Chapter Text
After being awoken so easily in the night, Jon wasn’t sure how he slept through Martin leaving in the morning. Maybe the sleepless weeks had caught up with him. Maybe last night’s terror and exertion had ground him to a halt. It’s well past 9am by the time he did finally wake up. A warm light just barely seeped through cracks in the blinds, so the flat was dim but… cozy. He didn’t move for a long time, sleepily cracking his eyes and staring at the dust that floats lazily through the air. The quiet stillness rested over him, wrapping him, settling into the patches of the warm quilt, and he felt at ease for the first time in a very long time. And then it wore off, and the quiet began to grate on his paranoia.
He tossed off the quilt and sat up, struggling to adjust to his surroundings in the light of day. He wanted to reach for his phone, but he had thrown it onto the train tracks of the underground somewhere last night, unable to shake the feeling that the tiny camera had been watching him. The only thing he had left were his glasses. He picked them up from the coffee table, and tried to wipe a smudge from one lense. After a moment, he stood and wandered the flat.
He found a note stuck to the door.
“Jon, gone to work. Help yourself to the kitchen (I’ll go shopping soon).” And then under that, scribbled as an afterthought, “Just keep the door locked.”
Jon furrowed his brow. He wasn’t keen on being cooped up all day, but didn’t suppose he had a choice at the moment. He shuddered, remembering that Martin had also been trapped in this flat at one point. He resolved not to fall into boredom. At the very least, he could spend the day praying Martin would be able to keep it together and would prove to be a better liar than he might seem.
Martin was very good at lying. He had been keeping up several very elaborate lies his entire life.
- He did not miss his father.
- He was qualified for this job. (this lie had started as a small thing and was quickly growing out of hand, though he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore if he got fired for harboring a suspected murderer...)
- He did not have feelings for Jonathan Sims. (This was a private lie, screamed inward.)
None of this helped to dispel the anxiety that wound in knots in his stomach. He grit his teeth as he swung open the heavy front door of the Magnus Institute, doing his best to remain calm. This calm was all but wiped away with a cold sweat as he saw Detective Daisy Tonner. Hell, she would have looked scary just standing around waiting for the tube, although Martin couldn’t picture her doing something so mundane. No, Daisy was here to investigate. And she didn’t look very happy about it.
He set his bag down in the front office, watching a few other police officers as they went about, meticulously searching the Archives for evidence. He tried not to wonder if the body was still here.
“They were here before I was. Might have been here all night.” Tim appeared beside him, speaking, his tone somewhere apathetic and dejected. He had his hands pushed deep into his pockets, a slump in his shoulders.
Martin smiled nervously. “Oh, uh, good morning.” Tim gave him a leer and Martin swallowed hard. He quickly continued, “H-Have they found anything? Uh, yet?”
Tim sighed. “Don’t know. Think she wants to talk to us though.”
“A-about what? She listened to the tape right?” Panic rose in his chest. Nobody knew about Jon. There was no way anyone had already found out. He hoped.
Tim just shook his head and shrugged. Martin suddenly felt very disconnected from him. Not 24 hours had passed since they had been trapped together, and now so much had changed. They were the only ones left, but they were divided and Tiim didn’t even know. For a brief, torturous second, Martin wanted to tell him.
Actually, Tim, this is all okay, because Jon told me he isn’t a murderer and I’m letting him stay in my flat. Would you be so kind as to not immediately tell the scary detective? Cheers!
He suppressed a guilty cringe and held his tongue. Tim had said something Martin didn’t catch and walked off, probably to stand around and look grim. Martin took a breath. Today was going to be difficult.
He headed upstairs to make tea.
Jon didn’t feel like making breakfast. The act seemed superfluous, and strangely… invasive. He resisted the parasitic thought. Martin had let him stay, had invited him to stay. There was no reason to feel so out of place. So he stood in the kitchen and ignored the bitter taste creeping down his throat, ignored the itch in his fingers that compelled him to do something more important. At the very least, he could manage tea.
(This was a strong assumption, seeing as Martin was the only one who ever made tea for the office, and Jon never drank tea outside of work.)
