Work Text:
Jon
It should have been a normal day; that's what Jon kept telling himself. It should have been a normal day, except the bus had been late, and he'd missed his connection, and that had meant foregoing coffee in order to get to work on time, and everyone in London walked so damnedly slow, it had barely been a quarter til eight by the time he got in. Not enough time to settle into the day himself before the others got there.
He'd seen Tim going out. Not even a wave, and his face so stony that Jon could have believed it was someone else. That had given him a bit of a turn. He'd stumbled over his own feet just to spin around and make sure it was Tim, and he’d spilled the paper cup of coffee he'd snagged from the canteen across the entryway floor and all down the stairs. By the time he'd finished swearing and cleaning it up, Tim was gone.
Everything after that was just slightly off. Basira came in late, and was frustratingly unresponsive when he snapped at her. Melanie, on the other hand, went off at him for going off on Basira. Martin crept in at some point, and wasted a substantial amount of the morning faffing around in the break room. No one seemed to want to do any work except for Jon, and all Jon wanted to do was have a nice, normal, productive day.
Unfortunately, he couldn't do his job unless his assistants had been doing theirs. With the late and rather rocky start to the morning, it was clear he was going to end the day with far lower results than he'd dared to hope for in his less-than-optimal preliminary report to Elias.
Jon locked himself in his office to record a statement. By the end of it, he had a ringing headache and an awful, growing ache in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed down the rest of his replacement cup of coffee with a grimace.
A few emails to his staff later, there was a knock at his office door. Jon levered himself up, feeling a bit queasy from the coffee-statement combo, and unlocked it before returning to his desk. The door opened just as he sat back down.
"Hey," Martin said, awkwardly.
Jon closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course it was Martin. It had been a full-staff email this time, and Jon really didn't want to be alone in a room with Martin. Nothing about being afraid of him, but Jon only had one thing on his mind, at the moment.
"Not now," he said.
"Oh," Martin said. "I-I-I mean, um, y-you asked for me, so I thought–"
"I asked," Jon said, patience running out of him like a sieve, "for someone to do follow-up on the Gillespie statement. I'm not sure why you assumed that meant you."
Martin blinked several times, quickly. His hands knotted into anxious fists. Jon was irritated that he noticed this, and even more irritated that he'd allowed Martin to affect him.
"W-Well," Martin said, and faltered slightly. "I…I mean, I'm the only one here right now who actually has been working in the archives, and–"
"Oh, come off it, Martin," Jon sighs, leaning back in his chair. "We both know you're not any more qualified to be here than Basira, or even Melanie. We're running a skeleton crew of…of amateur monster-hunters masquerading as professionals, and you're not even a monster-hunter. You wouldn't know administrative metadata conventions if they bit you on the arse."
Martin's face did something complicated, and then it settled on disappointment. Jon bristled. As if Martin had any right to be disappointed in anything. Worse than that, there was something almost pitying in his expression.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Martin said carefully, "but you're not hungry, are you? Capital ‘H,’ I mean."
Jon felt substantially more sick all of a sudden, and so angry his hands trembled. "Excuse me?"
"It's just," Martin scratched his head, "you get sort of, of, tetchy. When it's coming on."
Jon opened his mouth to retort, and closed it again, speechless at the absolute audacity of Martin's assumption. He wasn't sure the last time he'd been so livid.
"Leave," Jon ordered. It felt like he was shouting, but the word was deathly quiet, almost inaudible. He wet his lips and tried to get more air behind his voice. "Get out."
"If you need–"
"Get out of my office," Jon said, voice tight, "my office. Maybe you've forgotten in light of recent events, Mr. Blackwood, but I am not your friend. I am not your lover. I am your boss. I am the goddamned Head Archivist of this Institute. If I cannot command even your basic respect then it's clear I've allowed too much familiarity to enter this workplace."
"I– I'm sorry–" Martin began, sounding and looking shocked, like Jon had just sprouted mandibles and beetle wings.
"I don't need your apologies. I certainly don't need you making aspersions towards my physical ability to do my job. I need competence. Since even that seems to be beyond you, you may leave. Send in Basira."
Jon picked up several statement folders and tapped them to perfect straightness on his desk while Martin gaped at him. Martin's eyes were glittering behind his glasses. It'd been a while since Jon had made the man cry. He felt a sick twist in his gut, a combination of satisfaction and disappointment.
"Do I need to tell you again?" he snapped when Martin didn't move. Martin started and quickly turned, fumbling a bit at the doorknob.
Jon grimaced when the door slammed shut. That wasn't technically Martin's fault– it was a tight door, a little warped by age, and with the winter humidity it was harder to close. At the moment, however, it was just another tick on the list of annoyances that was Martin Blackwood, the Archives, and this whole bloody situation.
Jon huffed aloud and picked up another pack of fresh statements sent down from Research. He had work to do.
Martin
It took Martin more than half the day to find the energy to go back to Jon's office. There were plenty of excuses to avoid his boss, really– he could file the completed statements, or work on the re-inventory process, or complete follow-up. He could rearrange the breakroom supplies. Again. Plenty to do.
Finally, his reluctance to face Jon in his current mood was overcome by his concern that something was wrong. He'd just check. Jon would yell at him, probably, but that was nothing new. Nothing Martin hadn't experienced before. Sure, he'd thought they were past that, now, but…Jon was stressed, anyway. They all were, but especially Jon.
Martin picked up the researched statements from their bin, hesitated, and then walked resolutely to Jon's door and let himself in.
