha nods. “Yep.”

“But you don’t anymore?”

A shake of her head this time. “Nope.”

Jon nods, a few pieces clicking quietly into place in his head. “Because you have feelings for Tim now.”

Sasha heaves a dramatic, put upon sigh. “Yeah, because I have—” Her voice drops to an angry little grumble. This, at least, Jon understands— “feelings for Tim.”

Jon can’t help but think about Martin, haranguing him into leaving the Archives to go home and eat dinner every night. He thinks he knows why Sasha wants commiseration from him, and he’s not sure he likes it.

“Ah,” is all he says, going back to the box in front of him.

Sasha reaches out and pokes Jon in the shin with her toes. “That’s it?”

“Yes,” Jon says, with finality. There’s absolutely no way this conversation is going to end up in his favor if it continues down this thread.

“I bare my soul to you, and all you can say is ‘Ah’?”

Jon scoffs. “You didn’t bare your soul, you told me something anyone with eyes can see plain as day! And even that you only did begrudgingly!”

“Hey!” Take that back, Sasha demands petulantly. “I am an enigma.”

Most of the time, Jon would be inclined to agree with her. She’d scared him a little when they first met back in Research. She’s allusive and quiet and cagey about her emotions in a way that even manages to put himself to shame.

Right now, though, all Jon can do is roll his eyes. “You’re full of it, is what you are.”

“Okay, you wanna talk about full of it? You wanna talk about things everyone with eyes can see?”

Jon feels like his hair it about to stand on end like a spooked cat. Sasha is also, Jon has learned in the years since making her acquaintance, absolutely ruthless when she wants to be.

Jon is not looking at her. This carpet is the nicest thing he's seen in his life. “I’m afraid I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”

“Yeah, but I’m the one who’s full of it, huh?” Sasha says. “I have eyes, too, Jonathan. And I see the way you are with Martin these days.”

Jon freezes, a rabbit caught in headlights. Or is it a deer in headlights? Whatever the expression is. Either way, Jon feels like a small animal staring right into an oncoming disaster. “I-I don’t,” he stammers, stops, takes a deep breath. “I’m not— I really don’t know what you mean.”

Jon gets the feeling she wants to say something else, but before she can, she gets interrupted by another voice calling out: “Sasha?”

Martin's voice.

Jon sucks in a breath, eyes going wide.

Sasha smirks at him. “Back here!”

A few seconds later, Martin pokes his head around the end of the aisle. “Oh, hey.” He smiles, gives Jon and Sasha a quick wave.

Jon nods at him. “Martin.”

“What’s up?” Sasha asks.

“Er, Tim’s looking for you,” Martin tells her. “Think he was wondering where you’d gotten off to.”

“Oh. Right.” Sasha drops the file she’d been holding, turns back to Jon with a little shake of her head as she moves to stand up. “Looks like you’re on your own here.”

“I’m sure I’ll manage,” Jon says dryly.

“Oh, um. Are you doing something? I-I could help? If you want,” Martin offers, with one of those smiles Jon recognizes as nervous and unsure. (When did he get so good at categorizing Martin’s smiles?)

“Ah, I-I don’t need—” Jon starts, but Sasha cuts him off.

“Yeah, Martin, that’d be great!” She claps Martin on the shoulder on her way past, smiling beatifically. “Thanks, mate.”

“Sure. No problem.” Martin smiles at her as she slides past him, swapping places so he’s standing in her vacated spot right in front of Jon.

Sasha’s smile turns devious the second she’s out of Martin’s line of sight. Jon wants to scowl at her, but it’ll hit Martin first and he doesn’t want Martin to think it’s meant for him. Instead he just ducks his head, purses his lips.

“Good luck,” Sasha says, and then she’s gone, and it’s just Jon and Martin alone in the quiet stacks.

Martin settles right in the spot Sasha just left empty, legs crossed, and the space feels a lot smaller when it’s Martin’s knees inches away from his own instead of Sasha’s.

“So, what’re we doing?” Martin asks.

Jon should tell him he doesn’t need help; especially not from Martin, who doesn’t need anything else to do with Prentiss shoved at him. But Jon can’t seem to make himself send Martin away. He looks up, sees Martin’s open, hesitant face, looks back down again.

He clears his throat. “If you could put those statements away, that would be helpful. Sorted by date?”

“Okay, sure,” Martin says, with a little shimmy that Jon catches in his peripheral vision and makes the corners of his mouth hitch up in a surprised, warm little smile.

Jon can almost hear Sasha’s voice in his ear, that smug I told you, but he shoves it out of his mind. Pointedly not thinking about his conversation with Sasha and the minefield of implications therein, Jon can’t help but admit that, with Martin’s company, even the potentially fruitless search through this mess is more bearable.

Chapter Text

On Friday, Tim appears by Martin’s desk and carefully perches on the edge, faux-casual, wearing one of those dazzling grins he’s so good at. “Hey.”

“… Hi?” Martin answers, wary and not hiding it. Tim’s nice to him, really, but sometimes when he looks at Martin like that it reminds him of the boys in school who would ask you out as a joke and then run off laughing when you thought they were serious. Which is not a fair thing to think about Tim at all, but… Martin spooks easy.

“You have any plans tonight?”

“Uh.” Martin can’t quite keep his eyes from landing on the closed door of Jon’s office. “No, I don’t think so.”

Tim beams. “Excellent! You’re coming out with Sasha and I, then.”

Martin raises his eyebrows. “I am?”

“You sure are.”

“This is news to me.”

Well, extra, extra!” Tim chirps pleasantly. “Read all about it! Mister Martin Blackwood grabs a pint with his coworkers after work! Story of the year!”

Martin laughs, nerves fading. Sometimes, with all the spookiness and fear that lurks in every corner of the office, Martin forgets that they’re still just people. Not everything has an insidious ulterior motive behind it. “Where are we going?”

“Just down to the pub,” Tim tells him. “Somewhere close, I wanna walk there after work.”

“Alright.” Martin nods slowly. “Sure, yeah. Why not? I’m game.”

Tim claps him on the shoulder. “Yes!”

Martin huffs quietly, managing a smile. “Is Jon coming?”

“Nah.” Tim shakes his head. “Just need some Assistant-Only time, y’know?”

Martin feels a faint twinge in his gut, buries it before it can show on his face. This isn’t the first time they’ve gone out without Jon, but it will be the first time since Martin started staying with him in his house. Somehow, leaving Jon here at the end of the day and still going home to Jon’s flat feels different than just going home with him from work.

“Okay.” Martin finally agrees. “Sure.”

Tim claps Martin on the shoulder again, hops enthusiastically but delicately off his desk. “Great! It’s a plan. Be ready at five, we leave the second the day ends.”

Martin gives him a thumbs up. Tim flashes him another grin before he turns and walks away.

—

After work, Tim comes round Martin and Sasha’s desks at 5:00 on the dot to collect them for drinks. While Sasha and Tim have their obligatory five minutes of bickering, Martin goes up to Jon’s office, cracks the door, and pokes his head in.

“Hey.”

Jon hums. “Hello.”

“Just so you know, I’m going out with Tim tonight.”

Jon glances up at him from where he’s still sat at his desk. “Are you?” 

“Yeah. So, you don’t need to wait for me, you can just head home whenever.”

“Maybe I’ll stay here for awhile,” he muses, tilting his head to the side, running his hand through his hair. “Finally get this report finished.”

Martin sighs. “Okay, I guess I can’t stop you. But, you should know, if I get back to the flat before you I’m going to eat the rest of those raspberry biscuits.”

Jon narrows his eyes and glowers at him. “You wouldn’t.”

“I very much would.”

“Christ,” Jon grumbles. “Alright, alright. Point taken.”

Martin beams. “Great! I’ll see you later, then?”

Jon waves his hand vaguely. “Yes, yes.”

Still smiling, Martin gently shuts Jon’s door behind him, feeling fairly confident he’ll find Jon at home already when he gets back.

Tim and Sasha are waiting by the door to the Archives when Martin catches up with them, and they all head out together. The pair of them keep a steady stream of conversation with very little room for Martin, but he’s okay with that. It’s just nice to be included in their bubble, to be someone they like enough to let into their personal moments like this.

The evening air is pleasantly warm on Martin’s skin when they step through the front doors. Martin rolls up the sleeves of his thin hoodie, and Tim takes Sasha’s cardigan for her, hooking it over his elbow and touching his other hand briefly to the small of her back while they walk.

They wind up at a pub a few blocks from the Institute, a place with big windows and cute little strings of lights hung up even in the summer. Martin doesn’t want to think about what a place like this will cost him, but it’s not like he’s planning on drinking much anyway. Somehow he thinks coming home drunk to a bed he shares with Jon wouldn’t exactly end well for him, so he’s fine nursing a pint or two and pilfering food from the plate of nachos Tim orders.

Sasha leaves after an hour, citing a list of accumulated chores she needs to get done this weekend, and the need to not be hungover if she’s going to make any progress at all. Tim complains, but in the end lets her slip away with a plaintive sigh, dramatic puppy-eyes, and a hug and a kiss on the cheek that lingers until Sasha has to shove him away, giggling and shaking her head. It’s all very sweet, and Martin tries really hard not to be jealous.

Tim keeps his eyes on Sasha until the door shuts behind her, and then finally turns back to Martin. Martin raises his eyebrows, but Tim either misses the significance or deliberately ignores it.

“So,” he says, glass of white wine one one hand as he leans forwards across the table towards Martin. "Just us."

“You forgot to give Sasha her jacket back,” Martin says, pointing at the empty seat on the booth between himself and Tim where Sasha’s discarded cardigan rests.

“What? I—” Tim looks, and then swears. “Guess I did. Is she—” He half-stands, scans the bar, before he settles back in his seat. “Naw, she’s gone.” And then actually he actually pulls Sasha’s cardigan on, right over his neat, white dress shirt. It fits him almost astonishingly well, which makes something inside Martin ache just a little bit. This bit of her was made for him, or something like that. “I’ll give it to her on Monday.”

Martin kind of doubts Sasha will ever see this particular cardigan again, but it’s not like he’s in any position to talk, so he leaves it be. Besides, now that Sasha’s gone, there’s something that’s been on Martin’s mind for a while that he’s been too afraid to bring up with her around.

Tentatively, Martin looks up at him over his glass. “Um. Tim?”

Tim raises his eyebrows. “Martin.”

“Can I, er.” Martin clears his throat. “Can I… ask you something?”

Tim leans forward over the table just a bit, smile relaxed and open. “Sure thing.”

Martin looks down, runs a finger along the rim of his glass. “You, uh, you’ve known Jon f-for awhile now, right?”

“Since I started in Research,” Tim confirms. “One of the first friends I made here. Met him a few weeks after I met Sasha.”

“Wow,” Martin says.

“Yep. Couple of years now, at least?” Tim runs a hand through his hair. “Jeez. Time flies, huh?”

“Sure, yeah.”

Tim taps his wine glass with his index finger, looking back over at Martin. “Any particular reason you wanna know?”

Martin takes a sip, giving himself a second to hide his face. The drinks have loosened his tongue enough to give him the courage to ask, but not enough to make it easy. “Um… just… Has he ever been, erm...” 

All Tim does is raise his eyebrows. Tim may have an attention span bad enough that it rivals even Martin’s, but Martin gets the impression he could keep sitting here all night if it took that long for him to get to the point.

Martin purses his lips, steals himself and exhales heavily. “Has he ever been, like… Clingy?”

Tim snorts. “Clingy? How do you mean?”

“Like, er.” Martin waves his hand around vaguely. “Y’know. Cuddly. W-when he’s asleep.”

“Oh.” Tim huffs a laugh. “You know what? Yes, actually, I guess he has.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Tim sets his glass down, freeing up his hands so he can gesticulate as he talks. “Like, god, there was this one time, back in Research. Me and Sasha took him out with us after we finally finished this nasty case that had us all stuck for, like, two weeks. We all got pretty drunk, and he fell asleep in the cab ride back. I swear he somehow ended up in both our laps.”

Martin raises his eyebrows. A few months ago he’d never have believed it. Now, he can see it clear as day. “Oh, yeah?”

Tim grins fondly. “Had to practically peel him off me to get him back home.”

Martin hums, nodding. He looks down at the table, traces a bead of condensation down his glass with his fingertip until it hits the hard woodgrain tabletop. He can’t decide if he feels better or worse. He’s been… honestly, he’s been kind of agonizing over this whole Jon situation for months now, but… Well, a shameful little part of him had been kind of hoping that maybe it was just him. Maybe Jon just… likes touching him, even if it’s only in some deep, subconscious part of his brain.

“Why?” Tim asks, snapping Martin out of his reverie. “Oh, god. Did you get Jon drunk and wind up with a lap full of Archivist?”

“No!” Martin’s quick to assure him. “No, no. He was sober. Just, um…”

“He does it sober too?”

“Um, yes.”

Tim laughs. “Oh, that is priceless.”

Martin frowns. “Priceless,” he repeats, deadpan.

Tim nods enthusiastically, practically beaming. “Absolutely. Oh, please tell me there’s a story here.”

Martin’s face must be on fire right now. “N-no. Not really. Nothing exciting.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Tim pesters, nudging Martin’s shin with his foot under the table. “There’s no good gossip in a department that only has three other people in it.”

“It’s really not that interesting.” Martin shrugs. “I just… wake up and he’s. Y’know. Right there.”

Tim snorts. “Yeah, that’ll— Wait. Hang on.” He narrows his eyes. “You wake up and he’s there. How many times exactly have you woken up with Jon?”

Martin freezes. Ah. Right. Shit. “Um.”

“Martin,” Tim exclaims.

Martin is suddenly fascinated by a sticky spot on the table a few inches away from Tim’s elbow. Is there room to walk this back? God, his tolerance has really gone to shit and the two beers he’s had have blurred his brain too much to come up with a good excuse. He’s a much better liar when he’s sober, he swears.

His silence is just as damning, because Tim asks, incredulous: “H-has Jon been, what? Cuddling up to you on the sofa every night?”

“Erm.” Martin bites the inside of his lip. There’s no way Tim’ll leave this be, is there? And, oh, god, if Martin’s doesn’t tell him, he'll probably just go and try to get his answers out of Jon. That possibility terrifies Martin more than anything. “I… I haven’t been. Um. I haven’t been sleeping on the sofa, actually.”

When Tim’s doesn’t say anything for just a tick too long and Martin can’t help but look back up at him, he seems near-paralyzed, gears ground to a halt. Martin thinks it would be funny, if he weren’t so mortified.

Finally, Tim picks up his glass and takes a long sip. “Okay,” he finally manages, “I’ve been to Jon’s place, and I know he doesn’t have a spare room, so…”

“No, I’m not sleeping in a spare room,” Martin confirms.

“Martin,” Tim says delicately, like Martin’s a piece of fragile china or a small animal he doesn’t want to spook. “Are you. Are you and Jon—”

“Look,” Martin cuts him off, blushing all the way to his ears and down to his neck. “Sharing the bed was just. The easiest solution.”

“The easiest solution,” Tim repeats, Martin's gobsmacked echo. He clears his throat, and Martin’s pretty sure that weird grimace is his best shot at hiding a grin. “Martin, you have got to tell me the type of mental gymnastics the two of you went through where sharing a bed with your boss was the easiest solution.”

“It was a whole thing, okay? It was just…” Martin shrugs. “It made sense at the time.”

“At the time?”

“I mean, it still makes sense,” Martin says defensively. “We’re friends now.”

“Friends, sure. Just two friends on one big sleepover. Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the evil flesh-eating worms bite?”

Martin rolls his eyes. “It’s not like that. It’s a big bed, there’s plenty of space for both of us.”

“Right.” Tim nods. “Except that you literally just told me that Jon spoons you to sleep at night.”

“No!” Martin exclaims. “I didn’t say that! We don’t fall asleep that way, I just wake up with him— You know.”

“Oh, sorry, my mistake. You just wake up being cuddled like a mama koala.”

“That’s not—” Martin sighs, shuts his eyes, pushes his glasses up to rub at the bridge of his nose. “You said it yourself, that’s just what he does.”

“Actually, I said Jon gave me a bit of a sleepy cuddle in the back of a cab once.” Tim points at Martin with the hand still wrapped around his glass, coming dangerously close to spilling wine over the rim even though it’s nearly empty now. “I did not say I’ve spent two months cozying up to him in bed every night. He made me sleep on the couch last time I stayed over.”

“Wait, he did?”

“Yeah!” Tim says. “I’m telling you. This is new.”

“I— No, it’s just…” Martin frowns. “He’s just. Stressed from the job, or something. I think the whole Head Archivist thing is a lot of pressure on him. He, he doesn’t sleep enough as it is—”

“And you’re just, what, a living safety blanket?” Tim asks. “A big teddy bear?”

Martin grimaces. “Something like that? I guess?” It’s not like Jon’s doing it on purpose. It’s not like he’d ever actually want that. Martin’s just there.

Tim sighs, puts his face in his hand. “Oh, Martin.”

Martin slumps forward, elbows on the table, hunching his shoulders. “I know, it’s…” How is he even meant to finish that sentence? How do you talk about something like this? “Unorthodox. But it works.”

“Yeah.” Tim snorts. “I’m sure it does. Was actually never going to argue that point.”

