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One thing Martin didn’t know about the Institute until three and a half weeks ago is that it’s got fucking bathtubs.
It’s apparently a holdover from Jonah Magnus, who—was ostensibly simply not willing to put up with the reality of waiting till he got home to have access to a bathtub. Because—Martin can only assume—he was some weird kind of sex freak.
Since, you know, clawfoot bathtubs are exclusively for weird sex freaks. Famously.
Anyway, the only reason he discovered they exist is because a bit of paperwork crossed Elias’s-therefore-Peter’s-therefore-Martin’s desk. Maintenance request, for the first floor bathtub.
“The bloody first floor what?” Martin had asked his empty office, then immediately taken a few very deep breaths. Just like pretty much every work problem these days, his options were essentially limited to asking Peter for help and getting someone evanesced for his insolence, or figuring it out for himself.
Nobody needed to get flung into the fucking mirror dimension because Martin was only just discovering the apparently antique Institute bathtub or tubs.
Because there are four, as it happens. One on the ground floor, one on the first storey, two on the second.
Martin ended up arranging for a plumber to come for a whole week, partly so the bloke could give all four a bit of a once over, and partly because he’s been getting pretty good at the whole spending other people’s money with impunity thing.
So by today, the bloke’s been and gone—had a couple of scheduling conflicts, which Martin increasingly began to suspect was because the guy had finally got around to googling the Institute and was getting cold feet—and Martin’s a bit curious. He doesn’t want to take a bath at work, obviously—unprofessionalism aside, he hates taking his binder off in the Institute, since it tends to remind him of document storage, which reminds him of Jon, which is messier than ever to even consider making sense of.
Especially since he’s apparently opted for the suicide-by-weird-coffin option, but that doesn’t change as much as one might think it would.
His feelings didn’t exactly go away in the six entire months he was dead last time it happened.
Then again, it apparently tends not to be the typical amount of permanent, when it’s Jon.
Regardless, though, he’s often at loose ends for a couple of hours, because even though the Institute runs less like a well-oiled machine and more like a decaying corpse down a hill, it’s got enough momentum that at least once a week he finds himself with legitimately nothing to do. So, on this occasion, he may as well go look at bathtubs.
Of course he doesn’t think to knock. Technically, there’s a form people can fill out to book time in each of the rooms, and—kind of shockingly—they’re open to anybody.
Whoever thinks Jonah Magnus was a questionable guy clearly just hasn’t heard of his open-bathroom-door policy.
It’s only open in the proverbial sense, though, and because Martin doesn’t knock, that’s how he ends up standing in the doorway, his hand still on the knob, light from the corridor flooding into the room only otherwise lit by a single candle, like someone had planned out mood lighting but gotten bored as soon as it came time to put the plan into action.
In the low light, he doesn’t really register what he sees at first. His assumption is he’s walked in on some kind of Buried bullshit, which—to be fair to him—is technically what it is, but he’s much more distracted by the fact that its subject is cowering, wide-eyed and cornered in the sludgy water, like a stray cat several weeks from its last meal.
“Jon,” Martin says, before he even realises it consciously, then immediately lifts his glasses so he can put his face in his hands and exhale as smoothly as his suddenly vibrating nervous system will let him.
Jesus fucking Christ.
There’s the sound of movement in the water, and Martin squeezes his face harder in his hands.
“Sorry,” says a voice so small and timid that Martin is only mostly sure of who it belongs to. “I—sorry.”
He’s half-expecting a stammered, badly-constructed explanation for what, exactly, Jon is doing caked in a half-inch of filth in the two-hundred year old bathtub that’s only been in working order for less than a day, and when it doesn’t come, Martin starts feeling—concerned.
Jon would never—especially lately—pass up an opportunity to talk at Martin like he’s some kind of sounding-board, like he’s still his assistant and therefore captive audience, like—like they’re still friends.
But Jon doesn’t say anything more. When Martin gathers the audacity to look up at him between his parted fingers, Jon isn’t even looking in his direction. He’s staring into the flame of the candle, flickering violently in the draught from the open doorway.
Martin lets one hand fall limply to his side, using the other to pinch the bridge of his nose as a burgeoning tension headache begins to slowly bloom behind his eyes.
“Y- um—are you—are you okay?” he says, not daring to try to meet Jon’s gaze.
Jon lets out a weak, tremulous little wheeze that is probably his attempt at sardonic laughter, then presses one grimy hand to his mouth for long enough that Martin’s fairly certain he’s fighting back tears, which is—not great. Both in the sense that he’s unhappy Jon’s unhappy, and in the sense that he is physically incapable of turning around and walking out, much as that is the only course of action that will save either of them from Dire Fucking Consequences.