Jon wasn't in his office. Martin glanced around, confused, as if the man might be hiding in a corner. He wasn't, and so Martin put a cup of tea and the stack of statements on his desk and left as quietly as he'd come.
He didn't try again until after four, when Basira had popped in and out of Jon's office to talk with him and Martin knew he was there. He still didn't want to go in right away. It needed to be…Christ, it needed to be at least a little subtle.
Melanie took off her headphones and paused the YouTube video she was watching on podcast reviews to give him a look.
"Just get it over with," she said grumpily.
"P-Pardon?"
"Oh, come off it," she sighed. "You heard Basira. If Jon is snapping at her, he could use a little company, don't you think?"
Martin's face heated. He coughed. "W-w-well I don't know if he wants to see me after–"
"Jesus," Melanie groaned. She slumped back in her seat, spinning idly from side to side. "I'm not going in there, unless it's with that bloody fucking machine Elias has. So if you think that's preferable–"
"Christ, alright," Martin muttered, getting up and locking his computer automatically. "But I'm not…y'know. Whatever you think I'm doing. I'm just going in to talk to him."
Melanie just snorted and uncapped a marker to make some notes on the statement she was supposedly handling. Martin walked to Jon's office, feeling very visible. He listened for a moment to make sure Jon wasn't recording before knocking.
"Come in," Jon invited, sounding weary, and Martin slid quickly inside and shut the door behind him, blocking Melanie's all-too-knowing smirk.
"Oh," Jon said, glancing up at him. He took his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes with a sigh. "What."
At least he sounded tired, not angry.
"Did you need anything?" Martin asked. "I stopped by earlier, with the statements. Did you–? I mean, you got those. Of course."
"Yes," Jon confirmed, tired and impatient and clearly waiting for Martin to get to the point.
Martin didn't know what point he was trying to get to. He stared at Jon's desk. Jon was looking somewhere over Martin's left shoulder– Martin could see his face from his periphery, and he could feel it, the direction of Jon's gaze. It wasn’t distracted, exactly, but blurred. Unfocused.
Martin knew what it felt like to have Jon really focus on him: that was sharp, obvious, biting, uncomfortable. It felt like Jon knew everything about him and found him lacking. If he didn't speak Martin's faults aloud it was because he was deigning not to, not because he was unaware.
Only remembering Jon's confession back when they'd been trapped by Prentiss together was enough to ease Martin's mind that Jon didn't know everything. He was good at faking it; far better even than Martin was. And he was clever enough to piece things together into enough of a coherent whole to make it seem like he knew more than he did. The paranoia that Jon was judging him was, at least, because of the Entity looming over the Institute, and Martin had to trust that in some ways Jon was just as helpless as he was. It was hard to imagine.
Jon dragged his hand over his mouth as if trying to get rid of a bad taste. It seemed like an absentminded gesture. There was a bit of a buzz in the room, from the lights or something. Maybe Martin could call building management, get that fixed. It had to be bad for recording. Would Jon even notice to appreciate the gesture? Probably not.
"Well," Jon said suddenly, turning his attention back to his laptop, "I should get back to work. Thank you for coming in."
He was distracted. Martin frowned. He pushed away the anxiety that he was doing the wrong thing and walked up to Jon's desk. Jon didn't look up, but he grimaced to himself and dragged his hand back over his lips.
"If you have any leads you wanted me to follow up on," Martin began, and then he realized he was leaning into Jon's desk, and he was getting hard. An almost imperceptible shiver went through Jon's body, even as he flipped his pen absently in his hand, gaze focused on the papers in front of him. Martin took a deep breath. The buzz in the room was a little louder. Martin could feel it in the back of his teeth.
"--let me know, I'd love a distraction from going through statements," he continued with an effort. "You know. Something that will get me out of the office for a bit?"
"Mm," Jon said. He propped his chin on his hand, now looking back at his computer screen. He opened a new browser, clicked through his bookmarks, and closed it again. Martin shifted his weight, trying not to aggravate the issue in his trousers.
"Bit cloying, you know," Martin said, not really thinking about what he was saying, "always being stuck in the basement."
"So go out," Jon said. He picked up his pen again, flipping it impatiently. He made a few cursory marks on one of the pages and then sighed. "Martin, if you're going to just stand over me while I work–" he began, angry, and glanced up.
It should have been nothing more than a glance, but Jon did a double-take– less like he was surprised, and more like his gaze had been anchored in the brief look up at Martin's face, and snapped back like a rubber band. His mouth twitched, in disgust or anger or maybe fear.
"Sorry," Martin breathed, equally unable to look away. And then, because it wasn't like he could be fired now, anyway, he continued weakly, "fuck."
"Language," Jon reprimanded automatically.
"Frick," Martin corrected. "Do you, um. Do you feel that?"
Jon's jaw moved. He was clenching his teeth, or grinding them, or something.
"What?" he asked, barely opening his mouth.
"Do you feel something strange?" Martin asked. "L-Like you can't move."
Jon's rapidly flipping pen spun out of his fingers and clattered across the table. He closed his eyes for a second. Martin still couldn't seem to move, so it wasn't Jon's gaze pinning him in place.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Jon said, over-enunciating. "I think you had better go, now."
"Right," Martin said. "Yeah. Okay."
Neither moved.
"Goddammit," Jon said. Not anger this time. Hopelessness.
"I'm sorry," Martin said, already feeling the sickly familiar pain of disappointing someone he cared about.