Martin gives him a wary look. “Okay…?”

“No, like. I just mean…” Tim breathes out and shakes his head. “Ah, screw it. I think you guys would’ve come up with something else if you didn’t just like being close like that.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Martin bites out, a bit sour.

“Don’t be rude,” Tim counters.

Martin sighs. “I’m not. It’s just— I, I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” Tim says, softer this time. “And I’m saying, from an outside perspective, seems like you guys just like each other.” Unaware of the way Martin’s breath catches in his throat and lodges there like a lump of clay, he keeps going. “Like you said, I know the guy. He cares about you. Maybe you should just… I dunno, ask him out, or something. God knows he’s not gonna be the one to make the first move.”

Martin gives Tim the sharpest, most derisive laugh he has in his arsenal. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Tim makes a face. “It’s getting to be a bit much watching you two dance around each other, actually. Do it for the good of office morale.”

“Yeah, okay, you know what?” Martin shakes his head, crosses his arms. “I can't believe I'm hearing this from you. You can talk to me about this after you tell Sasha how you feel.”

Tim pulls up short. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out for a solid handful of seconds. “Okay,” he finally says, pointing a finger sharply in Martin’s direction. “That’s different.”

Martin scoffs. “How! How is it possibly any different?”

“It, it just is, it’s— Me and Sash, it’s— it’s not the same at all,” Tim stammers, but he’s clearly thrown off, which makes Martin feel a little bolder.

“Actually, you know what? You’re right,” Martin says, nodding along. “See, because you and Sasha, what, go out together, share clothes, have known each other for years, sleep together—”

“Hey! That was only the one time. Well, twice,” Tim amends. “Alright, three times, if you count the morning after the second time, but that was still just the one evening, so it hardly counts—”

“— So it is different, because with you two there’s actually— something there,” Martin goes on. “You guys basically act like a couple already. You have a chance.”

“This— I don’t— This isn’t about me and—” Tim frowns, sighs, shoulders sagging. “Look. Okay, fine. Yeah, you’re right, obviously I’m crazy about her. She’s my best friend, she’s—”

“Okay, so—”

“So,” Tim cuts back in, “If she wants anything to happen, it’s up to her. Ball’s in her court. She knows how I feel.”

Martin frowns, nose wrinkling. He tilts his head consideringly. “Does she, though?”

Tim frowns. “What?”

“Does she know how you feel?” Martin asks. “Have you actually said anything to her?”

Tim opens his mouth, but again, doesn’t say anything. His eyes focus somewhere over Martin’s shoulder, and he blinks, makes a face. “Well, I-I mean, it’s not like I’ve just come out and said the exact words, but. She knows. It’s not like I’m exactly subtle.”

Martin hums skeptically, and Tim rolls his eyes.

“What?” He asks again.

“She might not know.” Martin shrugs. “If you haven’t told her, she might just assume you’re being. Well. You.”

“Oi!” Tim makes a face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Martin gives his head a fond shake. “Just that you…Y’know, you’re Tim. You just do the whole charming, handsome, outgoing… thing.”

“Oh.” Tim grins. “Really? Do go on.”

Martin rolls his eyes. “I’m just saying. If it were me, and someone like you was acting all friendly to me. My first thought wouldn’t be ‘oh, he’s in love with me,’ it would be, like… ‘oh, he’s playing some kind of joke on me,' or, ‘he’s just like this with everyone, it doesn’t make me special.’”

Something passes over Tim’s face, and he frowns. “Martin,” he starts, in a tone that puts Martin on edge for an entirely different reason. “Do you really feel like—”

“This isn’t about me,” Martin cuts in, a little desperate. If there’s one thing Martin doesn’t want to do right now, it’s dig into his depressingly low self-esteem. “What I’m saying is maybe Sasha doesn’t know how you feel at all.”

Luckily, Tim has always been kind, and good at reading people, so after giving Martin a considerate look he sighs and lets it go. “Okay, okay. Maybe you’ve got a point.”

“I— Right, yeah.” Martin’s not used to people acknowledging when he’s right. “Thanks.”

Tim hums, and they lapse into a moment of heavy silence. Tim sips his wine, Martin stares down into what’s left of his beer.

Finally, Tim laughs awkwardly. “Wow. This got a little heavy, huh? Sorry about that.”

Martin waves him off. “No, it’s fine. I, uh.” He stops, swallows. “I-I don’t really know who else to talk to about this… stuff. So. I appreciate it, actually.”

“Aw.” This time when Tim laughs, it’s genuine and sweet. “Well, I’m here to lend a shoulder and an ear anytime you need to dish. Really.”

“Thanks, Tim,” Martin says softly, relaxing in his seat. “Um, please don’t tell Jon about this. Any of this. O-or Sasha.”

Tim mimes zipping his lips shut. “I’ll take this conversation with me to my grave.”

Martin smiles faintly. “Cool. Thanks.”

“No problem. Just… Think about it, alright?” Tim says. “I’m really not trying to be, like, a dick here. I genuinely just want to see my friends happy.”

Martin sighs, long and harrowing and put upon. “Okay. I’ll think about it,” he relents, “if you think about what I said, too.”

Now it’s Tim’s turn to sigh, although he’s way more dramatic about it than Martin’s. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will, I will.”

Martin smiles. “Good.”

“Good.”

The silence that settles over them this time is a lot lighter, a lot more comfortable, and they finish their drinks in the peace of companionable quiet.

Eventually, Tim gets them another round, and a sandwich that he insists Martin eat half of before he leaves. Around 9:00 they finally head out, and Tim waits with Martin till his cab arrives and doesn't let Martin leave until he promises he’ll drink water before he goes to bed.

When Martin gets back home and lets himself in, he finds Jon cross-legged on the couch, reading, with an empty box of raspberry biscuits on the coffee table in front of him. He looks up and smiles at Martin, and Martin has to take a moment to steady himself after a wave of warmth and affection nearly knocks him flat.

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.

Chapter Text

Martin finds Jon in the living room, sitting on the floor bent over what Martin can only guess is some kind of supplemental statement research spread out across the coffee table. He looks loose and comfortable in an old T-shirt and worn sweatpants, softened around the edges by golden sunlight from the window and the specific comfort and peacefulness that comes from home.

Martin gives himself a solid five seconds to just look and appreciate the ease in moments like these, before he clears his throat. "Jon?"

"Hmm?"

“I— er, I’m going back to my flat today.”

Jon's head zips up to face him, all the worry and the anxiety Martin’s been squashing down for the sake of staying functional mirrored right back at him. “What?”

“I mean. Er. Not, not by myself. Tim and I are going, just— just to pack everything up.”

“Oh.” Jon deflates, calming, then perking back up with curiosity. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Martin nods. “He’s borrowing a pickup truck from a friend, said he’d help me move everything into storage.”

Jon fidgets, pushes his work away, shifts so he’s facing Martin. “You’re moving your things into storage?”

Martin fidgets with his hands, picks at his thumbnail idly. “Doesn’t really make sense to keep paying rent for a place I’m not going back to, right?”

“So you— you won't be... going back? To your flat?”

Martin wrinkles his nose, shakes his head. There’s no way he’ll ever be able to stay in that place again without thinking of the rancid smell of worms, unhurried knocking, and feeling more alone than he’s felt since his mother left for the care home.

“Gave my landlord notice,” Martin tells him, “told him I’d be out by the end of the month.”

“Right. Yes.” Jon gives him one, swift nod. “Probably for the best.”

Martin huffs. “Yeah. Agreed.”

Jon glances down, taps his fingers against his knee. “Are you— er. Will you be… getting a new place, then?”

Martin’s heart does something uncomfortable behind his ribs. “Um, do you want—”

“No. No, I mean—” Jon huffs. “I-if you want to, to, er. To find your own place, that would be fine. Obviously. But I’m not saying I— That is. You, um. You’re welcome here as long as you need.”

And it's not the Martin had been honestly expecting to be told to leave, but spare tension still falls from Martin's shoulders in a wash of sweet-soft relief. “Well... The worms haven't, um. Haven't found us here—"

Jon shakes his head. "No."

“And I don’t really want to risk another little… visit, so." Martin laughs, quiet and awkward. "You’re stuck with me until we get this Prentiss thing sorted, at least.”

And maybe Martin’s just seeing what he wants to see, but he could swear Jon looks relieved, too. “Good. Er, I mean. That is— that’s quite sensible.”

Martin ducks his head and bites his lip to hide his smile.

“So— so you won’t be alone today?” Jon asks. “Tim’s going with you?” 

“Yeah.” Martin nods. “I’d ask if you wanted to come, too, but. The truck’ll be pretty full with all my stuff in it. Don’t think there’s room for all of us.”

“Yes, I— it's fine. I expect I wouldn’t be much help anyways.” Jon gives him a chagrined smile. “Believe it or not, lugging around heavy boxes is… not exactly my forte.”

Martin laughs again, louder but softer. Jon is so endearing it almost hurts, sometimes. “I’m sure Tim and I will manage.”

“Yes, yes.” Jon waves his hand, and then goes quiet for a moment.

Martin’s getting good at reading Jon’s silences, these days, and he thinks this silence is leading up to something, so he waits for Jon to figure out exactly where.

And, there we go. There’s something new and vulnerable on Jon's face that Martin has seen less than a handful of times up to this moment. “Martin...”

Martin nods for Jon to continue, too afraid that if he says something, worried his own voice will spook Jon out of using his anymore.

Jon takes a deep breath. “If you… Ah. You don’t have to put all your things into storage, if you don’t want,” he continues. “I mean, I doubt any of your furniture would fit — it’s not exactly a mansion in here, I know — but. If you. If you wanted to bring some of your stuff here… That would be alright.”

“I—” Martin’s voice catches in his throat on the way up. “R-really?”

“Yes. Please, feel free. You — I want you to, um. To, to make it feel more ho— more comfortable. Here.”

He looks up, finally, eyes landing on Martin’s and… staying there. Martin normally hates prolonged eye contact, and he knows Jon avoids it whenever he can, too. It’s just never been something Martin’s good at, or something he’s ever enjoyed. And yet, here, now, with Jon, he doesn’t feel that familiar uncomfortable itch, the need to look away.

“O-okay.” Martin nods. “I— yeah, okay. Thanks. I’ll… I’ll do that.”

Jon opens his mouth like he’s about to say something else, but Martin’s phone chooses that moment to chime, making both of them startle. Martin nearly drops his phone as he's fumbling it out of his pocket, and Jon hastily looks away.

“Er.” Martin has to read the text on his homescreen three times before his brain decides to let him process the words there. “Tim, Tim’s here.”

“Oh,” Jon says, “yes. Right. Okay.”

“Yeah. Yeah, um—”

“Are you—”

“Yeah, I should— I’m just going to—” Martin makes a vague gesture with his free hand to the door— “I should go—”

“Okay.”

“— go meet him.”

Martin stops, manages one last look up at Jon, finds him looking back again. 

“Well.” Jon ducks his head. “Um. Good luck?”

Martin pauses with his hand on the doorknob, bites back a smile. “Thanks. I’ll call if we run into any worms.”

Jon grimaces. “Seems like it would be a smarter use of your time to just evacuate if the worms return.”

“I know, Jon,” Martin tells him fondly, “I was kidding.”

“Ah. Well. In that case, go.” Jon waves a hand in his direction, attention returning, as it always inevitably does, to the files spread before him. “Be wary of worms.”

“I will,” Martin assures him. “And don’t work yourself to death while I’m gone, okay? It’s a Saturday.”

Jon hums in that noncommittal, slightly guilty way that tells Martin exactly how useful his input actually is, makes him roll his eyes and bite back a sigh. His phone chimes again, so Martin relents just this once.

“Right. See you tonight.”

Jon half-nods, and even though he isn’t looking at him, Martin can tell his heart’s not really in the statements anymore. “See you.”

—

Sasha’s in the truck with Tim when Martin gets downstairs to meet him. Tim didn’t mention she’d be coming, but Tim and Sasha tend to come as a pair, so Martin’s not sure why he’s surprised to see her.

Tim’s been to Martin’s place before — just the once, a few months after they started in the Archives. After drinks he’d insisted on getting a cab for Martin and Sasha to make sure they both got home safe. He’d walked Martin to his door, came in to get him a glass of water and tell him to get plenty of sleep.

This is the first time Sasha’s seen Martin’s flat. He doesn’t want to be self-conscious; he’s leaving, for god’s sake, and anyone’s bound to let things go a little when they’re literally held captive by a walking mound of damp, pitted earth. It’s not like he’s had much chance to tidy up since he fled for his life, but old habits die hard. By the time he lets Sasha and Tim in, he’s battling a fierce flush.

“So,” Tim says, depositing an armful of flat boxes on the floor, “where do we start?”

“Er.” Martin looks around, fidgets with the hem of his shirt, makes himself stop when he notices he’s doing it. “I-I should, um. I need to pack some things to bring with me back to Jon’s, so… Maybe there? I’ll just. Fill up a box or two?”

Sasha looks up at him over her glasses. “You’re bringing things back to Jon’s with you?”

“Er, yeah?” Martin confirms uneasily. “He-he asked me to.”

“Wait.” Tim straightens up, gives Martin a look. “Jon asked you to move in with him? Like, for real?”

“No,” Martin insists. “He just… said I could bring a few boxes over.”

Tim and Sasha exchange one of their looks, and Martin’s not sure if he should be annoyed or afraid. 

“Okay,” Tim finally says, voice thin, still holding Sasha’s eyes. “Sounds good.”

“Right.” Sasha finally looks back to Martin. “How about you pack some things you want to take, and Tim and I will start taking the furniture down?”

Martin’s hands twitch again. He picks at his nail with his opposite pointer finger. He hasn’t painted his nails in awhile, so it’s already bare, but the action is familiar enough anyway it keeps his hands occupied. “Um. A-are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Tim answers. “No biggie.”

“I-I can help,” Martin offers one last time, because he can’t stand not to.

Tim waves him off. “Nah. It’ll go quicker this way. Derek wants his truck back before dark.”

“Oh.” Martin nods. “Right, yeah, okay. Works for me.”

Tim and Sasha start clearing off Martin’s coffee table. Martin brings a box and his empty duffel bag into his bedroom, sets them down on the end of his bed. It hasn’t really hit him until now, when he’s standing here in a room he used to think of as his sanctuary, that this is the first time he’s been back to his flat since he came here with Jon back in March.

Should he be… feeling something about that? It seems like he should. This is a homecoming, right?

Except, no, it really isn’t. Even as he thinks it, he knows that isn’t right. The shape of the words fit wrong inside of him, a mismatched piece he can’t find the space for. For this to be a homecoming, this place would have to be his home. And it hasn’t been anything like that since the moment he stopped feeling safe inside these walls.

Maybe he should be mad at Jane for stealing that security from him, turning his only real safe space into somewhere he feels nothing but fear, but… Was this room, this flat, ever really that homey, even before that? It’s the only thing like a home he’s had, but… It’s hard to feel at home somewhere when you don’t really have anywhere else to go.

When you really get down to it, Martin was trapped in this flat a long time before Jane Prentiss was even a blip on his radar.

Martin shakes his head, lets out a huff of breath. It’s easier to admit, now that he has somewhere else he feels welcome, how much he really can’t stand this place. It’s small and cramped (even for London) and even after years spent collecting things that bring him comfort, he still feels like an outsider. Like he’s the piece that doesn’t fit.

In the months he’s been away, a thin layer of dust has settled over everything; the bedclothes, the dresser, the little mirror with the pink duct tape up in the corner where he dropped it moving when he was 16 and the glass cracked.

Martin looks at it all, and he has no clue what to put into these boxes. He already has the things he needs to live day-to-day, obviously. Enough clothes to get by, his favorite nail polishes, his toiletries, all the stuff he needs for his T shots — which Jon has even cleared out a space for in the medicine cabinet under the mirror, separate from his own things so they don’t get their supplies or prescriptions mixed up. What else should he bring? Things to make Jon’s flat feel more like home. How can he do that, when Martin can’t remember the last time he felt at home anywhere?

The problem is this: when Martin thinks of home, he already pictures Jon’s place. 

Martin’s hands twitch. This isn’t helpful. He gives his whole body a little shake, shifts his perspective. He tries to think of home more in terms of comfort, instead of in the amorphous, poetic sense. Martin’s good at moving, at downsizing. What can he bring to Jon’s that he might need, or even just want?

Forcing himself into motion, Martin pulls open his drawers and stuffs the last of his clothes into the duffel, managing to empty his dresser and his closet into the bag with just a little bit of shoving to make it all fit. The box he takes a more liberal approach to filling. Jon’s place is nice, but the creature comforts are very much to Jon’s taste, so how can Martin add a bit of himself in there, right? Martin winds up stripping his pillows and folding the pillowcases into the bottom of the box. Jon’s pillows are a lot more comfortable than Martin’s, but Martin likes his cases better. They’re softer, and a better color, if you ask him.

After a moment of consideration, he also adds a battered old box of Checkers, and a deck of Uno cards he’s pretty sure he stole from a shop he worked at when he was younger. There’s a little lamp on his desk that he quite likes; just a cheap, old thing he bought at IKEA, but it makes him smile, so he packs that, too.