Unfortunately for the both of them, he can’t fucking do it.
“Mm,” Jon finally manages, but when he looks in Martin’s direction, his eyes are glassy and red. “I- I’ll be fine.” He curls his mouth upwards in what must be the fakest smile Martin’s ever seen. “Thank you.”
Martin’s going to puke.
Stomach roiling, he sighs, then closes the door as quietly as he can. He doesn’t bother trying to find a light switch, since Jon’s probably got the candle because it’s all he can bear at the minute. Instead, he begins to walk over to the bathtub, pausing halfway when he kicks something wet and yielding on the floor.
He shudders, but when he bends, it’s Jon’s shirt, which might have distant, halcyon memories of being any other colour than malaise-brown. It’s heavy with a stinking, clinging mud that Martin is simply not going to think about too deeply; instead he lays the shirt out flat on the floor out of the path between the tub and the door, to be dealt with—or, you know, ritually burned, whatever—later.
Squinting in the darkness, he picks his way a bit more carefully across the floor, kneeling when he gets to the tub with a grunt. Jon has drawn his knees to his chest, his back pressed completely against the far side of the bathtub. Where he’s touched the faded, bone-yellow porcelain there are horrid grey clumps of filth, and the water is opaque and viscous.
“Look at the state of you,” Martin says, and he doesn’t mean it unkindly, but Jon bows his head like he’s ashamed anyway. To call his hair unruly would be vastly understating it. At the scalp there’s thick, dry dirt that has set most of his hair into heavy-looking tangled mats, and with all the grey already in his hair, it’s kind of hard to tell the difference.
“Tied it up,” Jon murmurs defensively. “But the- the elastic snapped, and I—”
Martin makes a dismissive little sound, a short, sharp ‘mm’ that makes Jon immediately trail off into silence, his eyes owlish and unblinking as he stares, head still bowed.
“Have you even got a comb or something?” Martin says, his voice much steadier than he actually feels.
Jon nods vaguely, turning to retrieve a rat-tail comb and a bottle of Superdrug branded conditioner. ‘Fruity’, it says in cheery block letters, because the universe is taking the fucking piss today.
“Basira brought this back for me,” Jon says, his voice all croaky. “She didn’t have to.”
Martin isn’t entirely sure what he’s meant to say to that, because clearly Basira didn’t try or offer to help, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t think that was inconsiderate.
“Got any in there yet?” Martin says, shooting for disinterested, but William Tell he isn’t.
“No,” Jon says, pausing to clear his throat. “Considering shaving it, to be honest.”
Martin frowns, his life flashing before his eyes, but frankly, Peter can go fuck himself if he thinks Martin has either the strength or the desire to not intervene in this situation.
Sighing, he leans back and shucks off his jacket, balling it up and placing it on the floor next to him.
“Here,” he says, holding his hand out for the bottle, but Jon finally lifts his chin to a ninety-degree angle.
“You can’t,” he says, but it almost sounds petulant.
“What?”
Jon inhales shakily, the corners of his mouth quivering. “I- I’m sure you’ve got—more important things to be doing.”
“No,” Martin says sharply, flexing the fingers of his outstretched hand for emphasis. “Give it.”
Jon’s chin, apparently exhausted from the exertion, sinks back down.
“I don’t—want you—getting in trouble for my sake,” he says, his voice trembling.
“What, is that only okay when it’s you doing it?”
Jon’s eyes widen slightly, his grip tightening on the bottle.
Martin rolls his eyes and focuses on carefully folding up his sleeves.
“I’m not going to get—y’know, disappeared, or- or whatever,” he says, and his voice is only so confident because it’s technically the truth. Peter definitely wouldn’t do that to him. Whatever he’d do to Martin specifically would be much worse.
“Promise,” Jon says, but it doesn’t really sound like a question, and there’s nowhere near enough assertiveness for it to sound like a command.
“Yeah.” Martin blinks, shrugging nonchalantly. “Sure.”
Timidly, Jon holds out the bottle and the comb.
“Should run some more water,” Martin continues absently. “Just had a plumber in, so.”
“Why?” Jon asks, and Martin pauses, uncertain of which bit he’s asking about.
“Um,” he begins, absently shaking the bottle. “‘Cause apparently Noah from the library actually uses the first-floor one.”
Jon blinks.
“And, also, look.” He gestures vaguely towards the mucky water. “That’s not cleaning anything.”
