Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jon approached their desks with much more severity and reluctance than could possibly be genuine. His mouth was drawn back tightly, pen clutched in a fist, eyes narrowed and tired with his glasses tucked and folded on the collar of his shirt. He stopped before them, arms crossed, and Tim looked up with what he thought of as a diplomatic expression, and Sasha paused in her typing to pay his rare visit to their section of the archives her full attention out of more politeness and interest than respect.

“Yeeees?” Tim asked, drawing out the word as he tossed around one of those small stress balls designed like a basketball, shooting it into the small hoop tapped to the top of his monitor just as Jon let out a disappointed and equally drawn out sigh.

“I have… a favour to ask,” he said at length, probably scrambling to remember some script he’d come up with for the interaction. He clasped his hands pensively, looking at Tim and then to the side and then sighing again. “Not work related.”

Tim put on an appropriate expression of shock, drawing a hand to his chest as if he was a Victorian era man who’d just seen some lady’s ankles. “Jon? Talking about something unrelated to work or emulsifiers? I do believe we’re in the end times, lads.”

“Tim,” Jon snapped, but then seemed to remember that he was the one asking a favour as he tried to school his expression into something more neutral. He was probably overthinking whatever it was he was going to ask, causing him to be more stressed and distant than usual, like when he was working or recording statements.

“It’s alright, Jon,” Sasha intervened diplomatically. “Tim’s just being an ass. We’ll be happy to help with whatever you need.”

“Sash does not speak for me,” Tim objected immediately. “But do go on.”

Jon let out another breath, as was his nature, and brought up a hand to rub the bridge of his nose. He bit his lip only briefly, then said very quickly and gravely, “I need one of you to date me this weekend.”

There was a pause. Tim’s mind took a whole extra three seconds to process and then fact check and then question everything, before a large grin broke out across his face. “Holy shit are you propositioning us, boss?”

“Oh good lord no!” Jon stammered, his face red as he looked at Tim with unrestrained disgust. “You know I’m- You know I don’t go for that sort of thing.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Yes boss. I’ve seen how you have an allergic reaction at the word sex, let alone di-“

“Tim!” Jon snapped. “Need I remind you that we are in a professional setting.”

“I’m not the one who just asked his subordinates to date him!” Tim shot back.

“I meant fake date! Please do not take this out of context, Tim.”

“W-What,” Sasha cleared her throat. She seemed composed with her hands steepled and work completely forgotten, but she had a shaky and barely restrained smile on her face that let Tim know that internally she was losing her collective shit. “What is the context for this, Jon? Can you please explain, Jon? We need more details, Jon.”

“Yes, yes I heard you the first time.” Jon was back to not looking at them as he scowled, but the tips of his ears were still very clearly red. “This… weekend, a relative of mine is getting married. Apparently I’ve been invited, and my grandmother will be there also and she- Well, she won’t quite leave me alone about finding a… a partner, so to say. I thought it might avoid a lot of unpleasantness if I showed up with someone, and well, I don’t exactly know a lot of people, let alone that would uh, be willing to pretend to date me. But I know that Tim regularly sees people, so I thought that he was the most likely candidate to be willing to help me, and if not him then maybe you, Sasha.”

Tim was absolutely fascinated. He was delighted. He was so, so incredibly torn between saying fuck yes to this nonesense and also fuck no. Instead he said, “Damn, even Jon can’t resist this.”

Jon actually swatted him on the shoulder with a file from his desk, practically clutching his pearls from the scandalous nature of it all. “I told you not to take it out of context!”

“Even in context though…” Sasha mused. “Like… Jon, what the fuck?”

“I-I know it’s not a great situation, but it seemed like the simplest solution and I’d be willing to pay of course for taking time away from you-“ Jon said, before Sasha interrupted.

“Okay if you’re paying then this is even more sketchy. Perhaps you could just go hire someone in that case?” Sashsa said.

Jon made a face. “Absolutely not. They’d definitely get the wrong idea.”

“You’re already giving the wrong idea,” Tim muttered to himself, before speaking louder and with a smile. “So are you paying to just have a friend then? Do you want us to come with you to prove to your grandmother that you have friends?”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Well, that might also impress her, but I fear it probably won’t be good enough.”

There was a pause. “Was that a joke-“

“Hello!” That was Martin, arriving at the desks with a careful tray of steaming mugs. “Oh, Jon! It’s good to see you out of your office. I was about to go deliver your tea to you anyway…” He seemed to then take in Sasha’s exasperated fondness and Tim’s half frozen gesticulations, mixed with Jon’s fathom deep scowl. “Um, what are you all talking about?”

“About how apparently I’m not allowed to make jokes now,” Jon replied reflexively, holding a staring contest with Tim now that all the embarrassing nonsense was over with.

“There he goes again,” Tim said, aghast. “He even wants to talk to us about things unrelated to work, Martin! I fear he’s been replaced by something that’s definitely not Jon.”

“Well then perhaps Sasha can be the archivist,” Martin joked as he finished handing out the mugs before returning to his own desk. “Once we kill the monster that replaced Jon, I mean.”

“I would make a wonderful archivist,” Sasha said at the same time Tim said, “Oh she’d be a much better archivist.”

Jon glared at both of them, and then Martin, who flushed and held up his hands defensively. “S-Sorry. I-I didn’t mean to imply anything!”

“I would fire all of you if I could,” Jon said, deadpan. “It would be much quieter down here.”

“But you need us,” Tim said. “Someone has to do all that crime.”

“I do not condon you doing crime-“

“But we made a crime board!” Sasha said happily, gesturing to their corkboard that held mostly assignments and sticky notes with a myriad of reminders for anything from phone numbers and addresses to polite and dry reminders that the tape recorder not be used for personal affairs to dozens of statement numbers with summaries beside them. Jon blinked very slowly at the sheet of white printer paper pinned haphazardly in the middle with printed columns listing crimes and then archival assistant names, with ‘what crimes will jon have us do next’ at the top. Jon was dismayed to see smiley face stickers cluttering certain boxes, particularly hacking for Sasha, seducing cops for Tim, and breaking and entering for Martin, and a winner for the most crimes from last month listed at the bottom. “If Elias sees this-“

“Oh Elias has probably already seen it,” Tim interrupted. “We’ve had it up since the end of the first month working down here. Haven’t you noticed?”

“I… have not,” Jon said reproachfully. “Is- Have I really asked you to do that many crimes?”

“Be gay slash bi and do crime is basically the motto of the archives now,” Tim told him, with Sasha and Martin nodding along.

“Still, I don’t think I’ve ever actually asked you to seduce anyone,” Jon protested, unfolding his arms to gesture broadly in his exasperation.

That was a mistake. Tim’s grin grew wider as he folded his hands under his chin in delight. “Oh it was implied. Speaking of seducing, let’s bring that conversation back about how you want to seduce one of us.”

Jon scowled, ears red again. Marin sputtered in the background, choking a bit as he blurted out a “Seduce???”

”I am not seducing anyone!” Jon snapped. “I am offering you payment.”

“Which is worse.”

“Than as a favour.”

“Nah.”

“What?”

Tim shrugged, rolling his shoulders with the movement. “I’m going kayaking this weekend. Sorry, boss, can’t help you in your wild escapades. Also we should add you to the crime chart because I feel like this is a crime somehow.”

“Oh it definitely is,” Sasha said. “I also can’t go. I actually have a real date with this girl from my martial arts classes.”

“Sorry, but what is going on here!” Martin snapped, from where he’d been silently sputtering in the background. He waved his arms to get their attention, looking desperate. “Why is Jon trying to seduce you? I thought you were joking about him being replaced.”

“Ah, good timing Martin!” Tim said, letting his chair twirl in a full circle so he could shoot finger guns to his coworker before facing Jon again. “Why don’t you ask Martin, Boss? Without us around he’ll probably be free this weekend.”

“Hey!” Martin protested, at the same time Jon scowled deeper. “Absolutely not.”

“Well, you might not have a choice,” Sasha added, gesturing her pen empathetically. Martin was continuing to protest while also continuing to be largely ignored. “If me and Tim are busy, then your other options are either Martin or Elias, or you suck it up and go to the wedding alone.”

“Also please don’t choose Elias,” Tim said pleadingly. “Then that’s like double boss squared and that’s frankly too many bosses for one man to handle. Also it’s Elias.”

“I am definitely not involving Elias in this!” Jon snapped. Then his shoulders sagged, and he gave the ceiling a reproachful look, before turning slowly to Martin with a tight expression. Martin fell silent, staring back, and Tim and Sasha waited in delight.

“Martin,” Jon began at length. “Would you be willing to fake date me this weekend so I can avoid my grandmother’s confrontation about my future at my relative’s wedding?”

Martin was silent, right before he seemed to process that entire statement and his face flushed with red. “I’m sorry, but what!?”

“Don’t forget the part where you’ll pay him,” Tim added. “That’s not weird at all.”

“Shut up, Tim.” Jon rolled his eyes, then focused those eyes back on Martin. Martin was sweating. “So are you free this weekend?”

“I-I mean yes?” Martin squeaked. “But also what?”

Jon sighed, now more impatient than embarrassed. “I don’t mean this in any serious capacity, Martin. My grandmother has simply been pestering me about getting a partner, so I was hoping I could get away with faking it this weekend so as to avoid anymore confrontations with her about my love life. I am fully willing to compensate you for your time, but if you can’t accept then I understand.”

“A-And what would I be expected to do? At the wedding? To show that we’re dating?” Martin asked, his voice no more than a wheeze yet Jon seemed to understand him perfectly fine.

“I suppose just sit with me during the event and let me introduce you as my boyfriend. Perhaps hold hands? I don’t know what else there is besides that,” Jon listed.

“What about kissing,” Tim asked, still smiling as his arm shot up into the air as if they were in school.

“Yes, what about the kissing?” Sasha joined in, leaning more forward on her desk. Martin looked desperately between them, but Jon seemed to be considering.

“I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose people do kiss when they date, don’t they?”

“And have sex!” Tim chimed in.

“Tim!” Martin snapped, while at the same time Jon’s scowl took a turn for the worst and he slapped Tim with a file on the shoulder again. “Absolutely not. Besides, this is a public affair, not a bedroom. Please try to keep your contributions productive.”

Tim saluted. “Yes sir, I’ll try to be completely serious and helpful when discussing your obsession with bringing a fake boyfriend to a wedding for relatives I’m starting to suspect you don’t even know the names of.”

“You could just not go?” Sasha suggested, face a bit kinder as she snuck a glance at Martin. He gave her a wide eyed look back, jaw working wordlessly, but no one could tell if it was an attempt to encourage or discourage this whole situation. “If you don’t want to go to the wedding, then just don’t go.”

“Yes but-“ Jon sighed, looking tired again as he ran a hand over his face. “It’s… It’s my grandmother. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her, and we didn’t- well, we didn’t leave off on the best of terms. I thought it might improve our relationship if she sees that I’m getting on well in her eyes, rather than single and working at an institute that researches the paranormal.”

There wasn’t immediate talking following that statement. Tim had a suspicion that it was a lot more personal and genuine than Jon had meant it to be. Martin seemed half calmed down, something serious in his expression, as Tim and Sasha exchanged glasses. Tim eventually huffed, crossing his arms. The things he did for Jon sometimes… “Well, if you’re really that desperate, than I can probably cancel my trip to-”

“N-No!” Martin protested, and went red again when attention was turned back to him. “I mean, uh, you don’t have to cancel. I can go with Jon. I mean I’m… I’m not really doing anything else this weekend?”

Tim stared, calculating, taking into account the way that Martin seemed to be sweating and was staring at him somewhat desperately. “...Alright,” he said at length, then brightened. “Thanks Martin, I’ve been looking forward to my kayaking trip.”

“It’s… no problem?” Martin squeaked.

Jon was watching them both. “Right… Then I should probably give you the details.” Like a switch was flipped, it was back to his professional mannerisms once more, like they were discussing a statement and not something completely ridiculous. “The wedding is this Saturday in the morning and the reception is in the evening, and it’s a several hour drive so I was planning to leave work early on Friday and stay overnight at a hotel. Then go to the wedding Saturday, and drive back Sunday. I’ll of course be paying for the hotel and food expenses, and I can compensate you as well for your time-“

“That’s okay,” Martin wheezed. “I-I’d rather do this as a favour, um, no offence but doing it for money is sort of… weird? I- I can also pay for myself, it’s not all that much trouble.”

Jon gave him just a ghost of a soft smile. “Well, if you’re alright with volunteering, then that’s fine. But I will be paying for accommodations, I insist. I’m the one who decided on this course of action, so it’s only fair that I’ll be the one suffering for it.”

“Hey,” Tim protested. “This might not all go down in flames. Personally, I’m rooting for you.”

Sasha gave a thumbs up. “You guys got this.”

Martin looked back and forth between them nervously, while Jon just nodded. “Right. Well, make sure you’re packed by Friday and we’ll stop by your flat after work to get your luggage. Do you have nice clothes to wear?”

“Uh- Yeah, of course. Um… I’ll see you Friday? Er, I suppose this evening, with us working in the same building… right, never mind. But I’ll be ready.” Martin stammered his way through that paragraph, and Jon just gave him a nod.

“Friday then,” he said simply, then grabbed his tea from the desk on his way back to his office, leaving his assistants to stare after him.

“Aaaaand there he goes.” Tim narrated once the door was shut. “The elusive workaholic returns to his natural habitat to hibernate once more for the next one thousand years before dropping another bombshell and peacing out.”

Sasha was interrupted from commenting by an elongated wail followed by a chair being shoved away from a desk so that Martin could better curl into himself. “I made a horrible mistake, didn’t I?” he moaned, face shoved into his hands. Tim and Sasha both gave him sympathetic pats on the shoulders, but both were smiling.

“Oh definitely,” Sasha said. “But you’ll make it through this.”

“I object,” Tim said with a cunning smile as he met Martin’s eyes. “Personally, I think agreeing to be the fake boyfriend of your boss who also happens to be your crush is the best decision you could have ever made.”

Chapter Text

Martin Blackwood had what could be referred to as an extensive and detailed record of bad decisions made for good reasons.

First there was his infamous dropping out of school, which crashed and burned his job market in the long run but let him take care of his mom in the short run. Then there was every retail job he’d ever gotten, for obvious reasons. That was followed by his most spectacular decision to date, which was lying on his CV and sending it desperately to any place hiring in the hopes he’d get something. He was honestly still waiting for the fallout on that, and while he’d initially been consumed with paranoia that someone at the Institute would discover he didn’t actually have any of the qualifications for such a position, he gradually realized that if he just picked up new skills with his usual quickness, lied on impulse, pretended that he actually belonged there, and occasionally hummed the Mission: Impossible theme song under his breath as if he were an undercover agent and not a highschool dropout, then he was basically untouchable and he’d stopped being paranoid years ago.

Of course, that was before his niche little corner of work at the Institute had been spontaneously uprooted and replanted in the basement where an old woman had recently disappeared in a bloody mess according to rumours. He ended up a nervous mess all over again in the luxurious position of archival assistant, which he was no more qualified for than he had been for his other work. He only started feeling a bit better when he’d borrowed Jon’s computer during the first week and accidentally witnessed Jon’s search history for how to be an archivist. It was hard not to feel a bit relieved at that, and he had to resist shooting Jon the equivalent of the same hat look for the next several days.

But all of that didn’t matter now.

No, nothing in his life has even come close to his most recent bad decision that has topped all the charts and didn’t even have a good reason to boot. He had, in a moment of absolute genius brain productivity, apparently agreed to fake date his boss who he secretly wanted to go on a real date with, for the exclusive reason of indulging a maybe slight crush that would surely just make things worse in the long run.

Fuck.

And no one had stopped him! Tim and Sasha just sat back and let Martin run his mouth, and worse Jon had just walked away so casually afterwards! You leave to make tea at the usual time as a break for a few minutes, and when you come back, you’re somehow swept up into the most ridiculous scheme Jon had uttered since he’d first hinted that Martin should definitely break into someone’s home for statement follow up. Of course, it was hardly ridiculous now, as the Crime Board suggested, but Martin doubted he could ever get used to Jon looking him dead in the eye and asking him to date him in the fakest sense. Compared to that, Jon flippantly suggesting that Martin just casually pop into someone’s real actual home when the owner wasn’t there was child’s play.

It was all enough to send Martin spiralling. At some point he wandered into the breakroom with his own full mug of tea, dumped it into the sink, and brought out the kettle and tea bags to make a new batch because if it could scald his tongue then at least he could know he wasn’t dreaming. All the muscle memory in the world couldn’t save Martin from this.

At some point, after filling up his mug and debating whether it would be too wasteful to dump it again so he could just making more, Martin wandered back to his desk and proceeded to not get anything done for the rest of the workday. He hadn’t been this unproductive since his first few weeks in the archives, when panic sent him into a desperate scramble to have any work to show in fear of being fired or demoted or found out. But Elias had to know that Martin wasn’t qualified right? Martin didn’t sign up to be in the archives! None of them had, except maybe for Sasha.

Lord, Martin was getting distracted.

Tim and Sasha kept trying to talk to him about it, Tim more than Sasha, but Martin was too far gone to really do more than go red in the face and stare at a blank spreadsheet for the last several hours of the day. He couldn’t for the life of him process a single word on paper or in his brain.

At least with Jon being the first to arrive and last to leave, Martin wasn’t forced to cross paths with him. Even as they all packed up to head home, the door to Jon’s office remained firmly closed. But should they be talking about this? Martin would really like to talk about this, maybe say that he changed his mind and Tim should go instead. Except he seriously doubted Tim would let him back out now, judging by the copious amounts of eyebrow wiggles Tim had been sending his way.

