Chapter 2

Jon, with an unwavering degree of certainty, does not like doctors.

This is not something that is debatable. This is not something that he will “change his mind” about once he meets the right one — Jon has had plenty of fine, respectable doctors over the years, and he has despised each and every one of them. This is also not something that he is, unfortunately, capable of being discreet about, given the fact that the nurses have thoughtfully wrangled him over to one of the pediatric rooms in an attempt to ease his concerns. The effect is quite the opposite: it only results in forcing him into a staring contest with the uncanny mural of a sea turtle on the wall as he sits on the uncomfortable, paper-lined examination table that crinkles with every shift he makes. It reminds him of being ten again, which was a terrible age to be. It reminds him of the many annual examinations that he spent with his face pressed into his grandmother’s cardigan as the poor, long-suffering nurse attempted to ease his fears, compliment his pigtails, ask if it’d make him feel any better if they used the purple thermometer for his exam today (of which it absolutely would not).

Jon could list off a number of reasons for his personal feelings on the matter — family experience, personal experience, malpractice, high mortality rate, misdiagnoses rates, that one goosebumps book he’d read too young, paranoia, etc, etc — but identifying these does little to quell the unease that had settled in his gut as he waited. Dr. Banks seems to notice this as he offers a sympathetic smile.

“Alright, then Jonathan — is Jonathan alright?”

Jon swallows. Bounces his leg in an attempt to dispel some of that nervous energy, but stops when all it does is drum up a horrible incessant crinkling from the paper beneath him. “Just— just Jon is fine.”

“Jon then,” Dr. Banks says amicably. “Stick your tongue out for me?”

Jon obeys. The cold metal against his tongue sends a shiver down his spine as he attempts not to gag around the spatula.

Dr. Oliver Banks, Jon thinks, is a fine man — or, at least, he would be a fine man if he weren’t a doctor. But he’s friendly, at least. Looks like the kind of guy whom he might go for drinks with (if he weren’t a doctor), being not too young for his profession but not quite as old as Jon might expect for one who had apparently been a mortician for a number of years. When Jon had, not so subtly, asked about how the two fields translated, Dr. Banks had informed him that there was a surprising amount of overlap between diagnosing the dead and diagnosing the living. Jon wasn’t sure whether or not to take that as a joke or as a blatant statement of the man’s incompetence. So long as he doesn’t start pumping him with cavity fluid, he supposes.

“Hm,” Dr. Banks hums as he shines his light down Jon’s throat, “tonsils look fine, tongue too. Where did you say you lost that tooth?”

“Auh,” Jon says around the spatula, coughing a bit as Dr. Banks removes it to allow him to answer. He clears his throat. “Um. On the left. T-towards the back— and on the right near the front too.” And on the top, he doesn’t say. And in the front. And his molars. And his canines. And the little ones between those two that Jon can’t remember the name of, but a dentist probably would. It’s just that Jon likes dentists even less than he likes doctors.

Dr. Banks hums as he sticks his spatula back into his mouth, then joins it with a probe. Jon can feel the metal tap of it on each tooth as he silently counts. Dr. Banks pulls away. “Well, it seems you still have all your teeth.”

Jon stares at him for a long moment. “That’s impossible.” He knows that’s impossible. Hell, he’d been holding them in his hand last night after he’d spit them out into the sink one by one. He’d honestly hoped it was a nightmare — what was the symbolism of teeth falling out again? He vaguely remembers it from those dream journals Georgie used to keep — except for the fact that when he’d woken up on his couch that morning and headed for the bathroom, the little plastic cup with lemons on it still held all of those bloody teeth. He’d left for the doctor’s right then and there.

Dr. Banks smiles at him, the gentle, reassuring type that Jon absolutely does not need right now because that’s impossible.

“Would you like to look for yourself?” Dr. Banks offers, digging through the drawer in the corner before producing...a mirror. A small hand mirror that he passes over to Jon, who takes it with hesitant hands. Holds it up. Opens up his mouth.

It’s—

It’s a little uncanny, looking in his own mouth like this, but even more so given the fact that Dr. Banks seems to be right. He has his teeth. He has all his teeth, which either means that he’s been spitting up another person’s teeth or that his teeth have simply regrown overnight, both options seeming equally ludicrous. He has all his teeth. That’s impossible. He has all his teeth and yet they seem...sharper? Than he remembers. It’s difficult to tell, with no baseline to compare them to as he runs his tongue over a canine and feels the prickle of blood. All there. Wonderful.

Jon lets out a little “huh” as he examines himself, then lowers the mirror. Dr. Banks is still smiling as he takes it away. “Have you had any changes to your mental health?”

“What?” Jon says, eyes flaring wide before his face settles into an irritated scowl. “I’m not— this isn’t— I’m not delusional.”

Dr. Banks chuckles lightly. “I’m not suggesting such, Jon. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t on any new medications that might affect your oral health — some anxiety medications can do that, you know.”

“Oh,” Jon says, trying not to feel embarrassed. That...makes sense. But Jon hasn’t seen a therapist since college, despite his friends insisting on trying otherwise, and he’s certainly not about to start seeing one now. “Um. No. I-I haven’t.”

Dr. Banks hums. He rounds the side of the examination table, then picks up something from the tray of tools that Jon can’t see. “You said you hadn’t been feeling well lately; can you tell me about your other symptoms?” Then he pauses, before adding, “I’m going to look in your ears now.”

