tags
The Magnus Archives, Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood
- practice kissing
- denial of feelings
- developing relationship
It’s only for a week.
Georgie’s very apologetic when she breaks the news, and really, that almost makes it worse. “Just until she can drive herself around again,” she says, as if a week is enough to recover from a major surgery like that, and Jon simply nods and reassures her and even helps her pack. He had always liked Georgie’s mother. It isn’t about that. If these were completely normal circumstances with completely normal dangers, like leaving a pie in the oven too long or forgetting to wash his socks, then he’d be fine staying there alone in her apartment. He’d done it plenty of times before.
Thing is, being four days out of a chair he’d spent the past month in, Jon isn’t so keen on such a plan.
So the Admiral goes to Melanie’s with a handpicked selection of toys and cat treats, and Jon goes to Martin’s with his sad little duffle bag of four pairs of trousers, a tape recorder, and a handful of Georgie’s novelty t-shirts.
Of course, Martin is happy enough to have him, even if Jon does feel like he’s invading his territory. Even tells him he’s glad that Jon asked, that he thought of him first; Jon doesn’t bother mentioning that Martin is the only person he can ask, realistically, because Tim is completely out of the picture at this point and Melanie and Basira are...well. Melanie and Basira. So Martin’s it is, in his barely-one-bedroom flat with a pullout couch, and Jon’s just happy to not be sleeping tied to a chair again. It’s a nice change of pace from everything that’s happened. A brief glimpse at normality that seems so fleeting lately — Jon curled up on a couch with a couple mystery stains he doesn’t have to worry about being blood or other bodily fluids, and Martin in the kitchen making dinner (he insists, Jon, it’s good to have a proper meal more often than “whenever you get around to it”) with some history podcast on full blast.
Like now, with Martin at the stove with his pasta and Jon playing repairman on the window aircon that has recently taken up howling like a wounded banshee. Something about overuse, one youtube video had said, or perhaps a loose internal part. Neither things that Jon’s actually sure he can fix, but he’s determined to make himself not a completely useless houseguest. Bad enough that he can’t pay him.
“Martin,” he calls over the sound of some brutally American accent, “do you have a screwdriver?”
“A what?” Martin calls back.
“A screwdri—”
Bathroom medicine cabinet.
Jon shakes his head as the thought pushes through, a weird feeling of wrongness dragging behind at his heels, then calls out a placating, “nevermind.” Right, he thinks. Of course. That’s a thing that happens now. It’s getting harder to write these occurrences off as simple deductions when he’s never so much as looked in Martin’s medicine cabinet before, just like he “conveniently” knew Basira’s ex-boyfriend’s name or that the train route yesterday was down before he checked, but— no. No, focus. He doesn’t have time to get worked up again. Screwdriver.
Jon pushes himself to his feet and heads down the hall to Martin’s bathroom.
Honestly, the bigger question than how Jon knows exactly where Martin keeps his household tools should be why there’s a screwdriver in the medicine cabinet in the first place (along with a six-year-old bottle of expired eyedrops and one of those solar-powered dancing plants that a dark cabinet is doing fuckall for, apparently), but Jon’s trying to get used to Martin’s...unusual sense of decorating. He wouldn’t call it cluttered exactly — everything seems to have an exact place in the tiny apartment — but nothing seems to quite go together. Every knickknack seems like it’s from a different place in time, every plate is pointedly from a different set than its neighbors. It’s all colorful, eclectic, a bit like Martin himself. Jon thinks he likes it, even it if is strange.
Between taking inventory of Martin’s bathroom and the sound still wafting in from the kitchen, he almost doesn’t notice Martin’s phone.
...Almost.
It’s not like he has any real reason to pay it any attention, sitting on the back of the toilet. There’s nothing special about it, honestly — a cheap touchscreen with a floral blue case and a single, long crack splitting the front screen from way back when they’d been scrambling to get away from projectile worm vomit. Jon’s seen Martin using it a million times before, seen every odd place that Martin tended to leave it over the course of the few days he’s been here (there’d been more than one time that he’d found it in the bread box, but maybe that was a good place to keep your phone, Jon wouldn’t know). That’s not what grabs his attention. Not what makes him pick it up.
No, that can be accounted by the fact that it’s buzzing, with an incoming call reading from someone named “Matthew.”
Jon stands there for a long moment, letting the thing vibrate.
He stands there thinking a lot of thoughts and thinking about how he should bring it to Martin, tell him that his phone is ringing. How Martin will thank him and take it and that will be that. How it’s none of his business who this Matthew person is, and Jon really has no business toting around Martin’s phone, anyway.
He thinks all those things, in convoluted, quick succession, and then, against his better judgment, he picks it up and answers it.
“...Hello?” Jon asks.
“Oh!” says a voice on the other side (a man’s, he reckons by the pitch). “I’m sorry, I— is this Martin’s number?”