Either way, Martin found himself walking into his flat with no memory of the journey over. He hesitated as he dumped his coat and pulled off his shoes, trying desperately to remember being on the tube or even walking out the Institute doors or wishing Rosie goodbye, but he couldn’t. Martin had lost an entire section of his life, and he had no doubt that he was going to lose more this week. Time was dead and meaningless, and so was Martin.

With those happy thoughts, at some point he stumbled into the bathroom and ended up staring at himself in the mirror and picturing his face in a frame on his tombstone. No amount of any future good decisions would bury what had happened here. No amount of humming heist theme songs was going to save him from this. He cursed the tiny pride flag tucked into the cup that held his toothbrush, for it had led him astray.

He tried to splash water on his face, but just sort of ended up dunking his entire head under the facet in the end because he was an idiot and deserved to live the life of a fool now. Martin was the jester in the king’s court, and no one was amused, and Jonathan Sims himself was going to behead him once he realized how terrible of a date Martin was going to be.

Fake date, Martin reminded himself, thinking it like a mantra before he had to come up for air and ended up getting water all over the bathroom floor. He just threw a towel down so he could get back to staring at himself. His curls were limp and sticking to his forehead, but he glared into his own two eyes, and resolutely repeated what Sasha had told him. “I’ve got this.” Then he had to smile. “Martin Blackwood, you have been faking your way through your entire career, you can fake your way through this too.”

But he couldn’t fake away his feelings.

Would Jon notice if Martin had airpods in so he could blast Mission: Impossible until his brain bled and he convinced himself he was a master con man who didn’t have feelings for his boss? Doubtable. Martin still went through the motion of pulling out his phone, so he could hear the theme echo through the tinny speakers around his tiny bathroom. He tried not to think about how it was basically muscle memory at this point.

Should he practice for this weekend? Would that be weird?

He squared his shoulders in the mirror, ignoring his wet hair, and put on a friendly customer service smile that dimpled his cheeks as he said cheerfully, “Me? I’m Martin Blackwood! Jon’s boyfriend!” His voice cracked at the end and his face went red and he curled up with his hands over his eyes and died. Right, so apparently saying the word boyfriend triggered a visceral reaction within himself that flooded his system with static and embarrassment to the point that he more resembled an armadillo than a person. Good to know.

He breathed deeply, lowering his hands to look back into the mirror, ignoring how his cheeks were still pink. “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Jon’s boyfriend!” He visibly trembled as he resisted the urge to curl up, and although he was obviously biting his lip to keep his composure, his face wasn’t necessarily overly red and he was still making eye contact.

He felt proud of his progress, before he remembered that said progress was him staring at himself alone in his bathroom and repeating the word boyfriend in different contexts to desensitize himself, and was suddenly glad he lived alone with only his brain to judge him.

“Right, well, this is nonsense,” he told the mirror sternly. “I’m going to make myself some tea and go to bed early tonight.”

He did do that. He went through the motions of making himself supper, blasting music to stop himself from thinking, and ate it at his kitchen table before sitting in the living room for a few hours over a cup of tea watching his shows. By the time he went to bed, he was lazily humming heist songs to himself and was more tired than anxious, but he still had to try not to let his thoughts drift. It was only when he was under the covers, warm and curled and sleepy, that his eyes flew open and he physically sat up with the force of his reaction, heart pounding, with a detail he’d forgotten.

Would Jon want him to kiss him at the wedding?

Was he going to be expected to kiss Jon in public?

Could he kiss Jon? Was that legal?

Martin?? Jon?? Kiss??

There was to be no sleep for Martin this night. There was only a long and suffering death, with a funeral that Tim and Sasha would attend, shaking their heads gravely, saying that he’d died without ever making a good decision in his life. What a dumbass.

Tim had broached the subject of kissing, but Jon had never actually answered. Martin had already been daydreaming about what it would be like to hold Jon’s hand, if it would be soft and small, or dry and long, would Martin’s hand cover his completely- But now Martin was swamped with thoughts of kissing, with what Jon’s lips were like, with what it would be like to plant a kiss to Jon’s cheek, if he could smooch the top of Jon’s head and they’d both have small smiles.

Martin Blackwood, he thought desperately, you are a disaster gay and you need to stop daydreaming about kissing your boss.

He didn’t stop. It grew dark outside his windows and in his room, but Martin’s cheeks were practically glowing. Fuck.

At some point he did sleep, thank god, but it was the kind of sleep where he woke up no better or worse than when he’d gone to bed, seriously doubting he’d been unconscious at all if not for the fact that several hours had miraculously passed and his alarm was going off.

He ended up back in the bathroom again, blurrily staring at himself in the mirror, heart racing for some reason. Right, no glasses. He quickly went to retrieve the glasses he’d been too distracted to wear.

There was Martin Blackwood, the man, the legend, staring back at him with a scrunched expression and dishevelled curls and a gross sleepshirt he should probably wash soon. Right, okay. “I’m Jonothan Sims’s boyfriend, and it’s nice to meet you,” he stated flatly, then had to smile. No blush, because he was too tired to even have a body at this point.

He left and only reconvened in front of the mirror after he’d gotten dressed and eaten some breakfast. With a nice jumper on and his curls meticulously managed, his eyes awake and bright behind his glasses, he could at least feel a bit more confident. “Boyfriend,” he said to himself, apparently a bit giddy now. His ears were already going red but he elected to ignore it. “Boyfriend. Boyfriend. Boyfriend,” he chanted, using different inflections until it felt a bit more natural and his blush had died down somewhat, which with skin as pale as his wasn’t saying much. He almost congratulated himself, before he remembered once again that he was a grown man talking to himself in his small cramped bathroom the day after agreeing to be someone’s fake date to a wedding. Right, self esteem could take a hike.

Work was not much better today than it had been yesterday, and Martin would find it to be a trend throughout the week. Jon was elusive as usual, or perhaps even moreso, or maybe Martin was just being too aware. The door to Jon’s office seemed to always be sealed shut, and the few times that his boss did emerge to scuttle forth to the shelves to pull statements, he wouldn’t meet the eyes of Martin who stared balefully after him, wishing on every star and piece of dandelion fluff that Jon would cancel the whole thing or Tim would come forth to explain it was all an elaborate prank.

Instead Tim and Sasha openly speculated what they thought the wedding would be like, shouted at Jon to give them details on his rare appearances, and constantly pestered Martin to try and get his opinions on what suit he’d wear when Jon inevitably asked him to fake marry him next.

Martin for the most part spent at least half his brain power just trying to keep his cheeks from being red, which was more exhausting and annoying by the time that Friday rolled around. He’d done less work this week than he did in an average workday, and he’d nervously watched far too many rom coms in his spare time as if they might hold all the answers. At this point his music was the most well used app on his phone, heist themes following him even into his dreams.

So it was almost bizzare during the rare times when Martin drew himself into focus and went about this as if none of it was completely ridiculous. He asked his neighbours to water his plants while he was gone, packed reasonably for a weekend away, and at some point went shopping for new fancy clothes despite already owning fancy enough clothes, since the few times he’d been able to get Jon to talk to him was to get assurance that the wedding’s dress code would be more business casual than three piece suits and cufflinks. That didn’t stop Martin from packing a variety of nice outfits just in case he wasn’t dressed at quite the right level of sophistication and had somehow misinterpreted Jon’s very clear answer. (There was also the possibility that Jon might not have an accurate read on the dress code either, and while Martin was hesitant to doubt his boss, he’d also once seen Jon accidentally bite into his tape recorder instead of his sandwich. Sasha had pictures. Jon hadn’t even been sleep deprived. The pictures had a spot of honour next to the Crime Board.)

Amongst the mundane course of usual life, the daze of the workday, and Martin’s frantic googling for how to act as a boyfriend, eventually Friday arrived, and Martin still didn’t have an answer for the most important question that had ever been unasked in the history of humankind.

With less than a quarter of the workday remaining, Martin threw himself into his chair, gripping the edge of his desk as he stared at Tim, who paused while checking his social media to glance over. “Yeeeees?” Tim asked, drawn out the same way he usually did when he was smug about all the attention he was receiving. Sasha’s typing was an on and off background noise, but Martin knew she’d be paying attention and eavesdropping whether he wanted her to or not. “Feeling nervous now, are we?” Tim joked.

Martin scowled, which was not an expression he wore often, but he was finding himself more on edge than ever before, and he was starting to get tired of being blushy and flustered at every interaction.

“Martin?” Tim prompted, a bit more kindly this time. “Martin, you know if you really can’t handle this we can still swap out. If it’s that bad for you-“

Martin shook his head vehemently, irritation dying, but at least it kept the heat from his cheeks as he tried to articulate. “Tim, what do you think-... Er (fuck), Tim, what- what about the… the kissing??” he finally stammered, looking on with the most wide, pleading eyes he’d ever worn in his life. He’d never exactly begged for much as a child, so he was unpracticed, but if there was ever a time to get on his knees and plead for clarity it was now.

Tim blinked at him, and Sasha’s typing came to an abrupt stop.

“Do you think I’m supposed to kiss Jon this weekend?” Martin repeated, clearer this time, before he shot a nervous glance to Jon’s closed door and lowered his voice even more. “I- he never answered your question and I- I’m not sure what he expects from me. I don’t know what to expect from him.”

“You might not have to kiss,” Sasha remarked thoughtfully, steepling her fingers as she gave him her full attention from behind the wide circular lenses of her glasses. “I mean, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility, but Jon doesn’t seem inclined to much intamicity, although I don’t know how far he’ll go to keep up the charade in front of his family. I mean, we have a Crime Board for a reason, Jon’s already proven himself to go to extreme lengths for very little reward.”

At that mention, the assistants’ eyes flicked to the corkboard where a new column for Jon had been squeezed on with lopsided sharpie, and a new crime section titled ‘love crimes’ had been added with a heart eyed emoji sticker stuck in his box. The debate over what sticker to use had actually consumed a good two hours of the workday once the new columns were added, but unfortunately they didn’t have a thumbs down sticker or a dumbass award sticker. That one had already been used. By the next day, Tim and Sasha’s boxes were cluttered with stickers for love crimes, which started with Sasha filling Tim’s box while staring him directly in the eye and then him slapping stickers onto hers while she was away later that day, and by the time Friday came there was even one small star sticker in Martin’s box too added as an afterthought.

“You definitely have to kiss him,” Tim declared mercilessly and without hesitation. “Sloppy kisses all over the face, and then you’ll have to make out with him in front of his entire family.”

He laughed at how dark Martin got with a sputtered, “T-Tim!” That is, until Sasha calmly stood up and strided over to their desks and serenely put Tim into a headlock that nearly had them both careening to the floor.

“Martin,” Sasha said, looking at him seriously even as Tim clawed at her arm and squawked indignantly. “If you’re not comfortable kissing him, you can always tell Jon no if he asks you. Consent has to come from both of you. Actually, you guys need to establish a boundary before the wedding, because the last thing we need is for something this ridiculous to actually be traumatizing. Talk to him, if not today then before the ceremony.”

Martin felt his arms prickle a bit, feeling weird that the conversation had gone this serious, but there was a part of his brain that was sighing slightly, relieved in a way that he couldn’t explain. Sasha just seemed to have that effect when she chose to.

“Thanks,” he said, genuine in a way that he wasn’t used to. “I- um, I think I’m good with kissing? I mean, I’ve kissed plenty of people, lots worse than Jon and- Hold on, do you… do you think Jon’s ever kissed anyone?” Martin asked, no idea how he got to this thought but as he looked up he was only met with twin stares from Tim and Sasha that he absolutely did not have time to decipher before Jon’s office door was opening and all heads were twisting his way.

“Ah, Martin,” Jon said, half distracted, right before his eyes narrowed in on his other two assitants. “I hope I’m not interrupting any productivity taking place during the workday,” he said dryly, and Sasha smiled sweetly at him while still not letting Tim out of the headlock.

“We were just establishing boundaries,” she told him, unfazed. “How are you doing this afternoon, Jon?”

Jon stared at her for a moment, calculating, but Sasha James was not an easy person to get a read on. “Fine, I suppose. Are you almost ready to go, Martin?”

Martin startled a bit at being addressed, and only then took note of the fact that Jon had on his coat with his bag slung over his shoulder, and that he was half turned to lock his office door but was waiting on Martin’s answer. Panicking, his eyes flashed to the clock. “There’s still a few hours left,” he said dumbly, because it definitely wasn’t quitting time yet.

Jon was looking at him with a slowly scrunching expression that let Martin know he’d fucked up. “Yes,” he said slowly, “But I told you we’d be leaving early, didn’t I? I was hoping to do most of the driving in daylight.”

Martin stared for a moment, brain calculating, already flushed but absolutely prepared to be more when he vaguely remembered that conversation from earlier in the week. Of course, Jon had never actually named the time they were leaving, but that hardly seemed to matter when Martin had convinced himself he still had a few hours yet to mourn his predicament and discuss the logistics of kissing with Sasha and Tim.

“Oh,” he said, voice very small. “Right. Just… forgot.”

“Well are you still ready to go?” Jon asked impatiently.

“Uh, yes, of course, just let me clean up here, um, I won’t be too long.”

“Right,” Jon said flatly, withering any remaining good feelings within Martin. He turned to finish locking his office door, and as he did so Sasha’s grip finally loosened enough for Tim to speak. Unfortunately, Tim was a rather loud boisterous person with no regard for boundaries, and a headlock had not impacted this behaviour in the slightest.

“Have you ever kissed anyone, boss?” Tim asked loudly, grinning victoriously as he managed to wiggle an arm between Sasha and his neck, petulantly elbowing her as she tried to subdue him once more.

Martin went red, panicking, trying to shoot Tim the greatest look of betrayal, to please not let Jon find out the source of this line of questioning. Jon, for his part, stood very still for a moment, then slowly turned to face Tim with what could only be described as a neutral face of disappointment. Not disgust. Not irritation. Just a flat set to his mouth and a dead look to his eyes that existed beyond emotion. Simply expected.

“Yes, Tim, I’ve kissed people before,” Jon said tonelessly. “And if you ever wish to kiss the surface of a paycheck again, I suggest you stop pestering me about my personal life and instead focus more on finding out about the personal life of the man who claimed his boyfriend was eaten by a stapler.”

“Oh you don’t really expect me to follow up on that statement do you? It’s ridiculous!” Tim protested, and Sasha let him go so that he could properly gesticulate and work a proper whine into his voice.

Jon crossed his arms with his usual scowl, although it was lighter than normal. “What’s ridiculous is your work ethic. And, yes, Tim, I do now expect you to follow up on that statement and have it on my desk by Monday morning. If I’m going to be suffering this weekend it’s only fair that you get to as well.”

“Then what’re you making Sasha do so that she can suffer with us?”

“I dare say that Sasha is the only person in the Archives who gets actual work done. Her assignment is to be the only one having fun this weekend apparently, so Sasha I wish you the best,” Jon said dryly, giving her a nod.

“Try to have some fun too Jon,” Sasha told him kindly, returning to her station and seemingly her work, but her eyes were soft when she looked at him. “Don’t forget to be ‘lovely’ this weekend, in case Elias finds out.”

“Oh good lord, does everyone overhear everything in these archives…” Jon shook his head. “Never mind. Sasha, you’re on thin ice now. Martin, I’ll be meeting you outside, try to be quick. Tim, I still plan to fire you. Have a good rest of your day everyone.” Without ceremony, Jon then briskly headed for the door out of the archives, with goodbyes echoing after him.

“Good luck boss!” Tim hollered, grinning devilishly. “Stick it to the family with the power of your smooches!”

“Have a good time at the wedding, Jon!” Sasha shouted easily. “Try not to overthink things.”

“Also don’t think it’s slipped passed me that you’re leaving early, boss!” Tim yelled louder, cupping both hands over his mouth. “It’s bad work ethic! You’re setting a bad example for all of us! For shame!” Jon’s actual reply was muttled as he vanished out of the Archives, but the fuck off gesture thrown over his shoulder was not. That left Tim grinning. “Mark that down as another sign of the apocalypse, lads. Jonathan Sims actually leaving work early.”

The silence after, scattered with a bit more lazy banter between Sasha and Tim, left Martin to close his still empty word document and power down his computer, before shoving a few things into his bag and clearing off his desk. At some point, he became aware that he was being stared at, but it honestly took him awhile to realize after getting used to the general watched feeling of the Archives.

“And to think,” Tim drawled, spinning slow and lazy circles in his office chair. “Jon not being a workaholic for once was all thanks to you, Martin.”

“What? I didn’t really do any- Shit! Dammit,” Martin hissed as a few papers spilled out of his bag before he could properly hoist it over his shoulders. He was surprised when Sasha went to help him immediately, moving with resolute determination.

“Remember,” Sasha said very seriously, when Martin gripped the papers she was handing to him, drawing him in close to look him straight in the eye. “You’ve got this. Do not forget to have fun this weekend.”

“And don’t forget to bring a shotgun in case Jon was replaced by something that isn’t a complete workaholic,” Tim joked. He crouched down too, snagging a document that had drifted all the way over to him and replacing it neatly in Martin’s bag, using this excuse to also look Martin directly in the eye. “Seriously though, don’t stress too much. This is going to be fun.”

Martin swallowed tightly, not sure what to do in the face of all of this, and ended up saying the first thing that popped into his head. “Since when are weddings ever fun?”

“You have to make them fun,” Sasha said seriously. “By going as someone’s fake boyfriend. I’m jealous.”

“As am I,” Tim said gravelly, standing up at the same time as them. “I call dibs the next time Jon needs a fake date by the way, assuming this goes well.”

“It’s going to go fine,” Sasha interjected. She shot Martin a brilliant smile, latching his bag closed for him with a defining click. “Now, go to him, Martin! Find out if you get to kiss him!”

Martin huffed, face red, but he couldn’t help but grin at them, giving each a quick hug that did nothing to sooth the stuttering of his stomach. “T-Thank you guys, for the support.”

“Anytime!”

“Good luck!”

“See you Monday!”

“Take photos!”