It gets easier, after that. Martin comes up with a system; he takes small comforts, the things he doesn’t need for immediate survival, but that he likes looking at. Things that’ll make his day a little brighter to have around. His nice pens, his notebooks, some of his favorite mugs.

Before he knows it, he’s got two big boxes, and a third smaller one packed and ready to go to Jon’s with him. He’s stacking them by the door — the two big boxes on the bottom, then the smaller one, his duffel full of clothes on top — when Tim and Sasha come back in from their trip down to the truck, giggling about some inside joke or another. Tim’s shirt is wrinkled, and Sasha’s tight curls are pulled up onto a lopsided bun on top of her head.

“Oh, hey,” Tim says, spotting Martin. “How’s it coming?”

“Good.” Martin points at his little pile. “Think I've got everything ready for Jon’s. The rest can go to storage.”

Sasha smiles. “Ooh, perfect timing.”

“Yeah.” Tim snorts. “Sasha’s been complaining about getting that couch down the stairs.”

Sasha wrinkles her nose, makes a face. “I don’t think it’s going to fit in the lift.”

Tim raises his eyebrows at Martin. “Wanna help me out?”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” Martin nods quickly.

In the end, it’s almost depressingly easy to clear away Martin’s entire life.

Martin’s always thought of himself as a very clutter-prone person; he certainly got enough sharp comments from his mum about mess before she moved out. He hates throwing things out if he doesn’t absolutely have to, and his flat’s so tiny he sometimes feels boxed in. But before he knows it, the afternoon is gone, and all that’s left in the flat are the things he’s going to take to Jon’s with him.

Martin picks up his duffel bag and slings it over his shoulder, stepping slowly into the middle of his living room. Without anything in it, Martin expected it to look bigger, but he doesn’t think it does. It still feels just as small like this. It's still the same cramped room, the same four dingy white walls that trapped and protected him for two weeks.

Honestly, it just feels empty.

Then there’s a hand on his shoulder, and Tim is asking him, “This everything?”

Martin doesn’t startle, but it’s only through sheer force of will. He turns, fingers twisted around the strap of his bag, sees Tim, right there, and Sasha back by the door with a box in her arms.

He nods. “Yep, I think so.”

“Sweet.” Tim smiles. “Ready to head out?”

“Um, yeah,” he says, trying to smile back. “You guys can go ahead, I’ve got to lock up and stuff. I’ll meet you down at the truck.”

“Sure, yeah. See you down there.” Tim gives him a little wave, takes one of the last boxes, holds the door open for Sasha, and the two of them head through. Martin listens to their footsteps fading down the hall until the door swings shut behind them.

Martin lets out a slow breath, shoulders slumping in their absence. He’s not sure if the strange, hollow melancholy brewing in his chest has anything to do with leaving, or if it’s because after all the years he’s lived here, he can’t scrounge up any real sadness that he’ll never see it again.

Martin chews on the inside of his cheek, takes one last look around an empty living room he used to call his. The beige-brown carpet is neatly vacuumed, walls clean and bare like he was never here at all. His whole life, years of his existence, scrubbed clean from an entire building in only a handful of hours.

With nothing else to do, Martin tugs his duffel bag securely over his shoulder, hoists the last of his boxes in his arms, and says goodbye to the closest thing he’s had to a home since his dad left.

—

They make two stops. First they head to Martin’s tiny new storage unit to stow his life away, then to a charity shop to drop off some things Martin doesn’t really use or need to keep around anymore. Then Tim drives Martin back to Jon's, somehow managing to snag a parking spot on the same block as the flat.

They pile out, unloading the last of Martin’s boxes. Outside the building, Martin sets his box down and goes to pull his keys out of his pocket, only to find it empty. 

“Oh, shit,” he hisses, realization dawning.

“Something wrong?” Tim asks, peeking out at Martin around the box in his arms.

“Um.” Martin furiously pats all his pockets, turning awkwardly on the spot. “I-I think I forgot my keys.”

“Damn, really?” Sasha asks. “Swear you had them back in Stockwell.”

Martin frowns, looks down at his shoes, embarrassed. “I-I, erm. I took all my apartment keys off my keyring this morning so I could leave them in the mailbox for the landlord. The rest of my keys are… upstairs, I guess. Didn’t really think about what I was doing.”

Sasha sighs. “Right.”

“Alright.” Tim nods, snaps his fingers casually. “It’s fine, don’t sweat it. Just get Jon to buzz us in.”

Martin wrinkles his nose. “The buzzer in his flat’s broken.”

“Still?” Sasha asks, eyes finally sliding off of Martin to focus on Tim. “God, Tim, wasn’t it out when we came round, like, last year?”

“It was,” Tim confirms.

“Yeah, his landlord’s being a total pain, I guess." Martin shrugs. "It’s okay, I’ll call Jon, get him to come let us up.”

Two minutes later, Jon throws the front door open, hair mussed, cheeks flushed, and breathing hard.

“Hi, sorry,” Martin greets, hurrying inside with Tim and Sasha following behind. “Thanks for letting us in.”

“I-it’s no problem,” Jon tells him, holding the door for them until they’re all safely in the lobby. 

“Jon,” Tim says, a smile in his voice. “Did you sprint all the way down here?”

Martin peaks over in time to see Jon’s uncomfortable frown, waving his hand vaguely. “The lift was in use.”

“So you ran down the stairs?” Sasha teases gently.

Jon makes a face, but Martin thinks it’s more that he’s alarmed he’s been caught in one of those moments of vulnerable sincerity than any kind of actual discomfort. “Would you have preferred I left you out there to wait?”

Tim laughs. Jon rolls his eyes, jabs the button for the lift and crosses his arms petulantly. Martin can’t help it, he nudges Jon with his elbow, smiles at him when Jon looks up and catches his eye. Jon huffs, but his shoulders relax when he turns back to stare at the floor.

The lift dings, and Jon slips inside first, carefully holding his hand in front of the door to keep it open long enough for Tim, Sasha, and Martin to file inside. Most of the ride is made in silence, Jon rocking on his feet and looking back and forth between the other three. 

It is a bit odd, all being together like this outside of work or a group drink or birthday party. Tim’s dressed as casually as Martin’s ever seen him, and Jon’s still wearing his sweatpants. For a moment, they’re not four coworkers crammed in a dank basement closing ranks together to survive a siege of the unknown. They’re just people. Just a group of friends.

“So,” Jon says stiffly, “everything went alright? No signs of Prentiss?”

“Well, Martin’s vacuum jammed twice when we tried to clean the place up,” Tim says, “might’ve been ghostly intervention.”

“But it was completely worm-free, at least,” Martin supplies, with a half-chuckle.

“Good, good.” Jon nods, looking genuinely relieved. Was he actually worried about them? The idea makes Martin smile again, soft and dizzy with affection.

Jon hurries ahead of them off the lift when it stops on his floor, lets them into the flat and shuts the door hastily behind them.

“Where should we put this stuff?” Sasha asks, hoisting her box up.

“Oh, er.” Martin looks to Jon, who just shrugs back at him. “Just, just leave it in the living room?”

“Right-o,” Tim chirps, carefully setting his box between the TV and the coffee table. Sasha drops hers beside it, and Martin does the same, setting his duffel bag on the couch. “Need any help unpacking?”

“No, thanks. I’ll get to it later.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Unless, erm.” He looks at Jon again, raises his eyebrows. “You don’t want boxes sitting around in your living room all day?”

Jon shrugs. “Your living room too, now,” he says, casually, like he hasn’t just jolted Martin’s heart with five words. “No rush.”

“Okay, um. Yeah,” Martin manages to force out, impressed when he doesn’t choke on the words. “I-I’m a little tired from… everything. I think I’ll wait a while to unpack.”

“Suits me,” Tim says, rolling his shoulders. “Hauling furniture all day does a number on your arms.”

Martin tries not to feel too guilty. Tim offered to help, it’s fine. This is what friends do for each other. “Do you guys want a cup of tea before you head out?”

Tim perks up. “Ooh, how could I say no to that?”

“You can’t,” Sasha supplies. “Who could turn down a cup of Martin’s tea?”

Martin rolls his eyes, but his face feels a little warmer than it did a moment ago. “Alright. Coming right up. Oh—” Before he ducks into the kitchen, he squeezes past Tim and pulls open the smallest box, rifling around until he pulls out a bundle of soft cotton, unwrapping a mug hidden inside the big T-shirt. “My favorite,” he explains with a nervous smile, not stopping long enough to examine any of their reactions.

He’s about halfway to the kitchen when Jon stops him with a hand on his arm. “Ah.” He looks down, drops his hand and flexes it at his side. “Would you like some help? Y-you’ve been on your feet all day, I-I-I can…”

Martin could hug him, lift him right off his feet, if Tim and Sasha weren’t right there. He just gives Jon a soft smile, instead. “I’m okay, thanks. I can handle it.”

Jon tilts his head, eyes imploring and earnest. “You’re sure?”

It’s just tea, but Jon is so adorable it hurts a little. “Um, maybe you can help me carry all the cups, when it’s done?”

Jon nods, in that sharp and decisive way he has that Martin kind of loves, now. “I can do that. Yes. Of course.”

So Martin makes tea, and Jon waits but doesn’t hover, out by the table in that strange middle space between kitchen and living room where he can be within sight of Martin and Tim and Sasha.

“Hey,” Sasha calls from the living room, “the spider plant’s doing good.”

“Ooh, yeah,” Martin says, perking up, peaking out into the living room. “You guys should take buds home with you!”

Sasha, Tim, and Jon all exchange looks, and for a moment Martin feels the keen sting of being left out before Sasha laughs fondly, and Tim says, “I think we’ve got it covered.”

Jon looks up at Martin, then down at his feet, fingers twisting together sheepishly. “This one, uh, this actually came from the plant Sasha has at home. She gave Tim and I buds just before we started in the Archives.”

“Oh,” Martin repeats, going suddenly warm in the cheeks. “That’s, er, that’s cool.”

“Yeah, and this is, like, his third one I’ve given Jon,” Sasha tells Martin, raising an eyebrow.

Tim nods, puts a hand to his heart. “Many a plant suffered a horrible end at this man’s chlorophyll-stained hands.”

Jon rolls his eyes, but doesn’t offer any rebuttal. Martin bites his lip, thankfully has the excuse of boiling water to duck away and hide his smile.

“Glad to see you remembered to water it this time,” Sasha comments from the living room. 

Jon hums. “I, er. A-actually, I think Martin does most of the watering.”

Martin can’t help it; he looks back over to Jon, finds him already looking back.

A brief pause. Then, “Does he now?”

“Er, yeah,” Martin admits, turning his attention back to fixing up all their tea. “It did look a bit wilted when I turned up.”

“Well… Nice to know my plant’s a grandmother now, I guess,” Sasha says cheerily.

Jon huffs, something that wants to be a laugh buried under something almost shy. Martin is very familiar with that sound, and he thinks it’s very cute. Then again, he thinks most things Jon does are very cute, so maybe he’s not the most objective judge.

“Tea’s done,” Martin announces, before he gets totally lost in the familiar rabbit hole of Things He Thinks Are Cute About Jon.

“Ah.” Jon steps forward. “Here, let me—” He holds out a hand.

“Yeah.” Martin shifts two mugs closer to Jon. “This one’s for Sasha, and this one’s yours.”

Martin’s not too proud to admit that this time when Jon takes his tea and their fingers brush in the handoff, it’s on purpose. It’s been a long day, and Martin allows himself a little bit of self-indulgence. Besides, the shy smile he sees before Jon turns away tells him not to feel too bad about it.

Tim and Sasha sit on the sofa, Martin takes the chair by the window, and Jon sits on the edge of the coffee table, feet on the floor, between the rest of them. 

It feels so alarmingly normal, the four of them, here. No evil worms, no spooky basement. For now, they can just be Tim and Martin and Sasha and Jon, chatting over tea.

Tim and Sasha leave after they finish their tea so Tim can bring his friend’s truck back. Martin takes their mugs into the kitchen to wash, listens to the sounds of human activity of Jon bustling around down the hall between rinses when the tap’s not running.

When he’s done, Martin looks at his mug — his favorite mug, the cute yellow one with the white plaid pattern on it — sitting in the drying rack in-between three of Jon’s. He thinks of putting it up in the cupboard, a part of this space that feels less like somewhere he’s intruding upon and more like theirs with every passing day.

Martin swallows, thankful for the moment of solitude. He's known for awhile now that it’s going to kill him when this is over and he has to leave, go back to being all on his own. But it’s more than that; it isn’t just that he doesn’t want to be alone. It’s Jon. He doesn’t want to leave Jon, doesn’t want to go back to waking up without Jon there. Selfish as it is, Jon has nestled his way into Martin’s heart and made a home for himself there, and he doesn’t want to leave him.

A thought surfaces, an image in his mind of the cautiously hopeful look Jon had given him when he told Martin to bring some of his things here. Martin knows he doesn’t want to be on his own again. For the first time, he lets himself wonder if maybe Jon doesn’t want that, either.

Chapter Text

The calming routine of cooking becomes slightly less meditative when the summer heat sets in. Jon’s flat doesn’t have air conditioning, and the little box fan Martin brought home after packing up his place doesn’t do much when Jon’s got hot oil sizzling on the stove, pushing meat and veggies around a pan.

Even in a T-shirt and thin pajamas, Jon’s sweating. He briefly considers taking his shirt off, but the idea of going shirtless in his tiny kitchen— in a space he shares with Martin— makes him fluster, even now that he’s more than five years post-top surgery. Anyway, cooking shirtless probably isn’t the best idea. Hazardous. Messy, at the very least. A health hazard, or something.

Instead he just turns the heat on the stove down a couple of notches, stands as far back as he can while still keeping in arms reach of the pan.

He doesn’t exactly miss the way things were before Martin. Even he can admit his habit of dragging himself out of work at 10:00PM to crawl home and eat cold takeout was… definitely not the best for him, health-wise. Or just sanity-wise. But he does miss the climate control. The Archives might have crap insulation — keeping you stiff and chilled all winter, stifling and sweaty all summer — but back in Research there was a nice, cool aircon that ran during the hotter months, and a toasty heater that kept him warm through the dreary winters.

He’s still not used to spending so much time in his own apartment. Odd, how this place didn’t even really start feeling like a home to himself until it also became home to—

“How’s it coming?” 

Jon startles, snapping out of his thoughts. “Martin! Ah, um. Fine, it’s fine.”

“Cool, cool.” Martin clears his throat, standing in the strange in-between space that’s not-quite-dining room and not-quite-kitchen. “What’re you making tonight?”

“Oh.” Jon’s gaze snaps back to the stove, the sizzling heat. “Just a stir fry.”

Martin nods. “Sounds good.”

Jon shrugs one shoulder lazily, even though the praise still makes his belly warm in a way that is much different from the summer heat. “Just wanted to do something simple,” he explains. “Too hot for much else right now.”

“Simple’s good,” Martin tells him. “It’ll be great.”

“Simple might be all we’re having until Autumn.”

“Jon.” Martin leans in, deathly serious and stoic. “As long as it’s not canned peaches, I’m fine.”

“Don’t worry. Never been much of a canned peaches person. I’m more a fan of fresh fruit, anyway.”

“Well, me too, now,” Martin says, and Jon can’t help but snicker.

“Sensible.”

“Might not be keen on fresh peaches anymore, either.”

“… I’ll remember not to buy any peaches at the shops any time soon.”

Martin huffs gently. “Thanks for that.”

Jon smiles to himself. There’s silence for a minute or two, but not the uncomfortable kind, as they settle into their now-familiar routine and let it wash over the tiny room.

“Y’know, I could help,” Martin offers, breaking the silence, looking down at Jon’s hands. “Cook dinner every once in awhile, give you a break.”

As much as Jon would relish the chance to step away from the hot stove (or maybe even shove his face in the freezer for a moment) he shakes his head. “No, thank you. I’ve got it covered.”

“Are you sure?” Martin asks. “I mean, you do so much. I-I wouldn’t mind… Taking over sometimes.”

Jon frowns, brows pinching. “Why? Is there something wrong with my cooking?”

“What? Oh. Oh!” Martin shakes his head. “No! No, that’s not what I meant, I just, uh… I don’t want you to feel like you have to cook all the time? I, I’m no five-star chef, but I’m not totally useless, either.”

“Oh. No, I’m alright. In fact, I…” Jon clears his throat awkwardly. “I enjoy it. The cooking.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” Jon nods, mouth ticking up wryly. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but I’m not a man of many hobbies.”

Martin laughs, bright and startled, and instantly tries to hide it behind his hand. “Oh, god. Sorry.”

“It’s fine, Martin,” Jon assures him, with a faint smile of his own. “I do occasionally make jokes, you know.”

“Oh, yeah?" Martin raises his eyebrows. "Wow, guess you learn something new everyday.”

Jon shoves at Martin’s shoulder, but a fond smile is bubbling up almost before he can help himself. Martin laughs again, and when he looks up, there’s a moment where his eyes find Jon’s. The laughter fades out, but his smile stays stuck in place, fading from something giddy to something small and warm but just as blindingly honest.

“We could, um." Martin looks down, twists his fingers into the hem of his shirt. "... Maybe we could cook together, sometime.”

Jon slows, almost stops what he’s doing entirely. “Together.”