“R-right.” Jon braces himself, but the tickle isn’t nearly so bad as he sticks his scope in. “Well er, headache, a-and nausea...some general aches and pains, but it’s hard to say what’s not just, well, baseline.”

Dr. Banks nods as he switches to the other ear. “And how long’s this been going on?”

“...Since the weekend?”

“I see.” He watches Dr. Banks take a step back, then push aside his locs and remove a pencil from over his ear. The sound of scribbling in the heavy silence sets Jon’s nerves on end, like nails on a chalkboard. “Well, I’ll take a swab and run some general tests — flu, strep, the likes — and see if it turns up anything. Does that sound alright?”

Jon nods slowly, fingers flexing into the fabric of his trousers. “Um,” he begins with a deep inhale, “m-my friend, er, he wondered if it might be...ah...a-an STI.”

Dr. Banks raises an eyebrow. “Are you sexually active?”

Jon cringes at the question, the one he always hates at every visit because somehow talking about sex is a thousand times worse than actually participating in it. “Not— not particularly.”

Dr. Banks taps his chin as he thinks. It’s difficult to meet Dr. Banks’s eyes, Jon finds, given just how odd they seem from the rest of him — a pale, faded gray that stands out from his dark skin, almost eerily so, only made even unnervingly larger by the glasses perched on his nose. Quite dead, Jon thinks, an unsettling contrast to the rest of his demeanor and yet fitting, given his history. “It’s...if you haven’t slept with anyone recently, then it’s unlikely, given you probably wouldn’t develop symptoms suddenly if it’s something you’ve had for a while, but not impossible. We can run a general test for those as well.”

Jon nods, trying not to feel a bit stupid given that’s about all he’s done at this appointment.

“Anything else?”

Anything else— what else isn’t there? Jon doesn’t say that though, thinking for a moment. “Can...can stress affect. Um,” he swallows, bites back a grimace, “hair...?”

Dr. Banks raises an eyebrow. “As in...hair loss?”

“Er, th-the opposite.” It feels silly to say out loud, but it is something he’s noticed. Jon’s never been a particularly hairy man, but his body has seemingly decided to do something about that over the past week: on his legs, his arms, the center of his chest. Hell, he used to be able to go days without shaving, but it feels as if he’s on one of those god-awful survival reality shows if he doesn’t shave his face at least once, maybe twice a day. He’s begrudgingly accepted scruff as his new, manageable baseline.

Dr. Banks makes a note on his chart. “Could be a hormonal thing. Have you altered any dosages? Added any new medications or supplements?”

“Um...n-no.”

Dr. Banks thinks. Taps his pencil on his clipboard, and says, “...We’ll do blood work today too, just to be on the safe side. I’ll send a nurse in shortly to take a sample, but if you need me for anything else, just let someone outside know.”

Jon swallows, the idea of being left alone in this god-awful room once more somehow a worse outcome than being left alone in a room with a doctor. Both are terrible, but at least with Dr. Banks in here he doesn’t have to look at that uncanny mural. Shit, he looked at it again. Stop looking at it. “A-alright.”

Jon watches as he heads for the door and places his hand on the knob before he pauses. Then he sets his clipboard down. Then takes three steps backwards, round the counter, and opens the corner drawer. “I forgot to ask,” Dr. Banks says, pulling out a large wheel as he turns to Jon, “would you like a sticker?”

Jon picks at the sticker on his jumper as he exits the clinic, attempting to unstick the corner that has stubbornly folded in on itself and mucked up the whole symmetry of the thing. It’s no use. It’s a fruitless effort; he knows this, and yet it turns out that Jonathan Sims is just about as stubborn as a bright red sticker with a dinosaur proclaiming “great job!”, because he refuses to give up the fight.

The automatic doors slide open as he steps out onto the sidewalk, crisp autumn air cutting straight through him as—

“Yo, boss!”

Jon jumps at the greeting, nearly tripping over his own feet as his head snaps up to the voice. The source stands not ten feet away, leaning on his old, beat-up black sedan and grinning like a cat in a canning factory.

Tim leans over, opening the door in a gallant display of chivalry. “Need a ride?”

Jon’s breath slides out his nose in one slow, whistling noise. “Do I even want to know how you found where I was?”

“Probably not,” Tim concedes. “It was Sasha, really, but more along the lines of the type of thing you usually plug your ears and say ‘don’t tell me so I can’t be implicated as an accessory when you get caught’ about.”

“Then let’s continue to keep it that way,” Jon says, then climbs inside.

Tim’s car — or rather Danny’s, given that Tim had only inherited it after his little brother had set off to hike the country in his latest escapade where he wouldn’t be in need of a motor vehicle — is a bit like Tim himself: a bit of a mess, unnervingly comfortable, and somehow containing just about anything one could ever need tucked in between the seats and under the muddy rubber mats. Well, almost everything one could ever need, Jon thinks as he picks up a half-eaten bag of chips from the floor and moves it to the back seat. It’s not that Jon can really complain, considering he hasn’t owned a car in several years.

Tim starts up the car with a concerning splutter of the ignition and pulls out onto the road. It’s just beginning to drizzle. It’s that awful sort of weather that Jon hates to be out in — not rainy enough to justify an umbrella, but not dry enough to walk anywhere without his hair frizzing up something awful — and he’d quite like to go home after this morning and sleep for the next three days until he gets back the test results from Dr. Banks that either tell him he’ll be dead by next Tuesday or that he’s healthy as a horse. He’s not sure which one is worse.

