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For Martin, the day is something of a blur after he leaves Jon’s office.
He can’t believe he did that, actually did that, actually walked into Jon’s office and just—he has the panicked thought, again and again and again, that Jon probably hated that and Jon’s not going to want to go out with him after all and it hasn’t even been a day and he’s already mucked it up and—
“Whoa, whoa,” Tim says when he catches Martin with his grip so tight on a tea cup that his hands are going white. Tim extricates the cup from Martin’s vice-grip and pats his shoulder. “Easy there, mate. The tea cup is innocent. Or maybe it’s not. Guess you never know around here. My point is, you’re going to break it and make a mess and Jon’ll have a conniption.”
It’s among the less helpful things he might have said.
“Are you all right?” Sasha looks at Martin, forehead creased. “You look ill. Maybe you should go home for the day.”
“No,” Martin says, too quickly. He stands and mumbles something about the library before reclaiming his cup and escaping. In the hall, he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He reminds himself that Jon likes him. Jon wants to take him to dinner. Jon isn’t going to change his mind because Martin did something a bit bold. He spends an hour sifting through library shelves, wasting his own time, before returning to the Archive, where Tim cocks an eyebrow at him, but says nothing.
This is how his day’s passed by.
Now Martin is walking through Chelsea with Jon’s hand held loosely in his own, keeping an eye out for anything that looks appetizing. Or any errant coworkers. If they were to run into Tim...he’d never let it go. The sheer amount of workplace innuendo would be—well, best avoided.
“Do you have anything in mind?” Jon asks, and Martin shakes his head. Most of Chelsea is too rich for his blood.
The restaurant they eventually walk into feels much too expensive, but Jon waves away Martin’s protests, and then they’re seated, and Martin is faced with a menu that he can hardly bear to look at. But it’s read the menu or stare at the man he’s spent months pining over, and he doesn’t want to do that, either. He doesn’t want to be caught doing that. Jon’s easy to watch at work, regularly too absorbed in the task at hand to notice Martin’s eyes lingering, but there’s not really a task at hand just now.
Martin orders a water and does his best not to fidget. His eyes flick from the menu to Jon’s face and back again. As much time as he’s spent thinking about being out with Jon, he doesn’t know what to say. He hasn’t usually gotten this far in his daydreams. But this is their second date. There won’t be many more of them if he spends it too tongue-tied and skittish to actually talk.
Jon says, “You’re blushing again.”
“I can’t help it,” Martin mumbles. “You’re here.”
Oh. That’s mortifying. That just came out of his mouth.
“I mean,” he starts, and gives up immediately, because there’s absolutely no coming back from that. He’s not going to waste time trying. “We sort of had this conversation this morning? And I think I’m better at the kissing than I am the talking. I don’t want to ruin this.”
Jon’s mouth quirks, and Martin wonders what’s going on in his head. Sometimes there’s this look in Jon’s eyes, like he’s thinking very hard about something, and that look is there now. Their waiter chooses that moment to return. Martin hurries to choose the cheapest item on the page, which is still easily twice what he’s comfortable having spent on him. He wants the waiter to go. It seems like the man is taking his time, though he’s not; Martin’s perception is all off.
“You’re not going to ruin this,” Jon says when the waiter’s gone. He’s leaning forward, his full attention on Martin in a way that makes him feel pinned in place like a butterfly in an entomologist’s lab, and Martin cannot look away from him. “I might. I’ve never been terribly good at relationships, but I intend to try. You’re worth improving for.”
Martin knows, on an intellectual level, that Jon’s said that to help. It serves mostly to throw his brain into chaos. Jon’s looking at him, and he’s got to say something, and it ought to be something romantic, and every scrap of love poetry he’s ever read has fled his memory, and he says, “Are we in a relationship?”
Jon’s brow furrows. “Right. That was presumptuous of me.”
“No!” Martin’s palms land hard on the table, nearly knocking over his water, and Jon looks almost alarmed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean we haven’t talked about it. This. Us.” It’s no wonder he’s a rubbish poet. He can’t even put together a proper sentence. Not that it helps when Jon’s focused on him that way. Martin’s never seen him look at anything in quite the same way; he almost wants to call it hunger, but he’s sure that can’t be right. He repeats, “We haven’t talked about us.”
“All right,” Jon says, his voice even, like he’s not personally responsible for the obscene behavior of Martin’s heart, and that’s not fair at all. “Let’s talk about us.” He pauses. Martin’s breathing does the same. “I’d like for you to be my boyfriend. If that’s something you want.”
The smile Jon gives him is awkward at best, and Martin considers throwing himself across the table for a kiss. He settles for saying, “Yes, obviously yes, Jon, I just wanted to make sure you—you know what, never mind, it’s just yes.” He’ll save the kissing for later. He’d like to do quite a lot of it. Definitely more than is considered publicly decent.
“That’s settled then,” Jon says. There’s nothing romantic about it in the least, but Martin can’t imagine much better. “Tell me about your poetry.”
This takes Martin aback. “What?”
“You write poetry.” Jon takes a sip of his drink.
“Well, yes,” Martin says, sure his cheeks are burning again. They’ve done little else today. “It’s, um, not actually very good? But it’s something I like to do.” Jon nods, and that focus is still there, and Martin’s always wanted Jon’s full attention, and he’s got it now, and he hardly knows how to handle it. “I just sort of write about my life. Things I notice.” You, he doesn’t say aloud, because his brain-to-mouth filter hasn’t completely abandoned him. Still, the way Jon smiles at him makes him suspect that he knows and is being kind enough not to say. “I wrote a lot when I moved into the Archive. It was therapeutic, you know? After Prentiss kept me trapped in my flat I—”
“Christ, I should have checked on you.” Jon’s voice is tight, and so low Martin almost misses it. Then the words sink in.
“It’s okay,” Martin says. “You couldn’t have known—I mean, she made you think I was just sick, it’s not your fault. Besides, if you’d come to check up she might have…I wouldn’t have wanted her to hurt you. I managed all right. I didn’t die, anyway.”
“Even if you had only been sick,” Jon says, and then seems at a loss for words. “It was nearly two weeks.”
Martin wants to kiss him again; to convince him it’s really all right, he doesn’t blame him a bit. “I’m fine. We’re both fine. That’s what matters.”
“Yes, you’re right.” It’s agreement, unsteady as it may be. “But I am sorry.”
“I’m sorry I left you in the tunnels,” Martin says.
“You thought we were with you,” Jon says, and Martin knows he wasn’t nearly that kind at the time. Tim told him so.
“And you thought I was sick.” Martin smiles. It takes a minute, but Jon smiles back.
They talk a bit about work, and a bit more about Martin’s poetry, and about possibly visiting the British Museum sometime soon, and about spending afternoons in the park until the weather turns, and Martin relaxes into it, eventually. Jon refuses to let him lay eyes on the bill, and takes his hand before they’ve left the restaurant, and the butterflies dance about his stomach again.
“It’s been such a nice night,” he says, “I don’t want it to be over yet.”
Jon says, “Then it doesn’t have to be.”