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He hadn’t expected to survive. In the Panopticon, with the walls disintegrating around them and his hands wet and face buried in Jon’s neck, he’d been ready for the end. Together, they’d said. One way or another.
And then he’d woken up in the rubble, alone.
Georgie and Basira had fished him out and carried his aching, half-dead body to the sidewalk opposite the ruins of the Institute. Somewhere, distantly, he heard people shouting and cheering and crying and screaming as they realised they'd been freed of the horrific nightmare that had been their lives for the past – year? Several months? Who could say. Time hadn’t existed for a while there. But for those trapped in the domains, it must have felt like an eternity.
A new eternity was stretching out before Martin now.
“Jon?” he asked weakly.
Georgie hurried back to the rubble to look, while Basira remained hunched over him and checked him gently for broken bones. The touch of her fingers barely registered through the all-encompassing ache in his body. He licked his lips and tasted blood. The sky above him was cloudless and bright blue, almost offensively perfect.
“Shit,” said Basira, which wasn’t encouraging commentary. “I think you have some broken ribs.”
“It’s fine,” Martin rasped, despite the fact he knew it wasn’t. He reflexively wanted to be comforting, helpful, even if he was dying; even if Jon was gone. His eyelids were heavy.
“No, I think you need the hospital. And I don’t know if – I doubt any of those are functioning right now. The equipment’s still working, though, so maybe- Martin, don’t go to sleep.”
‘Don’t go to sleep’. They always said that in movies. Martin was finding it increasingly difficult to keep himself awake, however.
“Hang on, there’s probably someone with car keys around here somewhere. People are waking up. Just hang on, Martin. Keep your eyes open. We didn’t go through all this just so you could-”
Die?
Maybe he was dying, but he was so very tired, and sore, and empty, and he subsided into the dark before Basira could finish.
When Martin awoke almost two weeks later, he was swathed in bandages. He had a feeding tube stuck up his nose, choking him, and a bedsore on the back of his thigh from lack of movement. With everything that had happened, there weren’t enough hospital staff on hand to reliably turn him every hour on the hour. He turned his head to the bed next to him in hopes of seeing Jon’s dark, lanky hair and russet brown skin and instead met the curious blue eyes of a child. Martin smiled weakly. The boy smiled back, then clambered out of bed to start talking to him about the dark, dark corners of Night Street and how happy he was that the Long Man wasn’t looking for him anymore.
Martin was tired. He didn’t want to talk, but he humoured the boy with idle conversation and nodded and smiled where appropriate. His parents entered the room after a few hours, and Martin looked away as the boy fell heavy into their arms.
Georgie came in the evening.
“Hey,” she greeted.
It would have been polite to greet her back, but instead a question spilled from his lips. “Jon?”
She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked down. She didn’t need to answer.
He shouldn’t have survived. Sitting in his apartment, newly released from the hospital, Martin found his mind circling and circling that thought. He shouldn’t have survived. Jon was gone and he should be gone too.
He was no longer tethered to the Lonely, yet he was more alone than he’d ever been.
Much of the food in his apartment was still edible. There was no dust, nor staleness in the air to suggest a long absence. In this perfectly preserved room, the apocalypse may as well have not happened at all. Everything was achingly normal. He threw out all the food regardless because he couldn’t stand to eat something from before, then left for the nearest supermarket. When he arrived, he didn’t find the shop open, but there were several people standing out front handing out free food to survivors. They'd run out of shopping bags and Martin had forgotten to bring one himself, so he grabbed a few cans of whatever was plentiful and carried them home in his arms. For the next few days, he subsisted on canned corn and beans and barely tasted them as he shovelled them down his throat.
The days passed in a blur. It wasn’t until the third month that London started to recover some sense of normalcy. Supermarkets opened again; TV stations played something other than news; school resumed. He started running low on money by the fourth month, so he submitted resumes until he found a quiet office job that allowed him to do the same sort of data submission he’d done for the Institute. It was the only thing he was proficient at.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he was alive. But he was, and he would drag himself through each day so Jon’s sacrifice wouldn’t be for nothing. It was a strange way to live, like trying to make sense of a picture with edges that extended too far for him to see. The edges beyond his sight were many things, but mostly they were Jon.