“...So.”

Jon sighs, loudly, before he can stop himself.

“Look, I know you’re mister ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ but,” Tim says, glancing over at him, “Jon. I know how you are with doctors.”

Jon chews his lip. His teeth keep pricking at his chapped skin, not hard enough to draw blood, though they could if he wanted them to. He bites down a little harder. “I’m not dying,” Jon says wearily, leaning his forehead on the dashboard. “Probably.”

“...Ooooookay,” Tim whistles, “was feeling a bit better until that last bit, but we’ll put a pin in that for now. Is...are you, y’know, alright?”

Alright. Ha. He’s sick for a week straight and then all his teeth fall out, and now Tim wants to know if he’s alright. Jon wants to laugh, bitterly, and just how quickly that word has lost all meaning. “Define ‘alright.’”

Tim frowns. “Well, did they find anything? Or at least run some tests?”

Jon peels off his glasses, depositing them into the center cup holder so he can rub at his eyes. “For strep, for flu, and for RSV — all negative. Also sent off an STI test, but they said it was unlikely given my...er, history. Surprised they didn’t just give me a pregnancy test just to top it all off so they could mark on my chart.”

The light turns red ahead of them, and Tim slows to a stop. Drums his fingers along the steering wheel. “You’re...not pregnant though, right?”

“Tim,” Jon warns, giving him an unamused glare.

“Look, I’m just saying, I have an excellent babysitting record, so if you’re ever in the market for a godfather, my schedule is wide open.” He looks over to Jon, winking as he adds, “Wouldn’t even make you kiss my ring for it.”

“Please unlock the car, I’m going to walk the rest of the way home.”

“You’re no fun,” Tim sticks his tongue out at him as they start moving again, but he’s smiling underneath it. It’s difficult to make Tim truly mad. Jon’s seen it — a long time ago, back when they’d just met and he’d still been walking around with open wounds. Maybe that’s why they’d gotten along in the first place, with Jon being the arsehole who wasn’t there to make friends, and Tim being the dickhead who had friends and wasn’t looking for another. It’s been a long time since then, years, even, since Danny came back, but he sees a bit of that Tim from time to time in passing glances. Fleeting reflections. Never enough to hold down concretely.

Like now, as Tim’s smile fades away and his eyes lose their focus on the road ahead. He shifts in his seat. Clears his throat. “I was going to tell you...”

Jon lifts his head off the dashboard, eyebrow raised.

“I uh. I saw Martin,” Tim says, “on the way over here.”

Oh. Oh. Jon swallows around a dry throat, trying his best to keep his composure. “You...you did?”

Tim nods slowly. “He, um...well, it was when I was leaving campus, and he was with some others? Didn’t talk to them, just— well,” he lets out a huff, “he really didn’t look like he wanted to talk to me, so obviously I said hello. And then— then he asked how I was, and I told him I was going to pick you up from the doctor’s, and you know he had the nerve to act concerned!” He lets out a disbelieving laugh as he shakes his head. “I mean, can you believe some people?”

Jon tries to laugh with him. Tries to, at least. It comes out a little wrong, a little too wet around the edges as the sound claws its way up from the pit of his stomach down around his knees. Martin was concerned about him. He doesn’t know why that hurts. He doesn’t know why it doesn’t matter if Martin was only being polite, if he was just saying the words he was supposed to say and doesn’t actually give a damn about Jon’s well-being like his recent actions have suggested — it doesn’t matter, and he hates that bit about himself.

Jon must be wearing his emotions plain across his face, because Tim’s expression softens as he glances over to him. He opens his mouth. Closes it. He looks as if he’s about to reach for Jon, but quickly decides against it as the hand he holds out slides down into his lap. “Sorry.”

“It’s—” Jon stops himself. It’s not fine. It’s not fine that this whole affair still hurts like someone’s twisting a knife in his chest every time it gets brought up, but the worst part is how goddamn embarrassed he feels about it. That he’s not even worth talking to. That he’s not even worth an explanation. Jon chews his lip. “I should be over this by now.”

“These things are hard,” Tim says sympathetically.

“And I’ve been through them before,” Jon retorts. It isn’t like Martin is his first breakup, nor is it even the worst falling out he’s had with someone. “It’s not like— it’s not like I don’t know how these things go.”

“Jon—”

“It’s just—” He feels his shoulders droop, eyes squeezing shut as he attempts to find the words. “I...I know it’s stupid. It’s silly. I’m a grown man, and I— I-I’d just. I’d hoped that, e-even if we didn’t work out, even if w-we decided that we weren’t cut out for all of this,” fuck, he’s not going to cry damnit. He’s not going to cry over this stupid affair. “I’d just...hoped that we could still at least be...friends after everything...”

His voice comes out shamefully small at the end: not strong enough to be a confession, but too bloody-hearted to be anything but. It’s silly, he knows. It’s silly and naive and foolish of him to think that relationships could be so simple. That everything’s going to be tied up in a neat little bow at the end of it all like the wrap-up conclusion of a mystery novel. Martin had liked mysteries. Jon never had — they were too predictable, too formulaic, too easy to guess the ending after all the clues had been put together. He always hated them, and yet he wishes things were as clear now as they were in those types of stories.