"Not you," Jon ground out. He squeezed his eyes shut again. "Martin, please leave. Please."
It was the pain in Jon's voice that did it. The pain, and maybe the politeness. Martin reached out and spun Jon's chair to face him, and then he knelt down in front of him, feeling foolish and sick with anticipation and like he was trying to swallow his own heart.
Jon's eyes flew open in alarm. "Martin!"
Martin pulled Jon's shirt from his trousers and ran his hands up underneath. Jon's stomach jumped at the touch. His skin was warm. Martin suppressed a groan.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to enjoy Jon's panic, Jon wasn't supposed to let him do this, neither of them were supposed to be in this position outside of the very worst of fantasies.
“Jon,” he said, “please. Let me help.”
“It's too soon,” Jon said, pleading, not with Martin, he knew, but the Entity controlling his Hunger. “It can't. It's…no, it's too soon.”
Jon scrambled to push his chair away. Martin wrapped his hands around Jon's lower back, still under his shirt, and held him in place as he dipped his head forward to rest it against Jon's sternum. He expected Jon's heartbeat to be a rabbit-fast patter, but it was almost slow.
"Hold still.”
Jon's hands rose, hesitated, and then landed tentatively on Martin's shoulders. Martin braced to be pushed away. Instead, the hands traced even more hesitantly up Martin's neck, over the shells of his ears, to the top of his head. Dug into his hair.
"What am I doing?" Jon choked.
"It's okay," Martin murmured, nuzzling in. The buzz was in his ears, now, his throat. It lapped out of Jon in waves. "It's okay, Jon."
"It is not, in any way, okay," Jon said. Even his voice had a vibration to it. "It's not okay, Martin."
Martin gently reached up and unbuttoned Jon's trousers. Jon sucked in a quick breath. Martin unzipped him, reached in to palm him through his pants.
"What about this?" Martin asked. He felt Jon's cock stir, his thighs tense, and so Martin rubbed along his length. Jon took another rapid breath.
"Yes," Jon said, voice breaking. His hips lifted slightly, and then he sat up straighter, clearly trying to take back the first movement.
Martin wanted to look up at him, but he didn't want to see Jon looking sad and angry about Martin bending over his cock. He looked at the grey patch of Jon's revealed boxers instead, and sank down to get closer. Jon's hips lifted again, just slightly.
"That's good, Jon," Martin murmured. He brushed his lips over the patch of grey. Jon's hands tightened in his hair. The buzz warped into a high, mosquito whine. "That's good.”
If Jon was going to say anything in reply, he lost it in the gasp he made when Martin mouthed him through his pants. Martin's own cock filled out even more. Jon's stomach tensed against Martin's forehead.
When Martin reached up again to move Jon's trousers down, out of the way, Jon helped him. Jon's hands paused on the band of his boxers, so Martin simply pulled the band down enough to slip him free, letting the elastic catch under his balls. Jon took a shaky breath. Neither spoke.
When Martin's lips pressed to Jon's skin again, Jon's hands found their way back to his hair and anchored in. He made tiny, hurt sounds, barely louder than breathing, as Martin licked slowly over his shaft and balls.
Christ, maybe it should have been awful, but Martin loved Jon's cock. He couldn't help it. It was gorgeous, filled out and dark with blood, curved gently upwards, just a little too long to be a comfortable fit in his mouth. Perfect. He would have been fine just sitting under Jon's desk and warming it in his mouth all afternoon, if Jon was the sort of boss who'd consider using his underlings like that. Martin hadn't ever expected to want to be taken advantage of, but, then again, he’d never thought he'd qualify as a candidate for sexy secretary, either.
Jon wheezed quietly. His hips lifted another bare centimeter. Martin hummed quietly, wanting to reassure him. And then, to do something more practical, he took Jon's cock fully into his mouth, to the back of his throat.
Jon stiffened. His cock did, of course, but the rest of his body did as well. His stomach spasmed again. He was almost silent. Martin was annoyed by this for a moment– he liked the noises Jon made– until he remembered it was the middle of the day, and the office door wasn't that thick. Christ, it wasn't even locked. That shouldn't have made Martin harder, but maybe exhibitionism came with the job.
Martin lavished attention on Jon's cock for as long as he could bear it, taking care to linger whenever Jon hissed or tugged at him. He only pulled back when Jon started to make tiny, aborted thrusts into his mouth.
"Don't come yet," Martin whispered, sitting back on his ankles. Jon was sitting stiff as a statue, one hand tangled in Martin's hair, the other in a death grip around the arm of his chair. He blinked rapidly, looking down at Martin with a flickering, unreadable expression and taut silence.
Martin rubbed a hand up Jon's inner thigh. Jon's cock was glistening with Martin's saliva. He was beautiful. God, Martin wanted Jon to fuck him. He wouldn't even have to be good at it, just knowing it was him, it was that cock, would be enough to make him come in seconds. He imagined Jon looking down at him like that, imperious, confident, and Martin had to take several deep breaths to stop from coming right then.
"Okay," he said softly, clambering to his feet. Jon's gaze followed him, his hand disentangling from Martin's hair and immediately gripping the other armrest. Martin bent over him and hooked his fingers into the band of Jon's boxers. "Let's get these off."