It wasn’t that Jon was a hopeless mess. He was just a little bit terrible at taking care of himself. Even beyond the late nights researching, when he forgot to eat at all, he was prone to kitchen accidents. The days he came into the office, shirt ironed and shoes laced neatly, with real, actual food packed for lunch, were days that took an enormous amount of planning and effort. He’d despaired over his dysfunctions and fixations when he was younger, especially in school. And then had come a very blessed diagnosis and his grandmother had added picking up a prescription of Adderall to her list of errands. He had since lapsed that regime, but his dysfunction had clearly never ceased. Truly, the boredom was going to be the worst part of his fugitivity.
Martin dodges the question, stalling as he attempts to get a hold of himself. Daisy looked like she wanted to punch him as soon as he turned on the tape recorder. Still, Martin has nearly mastered the art of avoidance. He’s a bit annoyed at her jeering dismissal of the tape, dissolving his hope of easily giving her new suspects. She doesn’t need his suspects, though.
“Well, if your witnesses appear back in this universe, maybe the situation will change. Otherwise, it’s an easy choice: answer my question or I pin it on you.” She leans forward on the desk, staring him down.
His blood runs cold. She didn’t even know he was helping Jon. He wasn’t going to get arrested for aiding and abetting. She wasn’t even going to try at obstruction of justice. Detective Daisy Tonner was going to jump straight to framing him. There was suddenly so much more at stake than just losing his job.
Full operational discretion. Martin wasn’t sure exactly what that entailed, but he didn’t like the look in her eye when she growled it.
It would be useless to try to argue Jon’s innocence. It might be useless to help him altogether. He could confess, right now. Save himself. Dear god, he wanted to save himself so badly, from all of this, from the fear. And maybe Jon would be okay! Maybe it would all work out anyway. He didn’t need to take this burden on.
He paused.
“I don’t know.” He lied. Martin was very good at lying.
He manages to be out of sight when Elias is called in. He’s worried that otherwise, Elias will be able to see right through him, Knowing what Martin now knows.
He distracts himself from the crime scene by trying to pick up the pieces of what he’d been working on two days ago, but it just doesn’t fit right into his head anymore. He reads the same sentences, sentences that he wrote, over and over again but can’t make himself understand what the words mean. Eventually he gives up, cradling a mug and staring absently into the hallway, watching people pass every so often. Daisy had exited the office after talking to Elias, pale and filled with barely restrained fury, and snapped at everyone to start clearing out.
He’d tried and failed to have a conversation with Tim, to subtly convince him that maybe Jon was innocent, but Tim didn’t care. Martin had dropped it.
Every so often, he glanced at the clock. He was anxious to get home. He hadn’t known whether to wake Jon before leaving, but he had looked so calm and untroubled, Martin would have felt cruel to disturb that. He was worried, however, about what Jon would get up to without supervision. Not that he didn’t trust the man, it was just… well. There wasn’t exactly a method to his madness, at least as far as Martin could see. He couldn’t picture Jon sitting still and behaving properly all day. He could, however, picture his flat burned to the ground and a remorseless Jon waiting to lecture Martin for leaving him alone in the first place.
A conversation in the hall drew his attention. An officer walked by, holding a black satchel Martin recognized as something Jon had begun taking to work lately, hiding it in his office where he thought no one would notice. He really had been oblivious in paranoia. The officer mentioned tagging it for evidence and Martin lurched. He stood abruptly, the legs of his chair scraping backwards harshly.
“T-That’s mine- Actually.” He gulped. One lie was risky. Two lies was stupid. Was he begging to be caught?
“Is it?” Daisy took the bag from the officer and stepped into the doorway. Martin steeled himself.