“That’s right,” Jon says, then puts together the fact that he sounds absolutely nothing like Martin, and adds, “S-sorry, he’s busy at the moment. I’m his...uh......”
His...what? Boss? Friend? Par—
“...His roommate.”
“Huh,” the man says. “Didn’t know he had one.”
“It’s, uh...it’s a temporary thing.”
“ Huh. ”
A long moment of silence passes. Jon can almost feel the person on the other side of the line sizing him up, looking him up and down trying to assess just exactly who he is like some sort of job interview for god-knows-what. It’s that heavy, crawling, spine-chill feeling that reminds him of Elias now, when his boss is poking his nose where it shouldn’t be, and Jon almost wishes he had that same level of omniscience just to put a face to the voice on the other end of the line.
...Er, can he do that? Jon isn’t quite sure anymore. The knowledge thing just seemed to happen randomly nowadays, but he reckons maybe if he tries...maybe if he focuses and can just get a good Look—
“Well,” the man says, diverting the train of thought entirely, “when he gets a chance, can you have him call me back? It’s Matthew, by the way. Just need to know if we’re still on for Friday.”
Jon opens his mouth, then closes it with a click of his teeth.
What he wants to say is but who exactly are you? or how do you know Martin? or even what’s that supposed to mean?
What he wants to say is what’s on Friday? , because tomorrow is Friday and tomorrow is the date that this man apparently has plans with Martin ( thinks he has plans, Jon reminds himself, he thinks he has plans with Martin, because Martin surely hasn't mentioned anything like this to him).
What he says instead is a simple, “Alright.” It comes out much softer than he intends it to.
“Thanks mate,” the man replies. “Oh, and what did you say your name was?”
“Oh, it's uh. It's Jon.”
“Huh. Like Martin’s boss.”
“That’s right.”
“ Huh, ” the man says, like he’s chewing over the thought as carefully as someone with a new filling. Something that makes Jon very aware of the eye contact he’s making with his own bathroom mirror reflection, knowing that this mysterious man knows more about Jon in this instance than Jon does about him. Something he doesn't think he likes. Not one bit. “The more you know.”
And then he’s gone, the call ending with a click and Jon left standing there with Martin’s phone and a whole mess of thoughts he can’t even begin to sift through. Possibly a “what the hell,” and probably a “seriously?”. A directionless “well, that was weird.” And then maybe, just maybe, under his breath, a “goddamn it.”
But instead of voicing any of these, he simply gathers up the screwdriver. Heads out of the bathroom with Martin’s phone and into the kitchen, where Martin’s draining the spaghetti over the sink, careful not to splash the water on the woolen cow sweater he’s currently wearing.
“Martin,” Jon starts, and Martin looks up, leans over, and pauses his podcast.
“There you are. Dinner’s almost ready.”
“R-right. Um, you had a phone call?”
“Oh?” Martin raises a brow, swooping the pot of pasta back to the stove where the sauce is simmering. “Who from?”
“Someone named Matthew? He uh......he was wondering about tomorrow.”
Martin’s hands slow in the stirring. Jon waits patiently for his answer, settling into one of the barstools.
“Oh, right. I’ll give him a call back,” Martin says after a moment, which is about as non-answer as he can get.
Jon clears his throat. “D-do you have plans tomorrow?” he asks, then sits and stirs on the silence as he realizes he probably should have followed it up with something harmless, like “I can get out of the house, if you need,” or “do you need a ride?”. Something that didn’t make it seem like an accusation, even if the acknowledgment gives Jon a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach.
But he doesn’t get to say either of those things. Because Martin stops his stirring, looks back over at him with those big wide eyes that he really hasn’t seen enough of in the past few months, and answers.
“Actually,” Martin says, soft and bordering on a laugh, “I have a date.”
It doesn’t bother Jon.
It doesn’t bother Jon one bit because it shouldn’t bother Jon, because Martin is a grown man who can do what he wants. And if Martin wants to go on movie dates with a random man from IT who apparently likes thai food and has nice hair and even owns a dog (a rather big dog, from the pictures Martin shows him, even though Jon didn’t ask to see it), then it’s really none of Jon’s business. It doesn’t matter. He’s sure Martin’s very popular with loads of guys and reminds himself that it’s probably inappropriate to be privy to his coworkers’ romantic escapades.
Of course, that doesn’t stop Jon from thinking about the conversation the whole day leading up to the event. According to Martin, they’d met at one of the holiday parties, then re-met again a few weeks ago, while Jon was “out of the office,” and now they’re meeting tonight for a movie. Some period drama. Something Jon would probably hate, if he’d been asked to it (but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be asked to it), but it fits along with Martin’s well-worn collection of Jane Austen by the television, and maybe that’s the part that gets him so much. The fact that he’s been absent so much lately — first with Leitner, then with the circus, and now two weeks from a plane trip to China. For all Elias’s talk of learning and Knowing, Jon feels like he’s left in the dark when it comes to his team, comes to Martin, and that eats at him.