The hard surface of Jon’s mud-crusted beard cracks as he chews on his lower lip.
“Already tried,” he admits, “Keeps happening.”
Martin places the bottle next to his jacket on the floor, getting laboriously to his feet.
“Well!” he says. “Guess we’d better try again.”
Naturally, seeing Jon naked is not exactly something he’s mentally prepared for right at the minute.
“I’m- I’ve got a better comb for this in my office.”
“Oh.”
Jon’s eyes brim with tears suddenly, but he seems to be going to some effort not to acknowledge it.
“Okay,” he says. “Mm- thanks.”
“Yeah.”
Martin rushes, mostly because he’s a bit scared to leave Jon on his own in that kind of state, but also because he’ll probably drop dead if Peter elects to intercept him right now, so he’s simply got to minimise the possibility.
In the first and possibly only blessing in Martin-isn’t-sure-how-long, he makes it back to the bathroom in one piece, where Jon is once again huddled at one end of the bathtub, arms wrapped around his knees. The water is still filthy, but the texture doesn’t resemble the kind of soup Mum got in care, so that’s got to be some sort of improvement.
Jon stares up at him, his eyes full of unguarded shock, mouth curling upwards in what must be disbelief.
Martin closes his eyes and takes a slow, bracing breath, because this man is a fucking abandoned puppy.
“Didn’t think you’d make it back,” Jon says, voice trembling, and Martin hears the comb in his hands creaking as his grip tightens around it.
Without replying, he crosses back to the bathtub and kneels again.
“You’ll need to wet it,” he says as crisply as he can, which is pretty bloody pointless, because there is no way to argue that he’s doing this for any reason other than the fact that he’s fucking gay.
Silently, Jon turns his head, attempting to dip some of the lengths in the water, but it’s all so tangled that there aren’t really any lengths right now.
Martin bites the inside of his cheek.
“Hold on,” he says, voice hardly above a whisper. Jon gives him the same vacant, hollow look, still not speaking. Hands trembling, Martin puts the comb on top of his jacket and leans forward as far as he can, stretching one arm cautiously around Jon’s shoulders and gripping his upper arm on the opposite side.
Jon can probably feel his heart hammering—no, actually, bludgeoning—but—in his defence—even though it’s not like he’s never touched Jon before, he has always been wearing at least most of his clothes in the past, so.
This is a bit different.
“Just lean back, okay?” Martin says, and suddenly the low light isn’t quite as much of a problem, given that his face is probably fucking glowing from how hard he’s blushing. “I’ve got you.”
Jon exhales slowly, his eyes finally closing for the first time today. Martin categorically doesn’t stare down at him for a long moment, because that would be even stupider than everything else he’s done in the last half hour or so, and when he woke up this morning, he was in possession of at least three brain cells.
Awkwardly, with his free hand, Martin manages to sort of submerge the stiff, gritty mass of Jon’s hair in the water, which—supernaturally quickly—turns to sludge again.
“For shit’s sake,” he mutters to himself, and Jon’s eyes slide open, but he looks markedly less tense than two minutes ago.
“Hm?” he goes, and Martin feels the tension that’s been in permanent residence at the top of his spine for, like, eight months abate a little bit in response.
Peter’s going to fucking eat his liver for breakfast tomorrow.
C’est la fucking vie.
“Might need to rinse it under running water, I think.”
“Mm? Oh.”
Jon looks pretty put-out, but he doesn’t make any attempt to sit up, which frankly makes standing back up much harder.
Mostly psychologically.
When Martin does get back on his feet, Jon stares at him, almost hungrily, as he goes to the other side of the bathtub to inspect the tap. It’s got two handles, one for hot, one for cold, which is better than two separate taps, at least.
“Can you sit with your head forward for a few minutes, do you think?”
Jon nods, his focus unrelenting.
“It won’t hurt?”
He shrugs. “No more than anything else.”
Oh, right.
This is why Martin keeps committing himself to laying his life down for this sad little man.
Someone’s got to. God knows he won’t do it for himself.
“Okay,” he says. “Just let me know if you need a break.”
“Mm.”
Obediently, Jon scoots forward so he can bow his head low enough that it’s under the mouth of the tap, reaching with one hand to pull out the plug. As the sludge drains out, the ghastly slurping does something weird to Martin’s brain, or ears, or—soul, and he hears, just for a moment, the faintest sound of singing.
Great.
Even the fucking mud is haunted.
“Warm enough?” he asks, when the water is flowing at least mostly-clear. Probably not the plumber’s fault that it’s got a weird, rusty tint to it.