The last person he expected to turn up on his doorstep was Peter Lukas, not least of all because he’d thought the man dead. His encounter with Jon in the Lonely must not have been as fatal as Jon had thought.
He considered slamming the door in Peter's face and huddling in his bedroom until Peter went away, but he looked pale – even paler than usual – and thin and sad, and like inviting a stray dog into his home, Martin pushed the door open and swept his arm out in invitation. Peter immediately stepped inside.
“Nice apartment you have-”
“Why are you here?” Martin asked, cutting over him. He shut the door behind them despite the reflex to keep it open as an easy escape. Peter wasn’t an avatar anymore; he couldn’t hurt Martin, but the footsteps of his influence remained.
Peter dithered at the entrance for some time before stepping deeper inside, heading for the lounge room couch. “I’ll get to that shortly. First, is the Archivist gone?”
“Jon,” Martin corrected him. “Don’t call him ‘the Archivist’. Call him Jon.”
“Of course,” said Peter as he sat down. “Is he gone?”
Martin’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Yes.”
“I thought as much,” said Peter, sounding disappointed. “That’s a shame. You aren’t going to be as reliable as him.”
Martin joined Peter in the lounge room, opting to stand instead of sit. “Reliable for what?” he asked, regarding Peter warily.
“To kill me,” said Peter, and Martin stared at him. He stared at him in silence, frowning, for a very long time.
"I mean," said Peter, breaking the silence. "You seemed quite open to the idea of killing Elias, and I heard through the grapevine you were encouraging the Arch- Jon to kill all through the apocalypse, so I thought you might be willing to help with this.”
Martin ran a hand down his face and pressed the curve of a palm into his eyes until bright lights popped and swirled. He couldn't believe he'd been foolish enough to let this man into his apartment. “You aren’t an avatar anymore. Maybe if you were, I would do it for the good of mankind, because look at how sparing Elias turned out. But you’re human now. I’m not going to kill you.”
“I still have money,” said Peter. “I can still hurt people.”
He sighed heavily. “Is being human that bad?”
“Yes,” said Peter, his face contorting.
“Then deal with it yourself," said Martin. "Grab a belt, or a knife- just don’t drag other people into your misery for once.” He should have felt horrible for encouraging something like that, but he was tired and unhappy and he didn’t have the patience to deal with Peter’s problems when he didn’t even have the mental wherewithal to deal with his own.
“I can’t,” said Peter. "I can't do it myself. I get too- I just can't do it."
“I don’t care." Martin gestured to the door. “Get out.”
“You invited me in.”
“Not for this. I thought you might want, I don't know- food or something, not this.”
Peter sighed in that deep, condescending way he always had when Martin had given him lip in the past. “I see you need more motivation."
“No,” said Martin, despite knowing he wasn’t going to be able to stop Peter short of gagging him, and he wasn’t quite that desperate yet. He pointed to the door. “Get out.”
“Jon wouldn’t be gone if I’d told one of you what Elias was planning,” said Peter, and all the breath streamed out of Martin in one go.
He didn't want to talk about this. He didn't want to face the maybes, the what if's, the scenarios where Jon could have lived.
“Don’t,” he said, sounding brittle.
Peter ignored him, of course. “If I had told either one of you, at any point, none of that would have happened. I could have stopped it any time I wanted to, and I didn’t. Because I didn’t want to. Because I thought I could win. Because I didn’t want to talk anymore. All poor reasons to allow the apocalypse to come to pass, I’m sure you’ll agree." He spread his hands in invitation. "Jon is gone, Martin, and I could have prevented that.”
The back of Martin’s eyes stung. “Fine. Yeah. You’re right," he said, turning his face away. “But I never expected any better from you. It’s not in your nature to be decent.”