So that’s why he’s trying to be as positive as he can about this whole thing. Martin deserves to go out and have a good time despite the circumstances, and Jon wants to support him in that. He wants Martin to be happy. It seems so hard to find that these days.
Jon’s sitting on the couch, book propped between his legs as Martin bustles around his bedroom getting ready. Namely, trying to decide on a shirt, as Jon has watched him dip in and out of sight with a new button-down for the past twenty minutes before it ultimately gets tossed into the growing pile on his bed.
“Which one do you think? Blue or red?” Martin calls before stepping into the living room with his two final options.
“Hm.” Jon looks between them, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and realizing he really needs a proper shave. “Blue.”
“Really? You don’t think it makes me too...” Martin trails off in favor of making a wide, curved gesture with his hands, to which Jon can only frown.
“Too what?”
“...Nothing. Blue it is.”
Martin turns on his heels, disappearing into his bedroom and leaving Jon with his book on the couch. Jon picks it up once more and returns to the endeavor to read it — something that takes a good bit of squinting without his glasses, which were probably being worn by some waxwork by now. Michael— Helen— the Distortion hadn’t exactly been patient enough to wait around while he looked for them, and it wasn’t like he’d had time to pop down to the store and pick up a new pair since he’d gotten back. Something he definitely needs to do before heading to China. Add that to the ever-growing list of shit on his never-ceasing plate.
But he can make do, if he holds the book far enough away. It’s a poetry collection he’d found on one of the bookshelves — Wordsworth, as the title proclaimed — and though it wasn’t nearly as dreadful as Keats, it still was quite the slog to get through. Too much flowery language and languid, indiscernible emotion. Jon wouldn’t call himself a poetry hater (not like he used to, at least), but honestly, he just didn’t understand what Martin saw in the medium. “Just need to find a poet you like,” Martin had told him, and Jon had been trying — really, he had — but they all read the same.
Didn’t help that most of them were about love.
“Okay, what do you think?”
Jon pulls himself out of his thoughts and looks up. Breathes in. Holds it there until it inevitably starts to hurt.
Martin’s standing in the doorway, smiling at him and nearly engulfing the height of the doorframe — Jon had always known he was tall, always got things off the top shelf in the archives for him, but it’s only here that he realizes just how much he tilts his head back. The neatly pressed blue shirt is buttoned all the way to his neck on one end, twin bird pins on each collar corner, and on the other, an assortment of farm animals stare back from Martin’s fuzzy yellow socks. Jon realizes after a moment that he’s staring. Jon realizes he should maybe say something. Maybe. Probably. He should find something to say and find something to say quickly, instead of sitting rigidly in his chair with his mouth opening and closing and opening again.
“You......you...good,” Jon finally manages, finding the strength to suck in just enough air to push through a modicum of coherence.
Martin raises an eyebrow, smiling. “Me good?”
“Y...yes,” Jon answers, then swallows, then mentally kicks himself as he clears his throat. “You look very nice.”
That seems to jog Martin from his smugness, as the amusement slips from his face as he scratches at the back of his head. “Th-thanks,” he mutters, adjusts his glasses, and straightens up. “I’m going to um...go fix my hair then.”
Jon nods, because he’s not sure what else he can do. “Alright.”
He looks down to his book as Martin’s footfall begins to descend further into the apartment, even manages a single line before he hears the steps begin to reverse, Martin reappearing in the doorway. “Oh, by the way,” he begins, leaning on the doorframe, “did you want me to...I don’t know, get you some clippers or something?”
Jon blinks. “Some.....some what?”
“For your hair?” Martin elaborates, making a motion toward his face as if swiping something away. Jon follows the gesture on his own body and finds a long lock of hair between his eyes, which he pushes up and out of the way. It falls back into place, stubbornly, as soon as he releases it. Martin continues, “I-I just noticed it’s falling in your face a lot— though, if you’re trying to grow it out that’s fine too! I uh, I actually think it looks nice, I just...well um. You know.”
Jon thinks he knows. Maybe. It honestly hadn’t been something that had crossed his mind; with the end of the world teetering on the horizon, thinking about a haircut feels almost conceited. Jon’s just grateful, if anything, that he is not a vain man, given the discrepancy between the two of them right now — Martin, with his nice clothes and nice hair and nice face, and Jon, crashing on his couch with too many scars to count at this point.
He shrugs slightly as he readjusts his position. “I’ll......I’ll think about it. Thank you, Martin.”
“Oh yeah, ‘course.” Martin gives him a soft smile. “You know you can ask me for stuff. I don’t mind.”
“I know, Martin. I know.”
He thinks he knows. Probably.
