Chapter Text
“Okay…” Martin says, placing the washing-up bowl full of warm water down on the breakroom table. He casts his eyes around the room ponderously, lips drawn out in a little pout. “I’m trying to work out where’s best to… you know, levels and stuff. With um… w-we had this like barstool thing, that was taller than a normal chair but not like… dangerously high and she could sort of flop herself over the sink on that, but um – sorry, oversharing, the point is, there isn’t anything like that in here, so uh…”
Jon hasn’t the energy to be embarrassed that Martin quite rightly assumed he wouldn’t be able to stand over the sink. Honestly, he would have struggled a bit pre-Buried, standing in itself is usually alright, but trying to convince his spine into anything other than default position can be - troublesome. It tends to send his centre of balance off-kilter and coax his bad leg to buckle - the bastard will take any opportunity. Now, strung out, worn out and about every other sort of out that one can be, he’d probably be spread-eagled before even getting that far.
He’s been deposited on the sofa, and deposited is, unfortunately, the word – Martin had generously maintained the fiction that his legs were doing any of the work during their move from the office, but Jon’s not sure his toes even skirted the floor in the last twenty yards. He uses his vantage point to join Martin in assessing all possible locations.
“I think uh - sitting on the floor with the bowl on the coffee table might work?” he suggests tentatively. “Honestly that’s where I’m most comfortable these days. Not, you know, metaphorically or anything - although actually, maybe that too but - I can more easily shove this damn thing,” he pokes his bad knee, “In the direction it arbitrarily decides is less worse in that moment, and the height looks about right, I think, so…”
“Sure, we can try that. On the end, so I can kneel next to you, I guess.” He nods pensively. “Yeah, if we try you on the floor, head back in bowl, and me attempting uh…waterboarding via Sports Direct mug.”
He awkwardly brandishes his weapon. Jon snorts.
“Artefact of the Vast,” he drawls ominously.
“Exactly. Okay, let’s uh… get you up, then.”
Jon nods and scoots himself wincingly to the edge of the sofa. He clutches Martin’s forearms and Martin steadies him at the elbow, and together they complete a shaky shuffle to the coffee table. Jon wrinkles his nose at the floor.
“Um… I normally just sort of… puppet-no-strings-it down, but uh… feeling a bit bashed up, so -”
“Yeah, let’s,” Martin winces, “Let’s not do that, just… come on, slow, lean on me, maybe onto knees first then swing out?”
They manage to get Jon arranged in a bit of a heap on the floor, legs outstretched, with only minimal circulation-loss in Martin’s forearms.
“Great,” he congratulates them both, a bit winded. “I’ll get the…”
Miraculously, only negligible quantities of water are sacrificed to the rough carpet. He sets the bowl down carefully beside the tote bag swiped from Jon’s desk drawer, stuffed with a change of clothes and towel as well as shampoo, conditioner and a comb. He’s been using the Artefact Storage decon shower for months now, the lease on his flat having run out some time during the coma and frankly, signing anything with the word ‘year’ in the contract had felt like tempting fate.
“Okay,” Martin says determinedly, clapping his hands together. “Let’s give this a go.”
Jon nods, takes a deep breath, and tips his head back.
As much as he would like to say that Martin has magical hands that make it all okay, the whole experience is actually… highly unpleasant. It’s not even a trauma thing - my god, he realises hysterically, nobody’s tried to drown me yet! How very remiss, someone should really get on that.
