tags
The Magnus Archives, Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood
- bondage
- kink exploration
- masturbation
- safeword use
Martin might very well be losing his mind.
It’s difficult to tell for certain. It’s difficult to separate what was once just a delusional fantasy in his authority-kink diseased brain with the reality of the situation at hand, which is that Jonathan Sims is coming over to his flat. Jonathan Sims — The Jonathan Sims, the man who Martin’s been hopelessly obsessed with for the last year and a half and has had more than enough embarrassing dreams about this exact scenario — is coming over to his flat, and he hasn’t even bothered to put his shoes away. Fuck, he hasn’t even bothered to scrub the floors yet, either. He’s been wiping this one section of the kitchen counter over and over again for the past twenty minutes, trying to decide whether or not to put away the puzzle on his coffee table before Jon arrives. He doesn’t want Jon to think he’s a slob, that he doesn’t finish things in a timely manner (he’s read that enough times on his followup revisions reports), but Jon also seems like he might be the kind of person who enjoys a good puzzle. Hell, maybe he’ll even finish it for Martin. Maybe they can just sit around the coffee table and put together a puzzle of puppies dressed in halloween costumes in the middle of summer, because the other alternative is to do the thing that they actually talked about doing and that Martin is still trying to wrap his brain around because it truly does sound like something out of one of his wet dreams and oh god maybe he’s dreaming maybe this is all a dream—
Martin claps his cheek with a soapy hand. Christ, get it together, man. Focus. Jon is coming over whether he has a complete mental spiral in his kitchen or not, so now is not the time to be obsessing over the layout of his flat or the length of his hair. Jon’s hair is longer than his, he’s not going to make some snarky comment like his mum would about keeping things neat. Even if Jon hasn’t exactly had time for a haircut lately. Even if Martin doesn’t exactly have that same excuse.
Martin tosses the soapy sponge in the sink, then gathers up his trainers crowding the front door and tosses them in the closet. He’s prepared for this. He’s watched enough videos on this subject to permanently mar his youtube algorithm, and even then, he knows Jon isn’t expecting him to be some sort of knot-tying artist when he’d never even been in boy scouts. Was Jon ever in boy scouts? He’s not sure. He’ll have to ask him. Martin thinks back to the childhood photo Jon had sheepishly shown him once and tries to imagine the messy-haired kid with plastered knees in one of those little uniforms they wear.
The knock on the door interrupts his thoughts, and Martin bolts up faster than a jackrabbit on a date. Fuck, is this a date? He doesn’t think people who are just friends tend to do this sort of thing, but he doesn’t want to be presumptuous. Maybe this is a date. Maybe Martin should have dressed up more. Oh god, is it too late to change?
Martin pulls open the door, and the man on the other side starts as if seemingly having forgotten that doors can do such a thing as open. He looks up to Martin with wide, bewildered eyes.
It takes Martin a moment to register that the man is, in fact, Jon. It’s just — he’s still not exactly used to seeing Jon...like this. Dressed down in something that anyone on the street might wear instead of a stuffy suit and tie under the guise of professionalism. His hands swim formlessly in the rolled-up sleeves of an old blue hoodie, hanging low over the pair of soft-looking trousers. Jon tilts his head so that the bit of hair that’s fallen loose from the small spurt of a ponytail falls out of his eyes, then pushes that clump behind his ear.
“.........Hello,” he says carefully, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to break the silence between them.
“H-hi Jon,” Martin answers.
Jon glances past him into Martin’s flat, an act that nearly compels Martin to pull the door close further before reason wins out — Jon is coming in here, idiot, it’s not like you can hide anything. Then Jon frowns severely as he seemingly confirms something, and says, “I’m too early.”
“Wha— no! Jon, you’re fine—”
“I can come back,” Jon says in a rush. “O-or we can reschedule? Or cancel, if that’s better. It really doesn’t—”
“Jon,” Martin cuts him off as he swings open fully. “Come inside.”
Jon clamps his mouth shut. Jon comes inside without any further argument.
It’s not as strange having Jon inside his flat as Martin had first imagined, aside from the fact that it’s strange in every other way. Jon looks like he might throw up. He looks like he’s never been so uncomfortable in his life standing there, like he’s just fallen down a flight of icy stairs. He looks as if he might explode into a million pieces if touched at the wrong angle, like one of those glass drops he’d watched a video about when he was supposed to be researching twenty-year-old house fires in Croydon, as his hands clench and unclench and clench again around the strap of his tote bag slung over his shoulder. It’s got a bunch of fat cats printed on it playing with string. It’s cute, and oddly suits its owner.
“Jon.”
Jon looks up. He looks like he’s forgotten what words mean, and Martin is at least slightly grateful that he wasn’t the only one having an emotional crisis leading up to this. Nevertheless, he pities the man, and does his best to show so in his smile.
“Would you like some tea?”
Jon blinks. “Oh...um. Yes. That. That would be nice.”
Martin smiles, gently ushers Jon further inside so that he can actually get around him to the kitchen. “Why don’t you go sit in there, and I’ll be right over.”
Jon nods slightly as he heads for Martin’s living room. If one could call it that. It’s got a sofa and a coffee table, at least, but Martin’s always found it a bit too tight to comfortably have guests in, which means that it’s more of a sitting room where he occasionally watches the telly and occasionally puts together puzzles. Oh god, he forgot about the puzzle. He hopes Jon overlooks the puzzle in his own bout of mental spiraling.
Martin clicks on the kettle and places his hands on the counter, forcing himself to breathe slowly in and out. He needs to get out of his head for this. Jon’s already nervous enough as is, which means they very well can’t have the both of them falling apart. Jon wants to do this. Martin wants to do this. Jon trusts him, and Martin wants to be someone he can trust.
...Even if that trust centers around him doing BDSM with his boss. When did Martin’s life get so goddamn weird.
It hadn’t seemed weird when Jon had brought it up, if Martin’s being honest. Maybe it was the fact that he’d spoken about it completely divorced from sexual feeling that made it seem like a reasonable thing to do. That made this whole idea seem so easy to agree to, which is what Martin keeps trying to tell himself in order to block out that little voice taunting him with his recurring wet dreams.
A month. That’s how long Jon had been gone. It’d been exactly a month between Martin speaking to Jon on the phone from his friend’s (ex-girlfriend’s, technically, though Martin tries his best not to think about that part) flat to Martin finding Jon stripped naked and shivering in the bowels of the Archives with not an explanation to be had. At least, not one that mattered. What had mattered was that Jon had been gone, kidnapped, and that Martin hadn’t known. What had mattered was that Martin didn’t know how to fix the problem that had collapsed shivering into his lap, and somehow that terrified him more than anything else.
Of course he’d noticed Jon’s wrists. Of course he’d noticed the red rings around them of still-new skin, the way that he rubbed at them constantly until they were a bright, raw pink. For all the Jonathan Sims typical powers of denial and repression, he wasn’t a subtle man in the slightest.
Of course Martin said yes, when Jon had asked. It’d been such a vulnerable spot to show, and how could Martin say no?
Martin picks up the twin mugs of tea and totes them to the living room. Jon sits on his sofa, (thankfully) seemingly having unwound enough out of his tight shell of anxiety to remove the tote bag from his shoulder and pick up a puzzle piece. He snaps it gently into place as Martin sets the mug beside him.
“Oh,” Jon says, drawn out of his daze as he reaches for the mug with his right hand in all of its mottled glory. Then he pauses, fingers twitching, and reaches with his left. Martin hates that he still feels the slightest bit queasy looking at the injury. It’s hardly Jon’s fault (well, he supposes agreeing to shake a woman made of molten wax is a little bit Jon’s fault, but he doesn’t want to victim blame), and he can’t help the ache of sympathy in his own fingers whenever he sees Jon’s twitch or spasm. Jon takes a sip from his tea. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” Martin says with a smile, leaning on the armchair of the sofa. “Tea. Um. Usually helps me when I’m nervous, so...”