Satisfied, Martin gives him a nod before disappearing down the hall, and Jon’s left sitting with his book and his runaway thoughts. He pulls at his hair in an attempt to pull out some rational thought, but it stubbornly refuses to stretch past his chin.
Strange is the only word he can find for the feeling. There isn’t any other name to put to the warmth behind his face.
Jon picks up his book, settling deeper as he tries to make sense of the inked scribbles on the page.
And then after ten minutes of doing that (9 minutes and 54.76 seconds to be exact, the eldritch horror in the back of his brain helpfully supplies him) he closes his book, gets up, and wanders into the kitchen to start up the kettle.
Okay, so maybe he was exaggerating a bit on that part where he said this whole date business didn’t bother him. He knows it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t! He should be happy for Martin (and he is, don’t get him wrong), and Jon knows reasonably that Martin is a mildly attractive man who probably has loads of dates that never make it into their day-to-day conversations. It isn’t exactly like they talk much of each other’s social life. Hell, for all Jon knew, Martin may have very well had a boyfriend at some point during the year-and-a-half they’d worked together, and he’d have been none the wiser.
He hasn’t, the traitorous part of his mind supplies him, Martin’s last relationship was two years and three months ago, with a man named Anthony Hopper, that lasted three weeks before he stopped responding to Martin’s calls. Before that was a brief affair with a man named James Pugh, and then with—
Jon roughly shoves that train of thought aside, suddenly feeling dizzy at the deluge of information.
Okay, well, the point still stood. He shouldn’t be letting this bother him — and it’s bothering him even more now that it is. That this guy that Jon has never heard of and never met is suddenly sweeping Martin off to the movies when he’s dressed up like that, instead of—
Instead of......
Huh.
Instead of who? Instead of him ?
The thought sends the tight lump in Jon’s chest shooting up into his windpipe, and he quickly sifts through the drying dishes to find himself a mug.
No, don’t be ridiculous, Martin’s his friend and just that. Jon’s his boss , for god’s sake, even if he hasn’t been doing much managerial work in the past few months, and he’s more than fine to keep their relationship purely platonic and professional. Doesn’t matter what Jon thinks about his wardrobe, the way he rolls up his sleeves, the slight muscle of his broad arms and his calloused, delicate hands and the smattering of freckles just under the rim of his glasses and his hair and his laugh and his smile and—
Jon doesn’t realize he’s pinching himself until he feels the blood start to bubble up around his nail.
Goddamnit. Goddamnit.
He takes a paper towel and wipes away the injury, then looks up to the ticking timer on the oven that Martin had set to leave. Just under a half hour now, and Martin’s still in the bathroom.
Huh.
He’d been in there a while, hadn’t he? Jon hasn’t really been keeping track, but he’s sure that brushing your hair doesn’t take over twenty minutes, but hell, maybe he’s just misremembering the tribulations of having short hair. Maybe there’s a perfectly logical reason Martin’s been in there for this long, and maybe Jon should just leave him alone. Maybe.
Jon pours his cup of tea and leaves it to steep, then wanders off down the hall to the bathroom.
Martin’s flat is not big by London standards. It’s smaller than Georgie’s by a considerable amount, yet roomy enough to accommodate a hallway in a way that his college studio couldn’t. The old walls were seemly built before cheap construction decided that insulation was nonessential, which means that Jon can comfortably watch his documentaries in the living room at six in the morning, and Martin can comfortably watch his knitting tutorials in his room at midnight.
That is to say, Jon doesn’t hear the sound until he’s right upon the bathroom door.
The muffled hitched breath is almost too soft to notice, between the door and what he can only assume is a towel that the sound is filtered through, and Jon, momentarily, assumes he’s misheard. Then there’s a sniffle, and then another breath, and then what sounds like tissues being pulled from the box.
Jon only stands there, shifting his weight between blue-socked feet.
Jon doesn’t consider himself a crier. Not in front of others, at least. He’d quite prefer to keep any overly expressive emotions to himself to be perfectly honest, but there’d been the rare occasion that he’d failed to keep his carefully curated persona intact. Like back in research, just a few months after his grandmother had died, when he’d felt it all crashing down in a cascade he didn’t have an umbrella for, and it’d been Tim who’d found him in the bathroom, who’d patted his back and told him everything was going to be alright.
The memory feels almost bittersweet now, and Jon takes a deep breath before he raises his fist and knocks.
“Martin,” he says softly, “can I come in?”
There’s a long moment of silence as he can hear the sniffles cut off abruptly, and Jon thinks that perhaps he’s made a mistake.
Then the door unlocks, creaks just the slightest bit open, and Jon takes the opportunity to push through into the bathroom.