“Lovely,” Jon murmurs, and there is certainly no corresponding rush of tenderness behind Martin’s sternum, thank you very bloody much.
It takes probably twenty minutes for the water to stop turning instantly to that same stinking, greasy sludge. Of course, because there’s no justice in the world, getting the majority of the filth out of the hair makes the mats worse, until there’s kind of just one solid mass.
Christ.
“Right,” Martin breathes, carefully supporting the weight as he coaxes Jon to sit up. “Head up.”
He frowns as Jon tips his head back, stretching his neck with a groan.
“Beard might not be salvageable,” Martin mumbles, and Jon blinks a few times, raking his fingers through the unkempt, ragged hair on his cheeks and smiling so shyly that Martin has to exert physical effort not to bend down and kiss him.
“Might look younger than fifty until it grows back,” Jon says, and actually sounds like himself. “How novel.”
Martin worries the inside of his lip between his teeth, standing to return to the other side of the tub.
“I—really don’t think either of these is going to do much,” he says, kneeling again and scowling down at the combs. Instead, he takes the bottle in one hand, flipping the lid up with his thumb, and squeezing a probably-ridiculous amount into his other palm.
“You should fill it again,” he tells Jon absently. “You’ll freeze.”
Jon, now wearing a more characteristic scowl, pushes the plug back into the hole, then turns the taps in silence. As the water babbles, he resumes his wide-eyed surveillance, admittedly a little bit more sheepishly than before.
“Are you hungry, or something?” Martin asks, spreading the conditioner across both hands, and devoting a lot more focus to it than is probably necessary.
“Mm?” Jon goes, then inhales with realisation. “Oh. That. No, no, sorry, I’m—it—I- I’ve just—I’ve missed—being able to see you.”
Martin’s heart seizes in his chest for long enough that he starts trying to mentally map the route to the closest AED.
“Oh,” he manages, his voice cracking stupidly. Jon purses his lips and looks away, but there’s a light in his eyes Martin hasn’t seen in a really long time. It suits him. Makes him look alive.
“Um. Well,” he continues, pausing to clear his throat as though doing so will erase the crack from both of their memories. “Sorry. ‘Cause you’re going to have to face the other way, so I can—”
Jon nods, cowed, and turns away, turning off the tap as he does. The water is murky and a suspicious shade of beige, but it’s still water.
Progress.
Timidly, he lifts both hands to the mat, then just kind of—presses them to the surface of it, squeezing lightly to distribute the conditioner, but it almost doesn’t yield at all. Eurgh.
Biting his tongue in concentration, he picks two points at random, carefully starting to pull them apart.
“Ow!” Jon yelps, recoiling at exactly the wrong moment, which results in Martin’s hand going with him. Which would be fine and cute and silly if there were any justice in the world, but—as Martin’s already established—there isn’t, so instead all he gets is a face full of dirty bathwater, which makes his glasses filthy, and he can practically feel the stains setting into his clothes already.
“Shit,” Jon says, situating himself back where he was and gripping Martin’s captive wrist in one hand so he can extricate it from the nest on his head with the other. “Sorry.”
“S’fine,” Martin says, shaking his head. “My fault.”
Though Jon’s back is already turned, he holds onto Martin’s wrist until he gently tugs it away for more conditioner, which—for a second—he considers just squirting directly onto Jon’s head, since he’ll probably end up using the whole bottle anyway.
“Ruined your nice clothes,” Jon grumbles.
“If I wore my only good suit to work, that’d be my own stupid fault, too.”
Working more slowly, he actually starts getting somewhere with the mat.
“Hmm. Well—” Jon clears his throat. “In any case. They suit you very well.”
Martin groans. “Is that a fucking joke?”
“What?” Jon replies, sounding genuinely surprised. “I- w- no? Just a—just an observation.”
A second passes.
“Oh,” he goes. “Oh, because—right. I- oh. No. I just—I just thought you’d been dressing very nicely, and I—I thought you should be told.”
“Thanks,” Martin says, and he’s only able to sound so clipped because the alternative is to melt onto the floor like some kind of lovesick candle.
They lapse back into silence for a while as Martin works, intermittently adding another palmful of conditioner, since Jon’s hair appears to be eating it. He makes progress, though. Eventually he manages to comb one section, which is frankly medal-worthy.
“Thank you,” Jon says quietly, when Martin pauses to stretch his shoulders.
“Not finished yet,” he says, grunting as something clicks in his spine. Much better.
“You didn’t have to.”
Martin exhales slowly. “I wasn’t just going to leave you like that.”