Jon chuffs lightly. “I guess nervous is one way to put it.”
“Anxious?” Martin offers.
“Mm, I was thinking more along the lines of ‘scared out of my mind.’” Jon places his mug down on one of the worn wooden coasters and swallows. “I haven’t. Um. Really done something like this before.”
If Martin’s being completely forthcoming, then he hasn’t either. Sure, he’s visited a kink club or two, done a bit of research and experimenting, but the furthest he’s delved into this realm of things was an ex-boyfriend who liked being spanked, and Martin’s not sure that even counts. He probably will not be spanking Jon today. He hopes. He can’t say that he enjoyed it very much.
It’s not a sexual thing, Jon had said, when he’d brought it up, smoking his cigarette on the Institute back steps with trembling fingers. I know this technically falls in...in the realm of kink, but my, er, my sexual proclivities are...well they...th-this isn’t something directed towards you personally, it’s just that...that is to say—
It’s fine, Jon, Martin had said to rescue the man from his own awkwardness. I don’t mind doing this without— We’ll put sex off the table, okay?
And it is fine — except for the fact that Martin’s stupid libido refuses to shut its mouth as it simmers low in his gut at the very thought of this whole ordeal. He’s only ever seen Jon like that in his dreams, which are safely tucked away in his head for no one to see, unlike now, when the reality of the situation is sitting next to him on his own sofa. He needs to get it together. He doesn’t want to make Jon uncomfortable.
Jon swallows and picks up his tote bag from the floor by his feet. He reaches inside. He rummages around, decidingly, as if he’s about to apologize once more for suggesting the whole thing and run off, but then stubbornness wins out and he pulls out the items in question.
Two skeins of rope. It’s blue. It’s pretty. It’s probably too much for just basic things, but Martin doesn’t dare bring it up and risk making Jon even more nervous about the whole thing, so he simply silently picks one coil up and holds it in his hands. The weight is good. The threading is soft, not rough like the kind he’d bought at the hardware store to practice with. He’d rubbed his hands raw trying to follow along with a video of a butch woman demonstrating various knots, and he’s glad that Jon actually had the forethought to do more research into what’s best for this type of thing.
“It’s nice,” Martin says, and he means it. It will do nicely. So long as he doesn’t royally fuck this up. “I like the color.”
Jon hums lightly. “I, er.....th-they had more options in red, but it felt too...shibari-ish?”
Martin’s glad he isn’t drinking his tea, because he’s quite certain he’d have spit it everywhere at the suggestion that Jonathan Sims knows what shibari is. Realistically, he knows that Jon likely did research on the subject before making the leap towards actually purchasing rope. But that doesn’t stop his mind from doing backflips in his skull at the idea of Jon being involved in the kink scene — it’s Jon.
Martin looks over at him, where Jon’s attention remains carefully trained to his lap. The tips of his ears are pink under the arms of his glasses. Best not delay it, then. “Should we...start then?”
Jon’s head snaps up, eyes wide. “Here?”
“I was thinking my bedroom?” Martin says thoughtlessly, before backpedaling quickly as he sees Jon’s ears go darker. “I-I mean, my bed— it’s probably more comfortable for this kind of thing—”
“Y-yes, yes, yes, that’s um. Fine. Lead the way.”
Martin does. He doesn’t really need to, not when the door to his bedroom is a solid half-meter from the sofa, but it’s the principle of the matter. Martin’s just grateful that he had enough brain power this morning to remember to make his bed, though the floppy-eared plush dog still sits in the middle of the pillow arrangement. There’s no way to grab it without being blatantly obvious to the man behind him. Damnit. Hell and shit.
Jon toes off his shoes by the door before he heads for the bed, then sits down cautiously, like he’s waiting for instructions. Maybe he is. Martin chews his lip.
“Do you want to take this off?” Martin says, gesturing to Jon’s hoodie. “It might get caught up in the uh, the rope.”
“Oh.” Jon looks down at himself, down to his fuzzy-socked feet speckled in sheep. “How much should I...?”
“A-as much as you’re comfortable,” Martin assures him quickly.
Jon peels off his hoodie, lying it on the bed flat so it won’t wrinkle, and then fiddles with the hem of his shirt. Tugs at it, then ultimately decides to leave it on. He looks down at himself again, consideringly, before finally shucking off his trousers and placing them alongside his hoodie. Okay. Well. Martin hadn’t exactly been suggesting that but...whatever Jon is comfortable with, he supposes. Jon climbs onto the bed, shimmies around in his t-shirt and tugs down the hem of his boxers on his thighs to a more appropriate length. That still leaves a considerable amount of thigh for Martin to stare at. Or not stare at. He shouldn’t be staring. Stop looking at his thighs.
Martin looks carefully at the man sitting before him.
Jon’s on the thinner side — always has been, but he’s pretty sure it’s simply his own awkwardness twisting its way into his posture that’s making him look more so now. Martin can proudly say that Jon’s even put on a bit of weight recently, cheeks no longer sharp enough to cut yourself on, ribs no longer stark against his torso like tattoos — it’s easier to get Jon to eat, it turns out, when he’s not spending his entire lunch break following around whatever unlucky victim he’s decided to be suspicious of for the day, but...but Martin can’t exactly blame him for that. Martin can’t exactly fault Jon for being the resident eldritch god’s new favorite chew toy, especially when he wasn’t exactly wrong about something being off back then in the first place.
Of course, Martin wouldn’t know this about Jon if he hadn’t accidentally seen the man naked, but he doesn’t dare think about that. That’d been a bad day. They’d sat in the breakroom for most of the afternoon: Martin trying to make tea to ease some of the awful tension and Jon swaddled up in a spare t-shirt and a blanket he’d found in document storage, quietly muttering to himself about how it couldn’t have been a month, was it really a month?, he’s doesn’t think it could have been a month, sure it’d been dark and difficult to see and there’d been so many hands but surely it couldn’t have been—
It’d been a month and two days, when Martin counted. It’d been a month and two days of Martin not knowing anything was wrong, and that’s the worst of it.
He notices Jon’s eyes have closed, scrunched up tight like he’s thinking about something very hard, so he sits next to him. He doesn’t touch Jon. He knows Jon doesn’t much like to be touched, these days.
“How should we...” Jon begins, fiddling with his glasses before ultimately pulling them off and setting them aside.
“However you want,” Martin assures him, which isn’t a fantastic answer when he’s quite certain that Jon doesn’t even know what he wants, but he’s not trying to be difficult. “I guess it depends on...well. What you want out of this?”
Jon considers the question for a moment. “I think...maybe— I-I obviously don’t wish to recreate the whole, er, scenario so to speak, but maybe...m-maybe mimicking parts of it would be, well, beneficial?”
“Such as...?”
Jon chews his lip. “M-maybe if we used a chair...”
Martin thinks of the old, rickety dining chairs he’d hauled out to the dumpster when he’d moved, a product left over from living with his mother. He’d always hated the things. They were too small for him, too uncomfortable, too creaky every time he moved as they threatened to collapse. “I don’t think I have any chairs for that sort of thing,” Martin says.
“Right, er, th-then...then my wrists, I suppose?”
Wrists. Okay. Martin can do that, he thinks. If he remembers the tutorials he watched, he can do that. He climbs further onto the bed, rope in hand, and Jon does the same, tucking his knees up under him as he faces away from Martin and folds his hands behind his back. Martin takes one gently, examining it. Jon’s wrists are so thin. Thin and still scarred pink in a way that makes his chest ache as he thumbs over the marks. Jon shivers slightly under his touch.
Martin pauses, looking up. “Should we have a safeword?”
Jon glances over his shoulder at him. “A what?”
“Er, a-a safeword...? It’s like...” god, how can he explain it. “It’s a word you say when you want to stop, so that the other person knows you’re talking out of a scene? It’s, uh, a BDSM thing.”
“But this isn’t BDSM,” Jon says.