Martin is a large man, much larger than Jon, and always comfortably fills in whatever space he’s occupying — the doorframe, the booth at the bar, his desk tucked away in the far corner of the archive bullpen — but sitting on the edge of the tub, glasses discarded on the sink and hands pressed against his eyes, Jon thinks that Martin looks small. Like he’s shrunk in on himself, or maybe the cramped bathroom’s opened up to give him space. He watches Martin smear his eyes on his sleeve, chew his lip, then roll himself upright enough to talk.
“Sorry,” he mutters, voice raw and fighting for footing, “didn’t expect to have a full breakdown today.”
Jon thinks what Tim would do in this instant, imagines him walking over and giving Martin a supportive hug, saying something like, “don’t let the world get you down, Marto,” like Jon used to hear from the breakroom back when everything was normal. He then finds he fails the courage to do the same and instead leans up against the doorframe.
“Do you uh...do you want to talk about it?”
Martin laughs, humorlessly and wet. “I don’t know,” he mutters, then finds his glasses and places them back on his nose. “Guess I’m just a bit nervous.”
“About your date?” Jon supplies.
“...yeah,” Martin answers, though the pause makes Jon think that perhaps that wasn’t what he was planning to say. But before he can press, Martin’s already continuing. “I’ve never really had......the best luck at dating, you know?”
Jon feels his shoulders relax as he cracks a half-smile. “That makes two of us then.”
“You too, huh?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Martin raises an eyebrow. “Try me.”
Jon snorts, digging his hands into his pockets as he rummages through his brain. “Okay, um...m-my friend Georgie? We uh...we used to date.”
“Oh?” Martin says, then seems to process the words more fully as his eyebrows shoot up. “O-oh!”
“I-it was a long time ago,” Jon says quickly, unsure why he feels like he should be apologizing for this before pressing on, “back in college. But um. We were out with some friends at a bar. And I was already doing a really, really horrible job at trying to sort out my own feelings about her and stupidly made a joke about how her holding my hand was going to make everyone think I was her boyfriend. And she just...turned to me and said something like ‘Jon, you realize I’ve been flirting with you for the past three months, right?’ and— god I don’t know. Something between being a complete nervous wreck and having way too much to drink, I just remember smiling at her really big and then turning around and......puking everywhere .”
Martin looks at him for a long moment.
And then his face cracks, and he doubles over in warm, boisterous laughter.
“Okay, wow, ” Martin says between chuckles, “that is pretty bad.”
“I’m just glad she didn’t take it personally,” Jon smiles.
Martin only snorts and reaches for a tissue to wipe his eyes. “God, and here I was worried about the kissing thing. Now you’ve got me worried about puking on my date.”
“...The kissing thing?”
Oh. That’s the nerve, Jon thinks.
Because as soon as it leaves his mouth, Martin winces, scrunching his eyes closed as if waiting for a strike that never comes before he very quietly, very uncertainly mutters, “Promise you won’t laugh.”
Jon quickly nods, and so Martin heaves a heavy sigh and continues.
“I......I keep having this dream where I go to kiss someone and just completely fuck it up. L-like...bite their tongue, knock a tooth out, hell I even had one where I broke the other guy’s nose.” He lets out a huff, shaking his head. “I-I know it’s completely irrational, I just.........I mean, for god’s sake Jon, I’m twenty-nine and I’ve never kissed anyone .”
Jon sucks in a breath as something clicks into place. Some sort of understanding he’d been fumbling for as the room ricochets and suddenly Jon is the one sitting on the tub with puffy eyes and Martin’s standing in the doorway, too far and too close, too much yet too little.
And then Jon’s opening his mouth, letting the words fall out before he can even process what he’s saying.
“Do you want to practice?”
He can’t tell if the static in the air is the timbre of his own voice or the abject panic that’s welling up in his ears as he processes what he just said, ready to spill out a rapid succession of “sorry” and “that was a joke” and “forget I just said that,” but Martin’s head snaps up before he can find a way to take the words back.
“You...you mean with you?”
Jon’s mouth gapes open, then closes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. Instead he says, “I-if you want.”
“O-oh, um.........” Martin’s eyes are still wide and stretched by the lens of his glasses, but his shoulders seem to relax as if a great weight has been lifted from them. The tension must have been transferred to himself, Jon thinks, because he instead feels like he’s going to throw up. He doesn’t know why he said that. This is Georgie all over again. Goddamnit. Goddamnit. Why can’t he learn to keep his stupid mouth shut?
And then very quietly, very hesitant and pointedly serious, Martin answers. “Okay.”
The word hangs between them heavy and immovable as Jon feels it over between his ears, behind his tongue. Okay, Martin had said. He’d said okay. Okay.
...alright, so maybe he didn’t think he would get this far.
Jon can’t find any words to offer back, so he only nods slightly, motions for Martin to follow, then leads them both back into the living room. Every muscle screams against him as he sinks into the couch; he wants to run, to get out, get anywhere away from every feeling clawing up the base of his spine. Maybe run back to Georgie’s and spend the rest of the week alone — risk getting kidnapped by clowns again instead of confronting the nauseating thumping of his heart in his chest.