No, this is a much older, much more ingrained, much more deeply annoying unpleasantness. It is an unpleasantness that he is grateful for, in a roundabout way, because it is what allowed him to keep his long hair, his – bloody tantrums. But ugh the sensation of the heavy glob of water landing on the top of his head and splitting like a cracked egg, then running, viscous and unpleasantly warm into his ears, and then ugh trickling down his neck, wetting just the seams of his shirt, creating a grating contrast between wet and dry, spiriting up an itch where the wet bit touches his skin, ugh, ugh, ugh. Brief reprieve and then it begins again, the glob closer to his scalp line, teasing a journey towards his eyes, which are screwed up so tight that he can feel the beginnings of a headache. Then there it goes again ugh, into his ears again, ugh, down his neck again, ugh, just ugh, ugh, ugh. Showering is fine, showering is pleasant even, with its even distribution, and its directed spray, and its delightful uprightness (and okay, maybe that part is a little bit trauma – forgive him for being unable to compartmentalise his weaknesses accurately), but this, this is -
Oh, do shut up Jon, you asked for this.
Haven’t we grown out of this now?
Two and a half decades later and you still can’t handle –
Fine. It’s fine. It’s. All. Fine.
“Jon?”
He balls his hands into fists.
“Jon?”
Pushes his mind down down down into his stomach.
“Jon, your lip’s bleeding.”
Wills it not to connect with his sensory organs.
“Okay, I’m stopping now.”
fails, fails, fails –
But oh.
Now it’s…
Over.
That’s -
“I’m sorry. You did say that you had issues with haircuts as a kid, I should have connected the dots that it was a sensory thing.”
What?
It’s not -
It’s not any sort of thing, it’s just him being –
Deeply annoying.
He lifts his head and opens his eyes warily. Martin looks concerned for some reason, as he smiles gently.
“Sorry,” he repeats nonsensically. “You okay?”
He drags the back of his hand across his lips. A red streak does indeed appear along it, though of course, the cut itself has gone. He stares at the streak for a moment, then gives a very small nod.
“Good. We can um - we can try something else. What about the decon shower in artefacts, is that any better? Because, you know, not to inflate your ego too much or anything, but you seem uh… decently acquainted with showering in general so -”
“Yes. Yes, uh, the shower would be… better, I think.” He frowns as he realises – ah. “A-although um… quite a few uh… stairs.”
Martin shrugs.
“I mean, in practical terms that really isn’t a problem, I’m, you know, large,” he mock flexes awkwardly and Jon’s stomach flips, “And you’re like… less so, but I get that someone with as many holes in their kidnapping punch-card as you may not love being scooped up like a sack of potatoes.”
Jon shakes his head.
“No, no I think that’ll be fine, it’s just rather…”
“It isn’t, Jon.”
Jon blinks. He’s meant to be the one with the omniscience powers.
“I haven’t even said -”
“And I’m not saying it either, in case that funny old brain of yours decides that me saying it gives it some kind of credence.”
“Excuse me, funny old - but it is though, isn’t it, it’s embarrassing –”
“Nope. It is a means to an end. It’s a method of transportation. Towards something that is really, really important to you so… A-and even if it were… that thing, that I’m not giving any validity to by saying – well, it’s a Saturday.” He shrugs. “So nobody will see.”
“It is?” Jon frowns, and a few cogs make a valiant attempt at stuttering to life. “W-wait, why are you here then?”
Martin gives him a look.
He blinks.
“What?”
Martin repeats the look, then sighs.
“Some idiot decided to jump into a coffin.”
Ah.
Wait, so does that mean that Martin has been – what? Standing vigil?
Well, that’s a bit um –
Well.
Not very Lonely, is it?
He furiously stomps on the hope trying to bloom at his toes.
“O-oh. Right. Uh… sorry.” He sheepishly picks at a hangnail. “Not very um… work-life balancey. Sorry.”
“Hm. Anyway. Shower? Via the uh… Martin Express?” he winces as the words leave his mouth and Jon huffs a laugh.
“Yes, I suppose so. Are you sure though, you won’t… throw your back out or anything?”
Martin makes a “pfft” noise that Jon should probably find annoying, and should probably be a bit offended by, and probably shouldn’t instead be a bit flustered by,. Rather too many probablys to keep track of.
“Don’t flatter yourself. If there were any windows down here, we could fling some open and wait for a gentle breeze to carry you up instead.”
“Or a Fairchild,” Jon mutters.