Jon helped him, again. The Head Archivist winced at the creak of his chair, or maybe of the feel of the vinyl, but he didn't stop Martin from tipping him back, and he wrapped his legs around Martin's waist of his own accord. Martin grabbed the lube from the top drawer, next to the little urn of Jane Prentiss's ashes. There was probably something darkly poetic about that. Martin forced his thoughts away from symbolism and metaphor and lined himself up.
Jon made a muffled noise when Martin pressed into him. Martin stopped, but Jon shook his head once and gestured for him to keep going. Martin's heart still bottomed out before his cock did. He'd never wanted Jon like this. Christ, he'd never even allowed himself to think of it. It had been a perfectly innocent crush, and then a fairly standard infatuation, and then…well, then Jon had needed him, hadn't he? And for once, Martin could actually do something right. He could help. But it was still hard, seeing that flicker of betrayal, of pain, on Jon's face.
He suspected that he was Jon's go-to for this simply because he didn't blame Jon for what was happening to him, and maybe because already hating Martin had made it easier to hate him for this, too. But there were moments, when they sank into a rhythm, when Jon finally started to relax that tense posture, that Jon's grasping fingers felt like they were trying to pull Martin closer instead of push him away. There were moments when Jon turned that awful, too-knowing gaze on him and Martin didn't feel like he was being laughed at in front of an assembly, he felt like he was being seen. Appreciated, even. Like they were a sort of team.
There were even moments when Jon would pull him in, wrapping his arms around him so they were chest to chest. Jon's breath would be against Martin's ear, and he would murmur things, his lovely voice just the slightest bit strained, telling Martin yes there that's right, keep at it just right there, god, just like that, Martin, and Martin felt more than appreciated. He felt loved. He felt lovable.
It was awful, really, because it was such a fleeting thing, and it was all fake, because they'd finish and Jon would straighten himself out and thank Martin curtly and send him away.
But those moments…those moments when it seemed almost like Martin was seeing the real Jon…
He was being silly. There wasn't some hidden, real Jon. Jon was who he'd always been: an irascible, exacting boss whose regard for Martin was about as long as he could throw him. That was the real Jon. That was who he was, from day to day. And if he occasionally had a softer side that came out during fear-god-induced sex, it was just one facet of him. Just because Martin liked that facet didn't make it more real than the rest.
Jon groaned quietly, his arms around Martin's neck, his legs clutching around Martin's waist. Martin held him back. Held him. Christ.
"You can come if you want," Martin murmured in his ear. "But only if you want."
Jon's back tensed. He squeezed his legs hard.
"This might…this might be all it is," he said through his teeth. "God. I'm close, but…"
"Are you ready, then?" Martin asked. Jon shook against him, silent laughter that was about as far from mirth as anything could be.
"Okay," Martin said, gathering Jon against him and lifting him rapidly from the chair, turning to set him on the desk instead. It was a quick movement and it helped that Jon was attached to him like a marsupial, and that Martin had practiced lifting heavy statement boxes. Jon still huffed in surprise, and when he caught himself on the desk he looked…impressed? Almost…bashful?
"What?" Martin asked, curious. He readjusted Jon's position, carefully moving statements to the side before they could be crumpled and lube-stained.
"It's nothing," Jon muttered, glancing away like he was embarrassed.
Martin pushed Jon's knee, and Jon opened his legs readily. Christ.
"I'm close," Martin told him. "I'll be quick. This'll be over soon."
"Right," Jon said. An uncertain expression crossed his face. "I…you'd better get on, then."
Martin pressed a supportive hand against Jon's lower back as he fucked into him once more. Jon made a guttural sound in his throat, his head tipping back. His eyes squeezed shut, his face contorted with concentration.
"God," he said through his teeth, "god. I need…I need– Martin–"
"Shit," Martin hissed. He couldn't take Jon saying his name like that, desperate and longing. It felt like he surely must be talking about some other Martin, except he, Martin Blackwood, was the one here. He was the one holding Jon. Jon was wrapped around him, talking to him in that needy voice, Jon's sweaty limbs clamped around his body.
Martin came, his thrusts stuttering, a croaked, deep groan coughing up from the bottom of his lungs. Jon's eyes flew open again at the first pulse of come into him. On the second, he sighed out in relief. A pleased, tired smile flit over his lips.
Martin grabbed him hard as he ground into him, whining through the end of his release. Jon exhaled again. For a moment, bliss was perched on his care-lined face. Martin had the sudden, almost uncontrollable urge to kiss him and kiss him hard.
"Oh, Jon," he choked out, and at that Jon jerked suddenly, eyes rolling back, and he grabbed Martin and yanked him close as he came as if out of nowhere.
He'd sat nearly upright, his cock trapped between them as it pulsed and sent out nothing. Martin could feel even as he slipped free that, besides the lube, he wasn't wet with cum at all. Jon had taken it.
And then Jon was whimpering quietly, his face pressed into Martin's neck, his fingernails digging into Martin's broad shoulder blades, their chests stuck together with sweat and lube even through their shirts. Martin cupped the back of Jon's head and he slumped against him.
It's okay, Martin thought, not daring to say the words aloud. It's alright, now. I've got you, Jon. I've got you.
Martin kissed Jon's cheek without thinking. Before he could freeze in fear, Jon shuddered and nuzzled his face into Martin's shoulder. Martin hesitated, not sure if he dared kiss Jon again. This wasn't really a romantic scenario, and god knew Jon didn't want him for that.
Best to pretend it hadn't happened.
“Well,” he said, voice cracking slightly, “I should probably–”
Jon made a despairing noise and squeezed his limbs tighter around Martin’s body. Oh, hell. Martin reached up and rubbed his back, trying to comfort both of them. And Jon…Jon melted into him.