Martin stares at him. “Jon, what do you think the B stands for in that acronym?”
Jon opens his mouth. Closes it. He looks like a startled goldfish, and Martin might find it a bit funny if he wasn’t so goddamn nervous. “But it’s that...ah...i-isn’t that strictly sexual in nature...?”
Ah, that’s the issue. Martin’s expression softens. He’s known Jon long enough to learn a bit about his complicated relationship with relationships themselves, that sexual desire is more of an afterthought in his head, and he’d made it quite clear that that wasn’t what he was looking for in this meeting. “Not always,” Martin says with a half shrug. He’s not sure what compels him to place his hand on Jon’s back, but Jon shivers under the touch with a soft sigh. Martin takes the opportunity to drag a thumb up his spine. “Honestly, I think it’s— for some people, yeah, but for most, it’s less about the chains and whips and stuff, and more about...um. Power dynamics...? Some people like having that over someone, o-or having it taken away.”
Jon lets out a little hum, leaning back into Martin’s touch. Martin lets his fingers ghost up to the nape of his neck and kneads gently against a knot there. “I...um,” Jon says, “It’s a bit strange to...that is to say...well, I— I never thought I’d be, er, exploring this type of thing in my twenties.”
“What, kink?”
Jon’s nose twitches. “To put it bluntly.”
Martin chuckles lightly. “Yeah, well. Join the club.” He still remembers his first club, how scared out of his mind he’d been going in there as a freshly out of the closet twenty-something-year-old. Maybe Jon feels a bit like that now.
Martin pulls his hand away. Jon chases it with a slight lean and a faint noise of protest, but he doesn’t voice his complaint. “T-to answer your question, I suppose I can just tell you to stop if needed?”
“Alright,” Martin says, “though you’ll have to tell me if it’s starting to get too much before it gets too much. It’ll take me a minute to untie them, unless I use the shears.”
“Please no shears. It was expensive,” Jon retorts, and Martin holds back a snort. Typical Jon, ever to the point.
Martin thumbs at Jon’s wrists once more, over the soft skin where he can feel the ripple of tendons beneath. Then he picks up the rope. “Tell me if it’s too tight.”
Slowly, eyes trained carefully on his lap, Jon nods.
Martin starts with his left wrist, carefully folding the rope in half before he begins to loop. It’d been difficult settling on the ties he wanted to practice. He’d found plenty for more advanced bondage hobbiests than him — ones with long, intricate chains, ones with full-body weavings that reminded him a bit too much of being caught in a spider’s web, ones for suspension that only seemed a wrong move or twist away from an emergency room visit. For most of them, however, the deciding factor seemed to be the flexibility aspect. Most of them required some sort of twisting and contorting, elbows pinched together behind the person’s back in a way that made Martin’s spine scream in sympathy, and those he quickly ruled out of the pile. He knew that Jon could barely bend down to pick something he’d dropped on a good day. He’d hate to imagine him sore tomorrow because Martin had chosen an improper position.
It’s easy to tie, once he gets started. Just loop around here, and then around there, and then wrap around back...here...? Yes, here— no wait, wrap around here, and finally tie off— there! That looks right. Martin gives a light tug, watching the turquoise rope dig lightly into Jon’s pretty brown skin — oh, okay wow. That should...probably not be as nice to look at as Martin finds it. He swallows, then places a hand gingerly on Jon’s shoulder to get his attention.
“How’s that?” Martin asks cautiously, resisting the urge to tug on the rope again.
Jon considers the binding for a moment. Shifts slightly. Tugs, not hard, but enough to catch on the tension of the rope and show his forearm muscles straining. “It’s...tight,” Jon says finally.
Martin frowns. “Too tight?”
“N-no, not— um. Poor choice of words. It’s very secure,” he corrects, still gingerly testing the cuffs as he adjusts his legs underneath him. “I-I think it’s— um. It feels like it’s supposed to.”
“And that’s...a good thing?” Martin asks, unsure of how he’s meant to take that. Yes, Jon had mentioned...reenacting certain aspects, to an extent, but he’d never quite specified which aspects he was interested in trying. He very much hopes Jon doesn’t want him to play some deranged clown or mannequin lotioning him down.
...Well. Not that Martin would mind the lotioning part, but the clown part is a hard no.
Then Martin realizes Jon still hasn’t responded, and he tilts his head. “Jon?”
“Hm?” Jon says, looking to Martin but seemingly not fully back in his own head.
Martin frowns. “Are you alright?”
Jon blinks, slowly. Then he blinks again. Then he shakes himself violently as if an invisible hand has smacked him, and his wide eyes snap to Martin’s. Just for a moment. Just for long enough for him to see Martin’s look of concern, and then he redirects his attention back down to his lap. “Fine, fine,” he says quickly. “Sorry, er— y-you can do my legs too, if you like.”
Martin doesn’t ask Jon if he wants him to do his legs too. He wants to, but Jon’s already wiggling them out from underneath him in a fashion that suggests he’s not getting much of a choice in the matter, so Martin simply sighs, scoots over, and grabs another coil of rope.
Martin places a broad hand on the curve of Jon’s calf. The skin of his legs isn’t nearly as smooth as his arms. Old worm scars mottle and pucker the expanse of his skin, stretching all the way up to the hem of his pants. Martin shivers at the idea of pulling them out that high up. He knows Jon has more, further up — the few that speckle his neck and cheek, the smattering of them across his torso (god, he’s honestly lucky they didn’t chew through something important) — but the thick clumps of scar tissue on his legs are what really make his bones ache in sympathy. Martin’s got his own handful of them that he’d pulled out of his flesh, still gorged on blood and wriggling, but nothing like that. Nothing like Jon’s.
Martin rubs soft circles on the flesh with his thumb as he wraps the bite around Jon’s ankle. It hurts that he can’t imagine Jon without his scars anymore. He knows that they weren’t always there, he remembers seeing Jon all put together and unmarred back when they first began working together, but the image is faded and fuzzy in the back of his mind. It’s not fair that Jon hasn’t gotten a choice in anything that’s happened to him. It’s not fair that Jon has to wear his trauma plain on his sleeves.
Martin loops the rope through the bite, pulling it taut. “Tell me if this is too tight, okay?” he says, looking up to—
Martin pauses.
“...Jon?”
Jon isn’t looking at him. Jon isn’t looking at much of anything, really, eyes trained to an innocuous spot on Martin’s comforter; there’s a sort of glaze over them, now that Martin really looks, as if he’s not...not exactly there. Like he’s wandered somewhere far away, somewhere where he can’t quite hear Martin speaking to him, so Martin gives Jon’s thigh a gentle squeeze, leaning closer. “Jon.”
And then he notices Jon...shaking. Just slightly. Just barely enough to notice, but now that he has he can’t unsee it, can’t unfeel it beneath his hand. Jon blinks, slowly, as if it’s a struggle to do so, and something breaks free from the line of his eye, bubbles over, streaks down his cheek—
Oh. Oh shit.
“Stop,” Jon chokes out hoarsely, as if he’s just remembered he can speak and hasn’t done so in years. “Stop, stop, get it off, please—”
“O-okay! Okay, okay okay, one second,” Martin says, frantically tugging off his half-formed loop from Jon’s ankle before crawling back around him to undo his wrists. He’s trembling awful now, enough for Martin to put a desperate hand to his shoulder in hopes of relieving some of his quaking.
“Martin,” Jon says desperately, more of a whimper than anything.
“I’m almost there,” Martin assures him, “j-just try to breathe.” He carefully undoes the knot in the back before he begins unraveling the cuffs, round and round and round enough until the whole thing goes slack, and then Jon’s yanking his hands away like he’s touched a burning ember.
He clutches them to his chest. He clutches them to his chest so tensely that Martin thinks he might hurt himself, the full body tremor racking through him knocking his knees together, clacking his teeth. Martin has no idea what to do other than push the rope out of sight and sit there, helplessly, as he watches Jon shake himself through a ripple of abject panic—
Ah. Wait. That’s what this is.