“That’s an alternative you’d take? Wow, charming.”
“And don’t you forget it. But no uh, you’re… you’re right.” He snorts bleakly down at himself. “I think I’m rather past notions of dignity anyway.”
“Nothing undignified about it, Jon.”
Jon rolls his eyes and wafts a hand.
“Alright, alright, just – how are we doing this then?”
“Well first of all, you get the very important job of holding the wash bag.” He drops it into Jon’s lap. “Then… honestly, I’d advise that you mentally clock out to your happy place and let me deal with the, you know, details of the manoeuvre.”
Jon sighs and nods.
“Okay.”
Martin quirks his head, and looks at him expectantly. Jon holds the gaze for a moment, confusion growing, and begins to open his mouth to ask what he’s missed when Martin says:
“Sorry, just waiting for your inevitable, woe is me, happy places aren’t available to me anymore.”
Jon barks a caught laugh.
“Hey. HR strike two. I’m not that bad.”
“Well…”
“I’ll have you know,” he points a scholarly finger, “That my eidetic memory of Battersea Rescue is forensic.”
Martin chuckles back. It’s a bit dazzling, frankly. How long has it been since -
“Brilliant, go there then. Pick us out a nice tabby or something.”
It is only a very small wire in Jon’s brain that short-circuits at the pronoun choice, so he elects to ignore it for the time being. Besides, Martin doesn’t seem to have realised so…
Probably means nothing.
“Okay,” Martin says, shuffling closer. “Ready to be airlifted?”
Jon nods and shuts his eyes.
He does indeed mentally tread the well-worn path to Battersea, skirting around those weird triangular flowerbeds and creaking his way up the slightly past-it ramp. He makes it as far as reception before he realises that his tried-and-tested happy place may not be… entirely necessary? Because – well.
The place he is in, in reality is…
Well.
It’s not exactly an unhappy place.
Look, it’s – it’s complicated, alright?
It’s another of those failures to compartmentalise, the whole is this a trauma thing that is imbued with his very existence as a capital-T-capital-T Trauma Thing. Martin is warm, which he hasn’t been for a while, and safe, which he hasn’t been for a while, and strong, which he hasn’t been in a – well, ever. Martin is secure, which he doesn’t dare rely on, and Martin is steady, which he doesn’t dare assume and Martin –
Martin had stopped, when the water had made him uncomfortable.
He wasn’t even in pain, just uncomfortable.
What was –
What was all that about?
All this –
Not unhappiness.
He doesn’t open his eyes, that would probably be nauseating at best, but he doesn’t – what had Martin said, ‘clock out’ either. He doesn’t ignore the gentle curl of the fingers around his knee, and he doesn’t ignore the reassuringly firm arm pressed to his shoulder blades, and he certainly, certainly doesn’t ignore the heart that is beating solidly, and regularly, and better keep doing so, forever and a day, please, thank you and every pleasantry in-between.
The journey concludes all too quickly, with a gentle, “Okay, Earth-to-Jon?”
He opens his eyes then, and comes face-to-face with the lone Artefact Storage decon shower cubicle. It’s a bit of a placebo, and everyone knows it. The sort of stuff they have in there is no match for a dribbly bit of spoon-shaped plastic some intern picked up from Wilko, on the end of a dribbly bit of bendy metal some other intern picked up from Wickes (one of the few things Jon and Elias ever agreed on was that interns are best sent on errands). But dousing oneself in water can often have an entirely different sort of cleansing effect following an experience with the supernatural – of the quick sharp shock kind. This being its primary function, the cubicle hasn’t actually seen a lot of deep-cleaning action, and Jon grimaces apologetically at the nigh-on pristine shower drain. Here he comes again, to ruin a perfectly good –
Oh do shut up, Jon.
“Okay, lowering down now.”
Martin sets him just beside the little stool where he normally piles his towel, and he takes a seat.
“How did I do on turbulence?” he asks lightly.