That wasn't right. Martin frowned but didn't stop rubbing Jon's back.
“Hey,” he said quietly, because he didn't want to break whatever tenuous thing this was, that was almost certainly Jon being too hurt or controlled by supernatural powers to function. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to put you down?”
Martin waited for the yelling, the sniping. He forced himself not to cringe in anticipation.
“Please don't,” Jon said instead, muffled against Martin's shoulder. Martin froze again. “Just another minute like this, please.”
“Yeah, course,” Martin said gamely, in an impressively normal tone. Of course, his boss asked to be cuddled all the time. What a normal thing to happen. Nothing to be alarmed about, no siree.
He was going to have to find a way to ask Jon if he was okay, which he really didn't want to do, because Jon generally didn't react well to questions about his feelings, let alone suggestions that something might be wrong. Martin slid his hand up Jon's spine absentmindedly, pushing his fingers into the tight vertebrae at the base of his skull. It was always the spot he worked over on himself after staring at a computer all day.
Jon made another one of those despairing sounds. It was almost the same he'd made when Martin had helped him remove the worms from his leg the previous year– the sort of gasp that was the shock of something painful being removed, full of relief and surprise and leftover horror. He pushed his face against the hollow of Martin's neck and shoulder, his breath wet.
“Oh, hey,” Martin said, carefully shifting him to keep him upright. “I'm gonna put your legs down, alright?”
Jon kept pressed against him as much as he possibly could be while Martin settled him more solidly onto the desk. He felt a brief press against his neck that sent a tingle of something into his brain, and then Jon was carefully unhooking himself from Martin's neck and sitting back, his expression tired and dazed.
It was only after Jon wasn't there anymore that Martin had the sudden, insane idea that Jon had just kissed him back. He dismissed the thought hurriedly. It had just been Jon shifting, that was all. Christ, Martin was already in enough of a state without reading more into things.
“You alright?” Martin asked, starting to rub Jon's thigh soothingly and then quickly stopping when Jon looked at him. Jon's expression twisted. “Right, no, sorry,” Martin added quickly.
“No, it's…” Jon swallowed, cleared his throat, looked askance. His fingers gripped and regripped the edge of his desk. He looked, horribly, like he might start crying. “It's…it's supposed to hurt.”
“What?” Martin asked, shocked. He huffed out a breath of self-conscious laughter. “W-what?!”
Jon looked at him, a flash of familiar fight in his eyes before they dulled again. “You're supposed to make it hurt,” he repeated, more firmly. There was something pleading about his expression, and Martin had no idea what it was, except that it made him uneasy. “You're supposed to make me hate it.”
“Don't you?” Martin asked, pained, because of course Jon did, it wasn't even a question.
Jon's jaw worked, and he looked away again. All the air left Martin's lungs in a wheeze.
“Oh,” Martin said, realising. Horror crept through him, cold. “Oh, no.”
Jon snarled out a sound without looking at him. “Why are you disappointed?”
Martin couldn’t answer that. He couldn't explain that there was safety in knowing that Jon hated him. He was resigned to that, resigned to being trapped in mediocrity– in his work, in his relationships, in his body, in everything. It meant he could sometimes do things just a little bit better than expected, but no one expected greatness from Martin Blackwood. No one would bother.
And as long as Jon hated him, Martin could do his very best to be kind, to anticipate Jon's needs, to step in. He could find comfort in the fact that it would never be enough. It made the occasional smiles and grace he did receive a sort of divine gift from an uncaring god. Martin was accustomed to that sort of blind faith and self-abjection. He'd learned to live on– no, to be content on, to worship– the scraps he was given.
It was real, was the point. A scrap of something was real. A piece was understandable. No one could afford a whole meal, not really, and he could make do. He had made do. He was really quite excellent at it; this life of ascetic needlessness, this vessel-being. But now…he'd pushed too far. He'd performed his job too well. Jon thought he'd done it on purpose.
And of course Martin had wanted Jon to feel good, but he hadn't meant for Jon to see him as a person because of it. That wasn't what this was at all. It hurt, because that meant he had to back off, to stop doing his job as well, because Jon had come to some mistaken conclusion that Martin loving him meant Jon was supposed to love him back.
“It…it doesn't mean anything,” Martin said haltingly. “It doesn't have to change anything, I mean. I don't want anything to change. I just…I just thought…I don't want to hurt you.”
Jon's expression twisted again, and even though he was still looking away Martin could tell he was smiling grimly.
“Yes, well,” Jon said. It was a complete sentence. You already have, was implied. But you did it wrong.
Typical of him, really.
Martin started to back away, and Jon's hand shot out and grabbed his sleeve.
“No,” Jon said sharply, and then his voice softened, uncertain. “Stay. Please.”
No, this was exactly what Martin had feared.
“Jon,” he began, “you don't want this. Remember? You don't…you don't even like me.”
Jon stared at him. “What?”
“This morning?” Martin reminded him, staring back. Surely Jon hadn't forgotten? “You told me I was incompetent and useless? Which, um, I mean, isn't anything you haven't said before. B-but–” and here Martin's voice took on a bite, unable to keep the bitterness back completely, “you were very clear that we're not…not ‘friends, or lovers, because you're the goddamned Head Archivist.’”
Jon's mouth opened, almost comically, and then his fingers loosened on Martin's sleeve.