Before he can make a move to do anything though, Martin is sitting down beside him.
Okay. A deep breath. Okay.
“Um,” says Martin.
“Right,” says Jon in return. He scoots a bit closer, letting their legs bump. He’s doing this, huh? He’s really doing this.
“So.”
“So, um.” Jon clears his throat. “I guess we should maybe talk about......what you’d like to try. O-or if you have any specific boundaries?”
Martin thinks for a moment, eyes trained forward on a spot on the couch. “Maybe...maybe just basic stuff? Um, doesn’t have to be anything fancy. A-also I’d......appreciate if you didn’t touch around my waist. I’m — heh — I’m a bit ticklish.”
Jon smiles at this, some of the prior stress rolling off as he nods. “Okay. I’m going to ask that you don’t touch below my belt then.”
He doesn’t mean it to imply that this session would be going anywhere (it’s not ) but Martin turns a deep pink and nods quickly before Jon can convey that. Maybe Jon should feel embarrassed about that fact. Maybe he should be doing the same, but it’s oddly cute to see Martin all flustered, so he continues.
“Is there anything you’d like to start with then?”
“Oh! Um.” Martin looks up, then looks around, searching for an answer. “Maybe...maybe just the cheek first? A-and work our way up from there, or— um. Yeah.”
Silly Martin. Silly, sweet, wonderful Martin.
His eyes snap up as Jon places a hand on the curve of his chin, leans in, and presses his lips to Martin’s cheek. Absently, he thinks how Martin smells like strawberries.
“Like that?” he says as he pulls away.
Martin swallows. “Like that,” he echoes, then places copies the gesture and leans over to Jon. Gently, of course. As if he could hurt him with a cheek kiss.
The kiss lands too soft, barely a breath and the faintest tickle against his beard before Martin’s pulling away, and Jon can’t help the chuckle that slips out. “You don’t have to be that gentle,” he assures him, then for good measure takes Martin’s face and presses a kiss to his other cheek.
Martin seems to take this as another part of the lesson, and dutifully does the same. Then he does the other cheek. And then the left. And then the right.
Jon’s half convinced Martin could spend their whole session doing such — kissing back and forth between his worm-scarred cheeks (not that he’d mind, of course, not one bit), but he knows this is hardly what people find excitement in on dates.
“Am...” Martin begins, breath warm against Jon’s skin, “am I doing alright?”
Jon tries not to laugh, tries not to let his amusement slip through at the risk of embarrassing Martin as he answers. “Ah— yes, very...very good. Though you can kiss me elsewhere too, you know.”
That makes Martin pull back, eyes blown wide and curious. “Oh, um. W-what do you mean exactly?”
Ah, right. Jon had forgotten he was the teacher here.
Jon peels Martin’s hand from the corner of his face and raises it to his lips.
“Like this,” he says, placing a kiss on his knuckles. “Or—” he takes Martin’s face once more, pulling it down until he can kiss his forehead, “like this.”
Martin’s taking his hand and placing his lips to the inner part of his wrist before he can continue. “Like this?”
Jon swallows, words catching in his throat. “Y-yeah.”
Then Martin moves to Jon’s forehead. “And this?”
“Sure.”
“What about this?”
“Mm...”
“What about—” here. What about there. What about this, and this, and this, and this—
Jon’s instruction falls away at some point, devolving into soft affirmations and whimpers and wanting as Martin continues pressing his lips to each exposed area of skin: his hands, his arms, his face and neck. It feels like being Seen, but with all the ugly parts removed. Like being Known yet understood completely — warm and wonderful and all-encompassing — and Jon nearly mourns as he attempts to wriggle from Martin’s grasp.
But he has to do this now. He can’t wait any longer.
Martin looks at him curiously as Jon breaks away, but Jon’s quick to bury any uncertainty as he places his hand on Martin’s freckled cheek.
“Martin,” he says, heart thumping up to his throat, “may I kiss you?”
Martin blinks, then cracks a half-smile. “Aren’t you doing that already?”
Jon smiles back as he presses his lips to Martin’s.
Martin’s lips are softer than Jon’s. Softer than anything, really, like pressing his mouth into the Admiral without the thick coat of fur that inevitably comes with it. His face is too, only the edges around his jawline harboring the slightest hint of stubble, something Jon can’t relate to as he’d gotten sloppy about shaving regularly. It’s nice though, he thinks. Feels right for Martin to be this soft.
Martin pulls back a moment later, just slightly, and their eyes meet under the curtain of his lashes.
“No broken noses,” Martin says, and Jon can’t help the chuckle that slips between his teeth.