Jon cannot quite smother his small smile.
“No idea, was distracted by a handsome tortoiseshell.”
“Glad to hear it. Okay.” Martin bites his lip and casts a look at the shower, then at Jon, then back at the shower again. Then he frowns a bit, and sighs apologetically, and continues, “Okay. The only thing about this is that it’s going to be difficult to avoid getting your clothes wet in the shower. I think we should take them off honestly, and I want to be clear Jon, there is nothing weird to me about that at all, I can - I’m well practiced at divorcing this context from any others where it might be weird, all the shit I said before, means to an end, yada yada, but – if you’d rather keep them on, I… I guess we can deal with that too.”
Deal with.
Once again, he’s being a thing to be dealt with.
He’s creating problems to be solved.
What number are they on now, even just today, three, four, and they’re not even little problems, they involve traipsing across the archives and marching up stairs, and bleeding lips and muddy water and that’s all with vehemently ignoring the great big coffin diving problem that got them there in the first place.
But still, this… particular issue.
It isn’t one he can quite cast aside for the sake of causing fewer problems.
He swallows.
“I…” he looks at the ground. “They need to stay on, please.”
“Okay. Can I ask why, just for understanding’s sake? If it’s a modesty thing, fair, if it’s self-consciousness, daft, no need, but fair, if it’s… if it’s me, that’s – that’s also fair, I guess but -”
“It’s not you. No, Martin, it’s… it’s a lot of things, all at once, but… of all the things, it’s… it’s you the least. Mostly, it’s um…” He winces and closes his eyes. “Mostly it’s Nikola. The Circus. My um… time there.”
“Oh. Oh, Jon…”
“I’m sorry, I don’t – I know you’re not her, I know you’re not any of them, I know you’re different and regardless, it’s a stupid, stupid hang-up to have, I mean nothing terrible actually happened, I wasn’t skinned alive, nor did the other thing, with, you know, thematic similarities happen –”
Behind his closed eyes, he hears Martin’s breath hitch.
“- it wasn’t about that, of course it wasn’t, that was so far from her mind, so far from any of their minds, insofar as they even have minds, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for even drawing any sort of comparison, I know I don’t have that right, I know I don’t have the right to react so viscerally when nothing happened, they didn’t do, anything like that, but that doesn’t undo the fact that I didn’t have any clothes on.”
“Jon…”
Jon sucks in a sharp breath.
Fuck.
“I didn’t have any clothes on, and there were hands all over me, everywhere, with no intent, no intent towards that, so it was fine, it all turned out fine, but my body doesn’t seem to have got the fucking memo, that I really, should not react like that, in fact cannot react like that, have no right to react like that, I’m sorry, I can’t help it, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry –”
He buries his face in his hands, and grits out something between a scream and a groan.
“Jon…” Martin whispers.
“I’m sorry,” Jon whispers back.
“Jon, can I… would a hug be bad right now?”
Before he can run it past his brain, his head is shaking violently.
“Is… is that a ‘no a hug wouldn’t be bad right now?’”
A rapid change of course and he is nodding, vigorously.
He drops his hands from his face and in an instant, it is instead buried in Martin’s shoulder, and Martin’s arms are around him, and Christ he’d forgotten what a proper hug felt like. It’s easier to pretend he isn’t crying if he presses his eye sockets into the stiff fabric of the ill-fitting suit, if his little gasping noises are muffled by a body, if he keeps his lips pressed firmly together.
“It’s alright,” Martin whispers, “You can let it out, you’re more than justified.”
He shakes his head, grinding his forehead into the dip in Martin’s shoulder. But a strangled whimpering sound falls from his lips regardless, and that’s enough to open the floodgates, and then Martin’s shoulder is getting very wet, and he’s being lifted from the stool and put somewhere else, next to that heartbeat that better bloody keep at it forever.
He cries quite spectacularly for a few long minutes as Martin holds him upright and they rock, like sepia edged memories before he became far too old for all that nonsense, Jonathan.