“No, you’re right,” he whispered. Martin's alarmed increased. “I…I did say that. A-a-and I know, I know I have no right to ask anything of you, after…” he swallowed again, and made a soft noise in his throat. “Martin, I…please. I can't…I don't want to be alone.”
Tough, Martin wanted to say. But Jon wasn't his lover. Jon wasn't his friend.
“Right,” he said eventually. Jon’s shoulders slumped in relief. “You're the boss.”
Martin had meant to say it cheerfully, to try and get some normalcy back into whatever the hell this was, but at his words Jon's head jerked up, his eyes wide like Martin had slapped him across the face, and then Martin watched something inside the man crumpled.
He'd seen people shattered before– the way pain etched itself across them, lines of internal wounds that echoed through their posture, their eyes, the set of their mouths. This wasn't that. This was a ragdoll with the stuffing pulled out. This was something soft and helpless that hadn't been standing on its own in the first place, keeping its form intact only through strength of will, only to have that strength suddenly gone. Jon's eyes went utterly, utterly empty, and then a long, mirthless smile spread thin across his face, and he started to laugh.
“You'd think so,” he said, and made a gesture at the placard on his desk, Head Archivist written out across burnished gold, “it appears that way, doesn't it?” The gesture continued, taking in himself, his pants around his ankles, the scars on his exposed skin.
When Jon descended into helpless, hiccuping giggles, Martin couldn't take it anymore.
“Christ,” he said, furious at Jon for being so pathetic, furious at himself for falling for it again, and he grabbed Jon to him and kissed him full on the mouth.
Jon only froze for a moment before kissing him back. He tasted like cigarettes and black coffee and, oddly, paper. He was still hiccuping a little even as he wrapped his fist in Martin's shirt. Martin nudged his legs apart again and stepped closer to deepen the kiss. Jon responded to Martin's tongue in his mouth with eager reciprocation, then tentative retreat.
Martin drew back just to kiss him more softly. Jon whimpered and kissed him again. And again. His lips opened under Martin's, encouraging, and so with a groan Martin licked back into his mouth.
When Jon finally jerked back, he looked wary and concerned, but not confused. There was none of that dying light in his eyes that came from him returning to his senses after a bout of hunger. His lips were already slightly swollen. Christ, Martin wanted to bite down on them.
Jon worried at his own bottom lip with his teeth, like he needed to test what they felt like after kissing Martin.
“I…” he said, hoarse. His eyes were very dark, pupils wide. “I'm…I'm sorry.”
“For what?” Martin asked, curious about what Jon thought he was apologizing for, knowing it was likely none of things Martin wanted as an apology. He leaned in and kissed Jon's lips again, then his jaw. Jon shivered.
“For how I've…treated you,” Jon said, a little stilted but serious. Martin would have laughed, except his heart hurt, and he found some traitorous part of himself hoping that Jon really meant what he was saying. “I haven't been…I haven't been a very good…boss. O-or…or…friend. I haven't…” he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“You’ve been such a, a good friend to me,” he continued painfully, “And I don't m-mean the tea, or th-the regulation. I…if you hated me, it would be deserved. I-If you walked out of here and never saw me again, if you decided I wasn't worth this, I…I’d just want you to know that it has been important, to me. That I'm…grateful that you haven't left. After I gave you so many opportunities, so many reasons, that you kept coming back, a-and doing your job–”
“Not like I really had a choice, did I?” Martin interrupted, trying for dry humor, but Jon just sat forward a little.
“No, maybe not,” Jon said quietly. “But…every time I try to push you away, you just…you keep coming back, and it's bloody annoying, and I'm grateful. I'm grateful.” Jon swallowed and looked down at his hands, then reluctantly ungripped his fingers from Martin's shirt.
“Jon,” Martin said slowly, letting Jon process the idea as much as he was, “are you saying you’ve been treating me like garbage because you're trying to protect me?”
“Well,” Jon said with a weak chuckle, “and because I'm a bit of an ass.”
Martin stared at him, and then a laugh bubbled up so quickly and unexpectedly from his chest that he clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Erm, yes, well, I knew that,” he said. He felt a bit weepy all of a sudden.
“Right,” Jon said, embarrassed.
“I mean, you really have been,” Martin went on, a bit louder, because beneath the disbelief he was a bit pissed, actually. “And, what, you get to say you're sorry and that just gets rid of the other things you’ve said?”
“No!” Jon said at once, eyes wide. “No, that's not what I'm–”
“You get to just say we're friends now?”
Jon winced. “Well, I, if that's not, um–”
“Because friends don't treat each other that way, Jon!”
“And how do they treat each other?” Jon demanded, his own voice rising a little, like he was angry and there wasn't a note of pleading in his eyes asking for Martin to give him a real answer.
“Well, they–!” Martin floundered, “they…not like that!”
They stared at each other for a second. It was a moment of perfect attunement, of guilt and embarrassment and a longing to know reflected across both of their faces. Another moment that was almost funny, if it hadn't felt so painfully sad.
Fuck, Martin thought, slightly hysterical, and kissed Jon again.
“Ah,” Jon mumbled into his mouth. Martin cupped the back of his head and Jon opened his mouth at once, like Martin had just hit a trigger of some kind. Martin couldn't help but make a noise at that, at how responsive Jon was to him. As if to prove the point, Jon shuddered and twisted his hands back into Martin's shirt.
“Okay,” Martin said at last, when they pulled apart again. “Okay. If this is, is what we're doing, then we need some ground rules.”