“Might be fun. We could do, like… Pierogis. Or curry. Or, like, latkes, maybe? Something easy-ish.”

The first thing that pops into Jon's head is: “We’d have to wait for Hanukah for latkes."

“Okay, it can be something else, then.” Martin waves his hand. “Might be nice to beef up my culinary chops a bit.”

Jon hums. “Finally ready to expand your horizons beyond canned goods and ready meals, then?”

Martin snorts. “Maybe I am.”

“Hm.” Jon looks at him, standing with his shoulder against the wall, hands carefully still at his sides in a way that Jon’s not sure is deliberate or not. Martin’s hands move when he's nervous, but they usually move when he’s calm, too. “Kitchen might be a bit cramped, w-with the both of us in here.”

Martin shrugs. “I’m used to ‘cramped.’ I live in London. It’s pretty much a shoebox or a dozen roommates, right?”

“Alright.” Jon concedes the point. “That’s something you’d want to do? Er, with me?”

“Yeah,” Martin answers easily. “It’ll be fun.”

It’s been awhile since someone described anything involving Jon as ‘fun,’ even things that don’t involve dancing around each other in a tiny kitchen in the mid-summer heat. “I-I have it on authority I’m not a very ‘fun’ person.”

Martin scoffs. Actually scoffs. “Whose authority?”

Almost every former friend and partner he's ever had. “Good authority,” he says instead, offering Martin a primly raised brow.

“Yeah, well. I don’t buy it.” Martin waves him off. “I have fun with you.”

Jon stops, spatula poised over the pan, going suddenly very still. “Y-you do?”

Martin fidgets for a moment. His voice, when it comes, has gone shy and soft again. “Well, yeah. Obviously.”

Jon doesn’t think things like this will ever come easy to him, but the way Martin says it makes something inside him clench up. He knows he and Martin are friends, but something about actually hearing it, having it laid out so plainly, is… it’s a lot.

“A-alright,” he finally says, “yes. Let’s— We can cook together.”

“Oh!” Martin perks up. “Like, now?”

“Why not?” Jon turns to him, offers him what he hopes is a kind smile. “Erm, here, will you…” There’s not much more to do here, really, but now the idea of cooking with Martin has taken root and lodged itself deep in his brain and he doesn’t want to wait, even until tomorrow. “Ah.” He waves the spatula towards the last onion, sitting out on the counter. “Dice that onion for me?”

Martin nods enthusiastically. “Sure! Yeah, I can do that.”

Martin's shoulder brushes against Jon's as he ducks around him, just a split-second touch that still steals Jon's focus away. Then Martin pulls open a drawer, snapping Jon back to reality. His eyes dart over as Martin grabs a knife, puts the onion down on the cutting board Jon still hasn’t bothered to put in the sink after he used it earlier.

Martin’s very delicate with the knife in the same way Jon’s delicate with knives: Someone who knows what comes out victorious when you pit the sharp side of a blade against soft fingers. Jon’s grandmother used to snap at him for it, tell him to hurry. It set his nerves on edge then, but it’s a deeply charming now, to see in someone else. It makes him feel better, somehow; he’s not alone here, fumbling his way through something everyone else seems not to worry about. He’s not the only one who likes to take his time in order to prevent himself a little hurt.

Martin’s half-way through by the time Jon realizes he’s been staring at his hands this whole time he's been working. He jerks his eyes away with a soft hiss that he prays is hidden in the sizzle of the pan.

“Heh.” Martin huffs, and Jon can't tell if it's from actual humor or something more self-deprecating. “Y’know, I don’t think I’ve cooked with someone else since I was a kid.”

Jon looks back up at his face, raises his eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yeah. Not since, er…” His lips twitch. “I think my dad and I cooked a seder together once when I was, like… Seven? Eight? Really young, I guess.”

Jon nods slowly, fitting in this new piece of information in alongside everything else he’s learned about Martin over the past handful of months. “Come to think of it, I haven’t cooked with another person since I moved out of my grandmother’s house.”

Martin takes a moment to scoop the first half of onion slices into the pan, silent until the new wave of sizzling dies down. “You two cooked together? I thought you learned all this stuff yourself.”

Jon shrugs. “We would on occasion. I also helped her around Passover, but she’d usually end up bossing me out of the kitchen if I slowed her down too much.”

“Ah, so I guess I figured out where you inherited your patience from,” Martin teases, knocking his shoulder into Jon’s, on purpose this time.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Jon tuts, with a roll of his eyes.

Martin laughs. He finishes his dicing, hands the onions over to Jon, takes the cutting board to the sink for a quick rinse. “Anything else I can do?”

Jon’s mouth twists with a twinge of disappointment. Martin’s company is a nice distraction from the heat. And it’s just nice, full stop. “No. It's really just… pushing things around a pan until it’s ready from this point on.”

“Right. Guess I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Jon nods. Martin turns, but instead of leaving Jon alone in the kitchen again, he pushes himself up and hops onto the countertop he’s just freed up. He sits there, already taller than Jon when he’s got two feet on the ground, and looks down to give Jon a cheery smile. 

Looking back up at him, there’s a moment where Jon is somewhere else entirely. He can see, vivid in his mind, an image of a different flat: Georgie, sat on the dingy countertop in his uni dorm, joking and laughing, legs swinging while Jon fumbled his way through recipes that had still felt unfamiliar to hands unaccustomed with the motions.

It’s not the first time Martin’s made Jon think of Georgie, but it is the first time he really starts to realize what that might mean. It’s not that they’re even that similar — although they are, perhaps, more alike than Jon cares to admit — and the way Jon and Martin spend time together is about as different from the way he and Georgie spent time together as it’s possible to get.

No, it’s just that… When it comes down to it, Martin is starting to occupy a space in Jon’s heart that was last filled by Georgie.

“Jon?” Martin’s voice pulls him back to the present. “You okay?”

Jon blinks. He shakes his head, orients himself firmly back in the present moment, focuses on the puzzled tilt of Martin’s eyebrows.

“Yes.” He nods, surprised at how much he really, really means it. “Yes, I’m good.”

—

They set the table (inasmuch as there is to set, what with it only being the two of them and only really needing a plate and a fork for this meal) together, the same way they’ve been doing a good deal of things lately. Jon wraps a cozy around the panhandle and carries it over to dish out two platefuls before setting it back on the stove to be dealt with after dinner.

Martin drags the box fan closer, sets it on the floor a few feet from the table, and Jon takes the pitcher of strawberry-mango juice from the fridge so they can have something cool with dinner.

It’s nice to just be able to sit for awhile. Okay, sure, he spends most of his time at the Institute sitting down, but his shoulders are always wound so tight that he ends up leaving work feeling, if anything, even more stiff and achy than when he got there. So, it’s nice to be able to sit and not have piles of statements and unknowns and terrifying what-if’s staring back at him. 

Even though he started out as a coworker, now that Martin is… more than that, he doesn’t let work follow them here. Jon had hated him for it at first, had felt that incessant itch to dig deeper, you’re not doing enough, prove you're enough, like an almost physical pull in the back of his brain. But now when things are just getting dizzyingly more frightening every day, it’s… it’s a real relief to have a few hours away from the Archives when he comes home, a weight lifting off his back every time he steps through his front door.

Jon eats slowly, enjoying the moment of peacefulness. He zones in and out of conversations, content to just relax in good company, until Martin’s phone buzzes. The chime startles them both out of their little dinnertime bubble.

Jon looks up, watches Martin dig around in his pocket.

He pulls out his phone and frowns. Instead of answering, Martin silences the call and flips his phone over, leaving it face down on the table and going back to his dinner.

“Do you… want to get that?” Jon asks, tilting his head curiously.

“No, it’s alright.” Martin pushes the phone away from himself so it's out of reach. “It’s just the landlord, I don’t want to talk to him during dinner.”

Jon blinks. “The landlord? What, you mean my landlord?”

“Yeah. I’ll call back tomorrow.”

“… Why is my landlord calling you?”

“Oh, I’ve been talking to him.” Martin gestures with his empty fork. “I’m gonna get him to fix the buzzer.”

“Y-you are?”

A nod. “Well, I’m trying to, anyway. God, that man can really drag his heels.”

“He can,” Jon agrees, intimately familiar with the hassle of trying to get management to make even the smallest repairs. It’s why he’d given up on getting the buzzer fixed; it didn’t seem worth it, the inconvenience so small compared to the dread of actually having to argue his case to someone who wants nothing to do with him. “Sorry, w- uh. Why are you badgering my landlord about this?”

Martin shrugs. “When Sasha was here she told me it’s been broken for awhile. Seems like he’s not going to do anything about it without some badgering.”

“Yes... But why are you badgering him? It’s—” He stops himself before he can say something stupid like ‘it’s not even your home.’ He remembers the special kind of melancholy that had settled over both of them the last time he said something like that, and he’s not keen to remind either of them that one day Martin might not be here. He shifts gears last minute. “It’s not that important.”

“Okay, but. Still,” Martin says, “it’s the principle of the thing, y’know? Like, it’s his job to make sure things work. What’s he good for if he can’t even manage that?”

Someday, Jon will stop being dumbfounded by the amount of care Martin is capable of. “And… Okay, how did you even get my landlord’s phone number?”

“Oh, Susan gave it to me,” Martin says, like that explains anything.

Jon stares at him blankly, not saying anything for what must be at least a solid 15 seconds.

Finally, Martin takes pity on him. “Oh, c’mon. You know Susan.”

“I assure you, I do not.”

“Yeah, you do.” Martin waves his hand at him. “Nice, older woman?”

Jon just shakes his head.

“No, she’s, like…” He waves his hand around his shoulder. “Hair up to here, ‘bout.. Fifty, sixty, maybe?”

Another shake. “I’ve no idea who you’re talking about.”

“… Right. Okay. She’s your neighbor. She lives in the flat downstairs with her daughter, Chloe.”

“She does?”

“Yeah, she does.”

“And you’ve… spoken to these people.”

“I have, yes,” Martin tells him, very clearly fighting some kind of amusement. “I take it you haven’t.”

“No, Martin, I really haven’t,” Jon confirms. “Until right this moment I had no idea they even existed.”

Martin stops trying to fight his grin. “Right, ‘course not.”

“What?” Jon asks. “Is it really that strange not to know your neighbors?” 

“No, it’s fine,” Martin’s quick to assure him. “I mean, I like to talk to the neighbors when I can. It’s convenient, in case you ever need, like, your mail taken in, or the landlord’s phone number.”

Jon can conjure a very vivid image of Martin, knocking on the door of some kindly, nondescript older woman to ask her for a cup of sugar. It somehow seems… almost absurdly in character, and not even in a silly, cliché way.

“You could’ve just asked me,” Jon points out, “I have his number, too, you know.”

“I know, I know.” Martin shrugs. “I just ran into them in the lift last week and it came up.”

“It came up?”

“Yeah,” Martin says. “Guess she’s having some problems with the pipes in her kitchen and he’s being a dick about it. I sympathized, told her about your buzzer, and. Yeah.”

Jon looks down at his plate, chews on his lip. “Hm.”

Cautiously, Martin asks, “… is that… an issue, or…?”

Jon blinks back up at him. “No! No, no issue, no problem. It’s just…”

It’s just that Martin is talking to his neighbors. Martin knows the woman who lives in the flat downstairs from him, has talked to her and her daughter enough that he knows them both by name. He’s haranguing Jon’s landlord into getting the buzzer fixed. 

Everyday Martin digs himself in deeper to the foundation of Jon’s life, and Jon’s worried he’ll collapse when he inevitably leaves.

“I just didn’t expect it,” Jon finally concludes with a shrug that is carefully, unconvincingly unaffected.

“Yeah, well.” Martin looks away, cheeks dappled pink like maybe he’s just realized the implications of it all himself. “Someone’s got to water the plants and keep the place from falling apart while you’ve got your nose buried in statements.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Yes, thank you for your altruism.”

Martin laughs, which makes Jon swell a little with something golden and soft. Laughter eventually fades into a smile, and then to something serious, but just as soft. “Jon, it’s no problem. Really.”

Jon ducks his head. “Still. You don’t have to do all of this.”

“And you don’t have to cook dinner, or make us lunches, or invite me into your home when I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Martin shoots back. “But you do, and you do, and you did, so.”

Jon thinks he gets it. It’s not about obligations, it never has been. It’s about the little things you do for someone when you choose to open up a space in your life and start building something that looks like home together.

Chapter Text

By the end of July, nearly five months after moving in with Jon, Martin’s almost entirely forgotten that this situation was meant to be temporary. The longer he stays, the stronger the word ‘home’ weaves itself around this flat (and its inhabitant) in his heart. It doesn’t feel like he’s just crashing, waiting it out until he can safely be on his own again. It feels like he belongs here. He even lets himself think he might actually be wanted here, too.

It’s a nice feeling. Even if it’s poisoned, just a little, by the ever-present anxiety that Martin has always has a hard time quashing.

On nights like these, the disquiet is more muted. It fades away, hidden in the background under warm blankets of lazy security and a fuzzy, easy calm.

Martin’s got music playing softly from his phone, and he’s sat with his hand flat on the coffee table, an open bottle of lacquer nearby. It’s a new color he picked up on a whim on the way home the other day, a sort of mint green that he thinks is probably better suited to spring than summer, but he’s excited to try it anyway.

He’s got his non-dominant hand done already, so now he’s moved onto the less desirable task of trying to paint the nails on his right hand with his shaky, unsure left. No matter how often he paints his nails, he always makes a mess when he does this. Winds up getting more polish on his skin than his nails. Still, he likes being colorful, even if it’s messy. Maybe it’s sappy, but he likes the earnestness that comes with the mess. He’s a sappy person, anyway. So sue him.

“That’s a nice color,” comes Jon’s voice.

Martin looks up, sees him coming around the couch, tries not to obsess over the way he’s staring down at Martin’s hands the whole time as he sits down. 

“Thanks,” Martin says, “I thought so.”

Jon hums. “Very, uh…” He waves a hand. “You?”

Martin pauses, one nail left unpainted. “Is it? Y-you think so?”

“Yes?” Jon’s nose scrunches up. “S-should I not have said that? Is that… wrong?”

“No, no! It’s—” Martin ducks his head, smiles faintly at the ground. “Thanks.”

“Oh. Right. Er. You’re welcome.”

Martin feels Jon’s eyes on him while he finishes up his pinky, carefully running his thumb along the skin to try and wipe off any polish that got on his finger. When he looks up, sure enough, he finds Jon looking right back. 

Jon starts, surprised to be caught, eyes darting away and giving an awkward cough. Martin puts the cap back on the bottle of polish, screws it carefully shut, giving himself a moment to grin privately. Very cautiously, he unlocks his phone to pause his music; not out of any kind of embarrassment, but just so he can talk to Jon without getting distracted.

“Well?” He finally says, sticking his hands out and wiggling his fingers a little. “Look alright?”

Jon clears his throat, leans forward, steadying himself with a palm against the sofa. He nods slowly, eyes flitting up to Martin’s and falling away again just as fast. “Yes,” he finally says, “Looks, looks fine.”

Martin smiles. “Yeah?.”

Jon nods awkwardly. “It’s… nice.”

“Thanks.”

Jon hums. "Of course."

“I could do yours for you,” Martin blurts, before he can talk himself out of it. “I-if you want.”

Jon opens his mouth, spends a few seconds blinking wordlessly at him. “I— oh, er. A-are you sure?”

Martin nods. “Yeah. If you want me to.”

Jon hums, taps his fingers against his knee. “Do you think it would… Look… good on me?”

“I mean, I think so, yeah,” Martin tells him, “but. It’s not really up to me? It’s— is it something you think would look good?”

Jon tilts his head, the considering little crease appearing between his brow that he gets when he’s thinking. “You know, I… I, ah, I honestly used to think it was a bit… unprofessional. W-when we first started, that is.”

A few months ago, that might’ve stung. Now, Martin sees the way Jon almost grimaces with his own admission, the fidgeting embarrassment, and all he can do is snort. “So the painted nails were over the line, but Sasha wearing slippers to work is just fine?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Jon waves him off, frowning down at the floor. “I. It’s possible I was… A bit partial.”

Martin raises his eyebrow. “A bit?”

“Okay, okay, I—” Jon sighs. “In my defense, I-I was… quite stressed. And I didn’t know you yet. And I thought, at your age—”

“My age?” Martin cuts him off. “Jon, you’re older than me.”

“What? No, I’m not.” Jon shakes his head. “Martin, I-I know I look a bit…” He gestures vaguely at his hair, fingertips brushing self-consciously against the gray streaks at his temples. “But I’ve only been out of uni for, what, six, seven years?”

Martin opens his mouth, but finds his words have very much deserted him. “Wait, really?” He finally asks. “How old are you?”

Jon sighs, fidgets, mumbles something too low for Martin to hear.

“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that.”

“I said I’m twenty-eight,” Jon snaps, scowling.

Martin can’t help it: he laughs. “No way. No way! That's— I mean I knew you were lying when you said you were thirty-eight, but. Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Wow." Martin feels a little giddy. "How are you the same age as me?”

“Wh— Wait, the same—?” Jon finally looks up at him, eyebrows stitched tightly together. “No, wait, that’s…”

Martin realizes his slip too late. There’s no taking that back; he can already see the calculations going on behind Jon’s eyes, the way he taps his fingers like he does when he’s hit a particularly difficult snag in his research.