“How long have you been carrying that?” Martin breathes. “No, actually, I – I know that, don’t I? I’m sorry. I should have pushed more at the time, shouldn’t have accepted that stupid try for deflection…”
“I wouldn’t have…” Jon gulps, “I don’t think I would have -”
“Still. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry.” A pause, then Martin chuckles wetly. “My god, listen to us.”
Jon’s breath hitches, then he manages a very small, very tired, almost nothing laugh.
“Okay, I…” Martin pulls back a little no no no, “I think you probably need to stop breathing in polyester.”
“Says who,” Jon mumbles croakily. “I’m not… I’m not looking at you, god that was embarrassing, I’m -”
“What that was… was a long time coming, I think.”
“Maybe,” he whispers. “Maybe, but still, I – clothes on, please. Even if – yes.”
Martin sighs, hearing in the ‘yes’ pages and pages that Jon isn’t sure he even put in there.
He’s right though.
He’s right.
“Jon you… that stuff about what you have the right to feel? You do know, don’t you, you must know that’s absurd, and that what happened to you – no, what was done, deliberately to you is absolutely, categorically abhorrent - ”
Jon flinches.
“Not now, Martin, please. I can’t – not all in one go. I’ve just – ha!” he wipes his eyes, “I’ve just tumbled out of a coffin, which wasn’t great either to be honest, it’s all… it’s a lot, okay. Just for now, the… the bollocking hair, please. With… with clothes on.”
“Sure,” Martin says, not quite sounding it. Mercifully though, he sighs and continues, “Yeah, sure. Um, we seem to be sort of…”
He trails off and half-chuckles nervously. Jon sighs.
“Are you going to say it, or shall I?”
Martin completes the chuckle, with another half.
“Neither is an option as well, if you’d prefer that.”
“A weirder option, frankly. This room isn’t big enough for an elephant.”
Martin huffs.
“Yeah, tight squeeze. Alright, we’re… we’re cuddling on the floor –”
“For which I take no responsibility, I was having a perfectly comfortable breakdown on my lovely stool.”
“It was looking a bit precarious, actually, so – yeah, all very practical. But can’t sort your ‘bollocking hair’ from here so – what’s the set-up this time? Floor still best for your leg?”
Jon nods.
“Unflattering lotus position is a winner on uh… insubordination days. I – I’m not sure how you want to -”
“If we open the door, I can kneel out here and, yeah alright, probably still get quite damp but not, you know, completely soaked.”
Jon makes a sceptical noise and winces.
“Yeah, yeah,” Martin sighs. “Shall we chase the other elephant out together?”
Jon sighs back, then wearily begins a countdown.
“Three… two… one…”
“Wet t-shirt competition,” they say in unison.
“Hm,” Jon hums eloquently, feeling himself turn rather red. “But yes uh… that sounds… workable.”
“Okay then, let’s…”
Martin stands, suit now well and truly askew, and gets Jon under the armpits firmly. He hauls him up with practiced ease and steadies him as he steps over the shower lip. He backs off a bit as Jon folds himself into his familiar lotus position, hovering with his hands raised like a trampoline spotter.
Once he’s settled, Jon gives a curt nod, and thanks every single one of the deities he doesn’t believe in that he is spared the sight of Martin removing his jacket and tie, and rolling his sleeves up to the elbows. Know thyself, his internal monologue says sagely, and his-self would probably have a conniption fit. He’s too wrung out to pretend otherwise.
He glances up as Martin unhooks the showerhead from its stand, and his peripheral vision is darkened by his shadow as he looms over to peer at the controls.
“You know this thing better than me, where are we on a scale of Arctic to scalding?”
Jon shrugs.
“Never had any particular complaints. Takes a while to get the idea, so maybe point it away from me while it remembers what the hot setting is meant to do.”
“Got it.” Martin stills and huffs a tiny laugh. “Ah, isn’t that a burst of nostalgia. Waiting so very patiently for something icy to warm up.”