“Do we?” Jon asked faintly, eyes closed. He kissed Martin again, and would have kept going if Martin hadn't put a hand on his chest to push him back.
“Yeah, I think we do,” Martin said. “What are we calling this?”
Jon grimaced. “Do we need to call it something?”
Martin took a deep breath. “It'd help me out a bit, yeah. Just…after, you know. What you said earlier. Are we…Jon, are we friends?”
Jon drew a deep breath. He coughed out a laugh. “Y-Yes, I imagine so.”
Martin exhaled. Friends. Okay. He could handle that.
“Yeah, alright,” he said. “And does that mean…does that mean that you're going to be nicer to me?”
“Yes.”
“Even when I file something wrong?”
“Don't file things wrong,” Jon said, eyes narrowing. Martin didn't laugh, but it was a close thing.
“I was teasing,” he said.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, okay, and…and can I…can we do this, sometimes?” Martin asked, starting to feel like he was daring too much. “Just…what we’re doing right now.”
“Talking?”
“And…touching,” Martin suggested. “Um. Kissing, maybe.”
Jon started to answer at once, then caught himself and thought for a minute.
“Yes,” he said at last, slowly. “Yes, I…I think that…it would help. Between…between regulations.”
“Yeah?” Martin asked, breathless. Jon nodded once. “Okay.”
Martin cupped Jon's face again, gentle, and pressed an equally gentle kiss to his lips. Jon closed his eyes again with a shaky breath. Martin kept going, not rushed this time, savoring the electricity of Jon's skin under his lips, the scratch of Jon's stubble against his own, the brush of Jon's hair across his own skin. He worked his way across Jon's cheek, down his jaw. Jon tipped his head to give Martin easier access to his neck.
When Martin started rubbing his back again, Jon tilted forward into Martin's arms with a sigh. Martin finished by kissing the side of Jon's head, close to his temple. Jon exhaled slowly.
Jon hadn't tried to feel Martin up at all, even while kissing him. Martin tried not to mind. After all, he'd just worried that Jon was going to take the wrong impression from Martin caring for him. He wasn't disappointed that Jon didn't want him. It wasn't like he wasn't used to people not wanting him. This was still just a way to make sure Jon wasn't sick, after all. It wasn't…it still wasn't romance. It was practical. A practical arrangement. Using each other. Right.
“How are you feeling?” Martin asked. Jon groaned.
“Awful,” he said, to Martin's surprise. “I mean, better than before! Um.”
Martin touched Jon's thigh and Jon flinched like he'd been shocked. Jon caught his hand.
“No, I'm sorry, no,” Jon said rapidly, “don't– I don't want–”
“I'm sorry,” Martin said, “I'm sorry. Hands off, okay? Just– right here. My hands are here.”
He put his hands on Jon's back again and Jon shuddered and drooped once more. Martin had a creeping, awful feeling.
“Jon,” he murmured, hoping that Jon would be lulled by his tone into answering, “do you…do you like being touched?”
Jon hesitated for a bit too long.
“Sometimes,” he mumbled, rather unconvincingly. “I, I mean. You made me…I…I came, didn't I? And…and this is…I mean, y-y-you’ve got your hands on me now, and it's n-not terrible, so–”
Martin exhaled. Jon's head was ducked against his chest again.
“Okay,” Martin said. “And you're sure the kissing is alright?”
Another pause, and then Jon nodded against him.
“What about…if you know I'm not going to touch you, um, between your legs? Is it okay? Is there anywhere else you don't want to be touched?”
“No, I'm fine,” Jon said, and then, “...my throat. Just don't want hands on…a-and…I don't like, I don't like having a-all my limbs tied down. Not all at once. I-I used to…it makes me feel strange, now.”
“I'm not going to tie you down, Christ,” Martin said, with another shocked spurt of laughter.
“Y-you can! Just not everything, not immobilizing, I–”
Jon made a sort of hiccuping sound and suddenly pulled Martin closer again. It took Martin a few seconds to fully comprehend that Jon was hugging him. Martin wrapped his arms around Jon in return. His hand brushed bare skin beneath Jon's shirt.
“Oh, you’re still…your trousers are still down,” Martin said. “Do you want…?”
Jon slid off the desk at last in order to pull his trousers up. Martin stayed close. Now that he had permission to touch Jon, he didn't want to stop. Jon, for his part, looked small and thin and unhappy. He buttoned himself up like he was equally as afraid of his own hands as he was of Martin's.
Martin glanced at the clock. It wasn't quite the end of the day, yet. He suddenly hated the idea that Jon was going to try and go back to his usual business after this.
“Hey,” he said, “I’m gonna go use the restroom, clean up a little, and then can I come back here? I know you’ve got a lot to do, but maybe I can just…be close by, for a bit. Just in case.”
Jon was gripping his own arms, scowling absentmindedly at the papers on his desk.
“Fine,” he said, without any heat.
When Martin returned, Jon was gone. Martin glanced around, then sat himself in the corner, on the floor. He pulled a pile of statement folders to him and started to read.
Jon walked back in a few minutes later, his hands and face slightly damp like he'd been splashing himself with water.
“Oh,” Jon said, and hesitated for a moment before walking to his desk. He stopped again and looked at Martin. Martin gave him a brief smile and then went back to the file he was reading. It wasn't a real statement– not a truly supernatural one, that was. Martin liked to end the day sorting through these, as a sort of palate cleanser.