Martin beamed through all the goodbyes, forcing the expression a bit near the end until he ducked out of sight and slouched against the closed door, burying his face into his hands. He took one deep breath, then forced himself to keep moving and climb the stairs back to the main floor. “No time to be moping,” he told himself firmly. “Jon needs you. You have a fake boyfriend to be.”

Chapter Text

Martin ended up trying to compose himself before leaving the Institute for long enough that Rosie took notice, pausing in her work at reception to offer him an uncertain smile. “Is something wrong, dear?”

Martin hesitated. The doors to outside were before him, but he’d been stopped in the entryway for a good minute now, quietly working off the last of his flustered blush that came from daring to utter the word boyfriend so that he’d be reasonably put together when he saw Jon again. Chances were this was the last time he’d have to be alone without Jon in close proximity for the rest of the weekend, but this moment of anticipation couldn’t last forever.

“Uh, I’m fine,” Martin said quickly, shooting her a friendly if not nervous expression. “Just. Um. Just leaving.”

The doors were heavy, leaden, and cold beneath his fingers when he pushed at them, and he couldn’t help the tingle that travelled up his arms, as if this was his first time exiting the Institute. When he didn’t immediately spot Jon, Martin’s mind turned to panic mode without a second thought as he presumed that Jon had actually changed his mind about bringing Martin and that Martin had already proven himself useless before he even began and- Oh. Oh Jon was just in the car idling in front of the Institute, giving Martin an impatient honk. Right.

He scrambled over to the vehicle and climbed inside, frantically putting on his seatbelt as Jon pulled out into traffic after scarcely waiting. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be too long,” Jon said distractedly, shoulder checking in a motion that made Martin feel deliberately ignored.

“Right, well, uh, Tim and Sasha went long with their goodbyes and I uh-“ Do not admit to standing in the lobby staring at the Institute doors for an overly long amount of time dying inside. “Yep. That’s, uh, that took longer than I thought. Saying goodbye.”

“It’s not as if you’re going to be gone long,” Jon remarked. “You’re even texting them right now.”

“Am not,” Martin said, very guiltily sliding his phone away. “Just, um, double checking the directions to my flat.”

“Right.”

Martin didn’t live too far from the Institute, but being crammed into the same vehicle as his crush distorted the timesphere and made the moment much longer than it should have been. In between stuttering out directions, Martin would sneak glances at Jon, at the scowl, the narrowed eyes focused solely on the roads, at the strands of hair tugged loose from the bun. He swallowed, looked away, and felt his stomach twist uncomfortably.

When Jon did pull up in front of Martin’s flat, Martin all but threw himself out of the car, taking two tries to get the door open before stumbling out onto the street with the promise that he’d be just a moment.

“You won’t be long?” Jon inquired deliberately.

Martin flushed, and tried to suppress that slight flicker of irritance. “I won’t be long,” he said with faux genuinity. He shut the car door maybe a bit too forcefully, and hurried up to his flat. It felt a bit duller now, since his plants were with his neighbour, but he tried to ignore it in favour of grabbing his suitcase and backpack that he’d had the forethought to leave near the entrance for this exact reason. When he got back to Jon, he was spitefully proud, sure that he hadn’t taken any longer than five minutes to get up to his flat and back down, but Jon didn’t say anything as he pulled back out onto the London roads.

Right.

Neither spoke as Jon carefully navigated the London traffic, slowly but surely bringing them closer to the edge of the city until finally the buildings fell aside and the english landscape was allowed to hit them in full force. At one point Martin spotted a cow and completely forgot his slight annoyance with Jon in favour of eagerly turning to him to share his discovery, only to stumble to a stop, words dying in his throat.

Jon was… well, Jon was never someone simple. He could be completely different people at times, just in response to his environment. Tim had assured them that Archivist Jon was a lot more stiffer than Researcher Jon, and At-Work Jon was a far cry from Ice-Cream-And-Rants-About-Emulsifiers Jon. Frequently, especially on the rare outings they could drag him too, Martin would have trouble reconciling all those different versions of Jon as the same person. Ultimately, it was always Jon though, in this moment and all others.

Jon’s shoulders had noticeably relaxed since they left the city and heavy traffic behind, his features having a rare softness to them that stress worked hard to sharpen in the office. Even as Martin watched, Jon reached up with absent fingers, tugging the elastic out of his hair and allowing it to tumble down and around his shoulders. He let out just the barest sigh, settling more comfortably against the headrest without the bun jabbing into his skull, and as he did the sunlight seemed to come in just perfect enough to give his skin a radiant, angelic touch, and Martin really needed to stop or he’d start actively spouting poetry. Right. Jon was hot. This was nothing new. Martin had been finding him aesthetically pleasing for awhile now and seeing all that hair let down, soft looking and curled, was definitely not a reason for his heart rate to pick up and oh god he’d been staring and now Jon was looking at him shit-

“Um, sorry,” Martin blurted the first thing that came to mind. “For taking too long leaving the Institute.”

“What? Oh.” Jon turned his attention back to the road, still relaxed, but his fingers were tightening and loosening on the steering wheel. “I’m uh, sorry too. For snapping. It wasn’t that big of a deal. I, uh, I understand. How Tim and Sasha can be. Well, I understand how Tim can be especially, I swear I’ve never met someone so keen to waste time…”

Jon’s brow scrunched in such a way that was getting dangerously close to Work Jon, and while Martin liked Work Jon, loved him even, that didn’t mean being stuck with someone so high strung in a car for several hours wouldn’t be near unbearable.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to gossip about our coworkers?” Martin inquired deliberately.

“Not on company time,” Jon responded without hesitation. “Off company time I’m allowed to shit talk just as much as the rest of you.”

Martin actually audibly choked on a surprised laugh. “Isn’t it still a few hours until the end of the workday?” he asked.

“Mmm, for those that aren’t us. I swear the look Rosie gave me when I said I’d be leaving early…” Jon trailed off, scowling, but with still a looseness to his face. Martin’s eyes couldn’t help but catch on the details. The elastic now snug around Jon’s wrist, the perplexed twist of his brows, the slight way he bit his lip as he carefully shifted lanes. Martin should buy him some chapstick, or maybe that would be rude…

“Maybe you should do it more often than,” Martin remarked, forcing himself to look back at his own window and almost gasping when he saw another cow. “I-I mean, you always stay so late, you’re there before the rest of us and stay until after we leave… When one of us has to duck into the Institute in the late evening or on weekends you seem to always be there as well. I mean, Tim always has an excuse to leave work early and he’s not nearly as dedicated as you.”

“Oh don’t even get me started on Tim!” Jon groaned, gripping the steering wheel a bit tighter but in a clear indication that he was ramping himself up for a spiel that Martin could do nothing but brace himself against. “You know I once watched him deep throat a pride flag at work the day after we went to Pride together back when we were both researchers?”

Martin actually choked. “W-What?”

Jon made a face. “He ended up having to go to the hospital, and to this day I’m still not sure if it was an elaborate ruse to either flirt with me or get out of work, or if he was really just that commited to innuendos…”

“Wha- No, I, I mean. Uh. You went to Pride?” Martin said carefully, feeling himself turn inexplicably red.

“Yes, well, Tim dragged it out of me I suppose.”

“Ah, yeah, Tim already said he’d be taking me and Sasha to Pride this year.” Martin swallowed. “Did you, uh. Did you get a flag?”

“Oh, yes, but I’ve never been able to look at it the same way after what Tim did to his own. You and Sasha should be adding that to your crime board.”

“What flag was it?”

Martin was hoping against all odds that he was being discrete, but apparently even Jon could catch on to his line of questioning with a poised eyebrow and a glance his way. “It’s, ah, hmm,” Jon caught his lip between his teeth again, face turned determinedly back to the road, shoulders drawn up a bit. “It’s the ah, the white and grey and black one. And purple. That one.”

Martin paused. “Do you know the name-“

“Oh course I know the name!” Jon snapped, then shook himself. It might just be the weird lighting in the car, but his ears looked a bit red. “I have a friend who uh, helped me figure it out, back in uni. It’s just… weird to say. And when I do, and when people understand what it means, they always go ‘ah, that makes sense’ and I still don’t understand what they mean by that!”

Martin was quiet for a moment, giving a sympathetic wince. “I think it’s the uh, the gaydar thing, but for aces I guess. I don’t know. People usually don’t comment on me, and Tim deliberately wears the bi disaster archetype on purpose. It’s. It’s not something to think too hard about, I suppose. Sorry, though, that it happens to you when you don’t want it to.”

It was Jon’s turn to be silent. “What… What flag would you get at Pride, Martin?”

Martin startled, but more just from his name being said so gently, so pensively. “Oh, uh, the rainbow one. I mean, I already have loads, all over my house really. I have one at work too? Haven’t you noticed it?”

Jon audibly gritted his teeth. “I think we’ve established by now that I don’t notice a lot of things.”

“Well, I mean, you noticed when Tim was using a dating app during work hours. And then you decided that the best course of action was to create a fake account, deliberately match with him, and then message him to yell at him to get back to work,” Martin listed, then flushed. “S-So you notice lots of things, is what I mean.”

“Thanks, Martin,” Jon said dryly. “For bringing that back up.”

“S-Sorry.”

“No, it’s…” Jon didn’t seem to have a way to finish that statement, and he sighed, before suddenly tensing up again. “Actually that’s another thing about Tim-!”

Apparently, Jon had a lot of very detailed points to discuss, in a very long rant that caught Martin by surprise. He really should have expected it though, except instead of a wikipedia page infodump about emulsifiers, it was a structured and extensive one sided discussion about Tim’s work ethic and theories about why he hadn’t been fired or at least reprimanded for his horrendous dress code violations. The least of Jon’s suspicions revolved around the mythical hotness that he was still skeptical Tim possessed, but that Jon couldn’t discredit after overhearing the compliments multiple times. For someone who didn’t believe in the supernatural it was all getting very conspiracy esc, and Martin could do nothing but listen in complete and utter awe, and occasionally nod along to encourage Jon to keep going, because even while driving he was so expressive and attention grabbing, and Martin felt an absent, relaxed smile dimple his own cheeks.

“Do you still have it?” he asked when he was sure the rant was finished with, and Jon had lapsed back into silence to stew in. “Your fake dating account, I mean.”

“Oh lord no. I had to delete it after Tim kept messaging me back trying to get me to go on a lunch date with him. I blocked him at first but then he created another account under the name Joe Spooky to match with me again and at that point I just needed that app gone.”

Martin nodded along, trying very hard to hide his broadening smile, because he remembered very clearly Tim asking his and Sasha’s opinion on whether he could jokingly ask Jon to send nudes, or if that would actually get him filed for workplace harassment. Not that anyone was really sure if the Magnus Institute even had an HR department, but still.

Speaking of unsolicited intimacy…

Martin cleared his throat, cheeks already red, and prepared himself for the ensuing conversation. The only thing that made it easier to ask was Sasha’s firm voice reprimanding him for not going about this in a safe and consensual manner, and wow Martin could definitely have worded that better- Oh fuck, Jon was looking at him expectantly.

“Uh, I was wondering if we could come up with a plan,” Martin stammered, and he had scripted this conversation out so many times in his head but now he was forgetting his lines in the moment and he just sort of prayed that this transitional plane would land and not burst into flames. “For tomorrow, um, at the wedding. Sasha mentioned that it would be a good idea if we were both on the same page.” For shame, Martin, shouldering blame onto another coworker. Okay, focus, now he just needed to direct the discussion slowly and methodically in the direction of kissing, and finally, finally get his answer.

“Oh, right, well uh, the plan is that we show up to the wedding together, probably a bit early so I can talk with my grandmother beforehand. I’ll introduce you as my boyfriend, we’ll be holding hands, I think, then we sit through the ceremony together. Does that sound alright?” Jon asked.

Martin blinked, internally screaming. “Um, that sounds fine, Jon. I was more of asking details of, um, how long we’re supposed to have been dating. How- How we met. B-Backstory, stuff like that,” Martin said, voice slowly pettering off along with his confidence as he said the word dating aloud and found himself dying, his hours of practicing in front of the mirror not preparing himself for the real deal.

“Oh… Oh! I forgot about that part.” Jon… forgot about the lying part??? Martin didn’t know whether to scream or be endeared. Jon settled himself better in his seat, fingers flexing on the steering wheel. “Well, the relationship should be pretty solid, or at least should have taken place before the wedding was established, so it doesn’t look suspicious. Let’s say… a little less than a year then? Serious enough to be believable, but hopefully not too serious that my grandmother will expect another wedding soon, and I can say we broke up at a later date without much fuss.”

Another wedding… Oh lord, Martin do not think about marrying your boss in the future, no, that is a bad idea, focus on the now- Oh jesus.

“L-Let’s say ten months then, so we have something specific?” Martin suggested weakly. “A-And how did we meet?”

Jon frowned, biting his lip again. “Well, let’s try to keep this close to the truth so it’s not too complicated. We both have jobs at the same place, and met because we share a workspace. Just… don’t mention that it’s at the Magnus Institute. Or that I’m your boss.”

“Right,” Martin said, filing that away. “Who asked out who first?”

“Does that matter?”

Martin flushed. “Of course it does! Um, let’s say that you asked me out, because you technically did so we won’t be lying too much-“

“But I asked you out on a fake date-“

“Doesn’t matter, Jon! That’s not the point,” Martin sighed. “Okay, so we’d been working at the same place for a while, in similar positions, and you ended up being the one to ask me out and I said yes… How- How serious is this relationship? Like are we living together in the same flat?”

“M-Maybe not? I, uh,” and now it was definitely looking like the tips of Jon’s ears were red, but the very notion was ridiculous. “I-I was thinking of treating this as if I was in an actual relationship, a-and I think it’s more realistic to myself that it would be slow, and that we wouldn’t have reached that commitment yet. If… If that sounds alright to you.”

“Of course, Jon,” Martin said, not quite able to keep his voice from being fond, because holy shit the knowledge that Jon was someone who loved very slowly, who let relationships progress quietly and steadily, was something that Martin was not prepared to confront. You won’t experience this, he told himself firmly while looking out the window so that Jon could not see his face. It’s nice to hear about, but you won’t actually get to know what it’s like to date Jonathan Sims. He snuck a glance at the other man. But you can get close.

Martin cleared his throat. “W-Would it be okay for me to make up anecdotes? Like, if someone asks, I can tell them little stories about theoretical dates we went on or moments we had together?”

“Oh, of course. We’ll probably be together the whole time, so that shouldn’t be an issue since I’ll be around to hear them. Is there anything else we’re missing?”

Ah, here it is. Here is the moment. Focus Martin, you can do this. Just get it over with, and if Jon pulls over and tells you to get out of the car, you can just call Tim or Sasha to pick you up because they owe you this much.

“Sasha also mentioned we should establish boundaries,” Martin ventured, once again shoving all responsibility onto her and feeling strangely unguilty about it. “Like, what um, what PDA we’re okay with doing. I-I’ll try to ask before doing anything, but um, maybe we should talk about it now? In case there’s not a chance to ask?”

“Right, well, holding hands should be fine,” Jon said firmly. “Just- Just, ah, make sure I know it’s you. I don’t really like to be touched by people I don’t know, so yeah, um. Oh! You can probably put an arm around my shoulders too? When we’re seated at the ceremony. Tim’s done it enough times that at this point I’m desensitized to it.”

“Alright,” Martin said after a moment of silence to make sure that Jon wasn’t going to say more, and to try to get over the terrifying notion that Jon trusted him enough to not mind contact with him. He silently cursed him too, because apparently Martin was going to have to bring up the next logical topic since Jon wasn’t going to get there on his own. “Well, I’m fine with all of that as well. A-And I don’t need to see it coming, so just grab my hand whenever.” Oh god the thought that Jon considered Martin a close enough friend… were they friends? Were these questions Martin should be asking right now?

“Alright,” Jon said with a decisive nod.

Martin swallowed, and took a deep breath. “And how do you feel about kissing?” Just like that, nice and casual, do not jump out of a moving car, Martin, don’t do it.

“Oh… Oh,” Jon said, softer the second time. His eyes were very pointedly focused on the road, even as he took a hand off the wheel so that he could bite at his thumb, never once looking at Martin. “Well… I… I was rather hoping it wouldn’t come to that,” he mumbled quietly. “Couples don’t always kiss in public, and I said that I’d rather treat this as a somewhat realistic relationship for me, and I don’t think I’d be prone to kissing until quite some time into it, to be perfectly honest.”

“Ten months into a relationship?” Martin asked dumbly.

Jon visibly winced. “Ah, yes. I-I suppose that’s a bit unrealistic of me. Um, we’ll just say we don’t kiss often, is the thing… in our relationship… I suppose. Uh, we’ll say we’re not big fans of PDA, and while that’s not a great way to be convincing, I’d argue it’s more realistic.”

“Oh,” Martin said, and tried not to feel disappointed as fantasies of soft kisses in the mornings and evenings and throughout the day died away like wilted flowers. He- He really should not feel disappointed by this, that wasn’t really appropriate, but something must have escaped into his voice because Jon was blurting, “Y-You can kiss me on the top of the head!”

“What-“

“You can kiss me on the top of the head,” Jon repeated, his teeth gritted, shoulders hunched, ears red. “I-If you ask first. I’m okay with that, I think.”

“Oh,” Martin echoed, feeling stupid. “Um, alright. Only if you’re comfortable.”

“I am.”

“Right. Well, um, if you want to kiss me, I’m fine with that too. Uh, top of head, on the cheek, I’m good with anything really, don’t even need to ask. Um, do ask if it’s on the lips though.”

“It won’t be,” Jon said too quickly and too firmly. “I-I mean, I’m your boss. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Even though we’re fake dating?”

“Even though we’re fake dating.”