“If you’re only twenty-eight, and you’ve worked at the Institute for… And you finished your master's…” He trails off, tilting his head, looking up at Martin like a puzzle with pieces missing.

“I—” Heart sinking, Martin suddenly finds the woodgrain of the coffee table to be the most interesting thing he’s seen in his life, studiously avoids looking at Jon. “Oh, erm… A-actually, I…”

“What?”

Martin lets out a long, slow breath. “Okay, okay. Look, um. I-if I tell you something, will you… promise not to tell Elias? Or fire me?”

The look Jon gives him is one of such pristine shock it forgets to be anything else, all guards down and all walls fallen away. “F-fire you? Christ, Martin.” He shakes his head. “I think if I tried to fire you at this point, you could sue me and the Institute for about… Twenty different HR violations, at least.”

Martin half-smiles. “I mean…”

“No, really. What am I going to do?” Jon gestures absent with his hand. “Fire you for something said to me in confidence by my, my flatmate? In our living room, at… nine PM, on a weekend?”

Martin nods slowly. “I-I guess not.”

Jon sighs. “I promise, Martin. No firing, not getting Elias involved. Although I am a little concerned, now, if I’m honest.”

Martin takes a breath, in, out, counts the seconds. Jon’s got a point; he’s not just Martin’s boss anymore. They’re friends, now, and Martin… god, Martin trusts him. Besides, Tim already knows, which probably means Sasha knows, too, so it’s not exactly the world’s best kept secret. “Okay, it’s— it’s not a big deal. I just. Er. I may have… lied. On my CV.”

“You— What?”

Martin nods sheepishly, wets his lips with the tips of his tongue. “You remember I told you about my mum?”

“In the care home,” Jon says, “in Devon. Yes.”

“Yeah.” Martin nods along. “She, er. She’s actually been sick for a-a really long time now. It started when I was a kid, but when I was seventeen, it got so bad she… couldn’t take care of us anymore. I had to drop out of school so I could work full time, so I don’t. I don’t have a master’s in Parapsychology. I don’t even have a degree.”

There’s a moment of silence. Then, Jon says, “Oh.”

“Oh? Just ‘oh’?”

Jon blinks at him, splays his hands helplessly. “Should I say something else?”

“I dunno!” Martin shrugs, shoulders up to his ears. “I… I guess I was just expecting a bit more of a reaction.”

“Right,” Jon says, and then continues not giving more of a reaction beyond the scrunching of his face in confused concentration. “So… you’re twenty-eight.”

“I’ll be twenty-nine this year,” Martin tells him, when it hits him. “Soon, actually. August.”

“Hm.” Jon’s expression shifts. Still confused, but less so. “So you’re only… Six months older than me?”

Martin shrugs. “… Guess so. Wow.”

Jon nods. “Wow,” he agrees.

They spend a handful of silent seconds with their eyes anywhere but on each other.

“So you aren’t — you’re not… angry?” Martin finally asks, looking back up at Jon through his lashes. 

“Um.” Jon’s quiet for a moment, before his face finally relaxes. “I… don’t think I am, no.”

“You don’t think?”

“No. No, I’m not angry,” Jon clarifies. “I… It kind of… explains a lot?”

Martin huffs. “Gee, thanks.”

“No, I— ugh.” Jon shakes his head. “I don’t— I don’t mean to be rude. I just… Christ, I’m not— I’m not good at this, I just meant—”

“Jon, it’s okay,” Martin cuts him off, taking pity on him before he can work himself up. 

Jon frowns, frustrated. “No, it’s— it’s not. I… I can’t imagine, uh. What it’s like to, to need to… Do that, for your mother. I—” He pushes his hair off his forehead, twists his fingers into it. “There’s so much I don’t know about you — even now — and I just… I didn’t know what to expect from you, and it. It made me nervous. So maybe I was a bit… harsh.”

“Jon,” Martin says, softer this time, “really, it’s fine. I’ve worked retail and food service. Believe me, when it comes to rude bosses, you don’t even make it into the top ten.”

“Okay…” Jon trails off, flexes his fingers together, splays them out flat again. “Still, I. I don’t think it excuses being a prick to you just because someone else might have been more of a prick to you in the past. So. I’m sorry. If I was ever… unkind.”

Every time Martin thinks there’s no way he could possibly hold any more affection for this ridiculous, silly, marvelous man, Jon goes and does something to prove him dead wrong.

Martin swallows. “Thanks,” he finally manages, “I— I appreciate it.”

Jon hums. Martin cleans his throat. They both avoid each other’s eyes.

“So!” Martin picks up the bottle of polish. “Nails? Yes, no, maybe?”

“Ah.” Jon looks infinitely relieved for the change of subject. “You know what?” He slips down off the sofa, joins Martin by the coffee table, crosses his legs. “Sure. Yes.”

Martin looks at him, pleasantly surprised. “Really?”

“Why not?” Jon smiles trepidatiously.

“Alright. Cool. Er… Any color preference?”

“Oh, lord. I don’t know.” Jon points at the bottle Martin’s already got out. “You can’t just use that one?”

“I could, yeah. If you want me to.”

Jon shrugs. “Seems fine to me.”

“I might have something that suits you more than just ‘fine’,” Martin tells him. “And Tim might, y’know. Tease us a bit, if we match.”

“Mm.” Jon makes a face. “You have a point there. He’d have a field day.”

“Right. So… Got a request?”

“Ah…” Jon thinks for a moment, then seems to come to a realization. “Oh, do you, um. Do you remember, a few weeks ago, you had this, this nice yellow color? I-it was kind of… rich, almost golden?”

“Oh, yeah. I know the one.” With delicate hands so he doesn’t smear the still-drying coats on his fingers, Martin grabs his little box of polishes off the ground by his knee, opens it up on the coffee table. “You like yellow?”

Jon’s voice is almost cautious, a little unsure like he always is when he talks about himself in any way that isn’t flat out deprecation. “I think yellow’s nice.”

So Martin rummages around until he finds the right color, something warm in his chest. “This one, yeah?”

Jon nods. “Yeah.”

“Right, well.” Martin gestures Jon over.

“Ah. Yes.” Jon scoots closer, knees nearly knocking into Martin’s. With the sofa on one side, and the coffee table on the other, Martin feels very boxed in in a way that leaves him a little short for breath. “Good?”

Martin swallows. “Good, y-yeah.”

Jon nods, holds out his hand. Holds out his hand. Right. Martin makes himself take it, makes himself keep his head level. He sits there, holding Jon’s hand up and staring down at it for a few seconds before his brain kicks back to life. 

He imagines sitting here, Jon’s fingers splayed against his palm, the delicate press of skin-on skin, for the long drag of minutes it will take him to finish, and thinks better of it. Instead, Martin carefully sets Jon’s hand down flat on the table beside him. “Er, here. Just… keep it there?”

Jon nods at him. “Okay.”

Martin carefully unscrews the bottle, gets to work on Jon’s nails. The yellow looks good on him; it stands out against the brown of Jon’s skin better than it does against Martin’s, pops like honey gold. 

“You know,” Jon says, breaking the silence, “I. I used to paint them back in uni.”

Martin pauses to sneak a surprised look up at him. “Really?”

“Mostly just black, but. I’d keep them painted most of the time.”

“Wow.” Martin carefully files this new piece of information away, diligently adjusts his mental image of Jon to fit it into place. He’s surprised how easy it seems to fit; somehow, the idea of Jon with black nails, artfully tousled hair, maybe even ripped jeans and ratty grunge flannels makes perfect sense. “So you’re old hat at this.”

“Yes, somewhat.”

“Could’ve probably done this yourself, then.”

Jon shrugs the arm not attached to the hand currently under Martin’s ministrations. “Probably.”

Martin can feel the moment the exact implications of those words hit them both. He falters, briefly, on Jon’s right ring finger, until he feels the exact moment they both decide to carefully set those implications aside and ignore them.

They don’t talk much after that, but it’s okay. Their silences don’t feel awkward anymore. It’s a lot easier to do this for someone else than for himself, especially with how dutifully still Jon keeps his hands, so it doesn’t take him long to finish up first one hand and then the other.

“Okay,” Martin says, capping his polish and pushing the bottle aside. “Done.”

Jon pulls his hand back slowly, inspects his nails with open curiosity.

“So.” Martin nudges his knee. “Like it?”

Slowly, Jon’s lips twitch up in a small, fragile smile. “You know what? I do.”

Before Martin knows it, there’s a matching smile on his face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jon looks up at him. “I don’t usually go in for bright colors, but this one is… Nice.”

“It is,” Martin agrees softly. Then, realizing exactly how soft those words had sounded, he clears his throat. “Just be careful when you touch anything for awhile. Don’t want you smudging it and ruining all that hard work I put in.”

“I know, Martin,” Jon tells him. “I have done this before, remember?”

Martin nods, grinning. “Right, right, right.”

Jon huffs. He shuffles backwards, back against the sofa, pulls his legs up and lays his hands flat on his knees, fingers splayed. How he manages to be so endearing with his every little movement is almost astounding to Martin, even if he should maybe be used to it at this point.

Martin joins him, scooches back and sits a few inches away from him. “Y’know…” He bumps his knee against Jon’s shin. “I think there’s a documentary about coral reefs on tonight, if you want to watch?”

Jon shoots him a look, eyebrows going up, intrigued. “Yeah?”

Martin nods. “Yeah. You want to…?”

“Yes,” Jon answers. “I’d like that.”

Nature documentaries (along with a fondness for pineapple on pizza and a great dislike for Elias Bouchard) are one of the few things Jon and Martin actually agree on. Martin likes the nature part, and Jon the documentary part. Martin knows he likes the historical ones better, but he’ll take anything that gives him new facts to digest.

It’s delightful.

Carefully, Martin grabs the remote and turns the TV on, finds the right channel. It’s not on yet, so Martin turns the volume down while they wait. He copies Jon’s posture, spreads his hands out on his knees to air out his own still-drying nails.

Martin spares a quick look over at Jon, and almost startles when he finds Jon already looking back at him. They freeze for a moment, and then Jon smiles, and Martin laughs quietly. A second later Jon joins him, and they’re both grinning by the time the documentary comes on.

—

There’s something heavy hanging over them when they get ready for bed that night. At first Martin doesn’t think it’s anything to be wary of; the way his heart beats faster around Jon is nothing out of the ordinary, so the helpless, warm feeling that settles over him isn’t one for immediate concern. It feels… different, but not bad.

Definitely not bad.

It’s just… What happened earlier is important. He knows that, feels it. He told Jon his secret. His biggest, most damning secret; the secret that’s been weighing him down since... since he was 17 and stumbling his way through things he felt simultaneously too young and too old for. The one thing that has been shaping his existence for as long as he can remember, the thing he thought would torpedo his life if it got out.

And now Jon knows it. Jon knows, and he… he hadn’t even been angry. 

Martin replays their conversation over and over as he brushes his teeth; thinks about Jon saying there’s so much I don’t know about you, even now, thinks about Jon apologizing, on a loop in his head until he realizes his toothbrush is hanging limply out of his mouth, and he’s just been stood at the sink zoning out for god knows how long.

He feels… weightless. It’s a cliché, and Martin knows that. He’s become very familiar with clichés over his tenure writing bad poetry, and this is one he’s always felt overly saccharine in a way that even annoys Martin. But it’s really the only way he can describe it: the weight that's fallen from his shoulders tonight is so much that he feels like he’s floating as he tugs on his pajamas and heads down the hall.

The overhead light is off in the bedroom, but a lamp on the bedside table is switched on to cast a soft, golden glow over Jon where he's sat in the bed, half under the covers with his knees tucked up to his chest, flipping through a book. It’s such a painfully domestic scene Martin has to take a moment, stalled in the doorway, to collect his thoughts before they float away entirely.

Martin thinks he could fill a whole notebook with just the way the light hits Jon’s eyes, the way they turn almost black, so rich and deep Martin could swim in them.

He shakes himself. God, he’s really lost in bad clichés tonight, isn't he? It would almost be funny if he wasn’t so hopelessly, irrefutably gone.

Martin forces himself back into gear, stepping over the threshold.

Jon looks up at the sound of socked feet swishing over carpet. “Ah.” He shifts, sticks his finger between the pages of his book so he doesn’t lose his place. “Are you, uh—” He gestures to the lamp— “Should I turn this off?”

Martin crosses the room, pulls the covers back, sits and tucks one leg up under himself. “Nah. You’re fine.”

He's got his glasses off, folding them up on the nightstand before Jon speaks again.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, Jon. This won’t keep me up.”

“Alright,” Jon hums dubiously, and the room settles into a peaceable silence, only the white noise of London below them filtering in from a cracked bedroom window.

Martin lays down, pulls the covers up to his chest. Jon packed his heavy duvet up last month in acquiescence to the summer heat and exchanged it for the same light quilt Martin used that first stubborn night spent curled up small on Jon’s sofa. He faces away from Jon in the pleasant, soft glow, and feels the inches between them more acutely than ever.

He listens for the soft rustle of Jon turning pages in his book, but after only a couple of minutes the light switches off, and he feels Jon slip down until he’s laying on his own pillow. Martin finds himself holding his breath until Jon stops moving again, and lets it out in a slow, quiet sigh.

In the quiet dark of the room, Martin watches the numbers tick by on the digital bedside clock, drowsy but kept awake by swirling, giddy thoughts. After what feels like a small eternity but is, according to the clock, only about 25 or so minutes, Martin finally gives into an impulse that’s been eating him for weeks now.

Slowly, disturbing the bed as little as he can, Martin rolls over so he’s facing Jon.

In the dark, without his glasses, lit only by the lights of the city outside, the whole scene is soft and hazy, frighteningly ethereal. Jon’s laying on his back, one of his arms thrown over his middle, breathing steadily. Martin can’t see his face in any great detail, but he thinks he looks peaceful.

Contented, Martin lets his eyes shut, falling asleep to the sound of their breathing.

… And wakes up the next morning to complete disaster. 

In the end, Martin thinks, he should’ve seen this coming. It’s always the same when it comes to him: there’s no reason for anything to be any different, and really, he should’ve learned ages ago to stop getting his hopes up that anything might change. Nearly 30 years on this planet, and he somehow still manages to feel blindsided every time he goes and ruins whatever good he’s managed to eke out in his life this time.

Martin is — foolishly, maybe — an optimist at heart. Maybe it’s the poet in him. Maybe it’s the boy still buried somewhere deep inside that had to grow up too fast, never really got any of that shiny, bubbling optimism when he was young and still struggles for it every chance it gets. Secretly, Martin’s always kind of liked the way he seeks out gentle and lovely things in life. It’s… one of the few things he admires about himself.

Maybe he really is just as silly and naïve as everyone always expects him to be.

It’s just that, at this point, it should stop surprising him when he winds up being wrong and fucking everything up.

Martin opens his eyes the next morning feeling groggy and peaceful. It’s later than he usually sleeps in, he can already tell — the light is coming in at a disorienting, unfamiliar angle, brighter than usual and right in his eyes. 

The world comes back to him in bits and pieces. The light, first. Then the muffled clammer of London waking up filtering in through the still-cracked window.

Last is Jon.

At this point, he's used to waking up with the weight of another person pressed against him. He’s had to accept that this is just what Jon is like. He thinks Jon needs the contact, somehow. He’s so distant, in his waking life, but Martin is beginning to pick out little things about him: how he he leans into any contact he gets, and when his guard is down he seems to reach out as a reflex — a hand on Martin’s arm when he’s worried, pressing a palm to his back as he passes behind him, bumping their shoulders together when they sit close.

So Martin can handle being snuggled at night, even if it aches. He knows how much better Jon’s been sleeping; he’s seen the bags under his eyes fade, slowly, over his time here, even though he knows the Institute and the worms and the statements are stressing him out more and more every day. Jon is someone who likes to be touched, likes to touch, but for some reason feels like he needs to steal moments of contact and won’t let himself reach out on purpose.

Well, he doesn’t need to steal from Martin. Martin will give him these moments freely, whenever he can. He knows the little stab of guilt he feels whenever he thinks about how much he likes the touching is almost entirely for his own benefit. Jon is happy and well and Martin doesn't want to ruin it.

So all of this is to say that Martin’s used to waking like this, with an arm or a leg or both tossed over him, with Jon’s face buried against him as he clings in his sleep.

What he’s not used to, though, is waking up with his own arm draped right back over Jon.

Martin sucks in a sharp breath, catches himself, and lets it out with much more guardedness. He's about to get up and start the day. Push himself out of bed, make some tea, get ready for work like always.

He stops at the last second.

Jon is deep asleep, still, serene and solid and warm where he lays, curled up tight, arms still tangled with Martin’s. His chest rises and falls in a slow, even rhythm, face smooth and untroubled.

Sleepy and still riding the waves of boundless affection he’d unearthed last night, Martin smiles, giving himself a few indulgent moments to just… look. Their hands are tangled together in the scant distance between their bodies, close enough Martin can still feel Jon’s breath ghost his collar bone on every exhale. His hair, grown adorably shaggy after months without a haircut, fans out in gray and black waves over his cheek, on his pillow.