He didn't look up when he heard Jon approaching, or even when he felt the looming presence of his boss looking down at him. He should have, if only to avoid the shock of Jon folding himself down onto the floor next to him.
“The Hastings Witch incident? Proven hoax,” Jon said, leaning nearly against Martin to peer at what he was reading.
“Er, yeah,” Martin said, willing his heartbeat to calm, “I know.”
Jon snorted but leaned closer again to point out something. “She even got the date wrong. Honestly, statements like these are hardly worth cluttering up the archive; but I suppose having a record of known hoaxes is valuable in their juxtaposition to real statements of the supernatural. If we didn't include the fakes, people would wonder why we hadn't bothered looking into them. Of course, any attention to these frauds gives the appearance that we condone such statements, but I suppose that's the price of thorough research.”
Jon sighed, as if the credulity of people in London was the worst issue he'd ever had to deal with, and Martin couldn't stop the warm glow that started up in his chest. Christ, loving Jonathan Sims was a terrible thing.
“Feeling more yourself, then?” he asked, rather daringly. Jon blinked at him. Martin was put in mind of an owl– not one of the great, frightening ones, but maybe a Little Owl, all eyes bigger than its face.
Jon frowned at him but didn't move away.
“You're in my corner,” he said, as if this made sense.
“Oh?”
“My office,” Jon corrected. “You're in the corner of my office.”
“Yeah, seems like,” Martin said, not sure what Jon was looking for with this conversation. “Erm, do you…do you want to help me sort these?”
Jon snorted. “Hardly. I have my own work, and going through already disproved statements is not high on my priority list.”
“Oh. Okay,” Martin said. Jon shifted slightly, but still didn't move away.
You're friends, Martin told himself, desperate. What do friends do?
Moving slowly, he scooted until his back was against the wall, and then he held up his arm in invitation. Jon stared at him for a long, anxiety-inducing moment before crawling over and curling up against Martin's side, legs drawn to his chest. Martin could barely breathe as he let his arm wrap over Jon's shoulders, tugging him closer.
“Right,” Martin said faintly. “Well, I'm just going to…to finish these, then.”
“Do,” Jon muttered. His face was resting against Martin's collarbone. Martin did his best to ignore this.
“Kay,” Martin said, and pretended to start reading again.
A few minutes passed, and he felt Jon relax against him in stages. Martin rubbed his thumb over the back of Jon's neck, wishing he could be absentminded about it, while in truth almost all of his attention was focused on acting natural. Jon brought his hand up and tucked it under his cheek. Martin's breath stuttered.
Okay, Jon wasn't really touching Martin's chest. He was just making himself more comfortable. On Martin's chest. Christ.
Martin flipped over the page one-handed as if he was still reading and wasn't entirely focused on Jon. Then, unable to put the page away or move onto the next with one arm pinned, he held the statement out in front of himself helplessly.
“Just put it down,” Jon mumbled.
“Er, um, what?”
“Just…” Jon sighed and shifted substantially, his hand skating down over Martin's chest and stomach, “put down the damn statement. You're not reading it anyway.”
“Um, right,” Martin chuckled nervously. He put the statement down. Jon grumbled something incomprehensible against him. “What was that?”
“Warm,” Jon muttered. His knees had drifted down from his chest, his fetal position uncurling enough that now he was starting to wrap around Martin, instead. “You're warm.”
He'd said similar things before, related to the Consuming: being cold, feverish, saying that Martin and the other assistants were warm. Martin had thought the fever went away after Jon was regulated. Didn’t it? Was Jon lying when he said he felt better, after? God, of course he was. Was he always cold?
Martin pushed the statements away and pulled Jon between his legs, where he could rest fully against Martin's torso.
“Oh, I–” Jon began, sounding discombobulated.
“Just this,” Martin promised. He pressed his fingers up against the base of Jon's skull again and Jon's mouth opened against his chest in a groan. He melted against Martin the same way he had before.
“There we go. Just–” Martin was caught off-guard by a huge yawn– “scuse me. Just rest. Is what I was gonna say. ‘Parently I need it, too.”
“Hm,” Jon grunted against him. He shivered when Martin's hand worked back along his neck and down his vertebrae. “Not…very…professional…”
“Oh, shut up,” Martin sighed, sliding down the wall. Despite all of Jon's complaints of being cold, he felt wonderfully warm to Martin. He was the perfect, comfortable heated blanket, really. One that was petting his chest with the absentmindedness Martin couldn't quite achieve at the moment.
“You…shut up…” Jon mumbled back in such a pathetic attempt at a comeback that Martin giggled his way all the way down the wall as he slid flat, taking Jon with him. He wrapped a leg over Jon's body as well as his arms. Jon wiggled around, only to press his face back into Martin's chest and, unceremoniously for all that it made Martin’s brain grind to a halt, he fell asleep. Martin breathed shallowly for several minutes until Jon actually snored into his chest. Martin laughed, silent and helplessly.
“Stupid idiot,” Martin mumbled fondly, stroking the back of Jon's head. It was easier to touch him now that Jon wasn't conscious to judge him for it. “Asshole. Spending all this time in here, not asking for help, when we told you we were here to help. Stupid.” Martin rested his chin on Jon's head with a sigh. “Hell, Jon. You idiot. God, I lo…”
He caught himself before he could say the rest of that thought. Some things were better left unsaid, even if Jon was asleep.
He'd take this. Friends. He'd take being friends, if it meant getting to take care of Jon a little longer.