“Right.” Martin went back to staring out his window, mind reeling with new information. The thought that he might be able to press a kiss into Jon’s hair, careful and soft, and that Jon would hold his hand back, sitting in the rows watching a romantic wedding ceremony, was enough to send him spiraling. There was still a small part of him that was unfortunately disappointed, as if it had ever been okay to use this as an excuse to get to kiss his crush. Martin tried not to dwell on that though. Jon deserved more respect than that, more trust, and Martin would never do anything to cross those boundaries, and the thought alone that he’d be able to just hold Jon’s hand for a few hours was enough to make him smile softly. Thank god Tim wasn’t here to make fun of him being all sappy over platonic interactions.

Speaking of, he checked his phone and yep, Tim had been spamming the assistants’ groupchat with photos of him and Sasha hanging out in an empty Archive without a boss. There was one with Tim sitting in Jon’s office in his chair, holding a tape recorder to his mouth with an exaggeratedly serious expression, like he was mid rant in a mockery of Jon. Another photo had Tim lounging on boxes of statements like he was on the cover of a magazine. In the last, he was taking a selfie, face frozen in horror as Sasha stood t-posing amid the dark and cramped archival storage, a piece of paper taped to her shirt reading ‘ghost’. It managed to get a snort out of Martin, before he was able to contain it, and Jon scowled at him. “What.”

“O-Oh, um, nothing. Nothing. Just, ah, Tim and Sasha are giving me an update on what it’s like to work in the Archives with no one else around,” Martin said vaguely, already panicking with the realization he had said too much before he even finished speaking.

Jon frowned, glancing over at him. “It’s Tim isn’t it. What has he done this time? I swear if I come back and him or Sasha have made another unauthorized recording on the statement tapes so help me-“

“It’s not!” Martin blurted. “Uh, I mean, they’re not.” Shit, think of a lie, think of a lie, uh. “It’s just Tim was giving me an update on that statement follow up, the one about the man whose boyfriend was eaten by a stapler?” Please don’t ask what that follow up was, oh god.

Martin was saved, however, by a weird noise. A sort of breath in that sounded odd, too quick and stiff, and he looked over in alarm to find Jon with a hand held up to his mouth, shoulders trembling slightly, a-a grin edging onto his face. Holy shit was Jon-

“Are you laughing?” Martin demanded, incredulous.

“I am not!” Jon protested, but that allowed a few chuckles out that Jon quickly tried to suppress again. “J-Just. Ahem. Just the way you said it. It’s properly ridiculous, isn’t it? That statement.”

“Yeah,” Martin said, confused. “I thought you knew that.”

“I know, but hearing it again- Did you ever get the chance to read it? It’s honestly very well written, I mean it’s still absolutely bogus and a waste of the Institute’s time, but it was possibly the funniest thing I’ve read in quite some time.”

“I… I thought you didn’t enjoy those statements?” Martin asked. “The very clearly joke ones.”

“Most yes. But you don’t understand, Martin. This one,” Jon gestured vaguely. “Was honestly so detailed and thought out. One of the best pieces of writing I’ve experienced in awhile.”

“Well. Maybe I’ll have to read it sometime,” Martin decided. “I can ask Tim to send me it.”

“Mmm. I would highly recommend it,” Jon mused, looking back at the road, having seemingly fully relaxed after their previous conversation. Martin once again found himself taking the time to appreciate it, to drink it in. The slight upturn that still lingered on Jon’s lips, the relaxed movements he made, and the amused glimmer still lingering to his eyes. Martin wanted desperately to capture the moment, to be able to look back on it, but that wasn’t really possible unless...

Martin bit his lip, then decided he had very little to lose nowadays, so he took out his phone, flashed Jon a grin, and said, “Say cheese.”

Jon took a second too long to react, so Martin was able to get that serene expression with Jon’s eyes flicked his way, and then another photo right after with Jon’s face twisted up in confused irritation. “Martin, what the hell?”

“I thought it would be best if I had a few pictures of you on my phone,” Martin explained cheekily. “It’s what couples do, right? Someone might ask for photos.” Then he realized how dumb this was. “I-I can delete them, of course, sorry, um.”

“No, no, it’s fine you have a point, but did it need to be right now?” Jon said stiffly. “We’re in a car, Martin. This is in no way flattering. Delete those and take some others later, or better yet never.”

“Hey, untrue! The lighting right now is very flattering. You look very lovely, Jon,” Martin said with confidence, then realized what he said, then started panicking. Wait no shit Martin don’t compliment him on his appearance he’ll know that you actually like like him-

Shit, Jon was looking his way again, which was never good. “Martin,” Jon said, and Martin’s entire heart seized. This was it. He’d crossed the line. Had too much hubris. “Are you… Are you practicing? Complimenting me, I mean. I can’t exactly discredit you getting into character as my supposed boyfriend, but now is really not the time.”

Oh thank god Jon’s stupidity was giving him an out. Just go along with it Martin, laugh it off, this is your get out of jail free card oh god damnit- “What, no,” Martin scowled. “Jon I don’t know how to break this to you, but I’m giving you a genuine compliment here. You genuinely look nice.”

“Oh.” Jon said. “Oh. Um. Thank you? I suppose. You know I was joking about firing you all, you don’t have to compliment me. I’m not actually mad-“

Martin audibly rolled his eyes. “Oh good lord, Jon. Yes, I know you’re not going to fire me, I’m not an idiot. I am, in the most genuine sense, giving you a compliment for no other agenda than that you look nice and it deserves to be pointed out. Is that a good enough reason for you?”

Jon’s scrunched up expression told him no, but he didn’t push the issue. Martin turned back to the window with a huff. Honestly, Jon could be so intimidating at times, but at other points he was the dumbest person on the planet… Says the person who told their boss they looked nice to their face and then panicked and made all repercussions worse and yet it somehow turned out okay. Thanks blush, was really missing you.

Martin took a steadying breath, trying to unfold his arms some. “Martin-.” He froze, stiffening up again, shooting a glance at Jon. If that fucker tried to invalidate the compliment one more fucking time-

“Yes Jon?” Martin asked diplomatically.

“Oh, um, nothing,” Jon said quickly, turning diligently back to the road.

Martin sighed. “Jon, what is it?”

Another moment of tense silence, then. “I just… This might be coming out of nowhere, but I just wanted to say while we’re sort of on the subject that I do appreciate… all of this.” Another vague gesture. “You agreeing to be my date to the wedding. I know it’s an absolutely ridiculous thing to ask of someone, so I appreciate that you’re doing this for me. Thank you, Martin.”

“Oh.” Oh! Martin went red again, all irritation forgotten, because what was he supposed to do in the face of sincerity? In all his months working with Jon, he could count the number of thank yous on two hands, hell, the number of times Jon laughed or smiled could be counted on one, and here he was, getting both at once. Martin swallowed, throat too tight, and once again sank into the thought that while he would probably never be able to date Jon, this experience would get him close and might validate his crush. It could be everything that Martin had ever hoped for, and wasn’t that the worst kind of torture? “You’re welcome, Jon. I, um, I’ll always help out, and this sort of sounds like fun?”

Jon snorted. “Maybe for you,” he remarked dryly. “I don’t expect this to be much fun at all.”

Martin took a breath, remembering Sasha’s words. “Well, maybe we can try,” he ventured, eyes focused on the dull beige ceiling of the car. “I mean, there must be some fun things to do at a wedding? Dancing, drinking, mingling?”

“I don’t like people much and I don’t like dancing,” Jon said flatley. “And I don’t drink.”

“Oh, well then maybe-“

“Why do you do that?”

“Pardon?”

Jon made a frustrated noise, gesticulating at Martin absently with one arm. “Try to find the bright side to everything. Try to drag me around, put effort into getting me to do things, to find something I want to do. It’s not exactly the most productive use of your time.”

Good lord, Jon and productivity again, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. “Well maybe it’s because you’re worth the effort,” Martin said stubbornly.

“In what universe am I worth the effort-“

“Jon!” Martin snapped. “You have got to stop doing that. I am allowed to do things of my own volition, and I’m allowed to find them rewarding! You are allowed to be worth it, and you’re allowed to take a compliment. This is not my opinion, these are facts! The fact is I care about you! The fact is you look lovely today! The fact is that you’ll never fire me, or Tim, or Sasha because you don’t have the balls.” Wait- Shit- “Oh god, sorry, that was rude!”

“No, Martin, uh,” Jon said, strangled. “That was, um fine. I mean, you have a point. Not all of it, because that compliment is still factually untrue, but you’ve made your point.”

“I disagree on the compliment and will break your knees over it, but continue.”

“What- Oh, no, I don’t really have anything else to say,” Jon trailed off awkwardly. “Other than I guess you’re entirely correct on the not firing you or the others part. I couldn’t possibly commit all those crimes on my own, I mean,” he chuckled a bit, a weak fluttering sound that went directly to Martin’s heart. “How would I even go about trying to seduce someone into doing things for me like Tim does?”

Martin huffed, not quite pleased that they were getting off topic, but not quite able to interrupt the gentle amusement blooming on Jon’s face. “I mean, you managed to get me to go as your fake date to a wedding,” Martin said absently. “So you can’t be that bad at seducing.” Then his brain caught up, and then he was conflicted on whether this was bad or not so he just sat very still while his eyes shot desperately to Jon for a reaction.

They were both silent for a second, Martin’s cheeks steadily going redder, and Jon looking resolutely out the windshield, shoulders drawn up, before they sank back down. There was a small frown, pulled tight, as Jon spoke quietly. “I suppose I did…”

And Martin sunk further into his seat with his face flushed, and Jon sat stiffer with his ear tips red, and their vehicle continued on uncaringly towards somewhere uncertain.

Chapter Text

It was a very long several hour drive as promised, and being trapped in the same vehicle as your crush barely managed to get marginally easier as time went on. It turned out Jon had brought a bit of road trip food with him, snacks that they both ended up sharing, although he warned against getting crumbs in the car since he was just borrowing the vehicle from a friend. That was honestly the first time Jon had ever mentioned having friends outside of work, and it took all of Martin’s self control not to pursue that topic. It was just a reminder of how little Martin, or any of the assistants really, knew of Jon, and how little Martin’s crush actually had to go off of.

That’s what this weekend was for, Martin promised himself, sneaking another glance over at Jon. It was a chance to get to know him. A chance to see if pursuing this stupid crush was even plausible, or if Martin should just let it drop after all of it was said and done.

Not that he had any choice in the matters of his heart.

The first hour of the trip was quick, but the next few seemed to drag on as conversation died completely, leaving them to their own thoughts. At one point, Jon asked if it would be okay to play some music, and Martin had agreed, and then immediately regretted it when the music that came out of the tiny vehicle’s speakers was essentially heavy metal screamo. Right. Okay then. Mentally mark that to the list of surprising things that Martin was slowly learning about Jon.

God, it really did sound awful, but Jon looked so content, mouthing some words, shoulders relaxed despite the cacophony coming through the speakers, that Martin didn’t have the heart to do more than politely ask him to turn down the volume a little so he could get some reading done.

The tone of the novel Martin ended up flipping through was unfortunately vastly changed by the fact that the entire time there was a background of someone screaming themselves absolutely hoarse while a thousand metal drums had collective strokes and someone on a guitar spasmed unnaturally. Martin read on anyway.

He did pause at one point to neutrally ask if this was Jon’s favourite genre of music, to which Jon quickly turned the volume down more, unprompted but seemingly spontaneously self conscious. “Er, yes. I was always a fan of this sort of thing. It’s… It’s a lot of fun to play, you know? Not that I got to play much of it, back in uni.”

Martin paused, delicately deciding to mark his page with his thumb as he set the book down in favour of what nonsense this line of questioning had dug up. “Oh. You, uh, played an instrument then?”

“Not really,” Jon said distractedly, navigating them off one highway and onto another in accordance with the directions Google Maps was spouting at them. “I mean I learned a bit. But I was the, uh, the vocalist, in the band.”

A moment of silence.

“You were in a band in uni?!” Martin demanded, mind flying.

“What no, of course not, don’t be ridiculous,” Jon sputtered in panic, at some point slapping off the music within his wild gesticulations and somehow managing to careen the car onto the correct highway.

“But you just said-“

“Martin, you don’t understand, I cannot emphasize how much Tim cannot know about this-”

“What was the name of your band?”

“No.”

“Jon-“

“Absolutely not. Please don’t ask. Please stop asking,” Jon said, physically bringing up his free hand to shield his face from Martin’s sight. Martin tried to drag the arm down to see Jon, before remembering they were in a moving vehicle that Jon was controlling and promptly letting go, although still refusing to let Jon have his peace.

“You have to tell me everything now,” Martin told him severely.

“I really don’t.”

“I’ll tell Tim and Sasha.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Is it?”

“You don’t,” Jon made another panicked gesture, revealing the fear in his face. “You don’t do threats, Martin. You’re not allowed to. You don’t blackmail people.”

Oh, Martin was perfectly capable of blackmailing and threatening people when he felt like it, and he was tempted to tell Jon this, but then he regarded the other man again, the tightness of the shoulders, the wide panicked eyes, the regret in every feature, and forced himself to sigh deeply. “You’re right Jon. I don’t think I’m capable of that.” Martin Blackwood, the screw up. The clumsy, bumbling man who was too awkward in his own shoes, who’d smile and make you tea but that was all there was to him-.

“Oh I never said that,” Jon said tightly. “I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of it. But the thing is you’re not allowed to. I’m telling this as your boss. You’re not allowed to threaten your boss.”

Martin blinked, and now he was smiling goofily. Alright then. “Of course, Jon.”

“I’m being serious.

“I know you are.”

True to his word, Martin did let it drop. His fingers were itching to text the assistant’s group chat, but he resisted, settling more into his seat and gingerly prodding the dial to turn the volume back on, although at a softer and more acceptable level. Jon winced as the heavy metal began thundering again, but Martin simply picked his book back up and continued where he left off, and pretended that he didn’t hear Jon’s faint, barely existent, “Thank you.”

His heart wouldn’t have survived otherwise.

They arrived at the hotel a little after supper time, pulling up in front of a nice looking several storey building before Jon dove into the grueling task of finding a parking space. Martin stared at the hotel, having been honestly expecting to stay somewhere cheap like a motel and not…

When Martin asked about it, worried that Jon would be spending too much on accommodations maybe because he thought Martin would be expecting somewhere nice when he wasn’t, Jon had simply mumbled through an explanation that he was expecting to have a shitty enough time as is at the wedding, without having to sleep on shitty beds too. Apparently, with his new salary as head archivist, it had been a bit easier to save up enough to splurge a little on this trip.

Martin tried not to feel too jealous, but there was a pang at the thought of his own financial situation and the cost of his mother’s care home… which he was happy to pay of course! It was the least he could do. And his paychecks got a bit bigger as an archival assistant as well, making it a bit easier, but trips like these were still beyond him.

It was another reason to be grateful to Jon for paying, he realized. For all intents and purposes, this was basically like a free road trip and holiday for Martin, a rare luxury he hadn’t experienced since he was a little kid. It would just be nice food and a nice hotel room for a few days, and a nice road trip through the english landscape with only a minor wedding obligation sunk into the middle which would probably be nice in itself if Martin was being honest. He hadn’t been to a lot of weddings in his life, just a few in fact. He wondered, faintly and entirely off topic now, if Jon had been to many either.

It was just another detail of Jon’s life Martin had no awareness of, as seemed to be the trend.

When Jon parked, Martin pulled out his own luggage and together with Jon they walked across the parking lot and into the nicely decorated lobby. Martin tried not to gawk too much, but honestly he hadn’t stayed at a hotel since he was a kid, so it was hard not to look around longingly, knowing he probably wouldn’t get the chance again for a long time to come. He ended up being instructed to stay with the luggage while Jon went up to the front desk to deal with their reservations. Martin watched him, unable to help how his heart twisted, sad in a way he couldn’t explain to see how Jon stiffened again when interacting with a stranger, mechanical and strict in his articulations, compared to how animated he’d been only a few minutes ago in the car.

Then Martin quickly stopped staring as Jon headed back to him, but couldn’t help but notice he only had one set of keycards in his hand. “Uh,” Martin said intelligently, panicking. “Are we, um, are we sharing?” But that couldn’t be right. That couldn’t possibly be right!

Jon didn’t seem alarmed by this development, so it had to not be unexpected, but more like it was planned by the way he calmly recollected his bags oh no. “Oh, yes. I hope that’s alright. Sharing a room was far simpler and cheaper than getting two separate rooms.”

Jon you absolute fucking dumbass, Martin thought desperately. Jon was too distracted to notice, carefully rearranging cards back into his wallet as he shouldered his bag and started wheeling his luggage in the direction of the elevators. Martin stared after him in dismay and near hysteria, mind inundated with vivid images of one pristine bed sitting in the one single room they would be sharing. One bed between him and Jon and oh lord Martin would have to sleep on the floor because the thought of being that close, the warmth of being near, was way more than Martin was ever prepared to handle. Keeping the screaming on the inside, he trailed after Jon, stiff and robotic, absolutely swamped with panic in a way he was never meant to be.

“A-Are you sure,” he squeaked, once he’d caught up. “T-That you’re comfortable with sharing?” Please go back to that reception desk and get another room Jon, you don’t understand, you don’t know what it’s like-

“I don’t mind,” Jon said, wedging his wallet back into his pocket after pushing the up button on the elevator. Then he blinked and looked at Martin. “Oh- Ah. Do you?”

“I’m fine,” Martin said immediately, and internally winced as his entire brain rebelled and threw a fit, demanding how Martin could be this stupid. That was his out. Just say he wanted his own room, only Jon would be paying for it and Martin really shouldn’t be a burden and Jon was basically a magnet in how he always seemed to draw Martin closer and this really was inappropriate-

God, Martin loved Jon dearly, he really did, but this was one of those times when he really wished Jon would have some level of interpersonal skills and social awareness, because Jon just acknowledged Martin’s words and didn’t scrutinize his near expression of panic and pain.