Tim overcomes his hesitance in that moment and leans over to put a hand on his shoulder. Jon takes it, holds it, focuses on it as he squeezes and tries to let the weight ground him.

“I know,” Tim says softly as he rubs circles on his shoulder blade. If he hears the sniffle that escapes Jon’s breath, he doesn’t mention it. For that, Jon is grateful.

“I just,” Jon says, wipes his nose on his sleeve and huffs out a weak, wet laugh, “It’s stupid, but I wish there was a reason for it all, you know? Like— like some reasons he’s avoiding me that isn’t just because he’s a massive prick.”

The hand on his shoulder abruptly stops its rubbing. “Would...”

Jon looks over to Tim.

“Would it make you feel better if there was?”

His nose is dripping, he can feel it, but he doesn’t bring his sleeve up to wipe it away. He doesn’t dare move at all as he studies Tim, trying to decipher what he’s getting at here. “...What do you mean?”

“I mean—” Tim begins, then frowns, splutters out a sigh. “I dunno. I’ve been thinking about it, and like,” he breaks his focus on the road ahead for just a moment, just enough to look at Jon, “it is weird...”

Jon keeps quiet, watching as rain droplets begin to accumulate on the windshield in a uniform pattern before Tim clicks the wipers on.

“Do you think...” Tim continues, “Do you think Martin could be involved in something...I dunno, shady?”

“Shady...?” Jon echoes.

“Something that could be the reason he doesn’t want you around anymore,” Tim says, jaw working slowly. “Something...um. Illegal, maybe.”

Jon looks at him for a long, unblinking moment.

“What, you think Martin Blackwood sells drugs?” he snarks lightly in Tim’s direction, but Tim isn’t looking back. Tim isn’t laughing. He’s looking straight ahead, brow furrowed in deep, serious concentration. “Oh, come on, Tim, you cannot be serious.”

Tim shrugs, a bit defensively. “I don’t know! I just— like, if he were doing something shady, wouldn’t it make a bit more sense for him acting the way he’s been acting?”

“So you think he’s, what, coordinating London’s drug trade?” Jon says doubtfully. “He— no, he’s not the type.” Jon knows the type, unfortunately. Tim only knows a bit of Jon’s early twenties, in those years between uni and having a steady job when he’d managed to slip between just about every unpatched crack in society before he’d found his footing in the world, but he knows enough to know that Jon means that. Jon can only be grateful that he doesn’t remember a lot of it before he’d gotten sober. He looks to Tim, and then adds a bit lighter, “You really need to stop watching those police procedurals.”

Tim cracks a half smile. “Come on,” he whines. “Where else am I going to get my cat burgling tips from?”

“Tim,” Jon says.

“Look, maybe it’s not drugs! Maybe it’s like...I dunno, human trafficking! Weapons deals! One of those mills that makes coats out of puppies Cruella de Ville style!” Tim protests, wagging a finger at him like he's not just talking nonsense.

“Yes, because Martin is known for his fur coats.”

“See? I’m onto something here!” Tim proclaims. Jon can only roll his eyes in response, his grandmother’s words echoing in his head about how they’ll get stuck like that if he keeps it up. “...Or...”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “Or...?”

“Or...” Tim echos, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. They roll to a slow, jerky stop. “He could just...not be human.”

Jon holds back a low, lengthy groan. “Tim.”

“Jon.”

“Please tell me you do not seriously think Martin is a— a vampire.”

“Now, I didn’t say that,” Tim corrects. “I said he might not be human, which covers a wide range of supernatural creatures, including but not limited to vampires — you know, ghosts, demons, werewolves—”

“Unlock the car, I’m getting out.”

“Wh— you can’t get out now! I’ve just started my justifications!”

Jon does lean over then and give Tim a proper smack across the arm. Not too hard. Just hard enough to get his point across and to break Tim’s serious composure into a cacophonous of unserious giggling as he bats away Jon’s hand. Jon has decided, over the many years that they’ve known each other, that Tim can be a complete pain in the ass. That doesn’t mean that he isn’t Jon’s pain in the ass, however.

Jon flops back, leaning his head against the cold glass of the window. “So my ex is either a bloodsucker or some sort of criminal mastermind.”

“An arsehole bloodsucker or criminal mastermind.”

“Right, right,” Jon agrees. “God, when did my life become Twilight?”

Tim perks up a bit, glancing over at him. “Have you seen Twilight?”

“No,” Jon replies, then looks over to see Tim— fuck he’s grinning, the bastard. “That is not an invitation to show it to me.”

“Look,” Tim says seriously, “I’m not saying I’m Team Edward or Team Jacob, but Ashley Green? I mean—”

“If you keep talking about this, you’re going to owe me some sort of compensation.”

Tim rolls his eyes, but smiles. “Coffee then?”

Caffeine would be nice. Jon isn’t much of a coffee person, but he’ll choke it down when he needs a boost, and last night’s time on the couch is doing little for his current level of functioning. Jon half-shrugs, half-nods. Tim takes it, pulling into the other lane and kicking on the blinker, the tick-tick-tick of it filling up the space in between the patter of raindrops.