Before he can start again, Jon turns to look at him over his shoulder.
“Why now, though?”
Martin blinks, averting his gaze. “What, is this a standing weekly occurrence for you?”
Jon turns away again, and Martin resumes his work.
“I shouldn’t really be doing this,” he says, as though to himself.
“That’s why I said thank you,” Jon says, sounding decidedly petulant again. To be fair, if the bloody Hell Coffin had just spat Martin out like a fly it accidentally inhaled, he’d probably be feeling a bit petulant, too.
“It’s okay. It’s fine. Just—it’s just not—a good time to talk.”
“So I’d gathered.”
“Can you just tip your head back a bit?”
Jon obeys, and it’s mostly absently that Martin pauses the detangling effort to gently scrub at the remaining dirt on his scalp with his fingertips. What he doesn’t anticipate is how Jon’s neck, near-instantly, goes limp like a cooked noodle.
He’s worried for a second that he might have snapped his spine without noticing, but then Jon hums so contentedly it sounds like he might start purring.
So Martin silently tells himself to consider getting his shit back together and shifts his angle slightly, cradling the base of Jon’s skull in one hand, which inhibits his ability to scrub very effectively.
He suspects Jon won’t mind that bit.
“—I tell you something?” Jon says. There was probably meant to be a ‘can’ at the start of it, but from how little his mouth moves as he speaks, he doesn’t seem to be capable of articulating words any more precisely at the minute.
Martin sighs. “Yes. Yeah. What?”
He’s already clenching his jaw in sick anticipation.
“I missed you. Mm- I mean—miss. I miss you.”
And Martin’s just meant to go about his life and not kiss him after his saying that.
Unbloodybelievable.
“I’m here.”
With some effort, Jon opens his eyes, but the peevish look of irritation is significantly blunted by the fact that he looks like he’s just been asleep for a year.
“Yes, now,” he says quietly, then, “Did I—have I done something?”
Martin scoffs. “Other than dying?”
A long, fraught silence passes.
“No,” Martin says tersely. “No, I just—”
He swaps his hands, pausing to stretch the one that’s been supporting Jon’s head against the lip of the tub.
“It’s complicated.”
“I want to fix it.”
Of course he does.
“No, that’s not what I meant. I- I mean the—it’s—we can’t talk about it. I’m not meant to—”
Martin—who’s a fucking moron, by the way—stops abruptly, snapping his mouth shut like that will retract the stupid bloody nonsense he was about to start spouting.
“Meant to what?” says Jon, his eyes more lucid and focused than they have been all day.
“Hm?” Martin goes, returning to detangling. “I didn’t—”
“Tell me what you were going to say.”
It feels like when you’re a kid and you wake up sick and you literally don’t understand what’s going on as the bile floods your mouth.
“I’m—not meant to be speaking to you at all, because Peter told me not to, and it’s hard enough trying to keep you alive as it is, so I’ve been trying not to.”
Jon blinks, apparently suppressing a smile.
“Can you not do that?” Martin hisses. “Some of us have to clean up our own messes.”
Jon’s satisfaction freezes over. “You—you don’t have to help me.”
Yeah, that’s pretty rich.
Martin probably couldn’t stop putting Jon’s safety at the top of his priority list if he wanted to, and even if he could, he doesn’t.
“That’s not what I meant,” he says firmly. “Just—please don’t do the—the creepy—thing. Please.”
Jon nods solemnly—or, at least, sort of tries to, but the current arrangement doesn’t leave him with the widest range of motion.
“I—sorry. Got carried away.”
Martin grunts and proceeds in moody silence, which at least has the benefit of lulling Jon back into semi-consciousness. Eventually, most of the mats are pretty much gone, but there are a few that seem almost to have wrapped themselves into whatever crap is left in there. They’ll be impossible.
When he’s finished, he pauses for a moment, shifting the dead weight of Jon’s head and distributing it more evenly by holding it in both hands. If he couldn’t feel the pulse on the back of Jon’s head against his fingers, he might think he was actually dead, his face slack and free of tension or stress. It’s an entirely new look on him, but it suits him. He looks pretty.
Martin may or may not stay there until the candle starts sputtering, at which point he flinches at the sound, which then apparently startles Jon enough that his eyes open right as the candle goes out.
“S’okay,” Martin whispers, but apparently he needn’t have bothered.
“I know,” Jon replies easily, then, as he lifts his head from Martin’s grasp and stretches, he adds, simply, “Safe.”
Ah, fuck.
Martin would tear someone’s jugular out with his teeth for this man.