The elevator doors popped open and they both stepped into the lift.

Then they were standing close in an enclosed space, Jon hitting the third floor button which meant they’d be suspended together in this box for a good bit of time as the lift rose and Jon spoke again. “We won’t be spending much time in the room anyway,” he continued absently, watching the numbers tick up with a pensive face, still unbothered by the many things bothering Martin. “The wedding will be taking up much of our time tomorrow and we’ll be leaving pretty early Sunday morning. Anyway, right now I figure we should just drop our bags off in our room and then get dinner downstairs. It’s already late enough as is.”

“R-Right,” Martin responded, as the lift doors opened once more and they both stepped out. (Their shoulders brushed briefly while exiting. Martin was not going to survive.)

Jon muttered to himself as he searched for their room number, their feet and the wheels of their suitcases pleasantly muffled on the bland patterned carpet. It was reminiscent of the same way that Jon would mumble statement numbers as he scoured the shelves in the Archives. Enough to send a pang of familiarity and endearment through Martin, and he unconsciously slowed a bit, just to be able to watch the way Jon walked, trying to be confident, but faltering all the same as he read through numbers and his eyes grew tighter with each one that wasn’t theirs. It was quiet enough in the weird hotel hallway subliminal space for Martin to make out that mantra, their room number chanted over and over by Jon’s chapped lips right before they found it.

Martin tensed, watching Jon slide in the keycard, almost unwilling to look as Jon shouldered open the door, mind flooded with images of that single bed, waiting and challenging him, and-

And oh. Martin blinked. There were two full sized beds waiting for them. Right. Two beds. What had he been thinking? Definitely nothing more than that, definitely hadn’t assumed that Jon was somehow comfortable literally sharing a bed. Right then okay, time to go back to acting normal and not a mess.

”Which bed do you want?” Jon asked, and Martin really didn’t need any thinking tasks to commit to right now, so he just mumbled about how he was good with either one. Jon hummed and selectected the farthest one, the one closest to the window, and Martin tried to ignore what was very clearly his own disappointment from not sharing a bed brewing beneath the relief of the two bed situation.

Martin, get a hold of yourself. Except Jon was rifling through his own luggage now, reminding Martin sharply that they were still in the same enclosed room together, sharing the same space, closeness in proximity even more pronounced than it had been in the stuffy tightness of the Archives. He watched Jon, transfixed, panicked, unable to look away all the same.

“Shall we get dinner then,” Jon mused, straightening, having not noticed Martin as he took off his glasses to pull his hair back into an elastic.

Martin blinked, quickly dove into the action of placing his own suitcase onto his bed, and smiled uncertainly at Jon when he looked his way expectantly. “Of course.” Shit shit shit shit shit-!

In the wake of the room panic, Martin had almost forgotten about that part, and now he was flustered all over again because he was getting dinner with his boss and also crush almost like they were actually on a date-

Fake date, he reminded himself with the raw desperation of someone trying vainly to reach the surface of water. Fake dating. Fake boyfriend, and oh wow he really needed to stop using the word boyfriend because he might actually collapse.

In an effort to realign himself on steady feet, Martin tried to lose himself to the nicer aspects of all of this as they walked back down the muffled hallways towards the lift. He was having a nice weekend with Jon so far, and Jon himself had been quite pleasant to be around. It was always a bit… bizarre. Regular Jon was always so much more different than Work Jon, in the few times Martin had gotten to experience him. The contrast was all the more apparent now, walking behind Jon who had an easy gait as he mumbled out directions back to the elevator to himself. The defensive, clipped, dickish Jon from just earlier that day was all but gone, replaced by someone almost entirely new who’d let Martin catch glimpses of himself, just enough to reel Martin in, but never actually reach him. Never able to actually get there, to the person who was Jon.

It was… It was moments like these, honestly, that were why Martin had fallen for Jon in the first place. Originally, of course, it had just been a crush on the cute new researcher at the Institute who occasionally visited the library, although he was so prickly and distant that Martin doubted the crush would ever actually go anywhere or be more than a slight aesthetic appreciation of a man he’d never shared more than a few words with. True enough that crush did fade for a bit, left neglected except in the rare moments that Martin even saw Jon. He hadn’t even known his name back then.

But suddenly, as most things in Martin’s life tended to happen, they were working together in the Archives in close proximity, and Martin had no choice but to know who he was, to acknowledge that there was a real chance he could actually get to know Jon and-

And, well, Jon subconsciously seemed to be trying to prove at all opportunities that he was not a straightforward person to get to know, let alone to love. It took a lot of time. More so than was probably worth it. At that time the crush Martin had was so distant and nearly gone, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that getting to know Jon meant getting to know how rude he could be, how even more standoffish he could act. He of course wasn’t a cruel boss, to his credit, and certainly a lot better than most that Martin had worked under, however briefly, but Jon hadn’t seemed like someone Martin should be wasting his time with.

After a few weeks though… things just changed.

Apparently, Tim and Jon had actually been quite close in research together, and although the stress of the position change had caused them to briefly grow apart, Martin was still able to witness the way that Tim could joke and banter, and the way that Jon would sometimes reciprocate in his own way. Occasionally, Jon would emerge from his office just to rant to his assistants about some ridiculous statement he’d found that week, or would spend ten minutes trying to express the fact that he wanted one of them to break into somewhere without explicitly saying it because that was a crime and he wasn’t condoning crime but also this follow up on a totally fake and ridiculous statement was really important-.

Jon never went out for drinks with them. He turned down almost all invitations to anything, ranging from lunch to board game nights at Sasha’s place, but he did occasionally go out of the Institute with them after the right amount of coercion. Just a couple of times, like for Martin’s birthday and subsequent ice cream adventures. Hell, there was even a lunch outing or two when they all teamed up to nag him enough. That was how Martin came to very quickly learn that Jon was a very different person outside the Institute, when he was more relaxed and at ease, and that even during work, when Jon gave himself a break, he could be somewhat sociable to them. It was enough for Martin to become fascinated with Jon, to think of it as a sort of challenge to get to know him, but one he couldn’t rush. It was a time consuming and patient thing, and maybe Martin was crazy to think it was worth the reward but- but...

It was those nights.

It was those evenings when he caught Jon working very late. Or those days when the assistants theorized that Jon might actually just sleep at the Archives, although they didn’t have proof yet. It was when Martin would find Jon half passed out over his work because Martin had forgotten his wallet or something at the Institute and had returned to fetch it in the evening, only to find the lights on in Jon’s office. And he’d gently urge Jon to go home, or even stay to make him tea, and Jon would just look at him with unfocused eyes and give a thank you that was so genuine it would leave Martin dizzy for hours after. It was the tired, bedraggled Jon, who was so incredibly sincere when he was too exhausted to be defensive, who would sometimes stay with Martin just talking in those evenings over cups of tea, never really about himself, but just about things. Somehow, he’d fill all that time with chatter, and Martin would feel himself falling in love in increments.

After several months, well, this was the result. They were all friends, and Martin still didn’t know much about Jon. He didn’t know Jon’s middle name, or what his favourite colour was, or his favourite animal. Yet Martin knew which mug Jon preferred, how he liked his tea, was familiar with the way he muttered statement numbers when he was tired to keep himself awake, how Jon could have entire conversations and then forget them just as quickly, how he would sooner scale the shelves at work than ask for help getting a statement down… Martin didn’t know anything about Jon, not really, but in a very different way, he felt he knew Jon better than anyone outside the Archives ever could, and at that he felt fuzzy with the glow of that knowledge. Jon was a mystery that Martin had memorized every detail of, and yet the only answer he could come up with was that he was hopelessly falling for this disaster of a man, and every day knowing him only drew him deeper, despite how desperate Jon seemed to keep them all away.

That’s why this weekend could not go to waste. That’s why Martin couldn’t let Jon down. Jon was opening up to him about so much, opening up to Tim and Sasha technically as well, and for the sake of everyone in the Archives, Martin could not fail Jon. Although, it was a little unclear what success would look like here.

It was enough for Martin to set his chin as he stepped back into the lift with Jon, careful this time to avoid accidentally brushing against him. Once again Jon’s eyes became glued to the numbers ticking down, and Martin allowed himself a quick breath out. He listened to him silently mumbling the countdown of floors, and used that to ground himself one final time before the doors opened and he headed to a dinner that was almost definitely not a date with the man he agreed to be a fake boyfriend of, and dammit Martin really needed to keep his head in the game.

The hotel had a restaurant off the main lobby that looked quite nice, and Martin silently promised himself as they set foot inside that he’d order something cheaper on the menu. No use causing Jon any more stress, and the last thing Martin ever wanted to be was a burden. Not to anyone, and especially not to Jon.

“Just the two of you?” the waiter asked monotonously, leading them to a table around the outside of the room. It was a bit later than the main dinner rush, so the restaurant was on the emptier side with people mainly around the bar getting drinks and watching sports on the mounted televisions. The window they ended up being seated next to displayed the darkening sky of the city, catching the street lights turning on and the bright glow of the frozen yogurt place across the street.

Jon and Martin sat across from each other at the small table, and Martin was suddenly and uncomfortably very aware of how intimate this moment was becoming with just the two of them, and there was even a lit candle in the middle of the table casting an atmospheric glow. The server gave an empty smile as he handed out the menus to them. “Would you like any drinks to start?”

Jon requested water, and Martin hastily joined him, once again reminding himself not to make Jon pay for too much although Martin could probably just pay for his own meals but his bills at home were already stressful enough. The waiter nodded at them. “I’ll be back with your drinks. Enjoy your date.”

Martin sputtered and accidentally slammed his knee into the table, wincing, then quickly tried to hide all of his reactions but the waiter was already gone. He sucked in a tense breath, warily turning to Jon to gauge his reaction. Jon for his part was sitting very still, eyes a bit wide without his glasses to hide them, and he was biting his lip as he pensively looked back at Martin. They stared at each other for a moment, neither moving, Martin’s knee aching, before Jon ventured to say, “Well… at least we know we won’t have to work too hard to make this believable.”

“R-Right!” Martin chimed in. “It’s- It’s good feedback.”

A nod. “Right.”

“Right.”

Silence.

Crap, Martin should say something, except he didn’t know what to say, and Jon was just sort of staring off where the waiter had left, biting his thumb with his eyebrows drawn. Maybe he was thinking of going and correcting him and maybe that was for the best. Martin really wasn’t qualified for any of this he hadn’t even gone to university-

“Should we be practicing dating?” Jon blurted, turning back to Martin in a rush. Martin’s brain immediately shut down in response, a tactical advantagement developed after years of human evolution in order to increase survival chances by creating as much conflict and embarrassment as possible. “For tomorrow, I mean. I just- Maybe we should see if- if this is even feasible,” Jon continued, running a hand through his hair and tugging loose strands out of the elastic. “I mean, I-I’ve never been one for acting, and I don’t even know if we can, um…”

“Alright,” Martin said dumbly. He felt a thousand miles away. “Um. What should we do, for practice?”

Jon looked up, sagging with what may be relief, but Martin in turn felt like he’d just decided to try and punch a planet and not die along the way. “Oh… Oh, um, m-maybe we should be sitting closer together? Or is across from each other date-like enough?”

Martin stared down along with Jon at the table, with its white cloth and single candle, pushed against the darkening window, and when Martin looked back up he could see the way the candlelight glowed against Jon’s face, highlighting his scrunched brows and the bits of loose hair floating angelic around him- Okay, focus Martin.

Breath in, breath out. Don’t say dumb shit. Don’t be an idiot, don’t be an idiot, oh lord looks like we’re being an idiot today. “We could hold hands,” Martin said, face entirely red. “Um, we can sit close enough to hold hands. You said we’d be holding hands at the wedding, right? It might be good practice. To hold hands.”

Please Jon, shoot him now, a person can only say the phrase ‘hold hands’ so many times in a row before it’s time to end their misery please-

“Oh,” Jon said, that damnable ‘oh’ again, where he looked surprised and his lips were pulled back pensively, looking very cute. Focus better, Martin. “Uh, alright then.”

And then, with no forewarning, Jon carefully slipped one hand from where it had been gripped tight on his lap, and moved it onto the edge of the table between them, palm up, long delicate fingers dancing with that candlelight, looking very soft.

“Oh,” Martin said, a damnable ‘oh’ that escaped his lips and suddenly he could relate to Jon very much. “Oh, um, o-okay.” Carefully, he discreetly wiped his palm on the side of his trousers, praying against all forces laughing at him that it at least wasn’t noticeably sweaty, and carefully hovered it above the table, then lowered it until his palm tingled with the contact of Jon’s skin, of Jon’s soft fingers carefully wrapping around his, and Martin didn’t dare sink the full weight of his arm down, because his hand was so much larger that it dwarfed Jon’s and he might accidentally crush him and he did not want to be responsible for crushing his boss’s finger bones because they dared to hold hands holy shit they were holding hands-!

But nothing was happening, and Martin carefully relaxed, inch by inch, still entranced by the warmth, and the gentle, feather-light touches of Jon’s fingers grazing the edge of his hand, and when he looked up, across the short space of the too small table, he could see the way that Jon’s eyes were focused on their hands as well, dark depths shining with the candle’s flame.

Martin wondered what melted faster: his heart or the heated wax.

He was then suddenly very aware of someone else standing at their table, and he looked up in slight panic to see their waiter had returned, looking bored as he carefully deposited two glasses of water onto the table, and Jon and Martin had to quickly let go to make space and to make it less awkward for the waiter to reach across, and Martin had never felt more adrift.

“Are you ready to order or do you need a few more minutes?” the waiter asked.

Martin resisted the urge to glance guiltily at the untouched menus. “A few more minutes,” he said, voice breaking in the middle, but the waiter just left without another word.

Jon cleared his throat. “We should, ah, we should decide what to order.”

“Right.” Martin focused on his own menu, scanning it for something cheap but also something he couldn’t just make himself at home. There were, well, there were a lot of options, and when Martin glanced up, as casual as he could manage, just to see how Jon was doing and maybe just to see the way that the elastic was slowly working its way out of Jon’s hair as it was pulled over one shoulder, long and curled and let down and not just kept up in a bun, he found that Jon was looking at his own menu with a frown as if the laminated paper had personally offended him. “Is something wrong?” Martin asked, because he wanted to show concern and be a good fake boyfriend.

“...Forgot my glasses in our room,” Jon muttered, and without hesitation he launched into a full squint, extending the menu back and forth in front of his face as he sought out a visual sweet spot.

“Uh,” Martin said dumbly, painfully aware of what happened when one tried to help Jonathan Sims. He’d scowl at them, try to do the task even more intently, and then somehow end up in mortal peril or worse. The last time it had happened, when one of the assistants offered to help Jon get a box of statements down from a high shelf, that shelf had almost flattened him and Martin had actually had to physically pick up his boss to get him out of danger and that definitely wasn’t a moment that Martin regretted every day of his life. Tim still hadn’t let it go. “Do you… Do you need help?” Martin ventured, having learned nothing. “I can run up to the room and get your glasses for you, if you’d like.”

“That’s alright Martin,” Jon mumbled absently, already engrossed in his task. “My eyes aren’t too terrible.” Martin thought of the menu with its small fine print and extensive cursive and winced a bit. Unfortunately, Jon was the one with the room key on him, meaning that Martin couldn’t just go and do the errand anyway, which was very tempting. Best to let Jon handle it, maybe. Probably not.

He glanced back down at his own menu, forcing himself to narrow it down and make a decision before the waiter returned. Finally, he found something that he thought he might like but wasn’t too pricey. Jon also seemed satisfied as he carefully folded up his menu to rest down on the table, rubbing his eyes slightly but then immediately stopped doing so when he caught Martin looking. Martin very deliberately turned to gaze out the window, watching a few pedestrians pass by in the early evening, and the way his own reflection echoed back at him.

After a few more minutes the waiter returned and took their orders, which went smoothly for the most part except that Jon just sort of exasperatedly held up his menu and pointed at what he wanted with a half finished pronunciation dying on his lips. With that done and the menus and waiter gone, Jon just sort of huffed and leaned forward to sip at his water, absently staring at the window as well, but this time Martin was staring at Jon, at the loose dark hair that brushed the table with its tips, at those eyes that he could get lost in, that were looking right back at him.

“What?” Jon asked, and when Martin tried to listen for something accusatory, he found nothing. Jon was relaxed and absently leaning on his arm, giving Martin a curious look that Martin couldn’t even begin to process. “Oh, right, we can probably hold hands again,” Jon decided, sitting up a bit straighter, and it took all of three seconds for Martin to process that, and for Jon to put his hand back on the table with his palm up, and it was back to this heart rending bullshit again okay then.

Martin made a small keening noise, and forced himself to do the equivalent of one of those metal grab claw arcade games as he carefully navigated his hand so that he put it down overtop of Jon’s, and once again shivered as those fingers wrapped around his and held him there.

Crap, neither of them were speaking and now it was kind of awkward because their hands were joined and Martin’s was definitely a bit sweaty and he’d never touched Jon for more than a handshake before so he should probably start a conversation to ease the tension but what to talk about- “I, um, haven't seen you with your hair down before,” Martin said recklessly. He was too emboldened now, after the compliment fiasco in the car, so confident that he was such a master liar that surely Jon couldn’t see through him without assuming it was part of the boyfriend act which was starting to feel less like an act to Martin if it had ever been to begin with-

“Oh,” Jon said, and Martin swore his heart stopped at the return of that expression. Jon bit his lip, as his free hand reached into his hair and pulled it back a bit, then he scowled and let go of Martin in order to quickly take out the elastic and redo the ponytail, which had slipped to be looser than was apparently acceptable. “Right, I suppose I don’t have it down often,” Jon said as he set to the task. Martin was entranced. “I’m not really used to it either. Keep thinking there’s a spider on my shoulder…”

“I’d get rid of it!” Martin blurted with no hesitation, then backtracked when he saw Jon’s face start to scowl. “I-I meant if there was a spider. If… If there was a spider on your shoulder, I’d get rid of it for you?” He trailed off, red all over, and there really was no recovering from this one. He simply had no choice but to die now, and he’d only be mourned by Tim and Sasha as they spoke of his poor decisions, once again saying sadly, what a dumbass.