“It’s just- Just dirty laundry, really. Um. F-from when I used to… live here. A little bit ago.” It’s an embarrassing lie, but Daisy already thinks badly of him. Honestly, it probably really is only dirty laundry. He hopes. Martin did hear they found an axe in Artefact Storage…
After a moment of blasé inspection, Daisy makes an unimpressed noise and dumps the bag in the doorway. Martin exhales with relief as she walks away and hurries to snatch it up. He wanted the bag, not just in case it contained something incriminating, but also for his own curiosity. He did believe Jon wasn’t a murderer now ( 99% sure , at least), but he wouldn’t be surprised if Jon had been doing other questionable things after hours. Jesus, that made it sound like he thought Jon was on drugs. No, just in the same way Martin had been embarrassed to explain the corkscrew under his pillow, there was something in that bag that would be equally unpleasant.
Or it could just be an unwashed pair of slacks. Martin sighed, and slid the bag under his desk.
Jon had tried to just sit still and relax. He’d made a very valiant effort. The problem was that it was too damn quiet. It would seem Martin had managed to find the one flat in all of London that was completely soundproof. Even his legs bouncing rapidly as he sat on the sofa barely made a noise thanks to the plush blue rug underneath the sofa. The tea had gone cold by now, not that it had been worth drinking. He stood and paced the flat, willing all of his attention toward counting the steps. When that failed, he took down the small collection of books and read through what he could (a collection of Keats and a few amateur poet zines), as the silence made it hard to concentrate. He did keep the door locked, as Martin had requested, but it did little to quell his paranoia.
It was watching.
He snapped the book shut with a loud clap , breaking the silence. Damn it all, but he had to do something.
To his relief (and surprise), Martin’s flat seemed to be in one piece. As he opened the door, he nearly called out for Jon, but he caught himself. Holding his breath, he quickly locked the door and leaned heavily against it. There was a thud from the kitchen, followed by a muttered “Ow”. Martin started forward, alarmed.
“Jon?”
“Ah!” Jon’s head popped up from behind the counter. “Ah- You’re home.”
The way he said that made Martin’s heart flutter. Of course, Jon didn’t mean it like that. This was Martin’s home, not theirs . “Uh, is everything alright?” He glanced around nervously. Something was off.
“Well, I, I, I wasn’t sure when you’d be back. And I didn’t have anything… to… do.” He looks rather sheepish.
The books on Martin’s shelf have been reorganized by color. And, yes, someone had cleared the clutter from his desk. Slowly, he picks up these minute changes, scanning the room until he comes back to Jon.
“Oh. You, uh. You cleaned up.” He thought for a moment of making a joke about finally seeing why Jon got hired to be the Head Archivist, but decided it probably wasn’t as funny as he thought. He wasn’t sure what else to say. It’s not exactly bad, not at all disastrous. But it certainly wasn’t what he expected. Jon wearing his sweater, standing in the kitchen and rearranging the cupboards felt… domestic, uncomfortably so.
“I can put it all back.”
Martin spluttered. “Are you joking?” He laughed after a moment and admitted, “I- I was afraid I’d come home to a smoldering wreck!”
Some of the tension in Jon’s shoulders dissipated. “I wasn’t sure- I mean, I don’t really have any other way to repay you. And I… I was very bored.” Jon grimaced. Martin smiled, fighting to keep his fondness hidden. He tore his gaze from the purple knit that brings out Jon’s eyes in such a lovely way, and glanced around again. A sudden thought struck him.
“Um, Jon… You didn’t- Er, you didn’t clean anything in the bedroom, right?”
Jon was quick to reassure him, throwing up his hands. “No, no. Just- Just in here.”
“Ah, good then. Right.” Martin flushed and cleared his throat. He stepped forward and began to take off his coat before remembering the bag he held. “Oh! Uh, I found this. Well, the detectives found it. Thought you might like to have it, though.” He offered forth the satchel and Jon craned his neck to see before recognition lit up his face. Swiftly, Jon made his way across the room, taking the bag. He set it down on the couch, the bedding neatly folded. Martin draped his coat on the back of the couch and peered over as Jon opened the bag.
