Chapter Text
It had been a couple days since the celebration. Everything seemed more peaceful, in fact everyone was spending time together. Each claim had been giving tours around their areas. Martyn wanted to show off his area as well, so when he extended the invite for the other leaders to tour his base. He was happy when people said yes. However, everyone had busy schedules so he'd have to give the tour to people separately. He'd given most people a tour by now. Today Bekyamon was returning for another tour. Martyn was confused on why, but he chose to take it as a compliment. It was finally the day where the saint was free. So he was able to give both the saint and Bek a tour. It was rapidly approaching the meet-up time. Bek was there early, not too early but early enough to have a casual chat before the saint arrived.
“You gonna show him the 'water totem’?” Bek said, giving Martyn a nudge and a wink.
“Oh of course I am, I've shown everyone so far.” Martyn chuckled.
Just as the clock on his wrist turned to 2, the saint appeared from the trees. He looked confused holding a map and spinning around. When he finally noticed Martyn and Bek he shoved the map in his pocket, and gave them a warm smile.
“You get a little lost there buddy?” Martyn laughed, poking fun.
“It's not my fault your jungle is a maze” The saint remarked sassily.
“Speaking of mazes, you've got to do one now, to prove yourself worthy of the temple!” Martyn giggled.
Safe to say he was met with a face of ‘are you kidding me’ from the saint. But as Martyn and Bek waited on top of the hedge maze, the saint wandered aimlessly.
“Why do you have a hand out to the left?” Bek questioned.
“It's a trick Callum taught me, always stick to the left hand wall” The saint replied proudly.
It worked. He was so far one of the fastest people to complete the maze. Martyn swore you could see sparkles in his eyes as the saint looked up at the temple looming in front of them all. The sparkling eyes continued as the tour continued. The saint had such wonderful compliments to offer everything, he was also being extremely kind to the citizens. Some gave him questionable stares, some glared with disgust; you could barely see behind those sparkles that he was letting the citizens get to him. Any citizen that approached the saint was quickly won over as the saint casually complimented them all and being the opposite of their expectations. A couple of mischievous teens however had other ideas and whilst the trio were climbing the stairs, they surprise attacked the saint with a bucket full of water. The saint was drenched, but still managed to laugh it off. Fake as ever but the effort was there. He very passive aggressively thanked them for cooling him down, the blank expression on the saint’s face was enough to scare them off. They continued climbing the stairs up towards Martyn's home. When they reached the temple, they adventured inside but the saint stayed close to the door.
“Come on in Saint, no need to hover by the door.” Martyn said.
“Oh no thank you I don't want to get anything wet.” The saint replied
“Oh yeah that's not good” Martyn said, confused on what to do now.
“I'm sure you have some clothes that will fit him right Martyn?” Bek questioned, a playful grin spread across her face.
“Probably let me see what I have.”
Martyn walked away to go find a towel and some clothes. The saint wearing his clothes, what an odd thing to think about. How would he look in jungle garments? Probably as pretty as ever, Martyn thought. He stopped his tracks momentarily, before shaking that thought out his head. He returned and gave the saint directions to the bathroom so he could dry off. Bek started a conversation in the meanwhile, it was mostly poking fun at Martyn. When the saint returned, his hair was still a bit damp and wearing jungle garments. He kept his jewellery though, and the water had made it shine even brighter.
“Fit you alright?” Martyn questioned, a little star struck.
“For the most part, yes!” The saint chuckled back.
“Clothes were made for me when I was a teen, they thought I would be taller. I only ever wore the jacket.” Martyn remarked.
The saint awkwardly adjusted the jacket. Pretty as ever, the green of the jacket complimented the saints eyes well. Martyn stopped that thought in its tracks.
“Well saint, do you wanna go see the ‘water totem’?” Martyn asked, seeing Bek grin widely in the corner of his eye.
“Water totem? Sure, I've never heard of it though” The saint said, cluelessly.
They began to walk down some stairs that led far underground. This ‘water totem’ existed, but it was the opposite direction far atop the mountains that surround the jungle city. The journey was a long walk to get to where he was truly leading the saint. It didn't help that the saint walked excruciatingly slowly.