“It isn’t.” Peter rose from the chair and Martin stiffened as he approached. It didn’t matter that Peter wasn’t an avatar anymore; it didn’t matter that he was a small, gaunt thing, barely capable of harming Martin. He was still wary, like a child that had grown larger than their parent but had never forgotten the sting of their fists. Peter reached for him, and Martin stepped out of his trajectory.
“It isn’t,” said Peter again. “And isn’t that all the more reason to deal with me now, so I can’t hurt anyone else?”
Martin swallowed. “Are you planning to hurt anyone else?”
“I will, even if I don’t plan to. That’s just how I work.” Peter took another step forward. “Don't worry, I brought a knife.”
He drew a small pocketknife from his coat and extended the handle to Martin. Martin stared down at it, watching the blade gleam dully under the evening dim seeping in from a nearby window. It was the same knife from the Panopticon. Or the same type, at least.
“I know this will make you feel better.” Peter guided the knife into Martin’s hand, closing Martin’s fingers around the handle. Peter’s skin was just as cold as the metal. Being deprived of the Lonely hadn’t made Peter any warmer. “And it’s for the best, Martin. It really is. You don't even need to worry about clean-up; I’ll give you a number.”
“Why me?” he asked in a rasp. “You could hire a hitman, or, or...”
“It has to be you.” He pulled Martin’s arm up by the elbow, tilting his head back so the tip of the blade brushed his throat. Martin closed his eyes, because he wanted to do what Peter was asking. He really, really wanted to, just like in the Panopticon, where refusing had lost him everything. He was tired, and he would never have to hear Peter speak again if he slid the blade across his throat.
“You’re my Archivist, in a manner of speaking,” said Peter, and Martin hated the comparison. “You should deal with me accordingly.”
His hands didn’t tremble. They didn’t sweat, nor tighten in anxiety. The knife was too at home in his hand.
“I should.” He tilted the blade forward, just enough to create a shallow wound on Peter’s throat. Peter gasped and tremored, and it was human enough – vulnerable enough – to embolden Martin. “I should,” he said again, and dropped the knife with a resounding clatter. Peter’s gaze followed it to the floor. “But I’m not going to do what you want me to. After what I said to you in the Panopticon, I’m surprised you think I would.”
He didn’t give Peter the opportunity to respond. He pushed him onto the couch and held him there by his shoulders, which were thin and bony beneath his hands. Peter had always been a gaunt man, but Martin had never gotten close enough to touch, never felt what was hiding under his layers of finely tailored clothing. Now that he had, Peter was decidedly unimpressive. He wasn’t a monster anymore; he was just a man, and one too weak to fight off Martin.
The realization was exhilarating.
“What's the worst part of being human?” He slid a knee onto a couch and craned his head down to look Peter in the face.
Peter’s fingers curled uselessly into his sleeve. “If you’re that opposed to my proposition, I can go.”
Martin let out a huff of laughter. “No. No, you said you’ll hurt people if I let you leave, so you’re staying right here until I’m sure you won’t.”
“I- I don’t- you can’t do that.”
“How are you going to stop me?” asked Martin with a sneer. “Throw me into the Lonely?”
Peter grimaced. “This isn’t fair.”
“Yeah, well. A lot of things aren’t fair.” He squeezed his fingers around Peter’s shoulders and Peter winced, attempting to twist out from under them to no avail. It was rare Martin had this much power over someone, much less someone that had hurt him and those he cared about. He thought about the apocalypse, the ceaseless watchers gaze, and how good it’d felt to have a means to fight back.
“What's the worst part of being human?” he asked again.
Peter made a sharp, angry noise and attempted to squirm out from under Martin, using the couch arm to leverage himself up, but Martin just pressed him back down and fought Peter's scramble of limbs under his greater weight. He sat on Peter’s hips, straddling him and holding his arms high above his head, where they couldn’t do any harm.
“Fine,” Peter snapped out. “But if I tell you, you have to let me go.”