Martin leans forward, reaches a hand out, but Jon flinches away from it like it’s coming down for a strike. He retreats it back to his laps. “Jon, look at me.”
Jon doesn’t look at him. Jon’s gaze is too laser-focused on the wall ahead of him, vision too blurred by the mess of tears struggling to breach from his eyelids. Martin shifts around, leans down to force their eye contact and finds himself lost in the vastness of his pupils. He swallows, throat dry. “Jon, hey.”
Jon doesn’t blink, though a bit of focus does come back to his gaze.
“Do you know where you are? Can you name me a type of fruit?”
“Blue tomatoes,” Jon says.
“Okay, that— You’re at my place,” Martin says gently. “You’re in my bedroom. I invited you over. You know who I am, right?”
Jon’s adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Martin,” he says carefully.
Martin smiles at him. “That’s right. And where are you? What day is it?”
“Y-your flat. It’s...Saturday, I think.”
“And what’s your favorite type of coffee?”
“Don’t like coffee,” Jon says, “‘s too bitter.” And then he blinks, eyes blowing comically wide, and starts, “W-wait, I mean—”
“So you finally admit it,” Martin says with a budding smile. Melanie owes him five quid.
Jon grimaces. “W-w-well I never said I liked it,” he protests softly, refusing to meet Martin’s gaze as he slowly sinks further and further into his t-shirt like a turtle retreating into his shell. His face is red. His eyes are red. His nose is dripping and he hasn’t seemed to notice it yet, but he does seem to be aware enough of the whole of himself that he refuses to meet Martin’s gaze. Embarrassed, maybe, if Martin’s learned anything about the man’s body language over the past few years. Ashamed, more likely, which only makes Martin’s heart ache.
“Do you want your tea?” Martin offers in hopes of deflecting away from the topic at hand, and Jon gives a sheepish nod.
Martin retrieves the mug from the living room. It’s not exactly warm anymore, more a comfortable room temperature, but Jon takes it regardless with eager hands and holds it close to his chest. He’s stopped shaking for the most part, at least — and if some sloshes onto the comforter? Well. It’s nothing that can’t be washed.
“I’m sorry,” Jon finally says, voice rough as though he’d been screaming it out in the few moments Martin had left the room.
Martin feels the tension unwind in him. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“I do. It was...i-inappropriate of me.”
“Jon,” Martin frowns, “I’m pretty sure most people don’t exactly control getting panic attacks.”
“That wasn’t a panic attack,” Jon retorts with a toothless glare, “I don’t get those.” Which is such a painfully Jonathan Sims level of denial that Martin nearly groans aloud. He wonders how many times Jon’s sat in his office hyperventilating over some spider taking up residence on his notebook and believed it all to be perfectly normal. Martin had quite felt like he’d walked into some alternate dimension the day that Jon had said something about not knowing how he got his work done in the breakroom when the lights were so loud in there. Just another thing to add to the list of things Jon should potentially talk to a therapist about.
Jon continues, “I’m...honestly not sure what exactly came over me.” He tugs his knees a little closer. “I-it was fine. It was fine! Almost...nice? Even? F-for the first few minutes, and then...and then—”
Jon chokes on the words like their stuck in his throat, like his throat’s closing up around them and refusing to breech up to his tongue as he curls forward, his eyes water, his hands clutch tighter and tighter on the mug, oh god he’s going to break it—
“Jon,” Martin says, carefully reaching for the mug as slowly as possible, so as not to spook him, before he pries it out of Jon’s hands. He places it on the nightstand. “Jon, breathe. You don’t need to push—”
“I could feel them, Martin,” he finally gets out in barely a whimper. “I could feel those— those fucking hands all over me, and I couldn’t— I couldn’t— Fuck—”
Martin reaches out, hand hovering as he waits for Jon to see, for Jon to push him or cower away, for Jon to tell him no — but it never comes. So Martin takes his hand. Lifts it up. Places it gently over Jon’s. Jon grabs it with the both of his own like a lifeline and squeezes.
They sit there for a while. Martin keeps quiet. He thinks if he does so, keeps very still, he can feel Jon’s heartbeat under his quivering fingers, thumping heartily as if to say I’m here, I’m still here, and Martin can only squeeze his hand tighter.
Jon doesn’t deserve this. None of them deserve this. None of them deserve to be chewed up and spit out by whatever horror god wants to take a shot at them for the day like they’re just toys to them, like they aren’t people. Jon’s supposed to stop the end of the world. Martin can only wonder who the hell asked him if he wanted to shoulder the whole burden of mankind.
It’s the light twitch of Jon’s fingers that brings him back to himself, and he watches as Jon brings up his other hand to smear his nose on the back of. He clears his throat. “Suppose I should count myself lucky they didn’t do anything worse.”
Martin feels his stomach drop at the words, like even just the suggestion of such might conjure such a scenario into reality. “Jon, that— I’m pretty sure getting— getting lotioned and held against your will is the very definition of worse.”
“N-no, I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Martin interjects, firm but still soft, “and it’s— okay, for one, I do mean that, and for two, that’s still a really, really low bar, Jon.”
“I know,” Jon says softly. He doesn’t say anything else for a long, long moment. “Do you think this was a stupid idea?”
Martin looks over at him, trying to decipher even the smallest bit of that weary expression that sticks stubbornly to his own knees. “The tea?”
A small huff cracks through Jon’s expression. “No, the uh...the bondage thing.”
Oh. Well. Now it’s Martin’s turn to feel a bit stupid. He tilts his head. “Could I ask...why you wanted to try it?”
Jon’s quiet for a moment. His fingers wiggle in Martin’s hand, and Martin smooths a thumb over them. “It sounds a bit...silly......”
Martin leans in closer to listen.
“I—” Jon begins, hands coming up around his biceps. “I kept...I couldn’t get that— that feeling out of me, s-so I did some research, found this forum for um. F-for people who have been...er, taken advantage of. I know it’s not...exactly the same—”
Martin gives his hand a light squeeze before Jon can dwell on the thought further.
“...Um. Well. Anyway, there was a lot there that I can’t even pretend to understand, but—” Jon closes his eyes as he inhales through his nose. “There...there was a lot of talk about......kink. And especially with regards t-to, well, acting out certain things with a partner...?”
“Like...consensual non-consent?” Martin interrupts. He’s heard a bit about the topic, back when he frequented more kink-centric queer spaces, but he can’t say he’d ever taken an interest in trying it out. Always seemed a bit much for his tastes.
Jon nods slowly. “Something like that. It— there was a lot of talk about...about— not, not repeating bad experiences per se, but more so...rewriting them? T-trying to give that— that choice back to yourself with,” Jon swallows audibly, “w-with someone you trust.”
Oh. Oh, that—
Martin doesn’t cry. He can’t. He won’t let himself. Jon’s already shed enough tears for the both of them today, and he doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable. His throat is tight as he nods, hand even more so around Jon’s own.
Martin clears his throat, coming back around to his words. “You said...”
Jon looks up.
“You said that it was nice for a moment,” Martin continues. “At the beginning.”
Slowly, Jon nods.
“What...what parts were nice then, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Jon thinks about it for a moment. He rubs his index finger along the scruff of his chin, then up over his lip, then clicks against the nail with his teeth. It’s a nasty habit, Jon had told him once. Never could seem to break it growing up no matter how many times he’d bite them until they bled. “The pressure was nice,” Jon says finally. “Sort of. Um. Confining? B-but in a nice way. Or, at least, it was nice until it started feeling more...er, hostage-y.”
Martin thinks about the answer for a moment. “We could...try doing another tie? If you like?”
“Another tie?” Jon raises an eyebrow.
“Er, another position,” Martin corrects. “The— the site that I was looking at had a lot of different tutorials; maybe we could try one less— uh, hostage-y?”