And Martin… Martin can hardly breathe around the adoration clawing its way up his throat. He shuts his eyes, swallows hard, lets his face slip into a dopey smile. ‘Butterflies’ doesn’t even begin to describe the fluttery, swooping feeling in Martin’s stomach, unguarded and marshmallow-soft.

It’s just… this is the first time Martin’s let someone see him, really see him, flaws and fears and lies and all, without winding up alone again.

Okay, okay. One final indulgence, and then Martin will get up, leave Jon to sleep in till his alarm goes off. Carefully pulling one of his arms free from where they’re all tangled together, Martin pushes the hair off Jon’s face, carefully tucks it back behind his ears. So it doesn't get in his eyes, Martin figures. He's being... helpful. 

He’s just pulled his hand back when Jon’s eyes blink open, and meet Martin’s.

There’s a terrifying moment where no one moves.

Martin’s eyes lock onto Jon’s, wide and frozen, and it’s like the whole world is holding its breath around them. God, there’s no way Jon hasn’t seen, is there? No way he doesn’t know, now. Even if he managed to sleep through the stupid hair thing, there’s way way the naked, limitless affection plastered all over Martin’s face isn’t about as plain as the sun in the sky above them.

Then, finally, the barest flicker of motion: Jon’s horrified eyes flick down, seem to notice just how close the two of them are, the way their hands overlap each other in a messy tangle on the sheets. He tenses, and Martin sucks in a sharp breath, and then they’re both moving very quickly.

“Oh—” Martin fumbles backwards, twisting to grab for his glasses. "God."

“Sorry,” Jon croaks, voice still choked thick with sleep, scrambling up out of bed. “Christ. Sorry.”

“No, no,” Martin says, sitting up with one leg falling off the side of the bed, socked foot landing on the carpet. “It’s— I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be silly.” Jon’s voice is brisk and he pushes off the bed, smoothing his sleep shirt in jerky, swift movements. “You didn’t do anything. It’s— I’m—” He stops, abruptly going very still. “I should. Um, I should actually—” He turns as he’s talking, starts yanking clothes haphazardly out of the dresser— “I should, should be getting ready. I, er, lots to do, I should—”

“No, Jon, wait—”

“—be getting to the Institute. You can, erm—”

“You don’t have too—”

Jon pauses in the doorway briefly, flashes him a tight smile. “I really should be going. I have a lot to do, really need to get to work. I’ll see you in the Archives.”

And then he’s gone, vanishing down the hall. Martin can hear the door to the bathroom slamming shut seconds later, leaving Martin perched on the edge of the bed. Dazed and horrified, heart beating on fragile hummingbird wings, Martin doesn’t move until he hears the front door shut only a handful of minutes later.

A numb sort of dread spreads through his whole body. When he finally rises, that floating feeling from last night is back, but… this time it doesn’t feel good; this time it’s like he’s standing a little to the left of his body, going about his routine on autopilot. He can’t even finish the cup of tea he makes himself, winds up pouring a half-cup of stone cold liquid down the kitchen sink.

By the time he finally snaps out of it enough to get ready, he’s already running late for work. Not that he can find it in him to care all that much. He thinks, if he and Jon weren’t literally living together, he might just call in sick altogether, hide away until he can figure out how to salvage this. 

But avoidance won’t help anything, so he dresses, collects his things, and leaves the flat.

As he heads to work, alone, with just a pair of half-broken earbuds and his dire thoughts for company, he realizes that he was wrong. The worst of his secrets for Jon to find out was never about the lies he told on his CV. Last night was not being seen and accepted, because the lies have never stopped at his work history. The last, pathetic truth about Martin is always going to be the stupid, helpless mess of love that he never fucking seems to put in the right place, never seems to give to someone who can give it back.

And now Jon’s seen it, and… And he couldn’t get away from Martin fast enough. The truth of him, laid bare, is not something Jon had been able to handle. With the amount of times this has happened to Martin before, you’d think it might hurt less by now.

Chapter Text

Jon doesn’t leave his office for lunch that day.

Actually, he doesn’t leave his office at all, but that's not exactly a deliberate choice on his part until he looks at the clock and sees that it’s past noon. It’s not the first time he’s lost several hours to a work-related hyperfocus, but it still startles him.

There’s a moment where Jon almost gets up. His hands are on the edge of his desk, ready to push his chair back and stand up. If Tim and Sasha are staying in for lunch, they’ll probably be in the break room by now, laughing and teasing over their food, maybe with tea made by— 

Martin.

Jon pauses, goes very, very still. The memory of this morning, pushed to the side and buried under statements, floods right back to the front of his thoughts. Jon swallows, carefully drops his hands, curls them around his knees.

Okay, he can… get started on the next statement. The more he records, the better. He’s still falling further and further behind. He still hasn’t got a clue what to do about Prentiss. He’s not even all that hungry, really. He knows Martin won’t like it if he skips lunch, but he also figures Martin won’t want to see him right now, so he can… postpone it a bit. Just until he’s gotten a few more statements done.

It’s — he’s not hiding, okay? He’s just… Strategically giving Martin some space. They’re stuck here together, but Jon doesn't have to impose. He has his own office that he's perfectly comfortable holing up in. It’s not like he’s never done it before.

Jon heaves a sigh, hunching back over his desk. He can’t stop himself from thinking about Martin’s face this morning. Muzzy and soft with sleep, even as the horrified, dawning realization spread across it. He never gets to see Martin just woken up; he’s always up and out of bed by the time Jon's alarm goes off in the morning. 

He’d looked so… calm, before he’d realized exactly what was happening and everything had gone to hell. His round, soft cheeks delightfully pink, hair falling just so around his ears — it’s messy, yes, and too long to be entirely intentional, but somehow where that length just looks unruly on Jon, it looks artful and lovely on Martin.

He gives his head a firm shake, shakes his hands out sharply.

One, stupid moment of self indulgence might’ve cost him everything. Because Martin knows now. He has to; it’s the only explanation for… for this morning, for the way Martin had looked at him.

This isn’t — he can’t think about this. It’s not helpful; his goal here is to not be weird, to just be normal so he and Martin can move past this and go back to the way things were.

Love is selfless, right? Isn’t that something people say? Jon, well. Jon has done a lot of selfish things in his life. A lot of stupid, hurtful things, but this can’t be one of them. The way Jon loves Martin is not a selfish thing; he doesn’t just want Martin with him above all else. Yes, he wants to be with Martin — obviously he does, it’s Martin, for god’s sake — but more than anything, loving Martin means Jon wants him to be happy.

It would be… Damn, it would be nice if that happiness meant being with Jon. But if it doesn’t, that’s okay, too. It’ll hurt; of course it will. Something inside him started aching weeks ago and hasn’t quite stopped, and Jon gets the feeling that that ache will expand to be all-encompassing should Martin reject him outright. But it will, in the end, pass. Jon will hurt for awhile, and then he’ll learn to live with the hurt the way he’s learned to live with every other hurt in his life, and he’ll watch Martin be happy and it will be okay. 

Really, it will.

What would be really, truly intolerable would be losing Martin entirely. Jon doesn’t know how to go back to a world where Martin Blackwood isn’t his friend. And even if he did, he doesn’t want to. 

Strange, how he didn’t realize how many lonely, empty spaces he had in his life until Martin came along and fit himself right into them, but now they feel so glaring and cavernous it’s like prodding at a bruise. A bruise Jon can’t just leave alone. He tries to imagine all those spaces empty again; tries to imagine his closet without Martin’s jumpers hung on one side, the little plant on his windowsill droopy and forgotten again, coming home at 10:00 at night and eating a solitary dinner of whatever Jon has left over in his fridge.

He tries to imagine never being able to have the kind of conversation he had with Martin last night again, and something inside him seizes up and goes very, very cold. His nails are still golden yellow, and he swears he can still feel Martin’s fingers against his when he thinks about it.

He understands why Martin might be freaked out. Jon’s his boss, still, technically. (Even if he’s pretty sure he lost all authority over any of his assistants around the time he started rambling about emulsifiers at Martin’s birthday.) And now that Martin’s given up his apartment, he doesn’t really have anywhere to go if things go sour between them.

The last thing Jon wants to do is put Martin in a situation where he might feel… obligated, or otherwise pressured. Jon is the one stupid enough to go and develop feelings, it shouldn’t be Martin’s problem.

Jon sighs. All this wallowing isn’t doing anyone any good. He could sit here and stew in his own anxiety all day, but that won’t make the growing mountain of work he needs to tackle any smaller.

He opens up a new statement, pulls up the recording software on his laptop. He tries out the first few lines, plays it back. It records fine, which is… Jon doesn’t want to say disappointing, but… Well, it almost feels pointless to record this one when he’s so distracted. He sighs. He can’t start ignoring the work he gets paid to do just because he’s having personal problems. His job is to organize the Archives, not to record just the statements that personally interest him. Maybe the monotony will help take his mind off things for awhile. 

He clears his throat, starts the recording over, goes through the entire bullshit statement. And then, when that’s done, offering nothing useful, he records another one. When he gets through with that one, he closes the manilla folder and moves it to the pile of finished statements, to be moved to the discredited section. If nothing else, watching that pile grow while his to-be-recorded pile shrinks is at least satisfying.

He pulls a third statement towards him, and then almost leaps out of his skin when he hears a soft knocking on his office door.

Heart pounding, he barely catches it when Martin calls a soft: “Jon?”

Every muscle in Jon’s body tenses up, and for a second he forgets how to breathe.

“C-come in,” he finally remembers to call, his own voice coming to him from underwater.

The door opens, the creak of the hinges just about the loudest thing Jon’s heard in his life. 

And then, suddenly, Martin’s there, standing uneasily in front of his desk with a mug in his hands. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Jon says, quiet and unsure.

“I, er.” Martin holds up the mug. “Wasn’t sure if you were coming to lunch, so. Thought I’d bring you some tea.”

For a second, Jon feels a relief so strong he could drown in it. He has to carefully set it aside so he can stay present.

“T-thank you.” He nods, jerkily. “You can, um.” He gestures at his desk. He still keeps a coaster there, just for Martin and his tea.

Martin smiles stiffly, but his hands are careful when he sets the cup down. “'Course. No problem.”

Martin can’t even look at him. He keeps his head down, his eyes averted, the whole time. And, yes, Jon figures that’s fair enough, but… He’d thought — or maybe he’d just hoped — Martin had been. Well. Warming up to… this. To Jon. Maybe Jon isn’t the type of person who gets lucky enough to actually be with someone like Martin, but he’d thought Martin cared about him enough that if he ever did find out how Jon felt, he would at least not let it ruin what they have.

Still, Martin brought him tea, so maybe all hope is not yet lost. Martin wouldn’t take the time out of his own schedule for this if he didn’t still care about Jon at least a little bit. Maybe Jon still has a chance to fix things.

Martin turns to go, and wild panic spikes deep in Jon’s chest. “Martin?” He calls after him, perhaps a little too fast, a little too desperate.

Martin stops just as abruptly. “Yes?”

Jon didn’t plan this far ahead. “I, ah…” He trails off, stares at the back of Martin’s neck, lips parted.

Martin turns back around, finally, finally looks up at Jon. There’s a tiny furrow between his brows, something like worry shining on his face. “Is there… Do you need something?”

Jon… Well, he didn’t really expect to get this far. Mouth still hanging open, Jon blinks, clears his throat. “Um. Yes, I…”

What he needs from Martin is some sign that they’ll be okay. Something to tell him they can be normal again. He needs to know they won't go back, that they can still have whatever it is they've been building with the warm nights spent at home, talking and laughing and sharing secrets and trust over home cooked meals and documentaries on Channel 4 late at night.

He sighs, scrubs a hand over his face. “Er… H-how are you?”

Martin blinks, can’t quite mask the confusion on his face in time to hide it from Jon. “Fine? Not bad, I guess.”

“Good, good.” Jon nods. “Not working too hard?”

Martin huffs. “Oh, you’ve got something to say on working too hard now, do you, Mister ‘Worked-Right-Through-Lunch. Again.’”

Jon makes a face. “Yes, yes, I’m still allowed to be concerned.”

“Oh, are you?” Martin raises his eyebrows. “Alright. If concern is allowed, now, you’d better stop making a fuss when I try to get you out of here before dark.”

“You really don’t give up, do you?”

“Yeah, I can’t be pretty stubborn.”

Jon laughs quietly. Okay, so maybe he’s been… catastrophizing a little bit. In his defense, it’s very easy to do down here. He’ll admit, he’s… prone to dramatics even on his best days. And that uncomfortably watched feeling doesn't help. Neither does the invisible clock hanging somewhere over his head that Jon's not even sure what it's counting down to. Being down here just makes things seem... catastrophic. Even if he doesn’t know what that catastrophe might be yet, the Archives are deeply conducive to super-charge all the natural anxieties Jon’s already plagued with.

Still, about a ton of worry and fear abates from his shoulders with the ease in which they’ve slipped back into just being them, in all their bickering, nitpick-y glory. 

“So… Have you eaten lunch yet?”

“Oh, yeah. Bit lonely, eating leftovers in the break room by myself, but I did.”

“Ah.” Jon bites his lip. “Are Tim and Sasha…?”

“They went out,” Martin tells him. “Seemed like a Tim-and-Sasha thing, so… I stayed here.”

“Right.” Jon nods gravely, intimately familiar with how Tim and Sasha get when they’re being particularly Tim-and-Sasha-y “Sensible choice.”

“Yeah,” Martin agrees. “So… Are you planning to eat anything any time soon?”

“I’m…" Jon shrugs and looks away. "I'm not hungry.”

“Jon—”

“I’m really not hungry yet! I will,” Jon assures him. “When I get hungry, I’ll eat.”

Martin studies Jon for a handful of seconds, then finally deflates. “Okay. Okay, yeah. Good.”

The office drops back into silence. Less tense than before, and at least this time Martin’s looking at him.

Jon swallows. Now he has to look away before he starts fidgeting under Martin’s gaze. “Um, Martin?”

“Yeah, Jon?”

Jon takes a deep breath that shakes on the way out. “I-I think… I think we should. Talk.”

Martin visibly freezes up, tension hiking his shoulders up to his ears. “Oh… Oh, Jon, no, please, we really don’t need to—”

“We do, though,” Jon insists. He closes his eyes, takes another breath, this one no less steadying than the last. It’s just like Martin to want to spare Jon the embarrassment and pain of a rejection, but he needs to know Jon will be okay. That they can still be them. Martin doesn’t need to worry about him. “We should, anyway. I-I’d like to.”

“O-okay. Fine.” Martin makes a sound that can’t seem to decide if it wants to be a sigh or a whine. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?”

Jon blinks. “Martin, you don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

Martin pushes his glasses up, digs his fingers into his closed eyes. “Ugh. Of course, I do. This isn’t your problem, Jon.”

Problem. Ouch. That stings, even though Jon wishes it wouldn’t. “How could it possibly be anyone’s problem but my own?”

“No.” Martin shakes his head. “No! There’s no possible way I’m letting you try and take the blame for…” He trails off, waves his hand vaguely. “This is my… deal.”

Jon swallows thickly, tries to unstick his voice from behind the unfortunate lump trying to lodge itself somewhere deep in his throat. “I-it isn’t your fault, Martin. I-I just want… I want things to be okay again.”

“Yeah.” Martin nods, sounding just as punched-out and hollow as Jon feels. “I want that too. Look, I’ll… I’ll get over it, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And I’ll be fine,” Martin goes on. “Just… just give me a little time?”

Jon’s stomach bottoms out. He presses his hand flat to the surface of his desk like the stability can somehow steady his insides. The yellow on his fingernails almost seems like it’s mocking him. “However long you need.”

Martin opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but stops abruptly, eyes suddenly fixed on a point somewhere on Jon’s desk. “Oh, god. Were you recording?”

Jon tilts his head, bewildered and thrown off. “What? No, I finished the last statement before you came in. Why?”

“Oh, it’s just…” Martin points. “Tape recorder’s still running.”

Jon frowns. “I wasn’t using the recorder…?”

Martin gives him a look that’s not all that far off from the one he had after Jane Prentiss’s statement nearly made him pass out. “Jon, what’re you talking about? It’s right—”

What happens next takes probably less than 30 seconds in real time, but will seem to stretch out into one endlessly infinite moment in Jon’s memory when he thinks back on it later.

It’s such an innocuous thing: Martin, gesturing with his right hand as he comes towards the desk, not watching where he’s going, knocks his shoulder into one of the shelves that line the walls of Jon’s office. 

The sound of his voice cuts out mid-sentence, drowned out by the sounds of two of the books on the shelf knocking into each other. Martin startles and jumps, cursing sharply under his breath. And then, before he can actually do anything but look put out, a sort of domino effect goes off. The rest of the books on the shelf tilt and fall, the one on the very end toppling right off and landing on the floor.

Martin has to take an alarmed step back so it doesn’t crush his toes.

“Oh, damn,” he says, sneaking a guilty look at Jon. “My bad. Here, I can—”

He doesn’t even make it to the end of that sentence before the shifting weight becomes too much. The old shelf wrenches itself out of the wall and crashes down, taking a chunk of drywall and plaster with it. On the way down it hits the shelf below it, but rather than stopping its perilous descent, it just knocks that one right off the wall, too, creating an even bigger swath of wreckage.