“Hey.”
Martin chuckles. “Ready?”
Jon braces himself, and nods.
Ah, it’s –
So much better.
The shower is warm and even and predictable. It’s soft and regular and light. There are fingers helping to work out the knots, and gentle pressure on his scalp and even this early, even with the task barely begun he can tell it’s working, it’s really working, he’ll be able to keep Amma’s beautiful hair.
The gathering mud on the shower floor isn’t beautiful at all, of course it isn’t, but he doesn’t care one bit. It’s not on his head anymore, isn’t stuck to him anymore, he may be bashed and bruised and battered, but it does not have him, does not have the one bit of himself that is in high-definition, unblurred, unashamed, unconcealed.
There’s some sort of gentle commentary happening behind the rushing water, so different to the uncannily enunciated descriptions from Nikola of Exactly Where I’m Going To Put This Bit Of You, Dear Archivist! No, instead is a lulling score he can’t quite resolve into words, but which he knows without Knowing mean him not a modicum of harm, which is such a rare thing, to be cherished, and to be thanked.
Bare minimum, Jon, Georgie of old – his advocate against his spiralling thoughts – says in his head, but it isn’t, is it? Not anymore, bare minimum is his hurt not hurting anyone else, for attention on him to be positive, for sensation to be actively pleasant is –
Well, it’s close to a miracle.
He shouldn’t be having such reverent thoughts, he knows this. To have these is to put Martin on a pedestal, from which he could fall, and be hurt himself, which is quite simply unthinkable. No, Martin’s brilliance is in his groundedness. How, how, is the tug on his scalp as the comb rakes through it, usually a thing to be endured, now something he is clinging to like it is keeping him tethered? The shampoo smells like roses, like Nikola’s stuff never did, and the conditioner smells like aloe, like Nikola’s stuff never did, and the hands applying it are warm, like Nikola’s never were, and they want him safe, and they want him comfortable, and they are so scared, so worried when he gets hurt, and it’s all so so much but it’s –
Good.
“Jon?”
And Jesus Christ, he’s crying again isn’t he? Heeee’s crying again, brining up the water, salting it like he salts the land of everywhere he travels through –
Oh do stop it, you drama queen.
“Do you need a break?”
He shakes his head.
“Carry on. Please.”
“Okay.”
More passes of the comb, one, two, three, four, and with each, he too feels a little less knotted, a little less tangled, a little more able to separate the confusing mess of himself into manageable strands that can be tamed, and attended to, and controlled. He shudders in as deep a breath as he dares with the rising water vapour, and Christ, it’s the fullest thing he’s managed in recent memory. Martin pauses a moment and flattens his palm over his forehead gently, like he knows like he knows like he knows.
God, he’s a monster.
It hits him at random sometimes that –
God, he’s a monster.
“I love you,” he chokes into the plausible deniability of rushing water.
“I love you too,” comes the reply, immediately, into the plausible deniability of desperate, deluded hope.
The decon shower is a placebo. There is no contaminant present. There are only two, Lonely people, stretching the definition of such, damp and wounded and determined, determined, to live for the sake of if nothing else –
Transparency.
(And – oh yeah.
Saving the world.
But in that moment, that all feels a bit –
Secondary.)
The water is beginning to run cold. Martin switches it off. Jon’s hair is clean. The job is done.
“I love you,” Jon whispers, absent of deniability, plausible, implausible, logical or laughable.
Martin pulls his fingers slowly through his handiwork and nods a small, satisfied nod.
(Jon is not the only one who salts the water that day, but that’s okay, because Jon’s back is turned to him.
What a very Lonely position.)
Jon is beginning to shiver, so Martin retrieves the towel and wraps it around his shoulders quickly. The shivering doesn’t stop, unless – it was never that at all.
“Thank you,” Jon whispers.
“No problem,” Martin whispers back.
Neither of them move for a long, long time.
Aside from shivers, in a very warm room.