Jon huffs as he cracks a half-smile. “Not sure how much less hostage-y you can get when I’m in the picture. Apparently I have ‘please put me in the boot of your car’ written on my forehead.”
Martin doesn’t laugh. It’s not a laugh, more of a snort that catches in his throat and tumbles its way into a hearty choking cough. “Jon.”
“Sorry,” Jon apologizes, not sounding sorry at all. “That...yes. Yes, that sounds— wh-what exactly did you have in mind?”
It doesn’t take long for Martin to fish out his laptop from the recesses between his bed and his dresser (where socks go to die, he thinks mournfully), and only another handful of years for the thing to boot up. Jon scoots a bit closer watching. He’s watching so intently, so...distractingly easy to look at, that Martin completely forgets about the topless woman modeling each tie until she’s taking up the majority of his screen.
Jon doesn’t so much as blink. Maybe Martin’s being the weird one here, blushing over something like this. You’re not even attracted to women, he reminds himself, get it together.
Silently, he navigates over to the tab for arm ties.
Martin would never have been able to guess the amount of variation and thought and skill that goes into this type of thing before researching it. Almost an art to it, he’d say. Hell, it is an art, and honestly a bit hypnotic, the way the ropes twist and knot and pull on just the right places to put their captive into just the right position.
Maybe captive is the wrong word. Put their subject in position. That sounds much nicer.
The ones for suspension are out of the question. Even if Jon was light enough to hang from one of his light fixtures without ruining his chance of getting his deposit back, he doesn’t want to risk sending one or both of them to the hospital. ‘I tied up my boss and broke his leg in the process’ is absolutely not a story Martin wants to be sharing half-drunk at some holiday party down the line. So are the ones that require any sort of flexibility to them — an arm contorted over the back of the head, wrists bound to ankles, a hogtie — a hogtie? Seriously? Martin tries not to cringe as he pities that poor woman’s back.
Then he feels Jon reach over to the keys and watches as he tabs back up the page.
“Maybe...something like this?”
Martin studies the picture on screen. It’s nothing particularly intricate, at least, not compared to most of the other ties on the page (not like the one that reminds him of a spiderweb carefully laced across the woman’s chest, both beautiful and absolutely nothing Jon would ever agree to trying in a million years) — arms folded behind the back and suspended by a few ties around the shoulders. He tries to imagine Jon tied up like that, then quickly stops doing so when he feels his face grow warm.
“Is that...do you think that’d be okay?” Martin asks, leaving out the do you think this will send you into another panic attack? part.
“It’s different,” Jon replies, leaving out the I have no idea, but I’m willing to try part. “Should we...?”
“Right, right,” Martin says. “Um, I haven’t exactly practiced this one, so you’ll have to, uh...”
“Oh, uh, yes okay, how do you want me...?”
Christ, Martin really wishes Jon wouldn’t put it like that when the words are like a lightning rod to his libido. He swallows, takes a steadying breath. “Just, um. G-get like you were before, and then— wait, here, let me—”
He gingerly places his hands on Jon’s shoulders, preemptively predicting him to jolt like a jackrabbit. What he doesn’t expect is the way Jon melts into the touch, like a great knot in his being has just unspooled, like Martin’s got his fingers dug in the soft center of him and kneading him like putty. Oh, and— yep, hello there, Martin’s dick. Would you kindly care to fuck off?
Martin quickly folds Jon’s arms over one another before diving back to his laptop before Jon can notice the undeniable fever of his touch.
He clicks on the video and turns down the volume.
Jon’s quiet as Martin takes his wrists between one hand and begins looping the rope around them. It’s slow, methodical: wrap here, then around here, then loop through — no, not that way — okay, now wrap — wait, hang on —
“Is this okay?” Martin asks, once Jon’s been silent for just a touch too long. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking like this. It’s usually difficult to tell what Jon’s thinking of normally outside of the broad scope of “work” and “more work” and “how can I get myself nearly killed today and give Martin’s cardiologist a run for his money,” but now Martin feels like he’s fumbling in the dark without a flashlight beneath the Institute once more. At least there aren’t any worms, he supposes. What a terribly low bar to have.
“Mm,” Jon says, eyes blinking slowly like a contented cat. “It’s okay. Maybe...maybe a little tight.”
Martin unwinds the last loop, then redoes it with a bit more slack. “Better?”
Jon hums, a sweet little sound that is going to drive Martin completely mad if he dwells on it too long, so he returns his focus to the ropes.
He begins winding the rope up around Jon’s chest, careful to keep his hands away from any bit covered by his t-shirt. Martin...doesn’t really know how Jon feels about his body. He’s never asked; it’d be completely inappropriate to do so. But he knows a little about Jon’s complicated relationship with sex, and while most of that he assumes is more rooted in some complicated intricacy of human sexuality, it does remind him a bit of himself when he was younger. When Martin had liked himself a lot less. When the idea of anyone finding him attractive in that sort of way was nearly enough to make him burst into distressed tears, and that wasn’t even with all the changes Jon had had to his body against his will. Maybe Martin’s just projecting. But the line of t-shirt fabric between the rope Jon’s bare skin is still a line, and Martin is careful to stay on his appropriate side.
He loops the rope back underneath itself in the back, creating a sort of pulley like the woman in the video. “Doing alright?” Martin asks as he ties off the loop.
Jon doesn’t answer. Jon doesn’t move. Jon doesn’t so much as blink as he stares ahead of him, face slack in an almost unnerving picture of ease, eyes half-lidded and unfocused on the space ahead of him.
Martin swallows thickly, placing a hand gingerly on his shoulder. “Jon...?”
He hopes for a response. He hopes for a confirmation that things are okay, that Jon’s simply doing his Jon-typical thinking that involves every neuron in his brain, leaving none left over to consider anything else going on around him. What he doesn’t expect is for Jon to lean back into Martin’s touch, for his eyelids to flutter, for him to sigh like that.
Martin rips his hand away faster before he can even consciously register what his body is doing, both the upper and lower halves, because by fucking god is something going on in his lower half. He slams his knees together and tries desperately to think of the least sexy thing plausible. A truck full of chickens with their heads cut off. A broken toe. Jon in a latex catsuit.
Wait, fuck. Scratch that last one. Absolutely scratch that last one.
And then Jon tilts his head back, lets out a sweet little “mhm?” like a cat waking up from a nap, and that’s it, Martin’s gone, “death by blood loss due to an untameable erection” plastered in Blackletter on the back of his eyelids every time he blinks. Just take him out back and put him out of his misery.
He belatedly realizes Jon is still watching him. Oh hell. He prays he isn’t as red as he feels.
Martin clears his unbearably dry throat. “...Um. I-I asked if...if you— if you’re alright.”
Jon blinks slowly, innocently up at him. Maybe innocently isn’t the best word. Simply, like a pet looking at the one who feeds them. “Innocent” implies that Jon has no idea what a look like that could do to Martin, while “simple” only suggests that he simply doesn’t care. “I’m alright,” he says carefully after a long minute of consideration, as if he’s not sure exactly what words will come out of his mouth.
Martin frowns. “Are you sure? Nothing too tight? You seem a little...”
Jon hums softly. There’s a little wrinkle between his eyebrows, barely noticeable if not for the lamp light catching him at the right angle, like he’s putting a lot of thought into the question. “I don’t...mmm...” he lets out a little noise in frustration at the words seemingly failing to come to him. “‘S not too tight. Sorry, my head’s just...I feel a bit...strange.”
Dread drops into Martin’s stomach like a heavy stone. “I’m going to untie you.”
“Wait, ‘s not—” Jon pipes up, just loud enough to make Martin pause. Jon takes in a breath. He holds it for a moment. “It’s not...a bad type of strange...”
Martin wonders if Jon can feel how loudly his ridiculous heart beats. He wets his lips. “Is it...does it feel good...?” He’s not thinking as he snakes his fingers up under the ropes, but it doesn’t matter with the way Jon melts into his touch.