Martin didn’t answer. He waited, and waited, and eventually Peter’s resolve crumbled.
“Nothing feels like it used to,” he said. “There was always so much clarity before about who I was and what I wanted, and now I don’t...”
“You don’t know?”
Peter swallowed. “There isn’t the same pleasure in being alone anymore, and I don’t know what to do with that.”
Martin’s eyebrows jumped. He blinked a few times before letting out a burst of laughter, which made Peter scowl. “You want me to kill you because you don’t want to be alone anymore? Because your patron isn’t there to pat your arse for it? Is that it?”
“Pat my-?” Peter twisted his head to the side, avoiding Martin’s gaze. Martin, inexplicably, found that frustrating and squeezed at Peter’s wrists until Peter turned back to him with a little hiss of pain. “You felt it when you were in the Lonely, didn’t you? How right it was? That sort of comfort is compelling for people like us and I had it for decades.”
“I’m not like you,” said Martin, echoing an earlier sentiment. It felt like he'd said it a lifetime ago.
“Aren’t you?” Peter gazed up at him dispassionately. “Doesn’t it feel good, holding me down while I’m too weak to fight you off? Doesn’t it feel good to exert your will over someone? We’re more alike than you think.”
Martin noted with distant disgust that Peter’s assessment was right. He did like this. It did feel good to hold Peter down and know he couldn’t escape, to have power over someone who had made him feel so powerless. Maybe Jon’s loss had carved something essential out of him, something that would have made him pause and rethink was he was doing, but it was entirely possible he had always been this way and all he’d needed was a quick push over the precipice.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Martin, and Peter seemed shocked at the admission, his eyebrows jumping. “It does feel good, and you should be afraid of that, because I have nothing left, Peter, except the rot you left in me.” He did look frightened, then, and Martin smiled.
“I was lying,” Peter said, a shiver in his voice. “About hurting people. I don’t have the means to do that discreetly anymore.”
“You have money.”
“There’s only so much that can do to cover up illicit activities."
“I don’t believe you.”
Martin shifted his weight atop Peter and Peter made a strange, high sort of sound and drew his legs up, attempting to dislodge Martin by snapping his knees against Martin’s back. “Martin, please, just, please get off. I promise I won’t do anything.”
The reason for Peter’s mounting desperation became clear when Martin moved again and felt a solid warmth against the cleft of his ass. Peter was hard.
He should have been disgusted by it, and he wasn’t. It was an amusing and surprisingly exciting development. Despite his diminutive frame and godawful personality, Peter wasn’t unpleasant to look at. He had a well-sculped face and bright blue eyes and curly locks of black hair. The fine silver threads woven throughout it made Martin think of Jon.
“Seriously?” said Martin, and Peter looked like he wanted to cry.
“I’m not doing it deliberately.”
“Well, I believe that.” Martin sighed and carefully transferred Peter’s wrists to one hand.
“Wh- wait, what are you doing?”
“We have to deal with this,” said Martin. He didn’t want to overthink what he was doing, so he didn’t. He just moved on instinct, shuffling down to Peter's thighs and reaching between their bodies to grab Peter’s belt. It was going to be difficult to get off with one hand.
Peter shook like a panicked bird, fluttering wildly in Martin’s steady grip. “No. No, we don’t need to do anything.”
“This sort of thing is part of being human, so you might as well get used to it.” He awkwardly twisted and pulled at the belt buckle until the pin fell free. “It’s better than dying. You’ll see.”
“No, I won't,” Peter choked out.
With one strong tug that lifted Peter’s ass off the couch, Martin pulled the belt free and tossed it aside. The button and zipper took much less time to get out of the way, then he reached into Peter’s trousers and curled his hand around Peter’s cock, his fingers meeting stiff, hot flesh that assured him that deep down, Peter wanted this. If Peter hadn't wanted Martin to break him in, he wouldn't have gotten hard.