Both Jon and Martin shout, Jon jumping up out of his chair and Martin stumbling backwards.

It’s an endless moment of chaos and demolition, and Jon can’t do anything but watch mutely. Martin scrambles back until he’s pressed against the opposite wall, well out of the radius of destruction, white plaster dusted over his thin, mint-green shirt, freckled on his face and even in his hair like he’s been out in the snow.

With one final shuddering crack, the debris settles, a pile of drywall, broken wood, and wrecked books in front of a deep hole in the spackle. Almost comically, a single torn-out page flutters down and lands, with perfect comedic timing, right on the tip of this rubble mountain.

Ridiculously, Jon’s first thought is that there’s going to be drywall dust in his tea and now he won’t be able to drink it.

“Oh— shit.” Martin takes a horrified step forward, wide-eyed, face very pale. He reaches one hand tentatively forward, then jerks his arms up, holds his hands tightly to his chest. “I, I’m sorry, oh my god—”

“It’s fine—”

“Jesus, I didn’t mean to, I’m—”

“Martin,” Jon snaps, raising his voice just to cut through Martin’s nervous babble. 

Martin’s mouth snaps shut, and Jon immediately lowers it, softening his tone. 

“It’s fine,” Jon assures him. He steps out from behind his desk carefully. He’ll have to maneuver around the debris to get to Martin, so he stops, holds out a placating hand. “It’s…” He trails off, sighs, shakes his head.

Martin’s hands flutter weakly, hovering towards the disaster, before he snaps them back to his sides. “Fuck.”

Jon huffs. “My thoughts exactly.”

Martin relaxes, can’t seem to stop a smile from breaking onto his face, even though it’s timid and shaky and seems to vanish as quickly as it comes. “Guess we shouldn’t be surprised this place is built cheap, huh?”

“If all the former heads were anything like Elias, no,” Jon agrees. 

Martin makes a face. “God, yeah.”

“Still,” Jon says, “if that’s all it takes to completely demolish a wall like that, even I’m impressed with the level of shoddiness.”

Martin snickers. “Well…”

“Well.”

“Er.” Martin ducks his head, rubs the back of his neck with one hand. “I-I can help. With the clean up.”

“That…” Jon lets out a long, slow breath. “I would really appreciate that, Martin. Thank you.”

They both bend down, on opposite sides of the pile of rubble and books. Sat on the floor, directly in front of the gap in the drywall, Jon feels it: a draft. A breath of musty, warm wind on his face, like the whole building is letting out a trembling sigh.

“Is that—” When he looks up, he can’t tell Martin’s felt it too.

Brows furrowed, Martin tilts his head. “What’s on the other side of this wall?”

“Shouldn’t be anything,” Jon answers, “i-it’s an exterior wall. We’re in the basement, it should just be— concrete and earth, right?”

“Huh.” Puzzled, Martin reaches forward, pulls at a loose piece of plasterboard. It comes away like moldering paper in his hand. Behind it, nothing but the specific pitch of empty space. 

“What’s back there?” Martin asks, voice strangely hushed.

“I-I don’t know...” For one, precarious moment, Jon feels the urge to stick his hand in, find out just how far back this— this hole into nothingness goes. “I can’t see—”

When he hears it, it can’t take more than a second to identify the sound, but it feels like an eternity drags out before he snaps to his senses.

“Martin,” he breathes, sharp and fearful, “Martin, run.”

“What—?” Martin starts, but Jon doesn’t have the time to explain. It’s getting closer, and there must be more of them back there than either one of them have ever seen before. To make a noise like that, Jon can't even comprehend the numbers— 

Jon’s mind goes blank. The only thought he has is to get Martin— to get them both— as far away as possible, as fast as possible. He lurches forward, shoves Martin with all the strength he can muster, sees Martin look up at him with wide, frightened eyes as he stumbles backwards. 

The few feet between them might as well span the width of the Thames, cavernous and unreachable as it feels, even when the space between them and the wall feels much, much too short. Martin’s just managing to scramble to his feet when the first of the worms breach into Jon’s office, and Jon shouts: “Run!”

Chapter Text

It feels like eons before the police finish with Martin.

When they finally, finally send him away so they can talk with Elias instead, Martin can’t get the hell out of there fast enough.

Elias told him they got Jon out while Martin was still lost in the tunnels, but Martin heard that scream when Prentiss died and he needs to see for himself. He needs to know Jon’s okay, that he didn’t just abandon the man who he— the man he cares for— no. Fuck, they almost died today. Almost got eaten alive by worms! If he can’t admit it to himself now, when is he ever going to be able to do it? He needs to know he didn’t leave the man he loves to die horribly, needs to find Jon and see that he’s alive with his own eyes.

The weather feels almost mockingly nice when he finally bursts through the front doors of the Institute and hurries down the steps. The afternoon sun hangs heavy in the sky, but the gentle breeze the hits his face at least means the late summer heat isn’t hitting as hard, and the world feels soft and warm in a way that it really, really has no fucking right to right now. It should be — storming, or sweltering, or something extreme and ugly to match the absolute nightmare this day has been.

There’s a crowd gathered out in the parking lot, a mess of emergency vehicles and confused Institute employees and people in HAZMAT suits. It's too much, too many people, it’s nearly impossible for Martin to pick apart individual faces in the masses, and he’s not sure if he’s dizzy because of all the CO2 or because he still can’t fucking find Jon.

Shaking and a little bit manic and lost somewhere close to full-blown panic, Martin doesn’t notice Tim or Sasha until Tim gets right into his line of sight and stops him with a hand on his shoulder. 

“—Martin. Martin,” Tim’s saying, like it’s not the first time he’s said it.

Martin blinks, wide-eyed, looks up to meet Tim’s shocked gaze. “Tim,” he says. His eyes slip from Tim down to Sasha, hovering anxiously beside him, holding firm to Tim’s other hand. “Sasha.” 

“Christ.” Tim’s shoulders slump. “Give me a bloody heart attack. Did the— the, uh— did she get you? Are you okay?”

“No, I got away, I’m—” He’s not okay, doesn’t think he can even pretend to be. “I’ll be fine,” he settles for. “A-are you guys— Are you okay?” His voice shakes, but so does the rest of him, a leaf in a hurricane or some other stupid metaphor Martin might make if his brain wasn’t fuzzy with terror.

“Us? We’re fine,” Tim assures him. “We were just out to lunch! Came back and there’s bloody ECDC guys and their weird little tents everywhere, alarms blaring, whole place is evacuated, no one knew where you were and Jon’s being carried out on a stretcher—”

That gets Martin’s attention. He feels the blood drain from his face in a rush as his heart does an impressive leap and lodges itself somewhere deep in his throat. “Jon was— is he okay? Tim, w-where is he, do you know—”

“He’s…” Tim makes a face, and every muscle in Martin’s body tenses. “Well, he’s, er— not okay-okay, but—”

“He’s alive,” Sasha cuts in, before Martin can spiral any more. “They got all the worms out. Last I saw he was with the, like, just normal paramedics. I think he’s…” She casts a look over her shoulder, stands on her toes to see over the crowd. “Oh, there—”

Sasha points with the hand not still attached to Tim. Martin stops hearing anything else she and Tim might be saying the moment his eyes land on Jon, sitting in the back of an ambulance, covered in bandages. Martin’s aware the noise he makes is probably pretty pathetic and more than a little embarrassing, but he can’t even try to make himself care about that right now.

He shoves past Tim and Sasha, ignoring Tim calling out after him, and all but sprints towards Jon. When he’s about halfway there, Jon looks up and sees him, too, gaze locking on Martin’s across the crowd. His eyes go wide, and he shoves himself up.

He’s wobbly on his feet at first, but he still manages to meet Martin halfway, collides with him with enough force to make Martin stagger. He throws his arms around Martin’s neck, squeezing like a python, while Martin’s arms go just as tight around Jon’s back. He holds on with everything he has in him, pulling Jon close with a very undignified squeak, and Jon hides his face in the junction between Martin's neck and his shoulder while Martin buries his nose in Jon’s hair. He smells like disinfectant and dust, but underneath it all Martin can still catch hints of the shampoo they both use, the smell of home.

"I'm sorry," Martin says, eyes stinging, a lump in his throat. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Jon shakes his head. “It’s okay.”

“No,” Martin insists. “I-I-I’m sorry I left you, Jon, I thought— I thought you were with me, I’m sorry, I—”

“Hey,” Jon cuts him off, “I know. Martin, I know. It’s okay. I-I’m alright.”

If possible, Martin just holds on tighter. It’s a little gratifying when Jon pulls him closer in response. “I wouldn’t— I wouldn’t leave you on purpose—” Martin needs him to know, needs him to understand— “I promise. I promise I wouldn’t.”

“I know,” Jon says again, pulling back just enough so he can take Martin’s face in his hands, traces his thumbs over his cheeks, and. Oh, okay. So there are tears, now. Martin hadn’t even noticed until Jon swipes them away. “I know. I believe you.”

Martin shuts his eyes, lets himself lean into Jon, focuses on the warmth that blooms on his skin with every touch of Jon’s bony, bandaged, perfect fingers. 

“Are you alright?” Jon asks him, gentle but urgent. “Did— did any of the worms— are you hurt?”

“No, I don’t— I don’t think so.” Martin sniffs and blinks his eyes open, looks down at Jon’s stiff, worried face, the bandages and the blood on his clothes and the deep, deep tiredness in his eyes. “They— they got you.”

“Yes,” Jon sighs out, looking down at the ground. “B-but. But I’m fine, they. The CO2 killed them all before they could. Uh, well. They’re dead, and they got them all out.”

Martin makes a noise that he does not have enough energy to pretend isn’t an anguished whine. “Jon—”

“The ECDC and the paramedics have cleared me,” Jon tells him, “It’s— it just hurts a bit, now.”

Martin swallows, shuts his eyes, grips Jon’s shoulders. Worrying about Jon is as familiar to him as breathing, so he lets it settle, heavy in his belly, so it won’t overwhelm him entirely. No matter how much he hates it, he can't make Jon hurt less this time. “Okay. Okay.” 

“Have you, um,” Jon rasps, “T-Tim and Sasha were looking for you, did you—”

“Yeah, I saw them. We talked. Er.” He doesn’t mention that he abandoned them mid-sentence the second he saw Jon, but they’d seen him, and he’d seen them, and they all know everyone’s okay. “It’s fine.”

“Good, good.” Jon nods. “Have you— did anyone check you out? ECDC? Paramedics?”

“It’s fine, don’t worry,” Martin tells him. “The worms didn’t get me. They were all dead by the time I made it back out. Anyway, I should— I should tell you—”

“Later.” Jon frowns. “You should get yourself checked out. Just to be sure. The, the gas—” He looks around, slips his hands down Martin’s arms and grips his wrists, tugging him back towards the ambulance. “T-the paramedics, at least, should. Should look at you, ju-just to be safe.”

“I, I don’t need—”

“Please,” Jon says wearily. “Just. For me? So I can know you’re alright?”

Martin swallows. How can he say no to that? He nods numbly. “Y-yeah, alright.”

Martin lets himself be led along, if only to keep Jon in his sights, to not risk letting him go again. Jon signals the attention of one of the paramedics zipping around, drags her over to Martin. Martin lets her get on with it, but his eyes don’t leave Jon the whole time.

Someone asks him some questions, tracks his pupils with a light, takes his blood pressure. Martin hardly pays attention. Jon's hand has found its way into Martin’s, has twined their fingers together, keeping him close enough to Martin that their shoulders brush. Martin bites the inside of his cheek, thinks about a maze of tunnels, standing in a musty room with two bodies, only one of them alive.

“Jon.” Martin squeezes his hand until Jon looks up and meets his eyes. “Um. There’s something I really think you should know.”

—

This whole thing started with a statement, so in a way it feels right that it should end with one, too. Like bookends for one long nightmare, a neat little bow tied around Jane Prentiss’s life and all the terror she caused Martin.

Exhausted, aching, and still riding the tail end of fear and adrenaline, Martin sits across from Jon at his desk where it all began and gets the whole, harrowing experience down on tape, tells Jon everything he missed from the moment they got separated in the tunnels. 

The tape recorder clicks off, and Jon sighs, slumping back in his seat like all his strings have been cut. 

Martin watches him, with those deep shadows under his eyes, stark white bandages harsh and sterile against soft brown skin. Martin wonders how much pain he’s in, how tired he must be. He looks like the day has aged him about a decade, and Martin just wants to take him and hide him away somewhere nothing bad can ever happen to him again.

“So,” Jon says, weary and hoarse, dropping his hands into his lap.

“So,” Martin repeats.

Jon sucks in a slow breath, lets it out in a sharp huff. “Um. Prentiss is gone now.”

Martin nods. “She is.”

“We’re… We’re safe.”

Another nod, slower this time. “From the worms, at least.”

Jon looks away, taps his fingers against the cold plastic of the tape recorder. “I-I guess… I guess that means. Y-you don’t really need a place to lay low anymore.”

“Wh— oh.” And here Martin thought he was all tapped out, that he didn’t have the energy left in him to panic, but the sharp spike of… Something that pangs through him is so frightening it almost chokes him. “Oh, uh. Y-yeah, I-I guess… I guess I don’t.”

There’s a moment where neither of them speak. It’s so quiet, it feels like the room itself has stopped, somehow.

The whole Archives are… waiting.

Martin clears his throat. “Do, do you want me to—” His voice breaks— “Do you want me to go?”

Jon purses his lips. “Do you want to go, Martin?”

Martin shuts his eyes, flexes his fingers. Every second that goes by just amps his nerves up more. “Can you never just… give me a straight answer?”

“I— I just want to know what you’re thinking,” Jon all but pleads.

Martin sags into his seat. He has to swallow against the lump in his throat twice before he manages to find his voice. “Do I really need to say it?”

“I… I’d like it if you did.”

Martin bites the inside of his lip, takes a deep breath in, lets it out in a shaky rush. “Of course I don’t want to go, Jon. Of course I don’t! But, but it’s not really up to me, is it? It’s your house, if you want me to leave, that’s your choice. I-I—” And now that he’s started it’s like he can’t stop. “Obviously I want to stay. I— I really want to stay, it’s. I’ve n-never, never really. I haven’t ever felt at home anywhere like I do with you. I don’t even want to think about, about going off and living in some other dingy little flat all by myself again. I—” He has to choke out the last few words. “I don’t want to go.”

There’s silence. When he opens his eyes, Jon is staring back, dark brown eyes boring right into him, lips slightly parted.

“Okay,” Martin croaks, “your turn.”

Jon blinks, and then he’s out of his seat, crossing around the desk. Without warning, he’s standing right in front of Martin, tugging him up by his hands and holding onto them. “Stay,” he says, “please. Stay with me.”

“Oh.” What feels like a ton of tension leaves Martin in a rush. He slumps forward, a star in a decaying orbit around Jon’s gravity, their foreheads almost touching. “Oh.”

“I don’t want you to leave, either,” Jon tells him.

“You don’t.”

“Of course I don’t.”

Martin nods, as much as he can without bumping Jon’s head. “So… I stay.”

“So you stay,” Jon agrees.

In that moment, Martin thinks he finally understands exactly what it means to feel dizzy with relief. “Oh, god,” Martin breathes. “Jon. Jon, I—” He cuts himself off abruptly, any courage built up from surviving Prentiss a second time abandoning him.

But then Jon looks up at him, and his eyes are so open, gentle vulnerability written plain as anything over every inch of his face. “Martin?”

“Can I… um,” he starts, hesitant, “can I tell you something, and if I do, can you promise not to—n-not to hate me?”

Jon’s face flashes with too many things too quickly for Martin to classify any of them, and he gives a sharp, decisive nod. “Yes. I promise.”

Martin takes a deep, fortifying breath. He leans back out of Jon’s space, but Jon just grips his hands tighter, so he doesn’t go very far. He feels very small when he finally tells Jon, “I love you.”

There’s an endless second of buzzing silence, and then:

“Oh.” Jon huffs a desperate laugh, shuts his eyes, shoulders slumping. “Christ, I thought you were going to tell me something bad.”

“I thought—” Martin looks down at the floor. “... It could’ve been.”

“Oh, Martin,” Jon breathes. He brings their joined hands up to his chest, holds them close over his sternum, his heart. “I love you too.”

“You do?”

Jon’s smiling now. Covered in bandages, exhaustion draped over him like a physical thing, he still manages to smile, and it still makes him look beautiful. “God help me, I really do.”

Martin opens his mouth, but he doesn’t think he has the words for this. He isn't sure the words for this exist in any kind of order that would be anywhere near meaningful enough for what he wants to say.

Maybe this isn’t a situation that needs words.

So, Martin does something he’s thought about doing everyday for weeks— maybe months, even— and leans down to kiss Jon.

There’s a moment of awkward stillness, and then Jon tilts his head, and Martin slips his hand up to cup Jon’s cheek, and then they’re kissing. Like really, actually kissing, deep and real and a little desperate. 

There are probably better ways to have your first kiss with someone, but Jon is right here, he’s alive, and he loves Martin too, so Martin can’t really imagine one right now.