“Feels safe,” Jon says. Simply. Like it’s simple to decide that Martin makes him feel that way.
Martin swallows back the lump in his throat, picks up the slack, and starts winding the rope around Jon’s shoulder’s once more.
It takes a bit of twisting, a bit of maneuvering things to get all the ties taut and knotted and fixed into place, but the end product nearly knocks the breath out of him as he rolls back onto his heels to admire the handwork.
Martin never would have imagined himself the type of person to admire rope work. He’d always known, deep down, that it took a certain level of artistry, and that he could appreciate abstractly — it was just the rest that he didn’t understand. That there was anything attractive about— about revoking control, about tying someone up and taking away that part of them.
But now he wonders if he’d gotten it wrong. Maybe he’d missed something. Maybe there’s a reason that the turquoise knots look so pretty against Jon’s tan skin, why Jon looks so soft and content beneath them despite his limited range of motion. He’s so pliant under Martin’s touch, and yet the whole world revolves around him: Martin knows for sure he’d do whatever he asked of him. Maybe that’s what this is about. Maybe Jon knows this too.
It takes a moment for Jon to notice Martin’s hands have retreated, but once he does, a sweet little sound of confusion bubbles out of him that constricts around Martin’s chest like a slip knot. “Martin...?”
“Sorry,” Martin says, hoping the strangling feeling in his throat doesn't breach his tone. “It's done, just— just looking.”
Jon’s head tilts slightly. “What's it look like?”
Like you’re supposed to be like this, Martin thinks. Like you’re tied up just for me. Like you’re mine.
“...Pretty,” Martin decides on, the specifics unimportant.
Jon hums softly, rolling his shoulders against the bindings in a hypnotic ripple. “Would you...um...”
Martin tilts his head, leans a bit closer.
Jon wets his lips. “Would you, ah, touch me?”
“What?” Martin snaps, unsure if he heard him correctly. Surely he didn't hear him correctly. Surely Jon is not suggesting what his stupid horny brain is suggesting he just heard—
“A-anywhere is fine,” Jon says, softly, a little sheepishly. “It’s just— um. When you touched my back earlier it felt...nice? Sort of, er, grounding.”
Oh. Ah. Right. Right, right, right, obviously Jon meant— god, Martin, can you get your head out of the gutter for five minutes?
Martin reaches his hand out. He hovers it over Jon’s back. He presses his fingers into the ridge of Jon’s spine, feels his skin crawl in a rolling shutter as he sucks in a sharp breath.
“Does that...” Martin says, leaning just a little closer, “feel...good?”
Jon’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. His eyes blink slowly, but nothing seems to register. Seemingly out of options, he closes both and gives Martin a tight little nod in response.
...Huh. Well isn’t that interesting.
Martin scoots forward, adjusts his hands, and draaaaags the pressure of his thumbs up Jon’s back.
It’s mesmerizing to watch how Jon responds to his touches. A little gasp as he pushes on a certain joint. A flutter of his eyelashes and a sigh as he rolls his knuckles into a tendon. Each little movement only works him softer and more pliant under his touch as Martin kneads away the lumps and pinches and tightness. He starts with his spine and works his way out, then up, then in again, smoothing his fingers from bone to muscle to the soft, slight pillow of fat beneath his ribs. Jon doesn’t say a word, doesn’t look like he’s registering much at all with the glassy look in his eyes (is that Martin’s doing, or simply a product of everything tied up into one neat little package?), but every so often a little hiss, a little gasp, a little whimper so soft its nearly pornographic — like that isn’t going to haunt Martin’s fantasies for the next six months, jesus christ — slips out to only inflate Martin’s pride. Jon’s doing so well, and Martin made him that way.
And then his fingers find a particularly large knot right at the base of Jon’s neck, and Jon visibly winces.
“Ow—”
“Oh, shit. Sorry,” Martin says, hands snapping away. “You, um. You have a really big knot right under your neck.”
Jon blinks tightly, as if trying to wake himself up from a dream, the pain seemingly having snapped him out of whatever headspace he’d been in. “Yes...well. Turns out sleeping sitting up for weeks isn’t...ah, e-exactly good for your neck.”
Martin gives him a pitying look. He can’t even begin to imagine what it was like, not from the bits and pieces Jon’s managed to choke out through a drink or a cigarette or a soft, shy murmur. Rope burns unable to heal and the smell of rotting meat. Plastic hands all over. The sickening lather of cream everywhere he didn’t want it, which Martin suspects is the reason Jon’s skin feels so dry each time he grazes it.
And then he gets an idea.
“Do you want to lay down?”
Jon blinks back at him, eyes taking a moment to focus.
“...Sorry?”
“Do you, um, do you want to lay down...?” Martin repeats tentatively. “I can— I’m no masseur or anything, but maybe I can try and, um. Work out some of that...?”
It sounds incredibly stupid now that it’s left his mouth. Incredibly stupid and incredibly suggestive, which is exactly the opposite of what he’s going for, despite his libido’s protests. Just take him out back and put him out of his misery. He opens his mouth to sputter out a redirect, something to alleviate the god-awful tension he’s created—
“Oh,” Jon says, “that would...yes, okay. How should we...?”
Oh, well. Okay. Postpone the part where Martin needs to be taken out back and shot like a lame dog.
Martin finds a pillow from the mass behind him, still regretting not having had the forethought to put away the plush brown dog he usually has neatly displayed in the center of his bed. He snags one — a soft one, once white but now stained a faint pink by a stray red jumper in the wash — and props it up against his leg. He motions for Jon to lie down.
Jon...okay, well he tries to lie down gracefully. He gets about a third of the way before the lack of his hands sends him tumbling the rest of the way over, a gangly bundle of limbs and hair. Martin probably should have offered to untie him before they did this. Is it even comfortable lying like that? Martin has no idea, and Jon doesn’t seem to give him any indication as he wriggles over like some mutilated flatworm from a middle school science experiment until he’s positioned himself up against Martin’s leg.
“Is this okay?” Jon asks, words slightly muffled by the pillow.
Martin swallows the lump in his throat, hums his affirmation, and gets to work.
It’s a decent-sized knot that’s worked itself into his shoulders, Martin finds, but not as bad as he initially suspected. He supposes it’s only tight so much as it is relative to the rest of Jon’s figure, always a stiff bundle of jumpy nerves, never able to relax. The only time Martin’s ever seen Jon relax is when he falls asleep at his desk, and even then he swears he’s still frowning.
Not now though. Not now as Martin prods at Jon’s neck and watches the tension bleed out of his face, smooth over, just leaving the ghost of a few wrinkles behind where they used to be. It’s really quite hypnotic. It’s honestly impressive, just how comfortable Jon can manage to look when he’s got the majority of his face pressed into a pillow and his arms tied behind his back — should say something about his power of adaptability. Martin’s hands ghost up his neck to his hairline, then hover over the barely holding elastic in his hair before pulling it free. The few locks of hair that had managed to cling to the thing spill lazily across the pillow and onto Martin’s thigh, and he runs a finger through them gingerly up to his scalp.
Martin had always imagined Jon’s hair to be coarse. It’s wavy, frizzy a good portion of the time, and graying harshly around his temples, but sinking his fingers into it now proves it impossibly soft. He strokes it up and off of his face, out of his beard where it’s caught hold, and Jon lets out a little happy sigh that goes straight to Martin’s runaway heartbeat.
He’s quite certain he’s never been so hard in his entire life.
It isn’t— he doesn’t— it’s not a sexual thing, per se. Martin admiring Jon as he lies splayed across his lap like one of his mother’s old religious arts isn’t the same as those stupid fantasies he’d had back when they’d first worked together involving a desk for bending over and a tie and sometimes a paddle. Sure, those fantasies may have contained a Jon in them, but not this Jon. Not the Jon who he considers a friend these days, who’d asked Martin to tie him up, who’d asked for Martin’s trust, and Martin has no intention of changing the intended output of today’s meeting. Jon hadn’t wanted this to be a sexual thing. Martin doesn’t want it to be a sexual thing if Jon doesn’t want it to be a sexual thing. Martin’s not sure that Jon even has sex — there had been some suggestions, here and there, that he’d always wondered about, but never thought it appropriate to ask. No, Martin’s dick is just causing a scene because of parasympathetic touch responses, and because anything of Martin’s always has a flair for the dramatic.