“What's taking you so long Saint? You're such a slow walker.” Martyn retorted. Causing Bek to laugh too.
“Oh sorry, I've never seen a proper cave tunnel before. We don't go mining in the dark-oak.” The saint replied, apologetically.
‘You did go mining through other people's properties’ Martyn thought to himself. Best to keep it to himself though. Soon they arrived.
“What is this place? It doesn't look like a ‘water totem’”. The saint turned and began questioning Martyn.
“Oh that's because it's not. Welcome to the Underground City, this place is crawling with wardens.”
“Wardens!?” The saint responded in shock, “Are you trying to kill me?”
But then Bek got a call, an emergency was occurring at the Taiga claim and she had to quickly run off. Leaving Martyn and the saint alone.
“Be careful there are tons of noise traps all over the floor” Martyn said, just as the saint stepped in one. This wasn't going to turn out well. They continued lower and lower, further increasing the chance of a warden hearing them. It didn't help that the saint was possibly the clumsiest person ever, he kept making noise left and right. They finally reached down to the market, a warden dangling carefully above the stalls in an open cage. Then the saint stupidly knocked over some fruit on a stall. Martyn looked up to see the warden waking up, he lunged towards the saint and took him around a corner. That further aggravated the warden causing him to cloak them in darkness. The wardens were powerful creatures, only able to hear sound but they could create powerful, deadly beams in the sound's direction. They could also make anything around them go blind. As the warden hit the ground, Martyn shoved the saint up against the wall to create as little noise as possible.
“Martyn what are you…” The saint was quickly cut off as Martyn covered his mouth with a hand. The warden was approaching the corner where they were hiding. Martyn kept his hand firm against the saint's mouth, making sure he wouldn't make a sound. His hand was warming up, it wasn't because of the slow breathing the saint was doing. Martyn couldn't see what was causing it however, so he chose to ignore it instead focusing on the bigger problem at hand. They had to make a quick escape. Martyn carefully thought then, bingo, the tunnel that led to the surface by the portal in the centre. As quietly as possible, he flailed his hand around trying to find the saint’s wrist. If they could see this would probably be incredibly awkward. He felt some jewellery, bracelets. He grabbed the wrist tightly, causing a little jump out of the saint who had no idea what was happening. Then suddenly Martyn had yanked him and they both started running.
They barely made it to the tunnel. Instead of a snide remark, which Martyn was expecting he was met with silence. They kept walking, it was a long journey to the surface since the Underground City was deep down. Something Martyn only noticed after the blindness wore off, was that he was still grasping the saint’s wrist. He looked up at the saint, trying to see what was making his hand so warm earlier. He was met with a complex expression across the saint’s face, eyes focusing on the path next to them with a confused look. His breathing seemed hitched, almost as if he was struggling to breathe. Still no answer to why his hand was so warm until he noticed a pink hue on the saint’s cheek. Was he blushing? Surely not, but as the saint looked over at Martyn they made brief eye contact before the saint quickly looked back to the floor. His cheek glowing a brighter pink. He was certainly blushing. Why was Martyn still holding his wrist? Martyn didn't know why but he wanted to keep this minimal contact between the two. It connected them in silence. So Martyn thought of a remarkably stupid idea. He slowly and carefully moved his hand from the saints wrist down to the saints hand. They were holding hands. This was a stupid idea, martyn questioned why he did this but he looked back up at the saint’s face. The blush grew a dark pink and began to cover the entirety of his face, that's why he did this. His breathing grew more hitched, it was a funny site. Funny in a friendly, definitely just friendly way. They didn't speak at all for the rest of the journey, hands held awkwardly together. When they reached the portal they quickly dropped each other's hand, they could be seen by anyone at this point. Still in silence they walked back to the temple. The saint returned to the bathroom to grab his now dry clothes, and he got changed quickly.
“I've left the clothes in the bathroom, thank you for letting me borrow them.” The saint said, breaking the silence between the two.
“No worries, hope you get home okay.” Martyn kept it short.
“Bye Martyn.”
“Bye Jim.”
As Jim walked back home he noticed something. That was the first time Martyn had referred to him by using his actual name. He felt himself smiling and blushing like a fool. He shouldn't be acting this way, not at all.