Jon isn’t listening as Tim rambles on about the artistic merit of a teenage supernatural romance movie. He’s too busy watching his reflection in the glass. He hardly recognizes himself these days. Hardly knows the man who stares back at him, eyes rimmed in shadows and face unshaven; Jon’s no stranger to his own poor sleep schedule, but the bone-deep exhaustion that can’t be wiped away with a few cups of liquid caffeine is new. It’s aching. He hates that he feels like a stranger in his own body — an infection that the rest of him is so badly trying to expel. Idly, his hand creeps up and jabs at the little pink line running down from his bottom lip: the one Martin had given him that now feels like a brand in its awful reminder every time he looks at it. Jon peels his hand away, fighting instinct, and buries it in his trouser pocket.

Sure, Martin might not be a drug lord, or an arms dealer, or some mythical creature out of some bad Y.A. romance novel, but Jon knows for a fact now that he is certainly, most definitely, one hundred percent an arsehole.

Jon does not sleep with people on first dates.

Mike doesn’t count towards this rule, because Jon does not really consider this a first date. It’s not even a date at all. A date implies the existence of the possibility for future reconnections, and he quite intends to keep this whole event a one time occurrence. It’s just something to take his mind off of things. Something to focus on because Tim’s friend’s friend was nice enough to set them up (come on Jon, going out will be good for you, he can hear frustratingly well in Tim’s tone of voice), and he’s trying desperately to not dwell on the fact that snogging against the back of his apartment door feels so familiar.

Jon gasps, a slight, involuntary thing when the other man’s tongue forces its way into his mouth, trying not to feel disgusted over the fact that he can still taste the pub food on him, and instead aims for pushing his own tongue back. Snaking his hands up under the loose, blue fabric of his shirt. Rolling his hips against Mike’s to get things moving along before he lightly shoves him away to catch his breath. Christ, this man doesn’t seem to quit.

“Should we...” Jon begins, throat scratching against his words before he clears it, tries again. “S-should we move to the, ah, the couch?”

“Oh, sure thing,” Mike agrees, then heads off into Jon’s flat without waiting for him to lead the way. Jon tries not to feel annoyed with that as he follows along behind. Is he seriously not even going to take his shoes off? Jon peels off his own first, petulantly, before following.

It’s not that there’s anything particularly wrong with Mike Crew, Jon reasons as he flops back onto the couch, it’s just that he’s not exactly Jon’s type. He’s bleach blonde. He’s skinny. He’s short and deathly pale, and he has a scar branching out from the side of his neck reminding him more of something he’d see in a morgue for freak-accident victims than the mysterious stranger in a romance novel that Tim had posed it as — unique, sure, but not exactly charming.

“This is a cute place you’ve got,” Mike admires as he swings a leg over Jon’s hips, crawling up to hover over him. “Kinda kitschy. It suits you. You said you were a librarian right?”

“Um,” Jon manages before the man comes down to suck at his neck — geez, are those his teeth? “Th-thanks...? Y-yes, at the school— Ow—”

“Oops.” Mike pulls away slightly, a speck of red smeared across his bottom lip. He licks it away as Jon’s stomach churns (from normal nausea or nerves, it’s difficult to say) as he spots the man’s teeth peeking through his lips, sharp and jagged bone-white. Maybe he’s had them cosmetically altered? Jon hadn’t noticed anything weird when they’d been at the pub, but the light had been just low enough that he also hadn’t noticed Mike’s eerily pale eyes that now watched him like a living corpse watching a mortician. Mike smiles at him sympathetically. “Sorry about that.”

“Please no marks,” Jon says, regretting not bringing it up at the beginning. “I do have work tomorrow.”

“Righto,” Mike agrees cheerfully. “I’ll just focus on making you feel good then, yeah?”

And no sooner than the words leave his mouth does his knee slide up and grind against Jon’s crotch, too roughly to feel good in any capacity, but just enough to piss him off as he opens his mouth to protest.

Mike seems to take this as an invitation to keep snogging him senseless and swallows up any words before they can form on his tongue.

He tries his best to keep up. Tries his best to just let the sensation prickle on his skin in what may be the lingering spirit of his libido making its annual resurgence, but it’s difficult. It’s difficult when all he can think about is how much better at kissing Martin was, because he’s specifically supposed to be using this to get over Martin, not...not superimpose him on the guy who isn’t a date but is, rather unfortunately, the man who he’s brought back to his flat for a night of fun (“fun” definition pending). He wonders what Martin is doing tonight. Maybe writing poetry. Jon decides at that moment that he thoroughly hates poetry, and snakes a hand through Mike’s hair to kiss him harder.

He doesn’t bother saying anything as he feels the other man begin to fiddle with his belt, then his zipper. He lifts his hips to let him shimmy down his trousers, then watches as Mike breaks away, grinning, before creeping back down between his legs. He gives a too-hard squeeze to his chest. Plants a kiss on his bare thigh, cold enough to make him shiver. Then another further up, and a third on the pillow of his stomach, before his fingers settle on the waistband of Jon’s boxers, and—

Jon’s stomach churns violently, and he squirms away from the touch. “Wait.”

Mike looks up at him, eyebrow raised. “You good?”

“I—” Jon croaks out, then squeezes his eyes shut in a desperate hope to alleviate some of the pressure behind them. He turns his head to press his face into the back cushion. “I-I feel a bit ill.”

Jon feels a hand rub up the wrong direction of his leg hair — an attempt at sympathy that only sparks the instinct in him to lash out and bite the source. He feels the cushions shift as Mike rises to his knees, crawls over top of him in a looming, weighted shadow. “You nervous?” Mike asks softly, hand twirling through a strand of Jon’s hair that’s fallen loose from the rest. “We can just kiss for a bit longer, if you like.”