“Uh, thanks?” Jon said, hands resting back on the table. Except they were face down and drawn close to him, and Martin tried not to think it was deliberate that Jon didn’t want to hold his hand anymore. He probably just… forgot.

Right.

“N-No problem.” Martin dutifully resolved himself to staring at his phone when the conversation died again until their meals came, trying not to make it feel like he was ignoring Jon, except Jon drew out his own phone after a bit as well, so then they were just both two millenials on their phones ignoring each other on a date like the prophecies predicted. Except this was not a date. They were just getting dinner together, just the two of them, in a nice restaurant, over candlelight.

He found a few texts from Tim and Sasha, asking him how it was going and if he’d smooched Jon yet, which Martin did not dignify with a response. There was also a photo from several hours ago before work ended that Sasha sent to their group chat detailing Tim sitting on the floor with a stunned expression, absolutely covered in paper statements and dust from a tipped over box sitting in his lap, captioned with several laughing emojis and ‘pride cometh before the fall’. It took a bit of pestering, but Martin was eventually able to weasel out the tale that Tim had cajoled Sasha into playing truth or dare with him during the last fifteen minutes of work, to which she had dared him to get down some high statements by only using one hand with the other behind his back. Tim, ever the daredevil, had taken it one step further and only used one leg as well. Nobody was surprised by this or the result, and Martin was half tempted to show Jon the photo except he wasn’t a snitch.

Martin only looked back up from his texting when he heard a soft sigh, and saw Jon setting his own phone down after holding it an awkward distance from his face to see it, and instead turning to look at the window again with his chin in his hand and his eyebrows drawn. “Is… Is something wrong?” Martin ventured, because he might be a phone obsessed millennial but he was also a well mannered phone obsessed millennial.

Jon blinked, then looked back at Martin with panic as if he’d been caught zoning out at work and not in the middle of a restaurant on a weekend trip. “N-Nothing! Nothing’s going on. Just. Um. Just can’t see my phone the best, bad lighting and such, and um. Bored I guess. Is all...”

“Oh,” Martin said, and made the eloquent decision to put his own phone down in solidarity. “Would you like to talk about something then?”

Jon frowned, hesitantly sitting back a bit so to prepare himself for a conversation that Martin wasn’t fully confident would take place but he was willing to try. “What is there to talk about?”

Martin froze, because suddenly he was the one put on the spot, so he just selected the first topic he could think of which was also the one he could do nothing but acknowledge for the past week. “Um, t-the wedding, maybe? Not like, about what we’re doing at it, but maybe the other details like who’s… Who’s getting married?” Nice one, Martin. Steered that topic into a half assed parking zone.

Jon paused for a very long time, staring at Martin with wide eyes, then carefully, he slipped his head from his hand in order to very discreetly take out his phone again and start rapidly scrolling through it. “It’s, uh, well it’s… ah.”

Martin stared at him. Blinked very slowly. Oh god. Tim hadn’t been joking. Oh god Tim hadn’t been joking! “You don’t know whose wedding it is?!” he exclaimed in panic.

“O-Of course I know!” Jon said desperately, tapping furiously at the screen with a squint. “I know it’s a cousin of mine. I-I just can’t remember his name at the moment… or her name? Dammit.”

“Jon!”

“I didn’t think it would matter too much! I’m just there to see my grandmother, I didn’t think I’d be doing any- any mingling!”

“What about congratulating the bride and groom!”

“I didn’t think I’d need to do that!”

“Oh my god…”

“It’s not as if I’ve been to a lot of weddings,” Jon snapped, gesticulating wildly and meaninglessly. “My family isn’t exactly close. I’d dare say my cousins would be hard pressed to remember my name as well.”

“You’re not the one getting married,” Martin protested. He felt weak, shaky. “You should at least know beforehand who’s wedding you’re going to. Are you sure there’s even a wedding?”

“Of course there is, here!” Jon said victoriously, out of breath. He shoved his phone forward so that Martin could see the grainy photo of the wedding invite laid out on a table. “I even contacted them to confirm my attendance.”

Martin stared at him. “But you still don’t know their names.”

“I knew when I emailed them,” Jon said stiffly. “Just. Just forgot.”

“And apparently forgot which one you’re related to if you can’t even remember their gender,” Martin huffed, and pulled the phone closer so he could expand the poor quality photo. Seriously, how old was Jon’s phone that it would take photos this bad… “We’re attending the wedding of Pat Sims and Marcie Carlin, so Pat is your cousin.”

“Yes I know how surnames work,” Jon snapped irritably. He snatched his phone back, muttering something about how he would’ve remembered eventually.

Martin gave him one last disparaging look, having to hold the expression for long enough for Jon to catch it and for him to scowl in turn. Good lord, what was Martin to do with this man?

During the time it took for Martin to finally give in to temptation and update Tim and Sasha on their disaster of a boss, their food had arrived and he found himself actually enjoying a warm and slightly fancy meal, his anxiety having almost dissipated at this point due to alarming revelations and good food. Jon on the other hand glared at his pasta for a good minute before eating, muttering something about having misread the menu, to which Martin let out a slight huff before diplomatically asking if Jon wanted to swap meals with him or call the waiter back. Jon immediately dismissed the ideas and resolutely ate the pasta he apparently didn’t order, and Martin returned to enjoying his own very good dinner.

They ate to the silence of the muted sports games on the televisions and the idle chatter of the other patrons. At some point, when they’d finished and were waiting for the cheque, Martin overheard Jon muttering the happy couple’s names under his breath. Martin had to hide a small smile, and whatever fondness threatened to encroach into his lungs like a sweet scented fungus to steal his breath away.

Jon paid for their dinner as promised, and they both stood up to leave together. Martin gathered his jacket from the back of his seat, and turned around to find Jon waiting for him, holding out a hand. Martin stared at it blankly for a second, wondering why Jon wanted a handshake now of all times, before it clicked just as Jon began to hesitantly retract it. “Oh sorry!” Martin stammered reaching to take it. “I didn’t realize-“

“No, it’s fine, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Jon said simultaneously, moving to pull his arm back in on himself, but before he could Martin had already reached out, and their fingers slipped together. Martin tried not to listen to the way his heart fluttered with slight panic, tried not to pay attention to how small Jon’s hand was in his, or maybe it’s just that Martin’s was too large. He tried not to think about how Jon was the one who asked, but it was him who’d reached back and initiated it when he didn’t have to.

In a daze, they both stared at their interlocking hands for a moment, before both snapping out of it as they realized they were standing in the middle of a restaurant and should probably leave.

Martin tried his best to match pace, to make sure that he looked like he belonged next to Jon. God, his hand was definitely sweaty, and that must be so gross to hold, and somehow in a fit of nerves, trying to parse how sweaty his palm was exactly, Martin accidentally squeezed Jon’s hand. Shit.

His gaze whipped up to look straight ahead, as he felt Jon glance over at him in puzzlement. Then, without warning, Jon lightly squeezed his hand back, and Martin was sure his face was red as they entered the lobby again to wait for the lift, side by side, hand in hand, like they were actually a couple. It was late enough that there weren’t many other guests around, and the ones that did pass by hardly paid them any mind. Martin tried to find comfort in that, in the distance between himself and people sometimes. Just take a deep breath, let it all fade away and wash over, except that Jon’s hand- Jon’s fingers curled around his -was keeping him inexplicably grounded. An infallible force that Martin could not escape from. That he wasn’t sure if he wanted to escape from.

It was illogical, when Jon squeezed his hand again. Martin glanced down, turning his head with a question he could not ask on his tongue. Jon was looking up at him, eyebrows drawn together, lips pursed. The elevator was taking an awfully long time to arrive. “Yeah?” Martin asked tentatively.

Suddenly, Jon was looking anywhere but at him. The tips of his ears looked a bit red. “O-Oh! Um, nothing really, I just… We’re, um, practicing right?” He gestured to their interlocked hands with his free hand. “For tomorrow.”

Martin flushed deeper. “Y-Yeah?”

“It’s just, um.” A deep breath. “I-If it’s alright with you, and if it’s not too much, um, maybe we should practice, uh, showing other affection as well. More than this I mean. So that it’s not a shock come tomorrow, and well, we won’t be doing it often, maybe not at all, but…”

“S-Sorry. I’m not following?” Martin asked weakly. He genuinely had no idea what was going on beyond all the stuttering.

Another solid exhale. “Right.” Jon looked back up at him. “I wanted to ask if it would be alright if I could try to kiss your cheek. So it won’t be so- so novel, come tomorrow. And then in turn you can kiss my head and then we can stop pretending for tonight.”

“Oh,” Martin said dumbly. “Okay.” Lord knew it was anything but okay, but in that moment Martin sort of felt adrift. His brain was definitely not in his head, not as he gingerly leaned down a bit so that Jon could get up on his tiptoes, and they were so close now, Jon leaning against him, warm, his free hand braced against Martin’s chest.

When the kiss came, it was light, quick, and barely anything more than a brief pressure against Martin’s cheek. Soft, he thought. His face was entirely red. His brain was entirely gone. His heart was malfunctioning. Jonathan Sims had kissed him, and it was such a short moment, barely nonexistent, but if someone had told him a week ago that he would get a kiss from Jonathan Sims, the prickly but endearing academic, Martin would have laughed at them. Might have also flushed with embarrassment from the thought. But there were no thoughts, not anymore. Martin was purely floating.

Then, clumsily remembering the script that Jon had proposed, he asked, “M-May I kiss your head?”

Jon breathed out shakily, sinking back down from his tip toes. “You may.”

Martin hesitantly leaned over, conscious of the way they pressed together slightly again, and carefully pressed his lips into Jon’s hair, and then scampered back after barely a moment, putting distance between the two of them once more. He’d nearly gotten lost in the softness of Jon’s hair, in the pressure of the moment, but he didn’t dare push for anything more than what Jon had given him.

Martin forced himself to look down, terrified, to see that Jon’s eyes had been briefly closed, and were opening again, beneath long lashes. Breathless lungs. An unbeating heart. Something unheard of never said. A poem for Martin to write...

“Alright,” Jon said quietly. Then cleared his throat, and continued in a much gruffer tone, close to his fake posh accent he sometimes did at work. “That was um, good practice Martin. Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Martin said dumbly. The elevator dinged then, and opened for them. That should have been the end of it. That was what Jon had said. That they could stop pretending for the night. Except that even as they stepped inside and the doors slid shut, they were still holding hands.

Chapter Text

They were back in their room and Martin barely remembered the journey. His mind was just clouded by that point of connection, the warmth and tightness that existed between their intertwined hands as their feet shuffled over faded carpet and through muted halls, Jon’s muttering of their room number filling the silence. Then they were back, and Jon was letting go of his hand, slipping over to where he’d put his luggage to dig around for his glasses and return them back into place, simultaneously pulling out the elastic that had threatened to slip loose again, and Martin was caught in those cascades of hair once more.

“Is there anything you want to watch?” Jon asked, gesturing with the remote at the television while half sitting on his bed in a manner that suggested he’d be back on his feet again soon anyway.

“Oh, uh, I’m good with anything,” Martin decided. He glanced at the bedside clock and wondered if it was still too early to go to sleep. But the idea of just sitting quietly in a room with Jon, idling for a few hours until he felt tired, was not a social experiment Martin wanted to participate in today. His hand still felt like an outsider to his body, ringing with a phantom touch he couldn’t get rid of.

Jon hummed and started flipping through channels with the volume set very low, idly clicking from one to another until he found what looked to be some sort of documentary and he carefully slid the remote back onto the nightstand. “Feel free to change it if you want,” he said, and selected some folded up clothes and toiletries from his suitcase and headed off for the bathroom.

Spontaneously, Martin was alone in what felt like a too small room, and furtively his eyes drifted to the bed where Jon would be sleeping across from him. He thought back to the restaurant, to how Jon’s hand had practically been hidden beneath his. He thought about the brief pressure of those lips, evidenceless on his cheek. He thought about the soft brush of hair as he carefully placed a kiss to the top of Jon’s head.

Faintly, his fingers twitched with the phantom temptation to grab a pen and write it all down in cascading stanzas.

He didn’t know where a pen was.

Martin sprawled out onto his bed instead, hyper aware of the pads of his fingers caught in the blankets, staring at the ceiling as if it had personally wronged him. God, he couldn’t do this. He really couldn’t do this. They’d be exposed immediately with Martin’s face going as red as a tomato at the first sign of contact. Jon would be fine, he seemed to react minimally to anything, still his composed, slightly scowling self. Martin on the other hand was made of tells, of obvious signs and indications that this was all new to him and that he’d never even been close with this man before. Absently, he pulled out his phone and opened his heist playlist and hit shuffle. He tried to get lost in it. Martin Blackwood, you can lie your way through this. You can act. Everyone always underestimates you but that’s why you can prove yourself here. It doesn’t matter that Jon doesn’t trust you, that you’re always goofing up. He’s too important to let down, you have to do this for him, and you have to do it perfectly.

His thoughts trailed off when he caught sight of the other bed again and was spontaneously reminded once more that he’d be sleeping in the same room as his crush just a meter apart. If they both rested on the edges of their beds and reached out, they could probably hold hands. God, that really was all Martin could think about now. He’d gotten to hold Jon’s hand and there really was no getting around that fact, no digesting it, no acceptance. Martin was definitely still dying inside from those short moments, and his heart was starting to get exhausted from racing. He couldn’t keep doing this. He was tired of feeling nauseous all the time, but the thought of what would happen if he backed out, if Jon attended that wedding all alone, small and hunched and miserable, was much worse. He’d volunteer, time and time again, because Jon was worth it. (Why was Jon always worth it?)

Martin closed his eyes, tried to get caught up in the theme song that rose above the nearly muted audio of something about penguins playing from the television. It felt like seconds, or maybe hours, but really wasn’t long at all before the bathroom door clicked open and Jon stepped back out, and Martin cracked his eyes open to look absently before he was very much awake.

He didn’t mean to stare, but it was just… Martin couldn’t exactly remember a moment when Jon wasn’t dressed like a fifty year old English professor and now he was just… just...

Jon came out wearing an oversized t-shirt for a band that Martin had never heard of, which hung off his thin frame and drowned his arms. He was wearing pajama bottoms that were blue and pink and plaid, and his dark hair was still down and curtaining across his shoulders as he shuffled barefoot back across the room. Shit. Oh fuck oh shit he was cute- Why did heart palpitations have to be so intense???

Martin averted his eyes, and realized all too quickly that he’d messed up when Jon frowned slightly and glanced over at him. “Are you playing music?”

“Oh!” Martin scrambled to get his phone on and pause it, face red again. “Um, a bit. Just… forgot it was playing. Uh, don’t mind me.” Please don’t recognize this song and realize what movie it’s from please no-

“No, no, it’s fine you can keep playing it,” Jon mumbled idly as he carefully climbed back into bed. “Just thought I recognized it, is all…” He then stooped over to grab his bag and started rifling through it, and Martin took that opportunity to snatch up his own set of pajamas and toiletries and make a panicked and composed escape for the bathroom.

Once inside, with the door firmly locked, he let himself breath for what felt like the first time since waking up this morning. God, that had been hours ago, hadn’t it? Martin shoved his stuff onto the counter so he could brace himself on the edge, staring up at himself in the mirror with a distraught expression exemplified by his messy curls. His eyes were large and his cheeks were coloured red, and he knew that there was no way Jon hadn’t noticed.

Oh god, Jon!

Martin proceeded to spend a solid minute just wondering how the hell he was supposed to view Jon the same ever again. It had always been jumpers and tweed vests and carefully done up hair and immaculate dress and now it was just- just oversized attire and loose clothes and hair and shoulders and Martin was in over his heels. Martin could clearly picture Jon waking up in the mroning, stumbling out of bed with his hair in disaray and shirt hanging off his shoulder and- “Fuck,” Martin whispered feverishly to the sink, and he squished his eyes shut before splashing water on his face. Right, apparently the thought that he might see Jon’s shoulder of all things was sending him into a blushing fit. Good god, what was this man doing to him? Martin was a grown ass adult yet his thoughts went stumbling like a Victorian era man seeing an ankle. Shit, Tim’s metaphors were starting to rub off on him.

He realized belatedly that he was back in the same familiar scenario, featuring him standing alone in a bathroom blushing furiously, like a recurring nightmare, as he had been all week. Great.

“Boyfriend,” he said aloud, just for the hell of it, but he was painfully careful to keep his voice down, not knowing exactly how thin the walls were here. He checked his face, but it was impossible to tell what was blush from that and what was blush from seeing Jon in a t-shirt. Right.

Instead of thinking about it anymore, Martin brushed his teeth with perhaps more force than necessarily. Still not thinking about it, he got dressed with vigor. Without thinking about it, he checked himself one final time to make sure that most of the blush had receded before he went back out into the room and almost smacked into a wall because Jon was sitting there in the center of his bed with his hair down and shoulders relaxed and an adorable pensive frown-

Wait-

Wait what the fuck?

Jon had his laptop out in front of him, and several stacks of paper spread out over the bed, and he seemed to be zoned out as he flipped between the papers and tapped through documents on his screen, his face drawing ever tighter with a scrunch to his eyebrows.

“Are you… are you doing work?” Martin demanded, any previous thoughts forgotten as he put his hands on his hips. “Really? Researching statements here?!”