He just wishes it wouldn’t be so insistent when Jon’s head is approximately three inches from it. Stop that. Fuck off. Go away.
...God, it really doesn’t want to go away. He tries to adjust his other leg to readjust some of the pressure from his pants, but it only seems to make it worse. Okay, Martin’s just going to have to sit like this in this exact position for the rest of eternity. No big deal.
Jon lets out a soft little sigh as Martin’s touch trails along the side of his face. Well. He supposes at least Jon hasn’t seemed to notice his self-imposed misery. His eyes remain closed, the tranquil expression on his face changing as Martin rubs a finger over the scruff of his cheek, down the prickly hair of his chin and upper lip. Peaceful, Martin thinks. Peaceful and seemingly completely unaware of all going on around him.
...Wait.
“Jon?”
Jon’s features are still as Martin watches for a reaction, strokes a bit of hair away from his face and lays his fingers on his shoulder. Martin gives him a light tap. Then another, just to be sure.
“Jon,” he says softer, leaning close. Jon doesn’t twitch. He doesn’t move. Martin’s not even sure he’s breathing for a second until he huffs out a sigh like a dog with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Martin’s heart swells thinking of Jon feeling safe enough to fall asleep on him, a man who would sooner lock himself in his office for twelve hours at a time than admit that his body has physical needs.
Martin’s dick, however, throbs like it’s been shocked, and he is absolutely not about to come in his pants while Jon is lying in his lap.
Fuck, he has to do something about this. He has to do something about this now.
“Okay,” Martin mouths silently, “okay, sorry, sorry, sorry—”
His hand snakes under the pillow on his lap and holds it there, giving him just enough leverage to slip himself out from underneath it. It’s a lot more difficult than he imagines it looks. It’s a lot more difficult that he expects to hold Jon’s head up and get out from underneath him and slip off the bed without jostling it too much under all of his weight. Fuck, he really needs to buy a new mattress. He’s been putting it off for over a year now, resigned to just dealing with the discomfort and squeaky box springs, but the whine it lets out as he slips off and tiptoes to the door puts it right back at the top of his to-do list.
And then he steps into the hall and all but sprints to the bathroom. He’s never been so grateful to have a detached one in his life. All those nights he’d nearly broken his toe or his neck trying to fumble through the dark to the toilet are worth it just for this moment as he shuts the door behind him, locks it, and wedges himself inside. He’s always hated this bathroom. He hates the dim lighting and how poorly arranged the whole setup is, the shower barely wide enough to accommodate him most days and the toilet too close to the wall to allow him to comfortably stand in there, but god it doesn’t fucking matter now.
It takes all of his feeble resolve to fish himself out of his trousers without coming right then and there. He can’t risk getting it on his clothes. He really shouldn’t risk doing this at all — what he should be doing is squeezing his legs together and imagining something horrible, cancer, an explosion, dead puppies, something to will his body out of this state instead of just coaxing it further along into where it wants to be.
And then he gets his hands on himself and whimpers so loudly and debauched that he shoves his hand over his mouth in a tight fist.
It takes nothing to stroke himself to completion. He’s probably setting some type of world record here. He probably should be embarrassed with how fast he gets off like some sort of teenage virgin, but he can’t find it in himself to think of anything other than the memory of those ropes on Jon’s skin, the soft little noises he’d made, the look of utter peace and contentment on his face knowing Martin was the one who made Jon like that. Everything clenches, everything jerks, and the next thing he knows he’s coming with a downright filthy moan so hard that he sees spots—
Martin comes back to himself a moment later, gasping for air. He’s in his bathroom. He’s in his bathroom, in the narrow space between the toilet and the wall, his fingers sticky and his cock softening in the palm of his hand as he pants. There’s come on the toilet lid, on the back of his hand, but thankfully none on his clothes. He’s at least grateful for that much, despite the overwhelming embarrassment crashing over his back like a wave. He doesn’t know how he’d have dealt with explaining to Jon a change of clothes, because he’s certainly not telling him that he got so hard doing fully clothed non-sexual bondage that he came all over himself.
Martin cleans himself up. He tucks himself away. He checks his face in the mirror, deems it just red enough to splash a bit of water on it, and opens the door— wait, is the smell obvious? Martin’s never been able to pick up on that so-called smell of sex that every bit of erotic fiction is so keen on mentioning (though maybe Martin just hasn’t had enough sex to notice it; that’s a completely different issue), but he digs out some air freshener from under the sink and gives the room a half-dozen hearty spritzes. No need for Jon to know he was having a wank when he comes to take a piss. If he times it right, no need for Jon to know he was even gone at all. Wait, is it visible on his face— no, fuck. Stop it, Martin. Focus.
Martin tiptoes back down the hall as quietly as possible, slipping back into his bedroom.
Jon’s still lying exactly where he left him. It’s only when Martin wanders over to the bed and leans one of his knees on it that his eyes flutter open, searching for something, someone, before ultimately landing on Martin. And then he smiles sleepily. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Martin says, scooting fully onto the bed. “Sorry, did I wake you?”
“Wasn’t exactly asleep,” Jon says with a yawn that suggests otherwise. He stretches his legs out, reminding Martin of an animal getting up from a nap. “Just resting my eyes.”
“Sure,” Martin says with an exasperated fondness. “Here, roll over and I’ll untie you?” As content as Jon looks to continue lying there like a christmas present, Martin doesn’t want to undo his hard work on Jon’s neck that quickly.
Jon mumbles something that sounds like a protest, but he does roll over. Martin sets to unwinding the ropes, watching as Jon’s fingers flex and curl experimentally. “You okay?”
Jon hums. “Fine. Just um...” He stretches out his arm as Martin frees it, rolling his wrist around, “hand fell asleep a bit.”
“Probably should have untied you before you laid down.”
“Probably,” Jon agrees with a half, unconvincing shrug.
Martin puts out his hand in an offering. “Here, let me...?”
Jon looks at him a moment, seemingly putting together what he’s offering, then places his hand in Martin’s.
Martin takes it gently. He turns it over, running his fingers along the indentations of rope in the skin of his wrists, his arms. A little pink, but no broken skin or angry red burns. Pretty, Martin thinks, struck by the notion that Jon is somehow even more so with just the memory of rope on his skin than tied up. “No burns? Nothing sore?”
“I’m fine, Martin,” Jon says in a tone that suggests he finds his question completely ridiculous, but he’s smiling something soft and sweet. “I feel...um. I feel good, actually?”
Martin looks up at him. “Yeah?”
“Yes. A successful experiment, I’d say,” Jon agrees, and Martin bites back a snort in response. Only Jon would be able to make something like BDSM sound downright clinical.
And then Jon turns his hand over in Martin’s, curling their palms together, and says softer, barely above a whisper, “Thank you, for— for taking care of me.”
Oh. Oh, that—
The lump in his throat feels like a stone as he swallows around it, squeezes Jon’s hand back. “Yeah,” he says softly. “‘Course, Jon.”
Someone you trust, Jon had said. Jon, who doesn’t trust anyone, and yet somehow still trusts Martin. If he thinks about it too much, Martin’s certain he’ll start crying.
Jon’s hand slowly retreats back to him, and he pushes himself upright. His legs curl underneath him as he rubs at the indentations on his wrists. “Was it...ah, was it okay for you?”
Martin tilts his head. “Okay for me?”
“Yes,” Jon says. “Er, I heard— I mean, at least, I assume when you left the room— um. That is to say, i-if we’re doing the whole aftercare thing, I just wanted to make sure it went— went alright.”