“No broken noses,” Jon agrees. When Martin places his own hand on Jon’s face and leans back in, he wholeheartedly agrees to that too.
It’s the second, or maybe the fourth time that he tilts his head, opens his mouth and presses deeper, Martin squeaking against him before copying him. It’s the third, or maybe the sixth time that Jon’s hand finds Martin’s shoulder and Martin finds the small of Jon’s back. Martin murmurs soft questions into his mouth in between each, asking where he should put his hands, how should he turn his head, can he touch his hair, his leg, can he kiss him again; Jon answers each time, equally soft (here, there, yes, god, please .) He doesn’t realize how close they’ve grown until his chest is pressed up against Martin’s, doesn’t realize how much they’re pushing against each other until the tenth when they’re breaking apart, breathing heavy and warm that takes all of Jon’s self-control to not just go right back to kissing him.
He tries to smile. Tries to say something to conclude their lesson reasonably, tell Martin that he’s done a great job and that he’ll be just fine, so that Martin can go off to his movie with his date and Jon can go back to his book and smother everything he’s feeling in this instant.
But when he looks up to Martin, face flushed, glasses askew as he watches him through half-closed eyes that do nothing for Jon’s poor constitution, all those thoughts flee in an instant as Martin opens his mouth and huffs a single, soft, desperate, “ Jon. ”
That’s all it takes.
That’s all it takes for Jon to push himself back up against him, for Martin’s posture to go slack as he rolls back to the couch and pulls Jon along with him, now lain across his chest. Jon can’t bring himself to do anything other than push deeper, to meet Martin’s ebb and flow as he huffs and whimpers and whines against Jon’s mouth. Martin’s other hand finds purchase between Jon’s shoulder blades, effectively pinning him, but Jon doesn’t care. Can’t bring himself to care. Can’t find it in himself to do anything other than swallow up every noise that’s pressed into his lips greedily, like a starving man, like he needs it to survive.
Jon only breaks the pace for a moment as his hands fumble for the top few buttons of Martin’s shirt, and then he’s pressing his lips to his cheek, his jaw, the hollow of his throat. Martin whines around his touch, hand leaving his shoulders to shove his glasses aside, then finding the back of Jon’s head, fingers digging into his hair. Anyone else, this might be the breaking point, the point where Jon tears away or keens as their fingers dig painfully tighter, but Martin’s broad fingers only fit him snugly into place, and he feels safer than he’s ever been.
“Jon,” Martin pants.
Jon lifts his head, only to find a hand on his cheek pulling him back to Martin’s mouth. Teeth catch his bottom lip, and he can’t help the sound that slips past his throat. Tongue presses against his incisors, and Jon invites it in enthusiastically, tasting toothpaste and terror and Martin, Martin, Martin —
He wants to devour him whole. He wants to pull him apart and crawl inside, fill every empty space that he can’t reach with his mouth: between his ribs, his organs, his fast pulsing ventricles. He wants to Know Martin fully and be consumed by him until it’s impossible to pick them apart, to know where one ends and the other begins. He needs an anchor. He needs Martin. He—
He...
...Oh god.
He’s in love with Martin.
The thought hits him with enough clarity that he’s finally able to pull back, lifting himself as far as Martin’s grasp will allow and trailing a long string of saliva between them. Martin only blinks back, freckles lost in the heat of his face, and Jon wonders why he’s never noticed how many are hidden normally under the rim of his glasses.
“Jon,” Martin whispers, a thousand silent questions left hanging on the end of a single word.
Jon only swallows, lifts a hand, touches the soft curve of Martin’s cheek. “Martin, I—”
The alarm from the kitchen hits them like a speeding train, knocking them both from the moment.
“Oh, fuck, fuck I forgot—”
“No, sorry, wait, your arm—”
“—here, let me just—”
“—ah, shit, watch the ta—”
Their fumbling cracks to a halt as Jon goes rolling off Martin and into the wooden coffee table, dragging it sideways to the ground with him with a loud thump .
“Sorry!” Martin winces, rushing to help him. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, I just, ah —” Jon winces as he pulls himself off the corner dug into his shoulder. “I-I’m fine. You need to leave.”
“Jon—”
“You’re going to be late,” Jon protests. “I’ll...I’ll clean this up, I’ll get the alarm. You — ow — y-you get your things.”
There’s not much Martin can do at that point, so he only swallows, nods quickly, and hurries off to the bedroom. Jon takes the opportunity to fumble his feet underneath him and right the table back under itself.
He makes it to the kitchen to shut off the alarm just in time for Martin to come bumbling back, phone and jacket in hand and hair quickly combed back into place. The top few buttons of his shirt are still undone, neck exposed and red, but for some reason, Jon has the inclination that mentioning it now would make it worse, so he says nothing. Keeps it to himself.