Jon blinked up at him, startled. “Oh, well, yes. I needed to make up for those lost hours from leaving early somehow and I figure there’s not much else to do tonight. Besides, I like staying busy and-“

“If you say the word productive I’m going to go over there and burn those statements,” Martin threatened. “Seriously Jon, it’s the weekend now and we’re on a trip. You need to give yourself a break.”

“I’m fine,” Jon told his flatly, eyes slipping to the side. “It’s really not a big deal Martin. I’ll try to stay quiet if you’re going to sleep soon, but it’s not as if I really have anything better to do.”

“Yes, but there’s more relaxing things to do,” Martin reasoned. When he saw that he was losing Jon, that Jon’s mouth was downturned slightly with dissatisfaction, Martin took a breath. “Just… I don’t really want to see the statements here. I mean, I know it’s just paper and stuff but they’re… I don’t know, creepy I guess? Don’t give me that look, I don’t know how else to describe it since you’ve banned the word spooky. There’s just some genuinely disturbing things written in them, even if it is all just… bogus and such. We all need a break from that sort of thing, including you Jon.”

“Martin, that seems a bit…”

“Please, Jon. No statements this weekend. If not for you than for me. Please.” Shit, Martin hadn’t meant to add that last bit. ‘For me’? As if that meant anything, as if Martin had ever been a worthy cause to anyone. But if Jon didn’t give in now, then Martin was going to have to pull out his trump card of making this into Jon’s favour to him for agreeing to go to a wedding as his fake boyfriend in the first place, and Martin really didn’t want to have to do that. It was too close to threatening or blackmail, which Jon had explicitly forbade him to do, not that Martin was necessarily inclined to listen, but...

He watched Jon’s face pass through several phases and emotions, fingers idly tightening on the crusted papers in his hand, before he sagged all at once. “I… fine. But I’m just going to be bored otherwise.”

“That’s fine.”

Jon huffed and packed the statements away, gingerly moving his bag out of easy reach under Martin’s scrutinizing eye, before falling back onto the pillows and idly tapping around on his laptop aimlessly. Martin watched him for a moment, making sure there was no work on his screen and definitely not staring at Jon wearing anything that wasn’t precocious, before turning back to his own stuff to get his own laptop out. Martin carefully crawled back into his bed, getting comfortable as he pulled his computer onto his lap. At some point, as Martin checked the assistant group chat absently, Jon ended up shutting his own computer and placing it to the side in favour of watching the documentary still softly playing. Jon seemed to very deliberately not be looking his way, and Martin tried not to think it was because Jon might be upset at him.

Seeing some new notifications as a valid distraction, Martin glanced back down at the assistants’ chat to see that he’d gotten an invite to a video call. He paused for all of a moment. “Sasha and Tim are calling us.”

“That’s nice- Wait! Don’t accept!” But Martin had already pushed the answer button and his screen filled up, split between the two faces of his coworkers. His computer made a happy noise at the connection, and static blasted for a moment before their voices came through.

“Martin!”

“How’s it going?”

“Good lord Martin did you really need to do this now?” Jon demanded. He had the blankets pulled up to his chest in probably a vain attempt to hide his sleepwear, and now that Martin knew what to look for he could see the telltale red of Jon’s ears.

“Is that Jon?” Tim asked, face delighted through the grainy connection. He was shirtless on camera, which- Okay, which was an effort to look away from, Martin was self aware enough to admit that, so he very deliberately focused on Sasha’s image instead. She was surprisingly free of jewelry for once, hair let down and tangled and freshly washed. Somewhere in the background a dog barked unseen. “Is he with you? Where are you two right now?”

“Just at the hotel,” Martin said tightly, and because he wasn’t a complete monster he made sure his laptop camera was focused on himself and that Jon was nowhere near in danger of being in frame. The unfortunate side effect was that Martin himself was in frame, and laptop cameras were never a good look. “We’re, um, getting ready for bed.”

“Which means now is really not the time to be having a video conference-“ Jon interjected, right before Tim interrupted.

“Are you two sharing a room? Did Jon only get one hotel room? Please tell me there’s only one bed as well-“

“There’s two beds!” Martin said all too quickly. Shit, his face was red again. If only there was a discrete way to turn off the camera without letting them know exactly why he’d done so. He cleared his throat, aware that Jon was staring at him from across the room. “Ah. There’s ah, two beds.”

“But only one room,” Sasha surmised. She had her hands folded and chin resting on them, and Martin was not fond of the way the lighting glinted off her glasses. “Really, Jon?”

“It was more financially sensical!” Jon protested. Now that he realized he wasn’t in immediate danger of being seen by their coworkers, he was starting to slip out of bed, eyes fixed dangerously on Martin, and Martin suddenly had the sense that maybe he should get up as well if only to be able to dance away when Jon inevitably made his move for the laptop.

“Martin’s doing you this huge favour and you can’t even spare the expense?” Sasha was continuing, and Jon wasn’t at an angle where he could see her absolute shit eating grin. Tim and Martin could never compete with her deception checks.

“Oh! I, um, I suppose I could? It’s probably too late tonight, but I can get you your own room for tomorrow Martin-“ Jon started, forgetting his assault in favour of drawing his eyebrows together in thought as he started making calculations and scrolling through logistics that Martin did not care to even ponder.

“Jon, one room is fine,” he assured, because the fact that Jon was thinking so intently outside of work was giving him his own headache. Too late, Martin realized that he was easily being overheard by his coworkers, and very diligently tried to keep his face neutral as he turned back to them. “So, um, what are you two calling about?”

Martin didn’t think his laptop picked up the way that Jon mumbled from across the room, “Yes please just get them out of here.”

“We just wanted to make sure that you two were doing okay and got to the hotel safe,” Sasha said.

“Oh,” Jon responded. “Oh, yes, we’re fine, thank you for asking.”

“It’s no problem, Jon. Have you guys gotten around to discussing boundaries yet?”

“Boundaries?” Jon asked, at the same time Martin went red with a, “Y-Yes, we have.”

“Ooh, what did you guys decide on,” Tim demanded eagerly, leaning closer to the camera. He was still very much not wearing a shirt and Martin was still very much not looking at him. “What’s your smooch limit? What’s your kiss allowance, Martin? How much should I be investing in the kiss stocks?”

“Alright, that’s quite enough,” Jon groused, standing up to reach Martin in a few strides. Originally, Martin had been prepared to scurry out of the way of the foreseen attack, but as Jon leaned toward him, long hair draping, gently brushing him, it was like Martin forgot how to breathe let alone move. Coincidentally, it also brought Jon into frame as he tapped around on the mousepad, trying to find a way to turn it off.

“Jon!” both Tim and Sasha exclaimed simultaneously. Their faces lit up with smiles at the same moment that Jon’s face fell into what Martin could only guess to be horror or possibly exaggerated resignation. His own face was red, apparently the only pigment it could be nowadays.

“Er, yes, hi,” Jon said, now moving the mouse a little more frantically while also trying to move himself out of frame with little success as his concentration became divided. “Well, it’s been lovely talking to you two, but we should really be going, long day ahead of us tomorrow and all that-“

“Boo,” Tim responded immediately. “You’ve got to stay and talk to us Jon.”

“I really don’t-“

“Oh by the way your hair looks lovely,” Sasha said. “You know you can wear it down more often around the office.”

“Well, I suppose I could-“

“It’s a very good look on you boss,” Tim said.

Like a pavlovian response, Jon’s face descended into a scowl. “Coming from you Tim I don’t dare think that’s a compliment.”

“I am appalled and offended!” Tim gasped, drawing a hand to his still very much bare chest. “I’ll have you know that I, Tim “The Hot One” Stoker, have been known to have very good tastes in everything.”

“You do not,” Jon responded immediately, finger idling forgotten on the mousepad as he became riled. “And I seriously doubt that title considering that you couldn’t even scrape together the professional decency to put on a shirt before video calling-“

At the word ‘professional’, all three assistants let out collective growns that had Jon flinching back. He turned those wide eyes to Martin, and simultaneously, a pure coincidence really, Martin’s entire heart seemed to stop. “Jon,” he said faintly. “We’re not at work.”

“I can look professional without a shirt,” Tim shot back. “Watch me. I’ll come into work on Monday with a tie over this chiseled chest and I guarantee you everyone at the Institute will have not choice but to agree with me-“

He was interrupted by a very loud snort, and on screen Sasha’s face had scrunched up as she pulled both hands tight over her massive smile as barely restrained giggles squirmed their way out. “Holy shit Tim no-“

“You’ve got to join me too, Sash,” Tim said excitedly. “No shirt but still a tie is a classic look, or maybe I can propose a crop top day to Elias…”

“Crop tops might work better,” Sasha wheezed. “You know how dangerous nipples can be. Especially if they are female presenting ones.”

“Really, Sasha? A Tumblr reference now in the year of our lord,” Tim began. “I thought I knew you better than that.”

Martin was unfortunately drawn out of that moment by the acute awareness that Jon was practically leaning on him to get access to the laptop. Part of Jon’s head was blocking his view, and Jon had one hand braced on Martin’s leg as he scrolled on the screen with renewed vigor. Either Martin was having a heart attack or he was painfully in love. Who could really tell?

“Does this button hang up the call?” Jon asked him softly, barely more than a breath, and that was what had snapped Martin away from the conversation in the first place and into this moment, close and tight and terrifying.

“Have you… not been on a video call before?” Martin asked, trying to keep his voice equally as quiet, equally as breathless, but Tim and Sasha had both very obviously ceased speaking.

“I have!” Jon snapped with his usual defensiveness. “I video chat with the Admiral on occasion. Just, ah, not on this, er… app...”

Martin was still getting used to the myriad of new expressions that Jon used when he wasn’t at work, but at this point he liked to think that even at such an awkward angle he could recognize Jon’s ‘I fucked up face’ when it was presented.

“Jon,” Sasha said. “Jon who's the admiral? Jon you have to tell us. Jon why are you talking to an admiral? Jon please-“

“Jon, why are you suppressing information from the public,” Tim teased.

“No one! A cat! Don’t ask-!” Jon scrambled immediately, and Martin really wished he was in a better position to see Jon’s face to be able to get a better read on this nonsense what the fuck Jon-

“You video chat a cat?” Sasha demanded voraciously.

“Someone named their cat Admiral?” Tim asked.

“His name is The Admiral,” Jon said quickly. “He’s partly my cat. Joint custody. That’s all. It’s been awful talking goodbye-”

“Wait, Jon-!”

“Holy fuck Jon-!”

But Jon had already firmly ended the call by just frantically slamming closed the laptop lid, and practically threw himself away from Martin and off the bed. “Jon-“

“Don’t-“ Jon said, turning enough that Martin could see his red ears and wide eyes. “Don’t ask. This is another one of those don’t ask things. You’re not allowed to threaten me either. That’s still not a thing.”

“Jon I wasn’t going to threaten you,” Martin said, trying to sound resonable. “I just, um. Have questions?”

“No.”

“Alright then.”

Jon peevishly got back into his own bed, pulling up the blankets high onto his shoulders so that he was pracitcally burrowing into them as he pointedly turned up the volume on the documentary. Martin for his part took a minute to even figure out how to move again, carefully opening his laptop to close out of the video call properly and setting it to the side in the wake of rampant notifications from the group chat.

That was… Okay, that was a lot all at once. Tim and Sasha were full of energy as usual, and then out of nowhere Jon had been so close, his touch leaving pinpricks, and then Jon had said something else completely ridiculous. Martin thought he had a grasp on who Jon was but it was like at every moment there was something new that was so hard to associate with the workaholic academic. Martin swallowed tightly. Falling in love in incrimants. That’s how he’d thought of it. Only now it was falling in love in bumbling leaps and bounds as he thought of Jon with a cat, curled around it with a soft expression that Martin only been able to catch glimpses of.

Martin made the executive decision to shove his face into the blanket and try to think of nothing.

At some point, he did start paying attention to the documentary with the return of boredom, heart wrenching in sympathy for the penguins as they tried to do their thing but seemed to meet hardship at every turn. Gradually, he unfolded himself once more and sat properly to pay attention, arms folded on his lap, warm beneath the hotel quilt.

He didn’t think it had been that long, maybe fifteen minutes, before he heard sounds of shuffling from his right and he turned in time to see Jon carefully slipping from his bed, crossing the short distance between them on bare feet on hotel carpet. Martin forced himself to remain perfectly still, scared that any movement would drive Jon away again. That was probably the documentary getting to him.

Jon was staring at his own phone with a deep frown, practically scowling with enough force Martin was tempted to lean away, but then Jon was standing beside him and shoving said phone into Martin’s face.

Martin took it, perplexed, before his entire mind did a reboot as he realized that the screen was showing a picture of a very fat and very fluffy cat curled primly with a flat expression made only more profound by his aggressive amounts of fur. “That’s the Admiral,” Jon informed him reproachfully.

“Oh,” Martin said, soft. It wasn’t clear if that was because of the very good cat or because Jon was standing beside him with his arms crossed, perhaps trying to look grumpy, but instead he sort of came across as proud. Martin convinced himself to look back at the phone again, cheeks darkening. “He’s a very nice cat.”

“I have more photos,” Jon said immediately, leaning down so he could swipe through his own phone. Sure enough, Martin was subjected to many pictures from many angles of the same tubby cat, whether that was sprawled in a sunbeam, lounging by a food dish, or loafed on top of someone’s paperwork. It wasn’t that Martin didn’t enjoy every single one, but it was hard to focus with Jon pressed so near, hair gently burshing him every now and again. “I have joint custody of him along with my, uh… friend, from uni. He lives with her currently, but sometimes I get to be with him through video calls.”

There was that mention of a friend again. Maybe the same one from earlier? Martin’s mind was reeling from the revelations, and the many, many good cat pictures. Between the photos were a few other things, like shots of statements and their numbers, but a few photos seemed to contain this aforementioned friend, always the same woman, usually in selfies holding the cat smooshed to her face. That was all Martin saw though, as Jon pulled his phone away brisky when there began to be more statements than cat and Martin even saw the photo of the wedding invite scroll by.

“Thank you,” Martin said faintly. “For showing me.”

“Oh, uh.” Jon’s ears were red again, Martin noticed. “It’s… sorry. Um. Sorry for spamming you with photos. I know you probably don’t care and it’s annoying but-”

“Jon.” And somehow Martin’s hand had ended up on Jon’s arm, keeping him from fleeing. He was warm. It wasn’t bad. “It’s not annoying. It’s… I like your cat. He’s a very good cat. Um. Thank you for showing him to me.”

Then Jon did something profound. He offered Martin a smile, that was small and barely moved his cheeks, but it felt so genuine that Martin’s lungs got caught on themselves as he became lost in the essence of that smile. “Thank you, Martin.” Jon said softly, holding the phone close.

He left as Martin let go and his arm fell, went back to his side of the room, to his own bed, but Martin didn’t think he’d taken a breath until the noise of the documentary finally rushed back in, and he numbly turned his face toward the television screen although he didn’t see it. His head fell back into the pillows, giving him a view of the popcorn ceiling, and it was unclear exactly when he turned slightly so that his gaze could linger on Jon once more.

That was, of course, when Jon chose to glance his way as well, and suddenly the small smile was back again, somewhat pensively. “Oh. Are you going to sleep now, Martin?”

Martin let out a breath and returned his eyes to the ceiling, squeezing them shut briefly. Mentally, he was already calculating the most likely place he’d find a pad of paper and a pen, or maybe he could just type on his laptop but writing by hand always felt more organic… “Er, no, not right now. I was… thinking I’d get a bit of writing done, actually.”

“Oh. Alright then.”

Martin did end up finding a notepad and pen near the television in the room, and contented himself to carefully sounding out phrases in his head before writing them down, meticulously transferring each version of his work to a new page with new corrections. He wanted to test it out aloud, maybe ask if Jon had a tape recorder on him, but there was absolutely no way that Martin was going to let his boss know that he was curled up writing love poetry just a few meters away from the object of his affection.

Instead, Martin resolved himself to mentally parsing out lines and testing rhythms. It didn’t help that to write, he summoned back previous memories. Jon’s hand under his on the table, the candle light glowing soft in Jon’s eyes as the wax melted ever more. The way that every time he let go, Martin’s hand would feel bereft and cold, lingering with phantom touches that he could still summon to mind. It was like Martin was a ghost, drifting, but when he was connected with Jon he never felt more solid. Oh! That was good, better write that down…

Martin ended up working his way through a good chunk of the notebook, occasionally ripping a few good poems out to store in his bag for safe keeping. At some point though, he realized that his eyes felt tired and checked the bedside clock to see that it was definitely getting to be a late hour.

“What time did you say the ceremony was tomorrow?” he asked, turning on his phone.

“It starts at ten, but I would like to be there at least half an hour early so we have plenty of time to meet with my grandmother,” Jon said tersely. He was lying back in his bed, reading glasses removed and sitting safely on the nightstand. His arms were folded in his lap, fingers idly tugging on the quilt, eyes glued to the documentary that was still somehow going. “It’s not too far from the hotel though, so we won’t have to leave for the venue until a bit after nine.”

“Right.” Martin set his alarm, plugged in his phone, and gave an admirable attempt at getting comfortable in the starchy sheets and unfamiliar bed. He hadn’t slept anywhere that wasn’t his cramped London flat in quite some time, and he resolved himself to a somewhat restless night. In the background, the volume of the television was carefully lowered, and Martin let his eyes shut contently as he pulled the quilt up.

That wasn’t the end of it though. It never was.

Sure enough, he didn’t fall asleep. He was as comfortable as could be, cocooned and warm, and the documentary provided a nice background buzz, but the fact was that nothing was familiar to him, from the rattling of the air conditioning to the distant indistinct murmurs of other patrons of the hotel. To the beating of his own heart, a random rush of adrenaline when he heard Jon shift around, and was reminded sharply once more how close he was.

God, Martin couldn’t wait until Sunday. He thought about being back in his flat, this whole fiasco over, and finally after a week of restless exhaustion he’d be able to get a decent night’s sleep. Probably. Hopefully. Probably not.