At some point, Jon’s hands wind up balled up in the fabric of Martin’s ruddy shirt, and Martin’s other hand slips up into Jon’s hair with the intention of pulling him even closer — except that when he tries, he can feel Jon tense up under his touch. 

Panicked, Martin pulls away, breathing hard, blinking wide eyes down at Jon. “Oh, oh, god. Sorry— Should I, should I not have—”

“No, no, that’s not it,” Jon assures him, with a smile that spells nothing but giddy relief. “You definitely should have. Just, ah. The painkillers have started to wear off, so it’s—”

“Shit.” Martin steps back, covers his mouth with his hand. “Right. Shit. Okay, c’mon, we should—” His hands flutter awkwardly around Jon's shoulder, afraid to touch. “Er, let’s get out of here, okay? Y-you need— you should rest.”

“I… would be amenable to that.”

“Really?”

Jon huffs, stands on his toes to kiss Martin once, then twice, before rocking back down onto the flats of his feet. “Yes.”

Martin can tell he’s smiling, can’t make himself stop, dizzy and exhausted as he is. “Wow, okay. If that’s all it takes to pull you away from this place, maybe I should’ve tried it awhile ago.”

“I would not have protested that.”

“Right.” Martin’s voice is definitely a little squeakier than normal, and he feels a little breathless, but oh well. “Right. Let’s go home, yeah?”

Jon nods, which makes him wince again, and slips his hand right back into Martin’s. “Yes,” he agrees, “let’s go home.”

—

So they do.

They go home, together — finally, in all the ways Martin’s not dared to let himself think he might actually get. Jon lets Martin hold his hand the whole way back, and that night, when Jon wraps his arms around Martin in the bed they share, it’s on purpose. The next morning, when Martin wakes up, instead of untangling himself and slipping quietly out of bed, cold and alone, he finally, finally gets to reach out and hold him back without worry.

Chapter Text

Jon sits at the kitchen table, lazily scrolling through his laptop, swaying gently from side to side to keep his brain occupied. There’s a cup of tea at his elbow, but it’s long gone cold by the time he actually remembers it enough to take a drink. Not that that’s such a tragedy; ever since he met Martin, it’s just not as good when he makes it for himself.

Staying at home while Martin goes into work every day has been… Well, challenging would be putting mildly.

At first, it had been a nightmare. All Jon had really had the energy to do was mope around the flat, trying his best to nap until he could take his next dose of pain medication so the itching and the aching wouldn't overwhelm him.

When the pain started getting better, and Jon started physical therapy, that’s when the restlessness really kicked in. There’s a dead woman rotting under his office and he can’t do anything about it. How’s he just supposed to sit around his boring, cramped little flat all day when Martin’s not even here with him?

He’d been given six weeks paid medical leave. He’d first started trying to go back around week four, but Martin has made it absolutely clear that will not be happening. Even though Jon secretly delights at the idea of Martin making good on his threats to bodily pick Jon up and carry him back home, he doesn’t quite think that’s a productive use of either of their time. (And he's kind of convinced he'll embarrass himself something fierce if he ever finds out what it's like to be carried by Martin Blackwood.) So he reluctantly watches Martin leave every morning, and tries not to drive himself mad before he gets home at night.

He can go back next Monday, and he just hopes he’ll be able to keep himself going until then.

It’s nearly 6:00 by the time Jon finally hears keys in the front door. His head snaps up, just in time for Martin to call, “Hey, sorry I’m late. Delays on the tube, you know how it is.”

In spite of everything, Jon smiles. No matter how much nervous energy builds up throughout the day, just the sound of Martin’s voice sends a soothing balm through his chest, warmth building up and bursting in a way that calms the incessant pins and needles under his skin.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jon calls, scratching absently at one of the shiny, moon-shaped scars on his cheek. “I’m in the kitchen.”

Footsteps getting closer.

“Hi.” Martin pulls Jon’s hand away from his face and presses a kiss to the top of his head in the same motion. “Don’t scratch. You’ll open them back up again.”

Jon hums. He turns, and snags Martin by the collar before he can withdraw, pulling him back down into a proper kiss. Martin makes a delightful little squeaky sound before he sinks into it. When he pulls back, he’s smiling. Jon’s unsurprised to find himself smiling back.

“Hi,” Jon answers. “Have a good day?”

“Was alright.” Martin shrugs. “Bit boring without you there now the police have mostly left us alone, but... Well, boring’s good, I figure.”

Jon huffs. “Yes. Given what passes for excitement around there, I’ll take boring any day.”

“Exactly,” Martin agrees. He spies the half-drunk tea cup, picks it up, makes a face. “Aw, it’s cold.”

“I like it better when you make it,” Jon tells him. “Just not the same this way.”

Martin rolls his eyes, but the flush of pink in his cheeks tells Jon he’s pleased. “It’s all the love I put in.”

Jon's fairly certain Martin puts extra sugar in the cups he makes for Jon. Jon never lets himself indulge like that when he’s making tea for himself, but somehow Martin had figured out that he liked it like that, anyway. And maybe that really is love, right there: figuring out the little things that make someone happy, and going out of your way to do them everyday.

“Hm, yes." Jon nods. "That must be it.”

Martin beams. “Well, gimme a minute and I’ll make us both a fresh cup, yeah?”

Jon leans up to steal another quick kiss. “That would be nice.”

Martin squeezes his hand. “Be right back, then.”

Jon misses the heat of it the second his hand slips free, even in summer in his un-air conditioned flat. He can’t stop a wistful sigh from slipping out as he turns back to his laptop, scrolling idly with his face in his hand until Martin comes back out from the bedroom in his cute striped pajama shorts and a big T-shirt.

He slips past Jon into the kitchen, and Jon watches him until his neck starts aching with the angle and he has to look back at the table in front of him. The sound of Martin bustling around the kitchen, getting everything ready for tea, is soothing in its own right.

“Oh, Tim and Sasha say they miss you,” Martin tells him. “Not the same without you there.”

Jon snorts. “We-eell, I could always come back…”

“No,” Martin snaps sharply, “absolutely not. Six weeks, the doctor said. Not a second sooner.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Jon waves his hand, rolls his eyes fondly. “I recall.”

“Good,” Martin says. “It will be nice to have you back, though. Tim and Sasha have been all…"

He trails off vaguely, and Jon hums to get him to go on.

"Y'know. Couple-y.”

“Have they?”

“Yeah! I mean, I-I’m happy for them, obviously, but…”

Jon twists in his chair, looks back at Martin, finds his eyes already on him. “What, getting jealous? Did you want to be the one getting couple-y in the office?”

Martin’s eyes snap away, shoulders hunching up to his ears. Jon smiles. “Ah, m-maybe not... In the office? But, it, uh. It does make me... miss you.” His voice gets smaller and smaller as he talks, and Jon’s about a second from getting up out of his chair so he can pull Martin into his arms and kiss him senseless when Martin cuts his thoughts off. “Anyway.” He huffs, shakes his head. “How was PT today?”

Jon grimaces, makes a vague grunting sound, turns back around and looks at his hands.

“Jon,” Martin says, “you did go, didn’t you?”

Jon sighs. “Yes, Martin, I went. It was tedious and dull and I’m fairly certain my physical therapist thinks I’m a prick, but I went.”

And that earns him one of Martin’s soft, fond smiles, so maybe it was worth it after all. “Glad to hear it.”

A moment later, a mug appears by his elbow, and when he looks back up Martin is settling into the other chair.

Jon picks up Martin’s hand, kisses his knuckles. He slips his fingers between Martin’s and lays their joined hands back down on the table. “Just to be clear, I miss you when you’re at work, too.”

“Oh.” Martin ducks his head, bites his bottom lip against the shy smile blossoming there.

Jon thinks he could spend hours admiring what happiness looks like on Martin Blackwood, but— “Ah! Before I forget, I have flats to show you.”

“Yeah?” Martin says, perking up. “Anything good?”

Jon nods, excited. Maybe it’s a little fast to move in together. They’ve only been properly dating for a handful of weeks now. But Jon’s lease is up next month, and Martin hasn’t said anything about rushing, or slowing down, so Jon’s not about to either. Nearly being killed by a hoard of paranormal flesh-eating worms will make you reevaluate things. Jon almost died before he even got the chance to have any of this, so now that it’s right here, his to hold onto, he’s not going to waste any more time.

He clicks around the tabs on his laptop until he finds the one he’s looking for. “See, there’s this one—” He scrolls through pictures of the listing, showing Martin the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom. “It’s a bit further from the Institute, so our commute would be longer, but it’s cheaper than anything around here would be, and it’s got a second bedroom.”

“Aw.” Martin gives him a put-upon pout. “Don’t tell me you’re kicking me out of bed now.”

Jon just scoffs and flaps his free hand in Martin’s direction. He won’t even dignify that with a teasing response. “We could be like proper adults,” he says, “with a-a home office, or a spare room, or something.”

“Ooh,” Martin hums appreciatively. “That does sound nice. Fancy.”

Jon nods, clicks between tabs one after the other. He takes Martin through all the options he has pulled up, walks him through them like some kind of stammering, blushy realtor.

“This one’s only the one bedroom, but it has these lovely, big windows…” He shows Martin the photos of the living room, all the natural light that even he’d been stunned by when he first saw it.

Martin whistles appreciatively. "Pretty."

“Yeah. ... And," he adds surreptitiously, "it’s cat-friendly."

“Cat-friendly, huh?” Martin pokes him in the side, and Jon squirms and swats his hand away. “What happened to not inflicting your very busy, important Archivist schedule on some poor animal?”

“Yes, well…” Jon shrugs, looks down at his keyboard. A couple of months ago, tearing himself away from the Institute did feel near impossible. Even now, after the Gertrude situation, knowing that the painfully observed air of the Archives would only leave him feeling unsafe at every turn, there’s a part of him that finds the thought intolerable. But there’s something else in his life, now, that feels infinitely more important. “It’s not just me anymore, is it? I-I-I, um. That is, we, we’re both here, and. With you, it’s, um. I like coming home with you. B-being here with you.”

There’s a few seconds of silence, and then Martin tugs on Jon’s hand. When Jon looks back up at him, Martin ducks in and steals another kiss, soft but lingering.

“I, um. Yeah, I like being here with you, too,” Martin tells him when he pulls back, leaving Jon to smile up at him, soft and dazed. “But I do think we’ve got a long way to go before we talk about bringing pets into the household.”

“Alright, fair enough,” Jon grants him. “Any you’re particularly partial to, then?”

“The first one was good,” Martin says, “And that third one. Oh, and I liked the one with the, uh, the windows.”

“The cat-friendly one?”

“Yes, Jon, that cat-friendly one.” Martin huffs. “I… Er, I’ve always thought windows like that would be nice. I-I…” He looks away, briefly, and when he looks back, Jon lifts his eyebrows encouragingly. A silent, yes, please go on? “When I was a teenager I kind of. Fantasized about, like, living in a house with those big, fancy windows you always see in movies and stuff, so I could sit and read and write there.”

Jon silently moves the flat with the big windows in the front room to the top of his list, vows to do everything he can to make it happen for them, even if it means… blackmailing the landlord or biting other potential renters to scare them off. “Why don’t I send out some emails, then? Set up some viewings?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” Martin says, “that’d be great.”

“I don’t mind,” Jon tells him. “Christ, it’ll be nice just to have something to do for once.”

Martin giggles. “Oh, so now you’re raring to talk to some landlords, huh?”

Jon rolls his eyes fondly. “If it’ll get me out of this damned flat for longer than a trip down to the Tesco Express? Yes.”

Martin hums, and his eyebrows knit together. “And you’re sure you’re up for it?”

“Yes, Martin,” Jon says, “my physical therapist says it’s good for me to get out and about more often. A few apartment viewings aren’t going to kill me. The walking will do me good.”

“Okay.” Martin nods. “Right, yeah. I just… Worry.”

“I know. It’s very cute.” Jon smiles at Martin’s flush. “But I’m doing much better lately.”

Another nod. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay. So, we’re going to the, er, the one with the windows—”

“And the cats—”

“And the possibility of cats. And that one with the nice floors, and the first one with the second bedroom.”

“Yes,” Jon agrees.

“Any others?” Martin asks. “Any you’re particularly fond of?”

Jon shrugs. “I like them all. I’m not picky.”

Martin’s smile morphs into something unspeakably tender. “Guess it’ll just be nice to have somewhere that’s ours.”

“Ours. Yeah,” Jon murmurs, with an answering rush of adoration.

“Shame to leave here right after we finally got the buzzer fixed, though,” Martin jokes, looking away to break the tension.

Jon snorts. “You and your buzzer.”

“What? I spent a lot of time and effort getting that thing working again.”

“Technically, you just made phone calls,” Jon points out. “The handyman did the actual repair work.”

“Just made phone calls. Would you rather I leave those calls to you next time?”

Jon opens his mouth, but finds no reply— witty or flirty or otherwise— forthcoming. The way he slowly shuts it again with a wry hum obviously says enough, if Martin’s answering look is anything to go by.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jon says, shoving at Martin’s shoulder with all the malice of an eight-week-old kitten. “Gloat away.”

“Thanks,” Martin chirps, “I think I will.”

“Has anyone ever told you smugness is not your most attractive quality?” Jon asks pointedly.

“But it is up there.” Martin raises his eyebrows in challenge.

He isn’t wrong, and he knows it, because he’s cheeky enough to know by now that Jon thinks just about everything about him is attractive. “You have a very unfair advantage,” Jon informs him, “looking like—” He waves his free hand vaguely in Martin’s direction— “that.”

“Oh, c’mon.” Martin rolls his eyes, giving Jon the same gesture right back. “Look who’s talking.”

Oh, right. Sometimes Jon forgets Martin thinks he’s attractive, too. That this — the loving, the wanting, the actual, genuine desire to be around him — goes both ways. Martin feels it, too.

“What’s that look for?” Martin asks, head tilting questioningly.

“Hm? Oh.” Jon finally notices the way his whole face has gone soft around the edges; the giddy, lovesick smile, crinkling his eyes around the corners. The answer comes easy as breathing: “I love you.”

And, yeah, Jon does absolutely think Martin’s cute when he’s being cocky, but the startled, vulnerable tenderness that washes over him is also downright beautiful.

“I love you, too,” he says, quiet and awed.

Jon thinks Martin might forget sometimes, too, that all of this is reciprocal. 

(They’ve talked about it, by now. The weeks they spent confused and afraid and a little bit sad, individual insecurities bogging them down and keeping them apart. Sometimes Jon aches, thinking how all the time he spent feeling lonely and sorry for himself, Martin was feeling the same, hurting quietly right alongside him. But that’s just all the more reason not to waste any time, right?)

“Ugh.” Dramatically, Martin leans out of his chair and flops forward, lets his head fall onto Jon’s shoulder. “You, you're just— You’re so—”

“Yes?”

Jon can feel the fluttering warmth of Martin’s sigh on his collarbone. “Just— I— I dunno. I guess I’m just… really glad you let me stay here.”

Jon slips his arm around Martin’s broad, sloping shoulders, threads his fingers into his hair. He turns to leave a gentle kiss to Martin’s temple, smiling against the crown of his head. “Me, too,” he tells him softly. “And I’m glad you were too stubborn to let me sleep on the sofa.”

Martin laughs, pulls himself up off Jon’s shoulder so he can shake his head affectionately. “And I’m glad you clung to me like a baby koala every night.”

Jon’s grimaces. “Still can’t believe you didn’t say anything about that.”

Martin snorts. “Yeah, right. What was I gonna say? ‘Hey, by the way, man I’m stupidly attracted to, who also happens to be my boss, did you know you cuddle in your sleep?’”

“Point taken,” Jon acquiesces. “I… might not have reacted very well to that.”

“If it helps, I much prefer the on-purpose spooning.”

“Hm. That does help, actually.”

That earns him another laugh, charming and sweet. “Besides,” Martin says, “I… I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want you to, to kick me out, or anything.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Jon tells him, fervent in his conviction, even all the way back then. “I might have been more stern in my decision to sleep on the couch, but I wouldn’t have made you leave.”

Martin sighs in a way Jon wants to call fond. “No, you wouldn’t have, would you?”

“No.”

“You’re way too sweet for that,” Martin goes on, “I just didn’t realize that at the time.”

Okay, yeah, Jon’s definitely blushing now. “I-I wouldn’t use the word sweet.”

“Oh, I would.”

“Of course you would—”

“Also kind, and silly, and adorable—”

“Hey! I take issue with that. How am I adorable?”

Martin grins. “Even the way you said that was adorable, Jon!”

Jon scoffs. “You’re biased.”

“And you’re adorable. And your tea’s getting cold again,” Martin points out.

Jon swears, practically lurches forward to retrieve his forgotten mug from the table. It’s still warm when he takes a sip; just on the verge, but pleasant and salvageable.

Martin laughs, quietly, and lays his hand lightly between Jon’s shoulder blades, thumb tracing feather-light strokes up and down against Jon’s spine. He relaxes back in his seat, pulling the mug closer and cradling it in both his hands with a pleased sigh, hiding his smile in another sip of tea and leaning back into Martin’s touch. 

Right here, right now, he feels more content than he can remember feeling in… longer than he cares to admit, really.

In the end, it won’t matter where they end up. Anywhere will be okay as long it’s them, together, in this home that they’ve built with each other.