He probably wouldn’t even have to ask.
“There were a few I couldn’t untangle,” he says, turning his attention to rolling his sleeves back down. “Might have to cut them.”
As though only just remembering why they’re there, Jon runs his hands through his hair, inhaling sharply.
“I can feel my fingertips,” he says, like that’s some kind of revelation.
“Oh. Um. Good?”
There’s a slosh, then the sound of the water beginning to drain. If it sings this time, Martin doesn’t hear it.
“Usually,” Jon says quietly, “The, um—the knots, or something. Usually they’re pretty numb.”
Martin is one muscle twitch away from wrapping him in his arms and never letting go.
Should probably let him get dressed first.
“I can help,” he says. “With—with the ones that are still there. The- the mats, I mean.”
He feels, rather than sees, Jon’s shy smile. “I’d appreciate the help,” he says. “Do—do you keep scissors on you?”
“Knife,” he says vacantly.
Jon scoffs. “Old habits, mm?”
The first time he met Peter, he’d panicked, and bluffed, and said he had a knife.
He may not yet have used the Leatherman he’s kept in his jacket pocket ever since, but he doesn’t plan on getting caught out a second time.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Something like that.”
It’s only when Jon turns away that Martin realises his eyes have been glowing a low, subtle red, like dying embers.
Maybe there’s a way to articulate it without sounding like an insufferable wanker, but Martin’s not entirely certain what it is.
When Jon turns back, Martin can just make out the light colour of a ratty old towel around his shoulders.
“Basira only left you one?” Martin fairly spits.
Jon sighs. “She was a bit preoccupied with Daisy.”
Martin’s ears pop, his vision going dizzy even in the dark.
“Daisy?” he says. “She was with you?”
“That was the idea in the first place.”
“Yeah, but—”
“You expected me to fail?” Jon asks archly, standing to his feet in the empty bathtub.
Martin isn’t even thinking as he offers his forearm.
“You getting yourself killed isn’t really a stretch.”
Jon places his damp, icy hand on Martin’s arm and steps out, hissing when his feet hit the stone floor.
Fucking stone floors, because Jonah Magnus, the fucking melodramatic prick.
“Well, someone was—looking out for me, as it were, apparently.”
Martin turns to retrieve his jacket, slipping the utility knife out of its pocket and into his trousers, then, wordlessly, offers the jacket to Jon, who takes it.
Me, Martin doesn’t say.
“Everything alright?” Jon says as he puts the jacket around his shoulders, moving the towel to his waist.
“Yeah,” he says, chewing his lip. “Just—just need to—go somewhere else. For your hair.”
“We could go to the ar—”
“Absolutely not.”
Leaving aside the fact that yes, okay, he might have spent a moderately humiliating amount of time over the years occupied with just such a situation as this, he’s not really been back down there since Jared Hopworth and his lot and—
Yeah, no, he’s perfectly happy keeping it that way.
“Oh.”
“Was thinking my office,” Martin says, lowering his voice without being entirely certain why. “But…”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Jon says wryly. “I’m a natural Lukas-repellent.”
Like Martin had needed yet another reason to ache to be around Jon twenty-four hours a day.
“Mm. Do you have more clothes?”
The pause is a bit too long for Martin’s liking.
“No.”
“Mine won’t fit you.” Martin sighs. “Better than nothing, I guess.”
Jon’s eyes shift up and down in the dark as he nods.
Before either of them can say another word—and before Martin loses his nerve—they head out into the corridor, and it’s only in the light that Martin sees Jon’s bruises. Across the visible bits of his chest and neck and face there are angry purple marks, like the coffin was genuinely chewing on him. It’s galling, in a weird way. Doesn’t that stupid box know who it was disrespecting?
They don’t encounter anyone. It’s getting pretty late by now, close to six, and the people who work in this building and have any self-preservation instinct left to speak of are out of here the moment they can be.
It takes all of his restraint not to try to hold Jon’s hand, but he’s a seasoned pro at it by now, anyway. Technically, he’s had a good couple of years of practice.
When they make it to his office, he inspects each of its corners in turn; Peter is hardly the subtle type, but if he can opt for a dick move, he simply will.
He’s not here. Then again, maybe he’s testing Martin right at this instant. Maybe Martin is failing.
Maybe—even more emphatically than before—Peter can go fuck himself.
Jon stands in the doorway, holding the towel up with one hand and the jacket closed with the other. He’s swimming in it, despite Martin being however many inches shorter. He looks frail and tired and like nobody’s been making sure he’s eating, even before the coffin.