Martin stares at him for a long, silent moment as he puts together the words in his head, dread unspooling in his gut as a cold, clammy sweat crawls down his back. Surely Jon isn’t— surely he didn’t—
“Fuck,” Martin says without meaning to, his mouth having gone completely dry. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck shit damn and hell. Damn it all to hell. Being put down like a lame dog is now officially back on.
Jon looks over him curiously, as if he can’t parse as to why Martin has gone white as a sheet and started sweating so much he can feel his shirt sticking to him. “Martin...?”
“Jon, I—” Martin chokes out. “I am...so sorry—”
“You’re...you’re sorry,” Jon repeats carefully, as if trying to dissect the meaning of the words. “Martin...I don’t—”
“I really, really didn’t mean for you to hear. Honest to god, I shouldn’t have even— it wasn’t— I really wasn’t trying to make this— god, I’m a fucking idiot.”
“Oh... oh, Martin—”
“I know you said— I know, it wasn’t like that, honest, it just really, really, really wasn’t going away, and I didn’t want to make you—”
“Martin.” Martin jumps as Jon touches his shoulder, both burning cold and boiling hot all at once against his skin. “It’s okay.”
Martin stares at the hand on his shoulder. It’s the only place he can look to avoid eye contact, and yet the sight of the warping burned flesh sends his stomach swimming in a completely new wave of nausea unrelated to his own panic. He follows the hand up Jon’s arm, to his shoulder. He meets Jon’s gaze, his deep brown eyes bright despite the thick rings of exhaustion around him. His brain slowly catches up with Jon’s words, turning them over in his head. “...What.”
“It’s okay,” Jon repeats a bit softer. “I’m not— I’m not upset or anything.”
“What,” Martin says again. Surely this isn’t real. Surely Martin’s just hearing exactly what his stupid horny brain wants to hear.
“I...” Jon begins, swallowing as he rubs the back of his neck. “I-I realize that my, um, enjoyment of this type of thing is a bit different than most, s-so it doesn’t bother me if you...get something different out of it.”
Okay, yeah, Martin heard it correctly. Martin heard it correctly and is now going to be slave to this exact conversation every time he wanks from now until the end of eternity. Wonderful. “Oh.”
“S-so long as you take care of it,” Jon makes a vague gesture with his hand towards the door, “elsewhere. Unless we, uh, u-unless it’s discussed prior.”
Fuck, Martin absolutely cannot get hard again. Fucking hell. His refractory period is not this good for Jon’s stupid lovely voice to be doing this to him. For Jon’s words to go straight to the part of his brain where his libido can rip them apart like some sort of rabid animal. “R-right.”
“Right,” Jon agrees, clearing his throat. He’s blushing slightly. His fingers pick idly at an old worm scar on the back of his hand, and the only thing managing to drag Martin’s brain kicking out of the gutter is the instinct to lean over and swat his fingers away.
“...So you...enjoyed it then?” Martin asks, careful to keep his gaze trained on Jon’s hands. His long fingers. They remind him of a pianist’s hands, and he wonders absently if Jon has ever played an instrument.
“I enjoyed it,” Jon assures him with a smile.
It takes all of Martin’s willpower not to burst into a high-pitched giggle right then and there, masking it with a cough into his fist. Ridiculous, he chides himself. He’s being ridiculous, getting all giddy at the thought of making Jon feel good, and yet he can’t manage to wipe that stupid smile off his face. Martin clears his throat. “...Cool.”
Cool, Martin? Seriously?
Jon’s exaggerated yawn cuts off his line of thought, showing every tooth and crown and taste bud before he covers his mouth with his hand. “Mm,” Jon mumbles with a watery-eyed blink, “sorry. Didn’t realize this, um. Really took it out of me.”
“Right, this took it out of you,” Martin says teasingly. “When exactly is the last time you had a full night’s rest?”
“That is...frankly none of your business,” Jon retorts. He reaches over the side of the bed, fumbling around before producing his hoodie and tugging it on. “I should, ah, I-I should probably be getting back.”
He probably should. It’s after five. They have work tomorrow, and the supposed end of the world isn’t postponing itself just so they can have a nice evening. Martin doesn’t care about the end of the world right now, though. Martin isn’t thinking as he reaches out, snags the edge of Jon’s hoodie, and starts, “You could...”
Jon looks up to him.
“You could, um, stay?” Martin suggests, gathering his courage in his fists. “It’s just— you seem tired, and I-I don’t want you to fall asleep on the train, so you could...rest? And I could order takeaway?”
He hopes that Jon can’t feel his heartbeat through his touch. Hopes that Jon doesn’t notice how warm he feels, how he’s definitely flushing ugly, blotchy red all the way down to his chest as he carefully trains his eyes on Jon’s hands, on his bitten-down fingernails and speckled circular scars. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought it up. Maybe he should have just let Jon go and then never addressed this meeting whatsoever, because if he admits to the fact that he really did invite Jon over and tie him up and buy him dinner then he’s quite certain he’ll go insane—
“Oh.”
Jon’s single word pulls him back to himself. Martin looks up. Jon’s watching him curiously, pupils nearly wide enough to swallow his irises. “Um. Are you sure?”
What a difficult question, when Martin’s not sure he’s ever been sure of anything ever in his life. He nods, regardless. The motion feels right in his body.
“...Alright,” Jon says softly. “Alright. That...yes. That sounds...”
Martin feels the mattress shift and looks up to see Jon easing back down into the comforter — okay, well. Martin did say he could rest, but he wasn’t expecting right this very instant. It’s fine, he thinks. Jon’s tired. Jon should get some rest. Jon’s shirt is riding up just the slightest where he lies, giving Martin an absolute killer view of the little pudge of skin where the waistband of his boxers digs into his stomach and sides. Martin should absolutely not be looking at that part of Jon. Martin needs to get his fucking head out of the gutter before he makes a fool out of himself yet again.
Martin should be ordering takeaway. Right. Takeaway. Something easy and straightforward absolutely no way reliant on him staring at Jon sleeping in his bed, curled up in his pillows. Focus. Phone. He needs his phone so he can—
Jon’s hand catches his wrist as Martin begins to slide off the bed. Jon looks up at him with heavy, sleepy eyes, and Martin’s pulse flutters at the sight.
“Sit,” Jon says softly, half muttered into the blue pillow he’s curled up around, “for a moment, at least.”
Martin swallows as he stares down at him. Well. Never let it be said that the man didn’t make a compelling argument.
Martin climbs back into bed. He peels off his glasses, sets them aside. He tries not to feel self-conscious as the mattress groans with every shift he makes, but manages to find himself a comfortable position where he can lay facing Jon without encroaching on his space. He really should get a new mattress. A bigger one, maybe, one where he can sit comfortably with another person. One where he can lie next to someone who might be Jon and not have to worry about breathing in their face like a dragon, as their noses sit not inches from one another. Huh. Martin’s never noticed the handful of freckles that Jon has under his eyes until now. Martin’s never noticed the little white scar Jon has on the side of his mouth until now, nor the little wrinkles he has at the corners of his eyes, nor the length of his lashes as his eyes flutter closed.
Jon’s hand snakes up and curls around Martin’s. He gives it a light squeeze, silently, but it says enough. For Martin it says enough.
“‘S a real thing, y’know,” Jon mutters after a long moment of silence.
Martin blinks. He’d been near certain he was asleep “What?”
“Blue...blue tomatoes,” Jon continues. “‘They’re bred with high levels...high levels of anthocyanins to protect against insects...” His voice trails off into a half mumble, half snore, so abrupt it seems to startle him like a spooked horse by the way he jolts. Martin can’t help it; he giggles. He giggles and giggles, pressing a hand over his mouth and shaking the bed until Jon gives him a light kick to shut him up, but he’s smiling into his pillow.
Martin holds onto the moment for as long as his consciousness will allow him. Takeaway can wait.