A hand lands on Jon’s chin and tilts it away from the cushion, and Mike smiles. Traces a thumb over his jaw. Leans down, and—

Jon’s hands come up against the man’s chest in a gentle but firm rebuff. “I seriously think I’m going to throw up,” he chokes out, trying not to visibly wince as the hiccup chasing his words brings the taste of bile and that god-awful beer back into his mouth. Eugh.

He is absolutely not looking to displace his date with Martin as his “worst first date ever” so soon after by puking on the man looming over him.

Mike finally takes the hint, it seems, as he rocks back onto his heels. “Oh,” he says. “...Is it the vertigo? I’m told I have that effect on people.”

“What? No, no,” Jon says, pulling off his glasses to press his palms into his eyes. Pull it together man. “I-I just haven’t...felt well for the past week; some sort of bug, I think.”

Mike hums in sympathy. “You been to the clinic? It might be the flu — I heard that was going around.”

“Yes, I went, no...no verdict, I’m afraid.” Jon laughs a little, trying to lighten the already thoroughly soured mood, and then clears his throat. Sits up a bit. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to drag you all the way here just to—”

“Hey, hey, don’t worry about it,” Mike says as he rolls off the couch to his feet. “It happens. Besides, ‘s not like I’m gonna rip your throat out over it.”

Jon laughs lightly at that, a little nervously as the seriousness of the statement leaves it a little difficult to parse if he’s joking. He’s joking, right? Probably. Best not think too hard on it. Jon clears his throat. “Okay, well. Um— I’ll...I’ll call you then? Er, wait, did you give me your number?”

“Don’t think I did,” Mike says, and Jon shimmies his trousers back up to his hips as he fumbles blindly on the end table behind him — ah ha! There. He hands over the device to his date.

He fiddles with his zipper as Mike unlocks it.

“Oh, hey, you know Martin?”

Jon freezes, the name dumping an ice-cold reality over his head. He looks up to the man. “S-sorry?”

Mike flips his phone around, displaying the home screen — oh. Oh, Jon had forgotten about that. It’s a group photograph from Tim’s birthday two months ago, one he’d liked enough after taking it to set it as his wallpaper and only now realizes how blurry it is now that he’s not completely sloshed. There are four of them, all together: him and Tim smooshed in the middle, Sasha sticking her tongue out behind them, and—

And Martin, tips of his hair still that faded pink it was when they met, leaning into the frame with a big, blinding grin on his face. Fuck, he should change that. Jon feels himself swallow around a dry throat.

“Oh, uh...y-yeah,” Jon says dazedly. “Y-you know him?”

“We rowed together in uni,” Mike says, flipping the phone back around to face him as he begins to punch something in. “Nice bloke. Went out a few times, too.”

“O-oh.”

“Tell him I said hey next time you see him. What’s he up to these days?”

“Um. I-I’m not really sure.” Mike passes his phone back to him, and Jon takes it with trembling hands. Clears his throat. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Mike smiles. He leans over and pats Jon’s shoulder, his hand cold as ice against his bare skin. “You feel better then, alright?”

Jon shows him out, if only to prove to his stomach that he’s not going to puke the second he stands up even if he feels like he will. He wishes he could say it was only nerves. He wishes he could chalk all this up to the fact that he’s still having trouble getting over some guy who ghosted him two weeks ago, and now every outing with another person just feels like he’s trying to fill in a hole that’s been torn out of his chest with sharpened claws. Which— he’s not saying they aren’t that, but there’s definitely something biological going on underneath the fact that he’s got this ongoing illness that stubbornly refuses to abate. Probably. Hopefully.

Jon opens up his phone as he wanders back to the living room, scowling at the photo that glares cheerfully back at him. Then he tosses it aside into the dark recesses of the couch cushions, flops down on top of it, and lets out the loudest, longest groan he can muster.

Jon has never been afraid of death.

That’s something you get over, when you see it young. It’s something that adults never have a good explanation for, just telling you they aren’t coming back and there’s nothing anyone can do to fix it. End of story. Book closed.

And sure, Jon doesn’t want to die, not really — that’s basic human instinct to fight tooth and nail against an inevitable fate — but he can say that the thought of one day just reaching a final resting place is...a comfort, in a way. No, Jon doesn’t want to die, but he doesn’t think that dying as a concept is something so terribly awful like every piece of media makes it out to be. Things just stop, sometimes. It would honestly be cruel if they didn’t.

That isn’t to say that death can’t royally piss him off at times, however, as he stands staring at the Game Over screen before him with his player character splattered about in a shower of pixel blood.

“I win,” Daisy says from the console adjacent. “Again.”

Jon scowls at her. “Just have to rub it in, don’t you?”

“I think you’re just a sore loser.”

“I think you had the unfair advantage,” he argues, gesturing to the useless controller before him. “Your buttons don’t stick.”

“Maybe if you didn’t button mash that wouldn’t be a problem,” she retorts cooly. She takes a step back from her machine. “But if you like, then you’re more than welcome to use this one for the next round.”

“I don’t want to play another round,” Jon says bitterly.

“Loser,” Daisy says.