“You can sit,” Martin says.
Jon blinks a few times, only stepping inside when he registers what Martin’s said. Like a vampire.
A really unkempt vampire.
Jon perches himself cautiously on Martin’s chair, eyes flitting around uncertainly like he’s expecting some trap to be sprung any second.
“I don’t know how good I can make it look,” Martin says, sighing as he begins rolling his sleeves up again. The shirt is probably irreversibly stained, but it has more of a chance of being salvageable if he doesn’t slash the sleeves up, too.
Shrugging, Jon presses his hands together between his knees.
Martin nods, making his way to stand behind the chair. Automatically—because something stupid and impulsive and incompetent has wormed its way into him today—he reaches out and rakes his fingers through Jon’s still-damp, slippery-with-conditioner hair, gathering it all at the back of his head to survey it. Before he can decide where to start, Jon inhales sharply, lifting the back of one hand to his mouth.
“Shit, sorry,” Martin says, kneeling beside the chair with a frown. “Did I pull or something?”
Jon shakes his head strenuously, eyes bright and red as he continues to gasp noisily behind his hand.
Fuck.
The whole point of Martin’s office, from the first day he got assigned to it, was for it to feel as unwelcoming as possible, so there aren’t—tissues, or anything, because then someone might feel slightly comforted, and before anybody knew it, Peter would just have to stand in the corner all day to immediately dispatch all the solace-seekers. Far too bloody messy.
Instead, hand trembling, Martin uses the pad of his thumb to brush the tears away from Jon’s eyes. The skin underneath is smooth and delicate, like it would tear if he pressed any harder.
Before he has the chance to stand back up, or even put a bit of distance between them, with tears still streaming down his face, Jon grasps his wrist, but so gently it feels like he’s expecting to be shoved away.
Martin’s hand goes limp in his shock.
They stay like that for a moment or two, Jon’s eyes wet and unblinking, but his gaze communicating nothing. It encompasses. Consumes.
His brow furrowing, Jon turns his head, his eyes finally closing as he presses his lips to Martin’s pulse point, which is pretty inconvenient, given that—for, like, the third or fourth time today—his heart is about to explode from his chest like a fucking facehugger.
Sheepishly, Jon puts his hand back in his lap and faces forward.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, at least having the decency to look a bit reproachful at himself.
Martin counts to ten in his head before he stands, taking the knife from his trouser pocket and letting out the blade.
“Tell me if it hurts,” he says vacantly, arranging one of the remaining mats in Jon’s hair between his index and middle fingers to offset the tugging he’s probably about to have to do.
Before he can even start, Jon scoffs.
Martin exhales slowly through his nose. “What’s funny?” he says, beginning to saw as gently as he can through the chunk of trapped hair.
“I think you’re the first person who’s asked that since—mm.”
“Yeah,” Martin breathes. “Well.”
“Then again,” Jon says, far more sardonically than is strictly necessary, “I shouldn’t—be presumptuous. It can’t be that consequential when you’ve got much more to consider.”
Martin at least has the presence of mind to place the knife on the surface of his desk, using the pretence of turning to put the freed mat of hair in the wastepaper basket on the floor.
“Don’t be bloody stupid, Jon.”
The air feels like the moment before a lightning strike.
Jon exhales through his nose, lifting an eyebrow at Martin as he straightens again. “I’ve had to practically ambush you to even attempt any sort of conversation with you since I—since I woke up.”
Martin doesn’t trust his ability to grip the knife with the sweat suddenly breaking out on his palms and the back of his neck.
“I’m busy. You know that.”
“Too busy to talk? Ever?”
Martin flings his glasses to the surface of the desk beside the knife, kneading the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as his eyes begin to throb.
“Yes, Jon.”
There’s no compulsion this time, but the words tumble out as easily as if there had been.
“Running the Institute single-handedly and attempting to keep you alive despite your efforts to the contrary is a lot of work to stay on top of, alright? You certainly don’t seem to be going out of your way to make it any easier.”
Jon’s voice is small, but not in the same way as earlier today. He sounds wounded. “Well. You’re—I- I mean, you should prioritise whatever is—is actually important to you.”
“I am,” Martin barks, bending to retrieve his glasses, then—when he’s taken another deep breath—the knife.
It’s only when he’s sawing through the second mat that he realises what he’s just said, and by that point, he’s not really at liberty to do anything about it.
“Oh,” Jon says at last, with that lilt he sometimes gets when the Eye shoves a new bit of information in his head.
“Hmph,” Martin goes.
“Really?”