The moment he was touched, Peter let out a ragged cry. His hips twitched spasmodically and Martin had to lean his weight into them to stop Peter's cock from slipping out of his hand. He stroked slowly, gliding his thumb over Peter's frenulum, and that made Peter shake even harder.
“That’s not bad, is it? You’re getting harder.” Peter made a noise like a sob and Martin ignored him, staring down at Peter’s cock as it filled out his hand. It was a dainty little thing. Pretty. An odd description for a cock, perhaps, but it was obvious Peter had never put it to much use. Watching it twitch and tremble in his grasp made his face flush and his breaths come short. “You like this.”
“Martin, I-I-”
“You like this,” Martin said again. He gave the base of Peter’s cock a squeeze and Peter whined, which was encouraging. "Do you want me to use my mouth?”
Peter gasped out his answer. “No, no, don’t do that.”
“Just my hand?”
“Yes.”
Just his hand. Martin could work with that.
It wasn’t the first time he’d given someone a hand job. He had experimented in his youth by trading sweaty, trembling handies with a friend and had occasionally gotten tipsy enough at a bar to find a hotel with someone. His repertoire of partners was nothing impressive, but considering Peter’s reaction, it was clearly still more significant than anything Peter had ever done. The thought that he was taking Peter’s virginity was oddly exciting.
He spit into his palm before he continued stroking, each pull of Peter’s cock smoother now. Peter was so sensitive and reactive, panting and writhing beneath Martin and twisting his face into the side of the couch. He was unravelling and Martin had barely done anything to him. Martin's own cock throbbed and he didn't think he’d ever been this aroused in his life (except perhaps while watching Jon crawl around the floor for something he’d dropped, his trousers pulled tight around his ass and thighs).
"Martin,” Peter moaned, soft and lovely.
He leaned down to press his lips to Peter’s ear, which was the only thing he could reach with Peter’s face buried so deep into the couch. “Have you thought about my cock? About me being inside you?” He pressed his cock against Peter’s thigh, relishing the way it made Peter shiver. “It doesn’t just have to be my hand. I can give you more.”
“Please,” Peter whispered, and that sounded like an affirmative to him.
“Alright,” he said. “I just need you to finish for me first.”
He pressed his thumb to Peter’s sensitive frenulum and ground down hard enough to make Peter sob. But it was a good kind of sob, an overwrought kind, and it wasn’t long before Peter was shuddering and spilling sticky strings of seed into Martin’s palm. He made sure to catch every drop. He was going to need it for lubrication since he didn’t keep any in his apartment, and nor did he have the patience to find a suitable replacement. The ejaculation would suffice. It was slick enough.
The sudden release of tension left Peter soft and pliant under him, his head lulling into his corner of the couch, and that made him easy to seize by a hip and flip over. He didn’t seem to catch up to what Martin was doing until Martin had begun drawing his trousers down his thighs to unveil the pale slope of his ass.
“Martin, wait,” he said, but his voice died in his throat when Martin slid a finger into him, along with a dollop of Peter’s own seed.
“Don’t worry.” He pressed his finger deep into Peter, exploring Peter’s warm, silky insides and searching for that bundle of nerves he knew would make Peter keen. He might have been cold on the outside, but he was sweltering inside. “I’m not taking you dry. You came a lot, you know.”
Peter’s only response was to wheeze into the couch cushion. Martin added another finger, and Peter bit down on his own knuckles, trembling, apparently having given up on resisting Martin. He had his hands free now, so he could have pulled himself out from under Martin if he’d really wanted to. But he didn’t. And Martin held onto that, let it spur him into fucking into Peter with his fingers until they finally grazed on that spot he’d been looking for.
“Oh,” said Peter, his eyes wide. “What- what are you doing? What is that?”
“You don’t know what a prostate is?” Martin stroked it again, hard and persistent, and Peter’s hands flitted around the couch like he was searching for something to anchor himself with. “I guess your parents wouldn’t teach you about something like this, huh. Mine sure didn't.” He’d discovered just how sensitive the prostate could be during a rather embarrassing doctor's visit.