It did appear to be mostly a change of clothes (thankfully free of blood stains). However, Jon dug past the rumpled button-down and pulled out several items of various concern: a flashlight with a handful of spare batteries, a squashed carton of cigarettes that Jon quickly shoves back into the bag as if ashamed, a miniature camera, and an alarming pocket knife, though closer inspection would determine it unfit for anything more than looking intimidating, but even that would be questionable in Jon’s hands. As these objects were strewn about the couch cushions, it became clear this was Jon’s collection of exploratory gear. Martin quickly banished the memory of the tunnels, and focused on Jon’s hands. He had rather thin fingers, with nicely squared nails. His hands seemed like they’d be warm, which was a ludicrous notion. Jon, for his part, didn’t notice Martin observing as he tucked everything back into the satchel. It wasn’t much, but he was glad to have a change of clothes at the very least, suddenly self-conscious of the ill-fitting pajama pants he still wore. He made a vain effort to smooth out the hem of his sweater and spoke. “How, uh. How is everything, then?”
Martin jolted from his daydream of intertwined fingers and winced. “Well… They’ve given the case to Basira’s partner- er, former partner? Um, Daisy? She- She doesn’t like it. Certainly doesn’t seem to like you…”
“No, I don’t suppose many people do now.” He peeked at Martin as he pretended to fiddle with the buckle on a strap of the satchel. The other man was staring away, thoughtfully. He didn’t seem to register what Jon said. Jon bit back a long overdue apology. It was pointless to mope.
“I didn’t- I didn’t see Elias, but Daisy talked to him. Or, he said something to her? I don’t know, it was- I don’t think she likes him either.”
Jon hummed in response.
Martin sighed and picked up his coat. Jon moved the bag to the floor and sat on the couch in its place, craning his neck over the back to watch Martin as he spoke. “And Tim, of course, he’s not-” Martin cut off, grimacing. Jon frowned at the floor. He wished he hadn’t let things get so bad with Tim. Martin hung his coat by the door and turned to stand in the middle of the room, not quite looking at Jon. “U-Um, anyway. I’m going to the shop tomorrow. If- if there’s anything you need, or want, we can make a list. Or, you can make a list, or-” His gaze fell on the desk again and he paused. The mess of loose paper that once graced its surface had been neatly filed into piles depending on their contents. He managed to squeak, “Did you read any of that?” Martin wasn’t a very outgoing poet. Even his mother rarely got to read his work.
Jon made a vaguely repentant noise, which sounded more like he wasn’t actually repentant at all. “Ah, yes. I did sort it as best I could. Your mail is in the drawer now, or else I might have read that, too” He joked. Okay, maybe Martin did need to establish some boundaries. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jon carried on, “The rough drafts, as far as I could figure, are to the left and the more polished pieces- the ones with titles, at least- are on the right. You wrote all of that? It’s not bad.”
Could it be? Real actual praise? From Jon? “Wait, what?”
“I mean, you’re- you're not the next Poe, but it was… refreshing? I- I enjoyed some of it.” He shuts his mouth, afraid he’s said something wrong. Martin looks at him in disbelief.
“I- Really? Huh. Um… Did you have a favorite?”
Jon blew out a breath and searched the air. “The, uh, The one about- I believe it was about Prentiss? Um. Yes, you- you captured it nicely. Very grotesque.”
“Corkscrew.” Martin reminded him of the title.
He shifted uncomfortably. “Yes. That one.”
A bashful, morbid grin crept across Martin’s face. He completely forgot his indignation for privacy’s sake. “Well, T-thank you.” He ducked his head and walked to the kitchen, his chest warm.
Jon continued to stare at the desk and called over his shoulder, “Say, Martin. Speaking of your poetry, I- I don’t suppose you still have a tape recorder?”
Martin made a questioning sound as he rifled through the cupboards.
“I want to record something,” Jon replied absentmindedly.
“Making a statement?”
“...Yes, actually.”
That night, long after dinner had been cleared away and Martin had scolded Jon for not eating all day, after explaining how to make tea and do laundry, and Martin had quietly bid him goodnight, Jon turned on a tape recorder. It feels like years since the last time he did so. He gathered his thoughts. In one hand, he clutched a mug of Sleepytime and let the smell of chamomile and mint calm him.
He told the story of Mr. Spider.
And Martin pretended not to hear through the bedroom door.