Fucking really, he says.
“Are you dense?” Martin mutters.
Jon is quiet for a long, sickening moment.
“When it comes to you,” he says. “Yes. It’s, er, f- um. Feelings. Clouding my judgement, I think.”
Martin’s pretty sure he’s heard of the concept of a bad miracle before, but until right this second he’s never gotten what it means.
“And you’re choosing to tell me this now?”
He bends to chuck another mat in the basket.
“I—yes. I- I wouldn’t want you not to know.”
Martin glares at Jon’s ear as he starts in on the second-last of the remaining mats. Of course, before Jon’s coma he’d felt like little more than an inconvenience, or an afterthought, or at best, a tolerated acquaintance. God forbid he stay in the dark now that thinking Jon felt ambivalent towards him would actively make his life easier.
“So,” Jon continues, “To that end—you deserve to know. I l—”
“You don’t get to do this to me,” Martin snaps. “I loved you like I didn’t even exist and now you want to put this on me like I can just—drop everything else for you.”
Jon is quiet as he discards the mat, at last commencing on the final one.
“I wouldn’t—I don’t want that.”
Martin snorts. “What do you want, then?”
There’s no answer as he finishes, getting rid of the last ruined chunk and folding the blade away. That done, he moves to the book shelf, squatting to pull the carpet bag he keeps his change of clothes in off the bottom one. In silence, he places it on the desk in front of Jon and busies himself with cleaning his glasses with a corner of his shirt that apparently came untucked at some point.
“I just want you to be okay,” Jon says emphatically. “I want you to- I want to see you make it out of here alive.”
Like Martin didn’t take this job in the first place with the expectation it would almost definitely get him killed at some point.
“But it’s okay,” Jon continues. “If- if you don’t—I mean, regardless, I- I just want you to be happy and safe, and I don’t think you’re either of those things.”
When Jon stands to dress himself, Martin instinctively turns his back.
Those eldritch powers of perception are really something.
“I don’t really think that’s on the cards,” Martin says to the door of his office. “Bit late.”
“Maybe,” Jon concedes, his voice sounding much closer than Martin is anticipating, and when he turns, Jon is within arm’s reach, the jacket and towel folded over his forearms, wearing the spare clothes.
He looks like a ringbearer who hit an unexpected growth spurt, the clothes loose and baggy but leaving his ankles and wrists on full display. It’s embarrassing and ridiculous and Martin categorically does not think it’s adorable at all.
“Regardless,” Jon continues, his gaze so affectionate that even Martin is going to struggle to rationalise it away when he’s obsessing over this later. “I- I really can’t thank you enough.”
“Literally don’t mention it,” Martin says briskly. Jon nods, eyes unmoving, as Martin inhales tensely. “‘Cause this—as far as anyone is concerned, this didn’t happen.”
Jon closes his eyes solemnly. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
“Jon,” Martin says, sounding stark even to his own ears. Jon’s eyes open. “I’m serious. This—doesn’t—change anything.”
Jon stares back at him for a long while, eyes narrowing in appraisal, that unpleasant blocked-sinus feeling building the longer it goes on. As Martin frowns back at him, Jon inhales quietly, like he means to speak, one corner of his mouth quirking upwards. Under the intensity of his focus, Martin’s cheeks begin to flush, and the realisation alone heightens his embarrassment, which makes the blushing worse.
It becomes a cycle very quickly.
“I expect not,” Jon says, the smirk still on his face. That’s irritation bubbling up between Martin’s ribs, by the way. “You—you know how I feel. I understand your convictions.”
His eyes are practically glittering.
“And, in the infinitesimally tiny eventuality I’m able to—just as an example, off the top of my head—find a way to leave, I know what your answer would be.”
Martin’s guts fall out his arse in terror as Jon takes one step closer to him, craning his head down until their eyes are level.
“Don’t I?”
All the blood rushes out of Martin’s face. His jaw works uselessly for a moment as Jon’s warm, attentive gaze threatens to swallow him whole.
“Y- um. W- yeah. Yes.”
In silence, Jon gently takes the back of Martin’s hand, extending his arm so he can fold the jacket over it.
“Thank you, Martin,” he says, stroking the back of Martin’s wrist with his thumb, up and down, just once, “I think I might have been lost without you.”
In the most charitable move he’s made all day, Jon relinquishes his hand and goes out without another word.
Left by himself, Martin presses his thumb to the inside of his wrist, where Jon—the thought itself makes him feel faint—kissed him. There are going to be repercussions in the morning, but until then he’ll work and ruminate and hide his smile.