He laid a hand on the small of Peter’s spine to keep him in place and rocked his fingers rhythmically into him, watching Peter’s rim clench obscenely around his fingers. He was hot, wet, burning velvet and Martin wanted desperately to bury himself in it, to staunch his own heat with Peter’s heat, but he knew it would only cause them both pain if he didn’t prepare Peter adequately first. So, he worked slowly and persistently, flexing his fingers in Peter and burying his head against the shivering slope of one of Peter’s shoulders.
It startled him how much he was enjoying this. These last few months – the last several years, in fact – had been shrouded in so much pain and guilt that even his daydreams about a better life had been cast in shadows. But he was enjoying this, this simple act of control. Of intimacy. (Of cruelty). Of penance.
He made sure Peter was slick, soft and relaxed (or at least too overwhelmed to tense up like he had earlier) before he drew his fingers out and got his cock into position. Peter had gone limp and remained limp even as Martin wedged the head of his cock into Peter’s heat. He took a deep breath, grabbed Peter by the hips, and sunk into the halfway point in one go. That got Peter’s moving, his back snapping into an arch and his fingers curling tight around handfuls of the couch as he struggled to accommodate Martin’s girth. He was by no means a small man, so it was no surprise that Peter was struggling.
“It’s okay,” Martin mumbled as he rocked gently forward, drawing Peter's rim toward the base of his cock. “Just relax. I’m almost there.”
“It’s so full,” Peter breathed out, and he probably hadn’t intended it to be titillating, but fuck, it was.
He was filling Peter up. He was filling Peter to capacity, branding him from the inside with his cock, and Martin loved that. Martin gripped his hips so tight that he knew they would bruise.
“Yeah. Yeah, I bet it is.”
With one last gentle thrust, Martin finally bottomed out, sheathed all the way in Peter and trembling from the perfect tightness of him. Peter gasped and pressed his face into the corner of the couch like he might be able to hide away from what was happening. Martin didn’t like that, but he was too fuzzy to give it much thought. He pulled out a few inches before punching his way back in, nice and hard because it was too difficult to give Peter time to adjust. It felt so good, every nerve in his body alight. It’d been too long since he’d last been intimate with someone.
“God, Peter.” He thrust and watched Peter’s rim turn a whitish pink around him, skin left bloodless by his size. “Y-you feel incredible. You’re so tight. You’re so good, Peter. So good.”
“Martin,” Peter moaned, muffled. He reached back and grasped at Martin's knee, seeking leverage. It was almost sweet, and Martin made sure to reward it by rolling his cock over Peter's prostate on his next thrust. “Martin,” Peter said again, louder this time, higher. He didn’t seem able to say anything else when Martin adjusted his angle to begin pummelling his sweet spot.
He leaned down to suck a bruise into Peter’s nape while he pumped into him hard and fast, jerking the entire couch. He left small blossoms of red along the bobs of his spine, then latched himself onto the side of Peter’s neck and bit down. Not once did Peter look up from his corner of the couch. Martin was tempted to wrench his head back and get a look at his flushed face and pretty blue eyes, but he decided to allow Peter his privacy for now. The sounds Peter was making painted a vivid enough picture anyway.
He kept his teeth gripped onto a mouthful of Peter’s neck as he rocked into him, pulling him back into each thrust. His hips started to stutter and he didn’t have enough presence of mind to try to recover his rhythm. He was drowning, caught up in Peter’s reeds, hyperaware of every point of contact between their bodies and the damp, curly hair brushing his cheek. There was something rapturous in the way he finally found his finish, filling Peter with snaps of his hips until Peter squeezed around him and shuddered and came right onto his couch cushions. A perfect union. A perfect surrender.
A heavy sigh barrelled out of him as he collapsed atop Peter’s slighter body. The man was panting and whimpering, his hands still fisted around the couch. The orgasm must have weakened him, because his grip was no longer white-knuckled.