“Alright, um,” Martin mutters as he digs through one of the drawers, finding his keys, “I-I’ll be back in a few hours then. There’s leftovers in the fridge, o-or you could get takeaway? I can dig out some cash if you need it, but please make sure you do eat—”
“Yes Martin,” Jon butts in, but his tone is light. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“I know, I know. I just— I know.”
Jon watches him open the door, shift his belongings between hands, then turn around. There’s something in his expression as he looks back at him, something Jon can’t name, and yet it’s impossibly soft. Just like Martin’s lips. Just like Martin himself.
“Have fun,” is the only thing Jon can find in himself to say.
Martin smiles, then nods. The door closes quietly behind him and locks.
And then it’s silent, and Jon’s left sitting alone with himself and his long-forgotten cup of tea.
He wanders to the couch and sits down. Finds a pillow. Presses his face into it as he contemplates how loud he can scream without the neighbors complaining.
You’re in love with Martin, a part of his brain (maybe the Eye, maybe the traitorous vestiges of his own self-hatred) reminds him.
“Yes, thank you,” he grumbles aloud for no one in particular. “What do you suggest I do about it?”
Jon, predictably, gets no answer for that question.
Jon’s snuggled into the couch and one of Martin’s loaned sweatshirts, idly clicking through the catalogue of films on the television, when the door unlocks. He doesn’t need to look to see who it is. He knows evil mannequins wouldn’t do the courtesy of announcing their presence like that.
“Forget something?” Jon calls over the counter as he watches Martin shear off his jacket, toss aside his keys. It’s only been a half hour since he left, and he should have arrived at the theater ages ago.
Martin peels off his shoes with twin thumps, then wanders over. “No, I......we um. We decided to cancel.”
“Oh? Oh.” Jon looks up, cataloging Martin’s face. He might have been crying before coming in, his eyes traitorously puffy around the lids, but Jon can’t be sure if that’s a recent development or if it’s residual from earlier. “I’m sorry Martin.”
“No, no it’s okay. I-it was mostly me, actually? I mean, he’s a nice enough bloke, but the more I thought about it, I just......couldn’t really see myself long-term with someone who does that much mountain climbing.”
He smiles at Jon when he says it. Jon does his best to return the gesture.
“Good luck with dating apps then.”
“Heh. That bad, huh?”
“The worst. ”
They both find it in themselves to chuckle at this, even if there isn’t really a joke. It feels right, Jon thinks. Feels like a kind of normal he hasn’t felt in a while.
Jon clears his throat, gesturing to the television. “I was going to watch a documentary, if...you’d like to join me?”
“Oh,” says Martin. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice. Let me just......change first, alright?”
Jon nods, and Martin disappears into the bedroom behind him.
Huh.
A nice enough bloke, Martin had said.
Jon doesn’t know why he feels the sense of pride that he does.
A moment later there’s a nudge at his shoulder, and Jon looks up to find Martin, now dressed in an old Star Trek t-shirt and sweatpants, holding out a plastic packet of hair ties to him. Jon doesn’t know what else to do with it, so he takes it.
“Er— what’s this?”
“I-I stopped at the corner store,” Martin explains, sliding down onto the couch, “and, I dunno, I thought if you weren’t going to cut your hair, then maybe this could help?”
Jon flips over the packet. He pops the plastic open. He pulls out a single, red tie, then looks back to Martin, holding it out. “Would you...?”
“Oh!” Martin breathes, “S-sure thing.”
It’s only once he’s back looking away that Jon feels Martin’s fingers on his scalp. They’re impossibly big, calloused and strong, and yet the softness with which he works out the tangles, smooths back Jon’s unruly hair into a collection just at the back of his head that makes him lean into the touch. He’s in love with Martin, Jon had concluded earlier, he’s in love with Martin because it makes sense. Of course it makes sense. Martin’s the one who makes him feel safe.
There’s the snap of the tie, then Martin’s hands pull away. Jon smooths his hand back over his freshly tamed hair as he turns back him.
“What do you think?” Jon asks, holding back a smile.
Martin can’t quite do the same, his eyes crinkling up under his glasses. “You look nice,” he says softly. Jon’s not sure that he’s ever heard something so wonderful.
They settle in under the same crocheted blanket and pick a documentary about castles in Scotland — something Jon’s seen a million times, but he doesn’t share this with Martin. That’s not the point. Of course it isn’t. The point is that the blue light of the television is glinting off Martin’s glasses, the tag of his shirt is poking out of his collar, his breathing is slow and even and whistles through his nose. The point is Jon stops looking up at the door every minute like he’s been doing for the past week and instead looks at Martin, counts all the freckles he sees. The point is that Jon feels safe, on this old, worn-out couch. He feels at home. He feels happy. He wonders why it’s so hard to feel that way, nowadays.
And if he and Martin’s hands bump underneath the blanket?
Well.
He won’t tell if you won’t tell.