Jon sticks his tongue out at her. He wanders back over to their table in the corner, where the cheap cardboard-like pizza they’d ordered still sits cooling and abandoned, and sits down. Daisy follows leisurely behind.

It’s easy to hang out with Daisy. That’s probably why Jon still does it after all these years. He doesn’t need a big reason to call her, most of the time it’s simply that if he doesn’t do something out of the house his head will explode, and Daisy will tag along because she likes to poke him when he’s irritated and has nothing better to do. They mesh well together, even if they don’t have a terribly lot in common. Daisy works in cyber security, Jon works in a library. Daisy likes football games, Jon couldn’t tell you a single team if he tried. Daisy thinks documentaries and field guides are for putting yourself to sleep, and Jon’s put her through enough of both over the years to learn that he’s not going to change her mind about that one.

Daisy doesn’t much like people. Jon supposes he doesn’t much like people, either, and he also supposes that that’s just enough for them to like each other.

Daisy slips into the seat across from him, shoving aside a handful of used napkins as she reaches for a slice. Jon doesn’t know how she can stand the stuff, even without the base level of queasiness he’s stomached for the past week. He watches as she takes a big, cheesy bite out of the thing, then looks up. Raises an eyebrow as she notices him staring.

“So are you going to tell me why you dragged me out here today?” she finally asks, mumbled through the artificial dairy.

Jon frowns at her. He wraps his arms around himself, partially because he doesn’t like the look she’s giving him and partially because some arsehole has propped open the door to the arcade to make the place more inviting and in turn allowed the nippy autumn air to come bustling in. “I hardly dragged you out here, you picked the place.”

“Something’s on your mind.”

“Nothing’s on my mind.”

“Something’s on your mind,” she says again, then reaches for her jacket. She passes it across the table to him, dragging a sleeve through a cup of sauce as she does. “Spill it, Sims.”

“I can’t just want to hang out with you?” Jon says defensively as he puts it on. It’s too big for him, sleeves hanging over his hands as he licks off the bit of sauce on the edges — eugh, okay, nevermind, that’s awful too. “I can’t believe you’d think so little of me.”

“Look, you know I don’t particularly care about the specifics,” she continues, “but I know you have a tendency to mope—”

Jon scoffs at the insinuation.

“—and I know you’re a real pain in the arse to deal with when you’re moping.”

Jon scowls at her. “I’m not moping.”

“Fine,” she says.

“I’m not.”

“I said fine.”

Jon’s eyes narrow. “What, so you’re not going to be like everyone else and ask how I’m coping with,” he makes a vague gesture around him, “everything?”

Daisy raises an eyebrow. There’s sauce dripping down her chin, dangerously close to splatting on her shirt with some band logo he’s never seen before, but he knows she won’t care either way if it does. That’s just Daisy for you. Jon’s come around to finding her whole mess of a manner rather endearing over the years, even if it is a little gross. “Well, how are you coping with,” she mimics his gesture, “everything?”

Jon looks at her for a long moment before sinking back into his chair despondently.

Daisy takes a long sigh through her nose as she puts down her pizza. “Is it the boyfriend thing again?”

“Ex,” Jon corrects.

“Fine, ex-boyfriend thing.”

Jon chews his cheek. Is it? He doesn’t even know. He supposes that’s the start of it — the root of all his problems, if he’s being dramatic about it — but he knows that isn’t everything. He sets his elbow to the table, leaning his face into his hand.

“I had a date yesterday,” he tells her.

Daisy’s placid expression doesn’t change. “With the ex?”

“No,” Jon corrects. “Different person. It was...um. He— well, there wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with him, I don’t know, it was a bit weird, but—”

“Jon, no offense, but do you really think a rebound is the best idea right now?”

“It— it wasn’t a rebound,” he protests, hating how the word makes him sound like some sort of basketball player. The last time he’d played that sport had been in high school gym class, and one of the older girls had thrown the ball to him when he wasn’t paying attention and broken his nose. Not a rebound, then. “It wasn’t anything serious, I just— I needed a distraction, I guess.”

“So is that what I am?” she asks mildly. “A distraction?”

“Don’t be pedantic.”

“Look, you know I don’t give a shit about that. I’m just trying to give you advice.”

“Alice Tonner giving me advice?” Jon says cheekily. “What’s the world coming to?”

“Call me Alice again and I’ll rip your throat out,” she warns, waving the serrated pizza knife in his direction. Jon chuckles, but decides it best not to take his chances. She sets the knife down precariously between them. “Look," Daisy begins, "you talk a lot about this guy.”

“I don’t—” he starts defensively. “We were dating.”

“But you never seem to actually talk about him, you know?”

Jon blinks. Turns over the words in his head. “Er...what?”

“Well,” Daisy says, “what do you really know about him?”

What does Jon know about Martin?

What does Jon know about Martin? Well, plenty of things, right? He knows that he likes poetry and that he sleeps on the left side of his bed. He knows that he’s more of a dog person — spaniels were always his favorites — and that he takes his tea with milk but no sugar. He knows that he has lovely hands, an even lovelier mouth. He knows that he’s smarter and more clever than he gives himself credit for. Jon clears his throat. “Well, he’s...he’s funny, a-and kind,” he begins. “And he um, he’s quite the creative, and he’s very good movie-watching company. And, er, he...he likes to cook?”

Daisy watches him carefully. “Okay...what else?”

Jon frowns. “What do you mean ‘what else’?”