Martin lazily kissed his ear while they basked in the afterglow of the sex.
They lay there for a long time. And then the sweat started to cool on Martin's skin and the first trickle of anxiety crawled through Martin’s heart. It twittered like a bird in his chest, and he frowned, rising up and pulling out of Peter, watching his seed slide in a thick rivulet down the inside of Peter’s thigh. Peter didn’t move, remaining face down on his couch.
Peter was an evil man, he told himself. This was how he needed to be treated. This was how he wanted to be treated.
“Will you come back?” he asked.
Peter shifted in recognition of his question, but it took him several minutes to answer. “Will you kill me?”
“No.”
Peter sighed. It was a wet sort of sound. “Will you keep letting me in if I come here?”
“Yes.”
“Will you keep doing this?”
Martin paused. “Maybe.”
“It hurt, Martin.”
“I know,” said Martin, looking away. He didn't feel bad for hurting Peter, exactly, but he wished it didn’t have to be this way, that they both had something better than this wreckage. “But it felt good too, didn’t it?”
A shuddering breath. “Yes. I suppose it did.”
“Good.”
“Are you going to come here again?”
Peter moved carefully onto his side, curling his knees toward his chest. His cheeks were flushed and tracked with moisture. He looked as good as Martin had thought he would, even with the dazed look in his eyes. “Truth be told, I-I don’t know where else to go. Nothing makes sense to me anymore, except you.”
“Okay.” Martin exhaled deeply, the anxiety abating, little by little. He swept a hand through Peter's hair and pushed it back over his scalp. “You can stay here tonight, if you want to.”
Peter closed his eyes. “Do you have a bath?”
“And a shower, if you want to use that.”
“I don’t think I can. Stand, that is. Not just yet.”
“Oh,” said Martin. He slid a hand to Peter’s knee. Peter tensed briefly before relaxing under his palm. “Do you want me to carry you there?”
There seemed to be something of an internal battle before Peter gave a terse nod. It was enough for Martin, who readjusted his own clothes and heaved Peter off his couch. He didn’t weigh much. He was small, skinny, all bones, and it seemed odd now that Martin had ever been scared of him. Hadn’t he been shying away from Peter’s presence just a little while ago?
He carried him into the bathroom and helped divest him of his clothes, sitting him in the bathtub. Peter brought his knees up again and laid his head upon them. He looked even smaller without his layers. Martin would need to feed him. And somehow, that thought filled him with a reassurance he hadn’t felt in months, like sliding into bed after a long work day. He got the water running and sat on the edge of the tub so he could help Peter lather up.
Peter initially tensed under his touch, but he got looser and looser the longer Martin worked, and within a few minutes he was slumped over his knees with his eyes closed. Martin scrubbed every inch of him, sliding soapy hands between the valley of his pecs, over the plane of his stomach, along his hips, down his thighs. He left his limp cock untouched, but he scrubbed at the insides of his thighs to get rid of the come that had begun to dry there. By the time he was finished, Peter was clean and pink and waited demurely on the edge of the tub while Martin retrieved some clothes. He didn’t own anything in Peter’s size. He’d have to wear one of Martin’s old shirts as a makeshift nightie.
“It’s getting late,” he said, once Peter was dressed. “We should sleep.”
Peter smoothed down the front of the shirt Martin had pulled over his head. It was green, with an egg pictured on the front. Martin couldn’t remember where he’d gotten it. The thrift store, probably.
“If you like,” said Peter. He drowned in Martin’s clothes. It was cute.
There was a surprising lack of protest when he carried Peter into his room and deposited him on the bed. He crawled in after him and wrapped his arms around Peter's waist, making himself comfortable. Peter tensed for even less time than he had while Martin had been bathing him. He was so small, so lithe. He fit perfectly in Martin’s arms.
“Goodnight, Jon.” Martin paused, and corrected himself: “Peter.”
Peter responded as though he hadn’t heard the slip at all. “Goodnight, Martin.”