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Martin knows that, perhaps, it’s a bit silly to enjoy having a crush as much as he does. Especially when that crush is on his prickly, irritable boss. But he thinks maybe that’s why he likes it so much. There’s no expectation to act on his feelings, no late nights spent wondering when he’ll finally give in and say something. He can let his feelings be the silly and irrational things they tend to be, never having to think out the logistics of how he’d go about asking Jon on a lunch date and instead letting himself simply daydream about a hand in his and the taste of tea and pastries on his tongue. Martin has had his fair share of crushes on close friends, a mixture of feelings that always feels stressful and awkward, leaving him to wonder if he should make a move or wait for the feelings to die out. And if they don’t fade, it leaves him feeling uncomfortable at the flush of warmth he feels anytime he’s around his oblivious friend. It’s that idea of having a chance, that faint hope that they could have something more, that makes Martin so uncomfortable. That’s what makes having a crush on Jon so nice. It’s all fantasy, he knows that.
Martin knows the person he daydreams about doesn’t exist, that he’s a different person from Jon in all ways except for that beautiful face and that voice that oozes words like molasses while managing to be twice as sweet. Martin works and reworks a line in a poem he’s been working on, writing something about sickly sweet syllables that seep into empty crevices or something along those lines. He tries switching over to lines about honey, but that simply doesn’t fit Jon. Somewhere in Martin’s mind, the idea that Jon’s voice is molasses has cemented itself into place without Martin even noticing until the idea was already comfortably in place. He doesn’t mind. It fits Jon, in some odd way Martin struggles to explain. Molasses seems more… sophisticated than honey, somehow.
He’d worried at first, that Jon’s… irritation with him would affect his daydreams. It turns out he needn’t have worried. The two never truly crossed in his mind. After a long workday of facing Jon’s scorn, there’s no reason that disdain has to flow over into daydream Jon. They’re different people, and no matter how much he hates dealing with Jon’s unwarranted contempt, the Jon within his mind will always be there to comfort him after a long day. And if on occasion Martin has vented to his daydream Jon about a faceless boss who won’t ease up on him, well his coping mechanisms are his own business. It’s either that or he’ll lose his temper with the real Jon. He doesn’t mind seeming a bit silly in the privacy of his own flat if it keeps him sane.
Though, he does feel silly. In the moments where his daydreams slip away from him and he returns to the real world, the reality of what he was doing hits him and leaves his face flush with embarrassment. He thinks he may have gotten a sunburn from blushing too intensely when Jon had caught him daydreaming when he was supposed to be working. He tries not to think about that too much, lest he begin blushing about it all over again.
Regardless, it’s nice. It makes him feel nice, for the brief moments he slips into his little daydream realm where his biggest worry is what he and his imagined Jon will have for dinner. And as sad as it may seem, it makes him feel wanted. He knows that’s pathetic, that the only time he truly feels wanted is when he imagines up a version of his asshole boss who not only tolerates him but cares about him, loves him, wants him. He does his best not to dwell on what that says about him. He doesn’t need to think about it. After all, if it really was a problem, surely he’d try harder to form meaningful relationships that don’t exclusively exist in his mind. He’d finally take Tim up on his offer to join him and Sasha for drinks on Friday, or at least try to be a bit less awkward around the two of them during their lunch breaks. He’s had opportunities to stop being so pathetically lonely and he still crawls back to the comfort of his imagined Jon. Sure, it’s little more than a facsimile of real human connection when he needs it most, but it’s still easier than the vulnerability of calling a real person when he’s having a panic attack over seemingly nothing at 2 A.M. It’s just easier. And so he clings to it.
Martin clutches his pillow to his chest, trying his best to imagine Jon in its place. He always falls asleep like this now, trying his best to create something similar to the image in his mind of Jon’s back to his chest, one of his arms slung over Jon’s slight waist. The pillow isn’t perfect, but it gets the job done. He briefly wonders if buying a body pillow would be crossing some line, before realizing how ridiculous it is to think that’s what would be crossing the line. He’ll consider it.
There’s a slight tickle in the back of Martin’s throat. It had been there when he woke up this morning, the sort of slight irritation that he knows is going to develop into something much worse. It seems odd to him for something like this to be happening right now. He’s used to this sort of sickness creeping up on him as the crisp air of autumn suddenly drops to a biting chill over the course of one night, leaving his through tickled yet sore and scratchy. He’ll hack his lungs up for a week and then it’ll be done with. He’ll be miserable with the pain, wincing with each series of coughs that only makes his throat feel worse and makes it hard to breathe when it’s all over with, but he’s been dealing with this sort of thing since he was a child. But now, they were nearing spring and his traitorous body has suddenly decided to irritate him for no reason other than because it can. He coughs, hoping to dislodge whatever is irritating him, but it doesn’t seem keen on leaving him. He hopes, like he always does when he starts to feel sick, that it’ll be gone the next morning. He knows he’s probably not that lucky, he never is, but maybe since it’s creeping up on him at such an odd time it won’t be as bad as usual. Maybe. Probably not...
He sighs, clutching his pillow a bit closer as he attempts to ignore the feeling. He always has a bit more trouble falling asleep when a sickness is creeping up on him, seemingly hyper-aware of the scratch of his throat as he tries to doze. But before, he didn't have his daydreams. His imagined Jon soothes him, cooing vague sweetness that Martin is too tired to properly think up, but certainly still takes in as if it were the real thing. The irritation slips away from Martin’s awareness, and soon he’s much too tired to keep up the work of imagining honeyed words. That’s fine by him. He knows his imagined Jon follows him into his dreams most nights now. He needn’t worry about being alone.
And he won’t think about how, since he’s started doing this, he’s felt more alone than he ever had before.