“Well, what does he do for work?”

“He’s a student,” Jon says, trying not to feel defensive. He knows he's told Daisy this before.

“Okay,” Daisy continues. “What’d he do before that?”

Jon stares at her as his mind turns over the question. “Um,” he says intelligently.

Daisy waits.

“He...er, I believe he lived up north?”

“Doing what?”

“What?”

“What did he do up north?” she presses, leaning forward on her elbows. “And where up north?”

“Um. Manchester, I think...? A-and Leeds, for a bit?”

“Why there?”

“Why where?”

“Why live in Leeds? Why move here to London? You said he lived here a bit before starting school, right?”

“W-well, yes, but—”

“And what about family? Mom? Dad?”

“His mother passed away,” Jon explains with a frown. Apparently it had happened just before they’d met, but Jon had only learned that after visiting Martin’s flat and seeing all the boxes of her things he had yet to get rid of. “I-I don’t know about his father.”

Daisy shrugs lightly. “Siblings then?”

“...Siblings?”

“Does he have any? A brother? A sister? Aunts, uncles, cousins?”

Jon blanches, mouth open as he struggles to find an answer that he doesn’t have. “I-I don’t know... Does it matter?”

Daisy seems to take pity on his befuddlement as she sighs, crossing her arms on the table before her. “Look,” she says carefully. “I’m not trying to be an arsehole. I’m just saying that maybe you didn’t...I dunno. Have a full picture of this guy. Maybe there’s something you missed here.”

“Something I missed,” Jon repeats carefully.

“Just— something that might explain some of his actions.”

Jon doesn’t have a response for that. Jon can only look at his hands folded on the table in front of him.

She lets out a low sigh through her nose, then reaches across the table and snags the two clear plastic cups from between them. “I’m gonna get refills, alright?” she says, then slips out of the booth before he can protest.

He’s doesn’t—

Hm.

It’s not— Jon knows Martin. He does know Martin; Martin was his friend long before he ever thought about having him as a boyfriend. Jon knows the important things about Martin, like how he does his laundry and how he likes his eggs and what he likes to watch before falling asleep at night. Jon knows that Martin has a soft spot for old horror movies and that his collection of period romance truly rivals the library’s own. Jon knows that Martin is just about the kindest man he’s ever met — or, well, he was, but — and that Martin has quite the sense of humor — or, at least, he did, but — and that Martin would never say anything to purposefully hurt him — or, you see, he wouldn’t, but —

Jon reaches across the table for the knife, setting it to the pizza.

Okay, so Jon doesn’t know some things about Martin. That’s...fine. It's fine! It’s normal! No one can know everything about everyone, and it isn’t like Martin knows everything about Jon either. Like, sure, he’d told Martin about his grandmother and his parents, but it wasn’t like that was some big secret. And, yes, he’d also told Martin about college and about Georgie. It’s fine. He was going to find out about that anyway. And, okay, so Martin knows that he was in rehab and that’s probably not something that most people do, but it’s not that big of a deal, because Martin was his friend, and friends tell friends things like that, and even if—

The knife slips from his hand, rolling sharply against the back of his fingers. Jon hisses in pain as he watches crimson begin to well up along the wound and frantically grabs for a wad of napkins, pressing them firmly against the back of his hand.

...Okay, so Martin knows things about Jon. Martin knows a lot of things about Jon, definitely much more than the average person, probably a bit more than most of his friends. And that’s— that’s fine! It’s not that big of a deal! Martin was his boyfriend, for christ’s sake, and significant others typically know a bit more about you than your friends and it’s not that big of a deal.

Even if Jon’s only known Martin for a little under a year. Even if Jon can’t say the same about how much he knows about Martin Blackwood.

...Right?

Daisy wanders back to the table, thunking down their drinks in a clattering of ice. “They didn’t have orange,” she informs him, “so I just got you grape, but— Oh, shit, you alright?”

Jon glances up at her, then follows her gaze back to his hand where the blood’s soaked all the way through the layers of cheap, papery napkins pressed against his hand, making him look like he’s just come out of battle with a clogged garbage disposal where the garbage disposal won. He grimaces as he begins to peel them away. “Fine, just cut myself. Would you—”

Jon looks down at his injured hand.

“Injured,” at least, is what it had been. “Injured,” at least, makes sense in the context of all the secondary traits he’s sporting — there’s blood on the napkins, and on the table, and on his hand where the napkins have failed to soak up all of the crimson mess, leaving a warm, sticky residue behind. There isn’t, however, an injury to go with it. There isn’t a sign of any at all. There’s no scar, no scab, no divot in the skin where he’d distinctly felt the sharp split of a knife cutting flesh — hell, he still feels the sting buzzing in aftershocks of pain through his fingers — but there’s nothing...there isn’t—

Jon curls his hand into a slow, experimental fist. Uncurls it again. Inspects it over as he turns it palm side up, then over, then palm side up again.

There’s nothing there. There’s no wound. There’s no evidence that there ever was a wound in the first place, despite everything else scattered on the table in front of him contradicting otherwise. Huh. That...huh.

“Um,” Jon says, the words first aid dead on his tongue. What the hell. “N-nevermind. Thank you...Daisy.”

Distantly, Jon wonders how much he really knows about Martin. But closer, more urgent, more desperate and close and laced in a fine-knit layer of panic, Jon wonders, a little hysterically, how much he really knows about himself.