At some point the light against Martin’s eyelids vanished, and he cracked them open to find that the television and lamp had been turned off, and that Jon was apparently hunkering down to sleep as well if the rustling of stiff sheets was any indication.

Inexplicably, Martin felt his face heating again, and a nagging part of his mind that embarrased everyone wondered faintly what it would be like to sleep next to Jon. Alright, completely unhelpful, please leave and stay with the love poems stashed in hiding, thoughts. Begone.

Martin tried to keep his eyes closed and sleep, he really did, but the now silence of the room just made him all the more aware of the rest of the hotel, of muted footsteps passing in the hallway, of distant traffic outside the window, of Jon’s soft breathing on the other side of the room.

Carefully, Martint turned over to face the other bed, and his eyes slipped open easily without a hint of exhaustion that he swore he had just a bit before. The harsh red of the nightstand clock said fifty minutes had passed since he’d first curled up to sleep.

That’s it, Martin thought idly. He was a statement giver now. He’d somehow fallen into limbo while staying at a cursed hotel where time doesn’t make sense and his crush had kissed his cheek.

His vision had long since adjusted to the darkness of the room, so now he could make out the shape of Jon, small, on the other bed. He had the quilt drawn up tight to his ears, long hair spread out on the pillow, facing away from Martin. Martin in turn had somehow managed to twist his own blankets into clumps that he was only half immersed in, and with a huff he sat up to straighten them out again, hoping that it might give his mind some peace once more.

He knew, idly flattening a hand over the stiff quilt, that this wasn’t all there was to it. The fact was that the faster he fell asleep, the faster tomorrow would come. The faster he’d be placed in front of strangers, trying to act out a script that barely existed as more than a sentence on a sticky note. As the terrible actor he was, he wouldn’t be able to lie about the way his face went red and breathless when his supposed boyfriend of ten months held his hand. Jon would be fine of course. He’d probably just be his gruff prickly self, tell people short lines, leaving Martin to give them both away. Maybe that was it. Maybe Martin was being bothered by the thought of Jon surrounded by basically strangers, hunched in on himself and strict in his mannerisms, the same man pulled straight from the Archives, and Martin would feel stiff as well, and whatever softness either of them had previously experienced would simply be burned up as they became strangers once more.

Tomorrow I might lose him, Martin thought quietly, and all of this will be gone.

His mind was soft enough, numb and muffled enough, that even as Jon turned over, eyes dark without the lights, Martin didn’t have the good sense to pretend not to be staring.

“Can’t sleep either?” Jon asked, voice no louder than the hum of the air conditioning. They both listened absently to another person walk in the hall with empty footsteps on hotel carpet.

“Too many thoughts,” Martin replied in barely a murmur. “What about you?”

“Thoughts as well.”

“About the wedding?”

“What else is there?” Jon mused, and even in the dark, Martin could make out the ghost of a smile. Or perhaps he was simply hoping too much.

Martin closed his eyes to take a breath, taking comfort in the way that he could still feel Jon’s eyes on him. “It’s going to be fine.”

“Mmm.”

Martin cracked his eyes back open. “What?”

“You sound like Tim and Sasha.”

“Well… they’re right, aren’t they?” Martin reasoned, his voice growing a bit louder, so he tried to tame it down, to let it fall back into the serene atmosphere inside the room where time held its breath and space watched with a sleepy visage. “We’re probably thinking too hard about it.”

“Are… Are you worried about the wedding too?” Jon asked, propping himself up a bit.

“Oh. Yeah, um, it’s just ah,” It’s just that I don’t think I can do this. It’s just that I know I’m going to let you down and whatever trust you’ve given me will be gone. It’s just that after all of this, how can things be the same, how can you look at me again when I fail at the simple things you’ve asked of me? “I’m just worried.”

Jon took long enough to speak that for a moment Martin was actually concerned he’d fallen asleep, maybe would have burned with jealousy at the thought, but Jon’s voice filled the echoes again. “Well… It’s, um. It’ll be fine.”

“Now who sounds like Tim and Sasha?”

“Not now, Martin,” Jon huffed. “You’re interrupting my point.”

“Oh, there was a point now, was there?” Martin teased, and now he could feel amusement welling up, to fill the emotional absence that came with the twilight of night.

“Hush. It’s just-.” A deep breath taken in the darkness. “Out of… Out of everyone, I’m uh, glad it’s… Well, that is to say, um. Well, I really didn’t plan on it going this way but maybe it’s best that it was, um… you. Who came with me.”

“Oh.” Oh. Martin turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling with wide pupils. Oh. Okay. Alright then. Yes, that’s fine. “Why’s that?”

There was more shifting, and Martin glanced over to find that Jon was resting on his stomach, blankets pulled up to his face again. “I’m not sure.” And muffled as it was, Martin wasn’t sure he was hearing him correctly. “It’s just… been nice, is all. You’ve been nice. Lovely.”

“Oh,” Martin repeated. Then, with a red face, “You’ve been lovely too, Jon.”

“Oh. Alright.”

“That was a compliment.”

“No, no, I understand.”

“You’re not allowed to reject it,” Martin told him firmly and with bravado and a slight yawn. “I think that should be a new rule.”

There was an indignant huff. “I’m your boss.”

“Mmm. How’s that working out for you?”

“I-! Er, how-! Um, uh, how dare-“

Martin closed his eyes and took a breath, aware of the sensation of his own cheeks stretching to accommodate his own small smile. He was tempted to kick away his newly spread out quilt to feel cold again instead of warmth, at the thought that Jon might be smiling to the dark too. Yet when he whispered next, it was firm, amused. “Goodnight, Jon.”

“Er, yes… right. Goodnight, Martin.”

And Martin drew up the quilt again and turned to face the wall, listening to Jon shuffling behind him. He didn’t last long though, before restlessness brought him back to staring at Jon’s bed minutes later, although Jon himself had turned away in that time. In the darkness, Martin stared at the gap between their beds, and wondered somewhere deep and churning if maybe he should have reached out. If it was too late now to hold hands again.

If, without the reasons of practice or appearance, Jon of his own free will would choose to reach out too, bridge the gap, and hold Martin tight.

That didn’t happen though.

In the end the distance was still too far, so Martin closed his eyes, curled tighter, and didn’t sleep.

“Phantom” by Martin K. Blackwood

You made me to walk these halls;
And to look through panes of frosted glass.
I was solid once; yet I never will be again.
I’ve been drifting since you pulled me from my body
And set your sights upon my soul.
I trust you still,
And will lean into every touch,
And live on every smile,
But you starve me all the same
Yet I don’t feel that hunger.
Have no lungs for breath
So I can’t ask you anymore,
Or tell you anything
About how every thank you leaves me floating;
Wanting something I can not attain.
It’s soft like wax.
Muted like flames.
Sharper than the pinpricks of your hand.
It’s Love, I think.
It’s always been Love.

I am the phantom of my heart;
The one you took from me.
Yet grant me a kiss once more
And I will return to thee.

Alive. Breathing. Yours.

Chapter Text

Exhaustion must have won at some point, because one moment Martin was lying curled in bed listening to Jon’s breathing, and the next he was waking up to the sound of an unfamiliar alarm and a bedside clock that read it to be several hours later in harsh red. Martin squinted harder… Wait, the time was what?!

There was shuffling, and the alarm apparently belonged to Jon, who reached out to turn it off on his phone. Then he sat up, long hair sweeping around him, and Martin stared at him as best he could through the dark as only streetlight lit the curtains.

“Jon,” he said, voice still groggy, his own brows scrunched.

“Sorry,” Jon whispered back distractedly. “I’m just going to start getting ready. You can go back to sleep.”

“Jon,” Martin repeated, a little more awake. “Jon it’s three in the morning.”

“Er, yes, that is correct.”

“Jon we don’t need to leave for at least six more hours. Jon-“

“Alright you can stop saying my name now,” Jon told him irritably. “I just don’t want to run out of time.”

“What do you need to do to get ready?” Martin asked, sitting up more while still trying to cling to a bit of drowsiness so that he could get a few more hours of rest once this was resolved.

“Oh, I was going to grab a shower, um, do my hair,” Jon continued when Martin made it clear he was waiting. “Uh, get dressed. Maybe do… a few other things.”

“And how long will it take you to do all that?”

“Um, maybe an hour or two I suppose, and then there’s breakfast-“

“Which will take about an hour,” Martin explained. “So then that’s three hours to get ready. You woke up with six.”

“Right, well-“

“Jon go back to sleep,” Martin told him flatly. “It’s three in the morning. Set a different alarm.”

“Ah, what time should I…?” Jon asked, raking a hand through his hair. He seemed tired, more so than usual. Martin could drink to that.

“I’ll be getting up six thirty,” Martin mumbled into his pillow as he rolled back over. “I don’t want to hear you up before six.”

“What about five?” Jon asked. “Just… Just in case.”

“Five thirty.”

“Deal.”

“Goodnight, Jon.”

“Right. Yes. Goodnight again, Martin… I suppose.”

Martin listened intently to the sounds of the quilt being drawn back and replaced, to the mattress creaking, until Jon was apparently comfortable once more. Then he sighed and closed his eyes, trying to uncover the lingering sleep within himself, fingers itching, love still bleeding somewhere in his heart.

Oh course, it only felt like he’d just started to drift off to sleep when an alarm that wasn’t his went off again. Oh for fuck’s sake-

He rolled over to check the clock. Five thirty. He watched idly as Jon got out of bed once more, pausing in the dark with just the glow of light blocked by the curtains to illuminate him. “Martin?”

“Mmmf,” Martin said eloquently, and rolled back over to curl up tighter.

“Right then.”

Martin still listened to Jon making his way across the room and into the bathroom, and a short minute later brought the sounds of the shower running. A part of him wondered if he should be intimidated by Jon showering so close, but the other part was already falling asleep again. God he couldn’t wait for the weekend to be over.

The next time Martin woke up, he felt distinctly irritated, but he was forced to acknowledge that this time it was his own alarm getting him up. Perhaps a bit too early, but like Jon he wanted to make sure he had a good window of safety in case of delays.

As he pulled himself up and secured his glasses, he took note that the other bed was still empty, blankets in disarray, and that while he couldn’t hear the shower anymore, what light there was in the room seemed to be emanating from the bathroom still. Carefully, he got up, stretching thoroughly and noting that Jon should have had a sixty minute head start, so he tried not to feel too bad when he knocked on the bathroom door. “Jon? Could I borrow the bathroom to take a shower?”

There was a thunk from within, and a sharp curse.

“...Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes. Just. I’m doing fine.” The door was pulled open sharply and there stood Jon and- Oh wow, Martin was now much more awake and aware, his heart already stumbling to beat a ridiculous amount.

Jon had apparently gotten dressed back into his sleep clothes with the new addition of a towel around his neck, but his hair had come a long way while Martin had been sleeping. Most of it was still let down in dark waves, dried but slightly damp, and he had a small braid running down his right side and another partially finished one on his left.

“Oh,” Martin said dumbly. “You look nice.” Complimenting Jon once was a mistake. Complimenting twice was sheer stupidity. Completement thrice and even God shall abandon you for your transgresions, what the fuck Martin he’s barely even done anything to get ready-

Jon startled for a moment, eyes a bit wide before narrowing, and he ducked down and tried to pass by Martin. “Yes, well, it’s a wedding, that’s sort of the point. To, um, look nice and all. Here, you can use the bathroom, sorry, excuse me.”

Martin wanted to say more, felt he should say more, but Jon had somehow already strided across the length of the room, and Martin was left standing stupidly in the doorway, lost in a way he couldn’t explain. Right. Well, he might as well try to get ready too. A shower might do a lot of good to clear… to clear whatever fog was making his mind lag behind. Yes, that was it.

In the end the shower did very little, except the heat of it gave him an excuse for his cheeks to still be pink. He basically stood there for an obligatory few minutes with his forehead pressed against the cold tiles, wondering if when he saw Jon again if his eyes would be just as mesmerizing or if Martin’s memory had been exaggerating.

It turned out that trying to effectively wash one’s hair while also shoving one’s face as far into the wall as it would go, begging an unknown deity for latent ghost powers to make peacing out of a situation far easier, was not as easy as one might hope. Eventually Martin gave up and stood straight like a normal person, zipping through his hair routine with efficiency as he remembered that Jon would be waiting for the bathroom and he was pretty sure that being a good fake boyfriend began with generosity and effective time management.

Martin stepped out, wrapped in the ragged softness of a hotel towel, which was a juxtaposition against the starchy sheets of the bed. He noted as he approached the bathroom counter that Jon had left out his cosmetics bag, which had a small cat on it, and that there was a selection of hair ties and hairpins left scattered about the surface of the counter.

Trying his best not to accidentally knock anything off, he paused briefly just to wipe a hand across the bathroom mirror, clearing a section where he could see his pathetic self with limp hair clinging to his forehead. “Today you’re going to be Jon’s boyfriend,” he told himself, and it was like a thousand lifetimes, a thousand past avatars, a dozen past Martin’s speaking into bathroom mirrors, collapsed into him and he felt a certain thrill of nervousness and anticipation spike through his spine. This was it. It was happening today. The ceremony was in a matter of hours and not days.

“God I’m not ready for this,” he mumbled, forcing himself to ignore his flushed face and get ready. Except… shit! Wait, fuck-! “Oh my god I’m not ready for this,” Martin whispered, horrified, as he realized he’d forgotten to bring the clothes he planned to wear to the wedding with him into the bathroom.

He stared at his pajamas sitting neatly folded on the counter, and then down at himself wrapped in a towel, then back at last night’s clothes, then at the door, then bit his lip.

“What would someone who’s not an idiot do in this situation?” he asked the ceiling. He knew the answer, but he also knew that his bed was the one nearest the bathroom, which meant that his luggage was only a matter of steps away, and his outfit for today had been set out on top in a fit of nervousness last night. Just a few feet. Just a few measly paces, and he wouldn’t even need to riffle through the rest of his clothes it would just be right there…

“Fuck it.”

Martin had acknowledged long ago that he was an idiot, a fool, an absolute court jester, and there was never any better time to act on it than in every present moment.

He flung open the bathroom door before he could think better of it, eyes flying to his suitcase without taking the time to acknowledge the rest of the room. “Sorry Jon don’t look! Just forgot my change of clothes! I just need to grab them real quick-“

“-Wha-? Martin! What-?! Why don’t you have clothes on?! Martin! Martin what are you doing-!”

“-I’m just grabbing some clean clothes just don’t look-“

“-Martin I’ve been looking! Martin why-wha-Martin-!”

Martin’s face was every flavor of red possible within the human scope of vision and embarrassment, and it was only by his own fortitude that he kept his eyes directly aimed at his clothes sitting on top of his open suitcase, voice growing ever higher in pitch, as Jon devolved into ever more stuttering.

“-See here they are I’ll just grab them real quick I’ll be another few minutes in the bathroom sorry-“

“-Oh god it’s fine just- just hurry up- Martin-!”

“I’m going, I'm going,” Martin said quickly, pulling his clothes taught to his chest with one hand, his other resting on his towel to make sure it stayed secure no matter what. He was doing so good, he really was, right up until he turned around to dive back into the safety of the bathroom, and his eyes swept the room, too slow this time, and he caught sight of Jon. His face was actually noticeably red for once, even from where it was sheltered by one hand, as Jon had his head averted and half turned away, his other hand moving wide in panicked gestures.

It all at once struck Martin again, as he slammed the bathroom door shut perhaps a bit too forcefully, turning the lock although he doubted Jon would dare come after him, that Jon was still in fact his boss, and that for all intents and purposes, Martin, save for the towel, had just paraded in front of his boss butt naked and still wholly expecting to keep his job. Just yesterday Martin had been saying that Jon didn't’ have the balls to fire any assistants, but that didn’t mean Martin actually wanted to test that statement and see if he was right! Not to mention Jon doubled as his actual crush whom ideally he’d want to like him back, and good impressions were not made by letting your crush see you in nothing but a towel with nothing underneath- Or, er, maybe they were? If your crush was Tim. Martin could be fairly confident in saying that seducing Tim was incredibly unlike seducing Jon, not that Martin had exactly attempted either...

God, at this point he needed to make an idiotic decisions bingo sheet. Already on the list was complimenting your crush who’s not supposed to find out you like him, agreeing to fake date your crush who’s also your boss, and telling your boss to his face that he doesn’t have the balls to fire you, and then suggesting that you hold hands as a way to definitely convince him you’re not in love with him. That was of course amongst other incidents, but Martin was pretty sure the last minute had officially topped the bad decision cake.

He ended up nearly falling several times in the confused rush to get dressed, and managed to whack his elbow on the side of the counter which only added to another bruise to compliment the one he got last night from jerking his knee into the table. It also knocked a few of Jon’s hair elastics onto the floor which he scrambled to pick up. Maybe he should clean the counter up a bit? Or was that overstepping some boundary? Martin really didn’t want the bathroom counter to end up like Jon’s desk at work, but in the end he decided just to leave it.

When he was done getting dressed, he ended up nervously smoothing out the new jumper he’d bought in the last week, which admittedly looked a lot like his other jumpers, but this one was new and a nice pastel pink. It was also, very, very soft, which secretly he’d been hoping Jon might like, if they ever had to- to hug, or something. It was just a thought. Better to be prepared. For a point where he and Jon might have to hug. Or something. God, was hugging Jon any more legal than kissing him-?

Martin perhaps stayed leaning on the counter for a bit longer than necessary after he finished checking his outfit in the mirror and fretting over it, but every time he’d glance at the door his stomach would do an uneasy twist. His hair was still wet so he got to work drying it, and he still needed to try and style it to the best he could, which never amounted to much, but the thought of leaving and facing Jon again really wasn’t sparking any joy-

There was knocking on the door. “Martin?” There was a weird lilt to it, quickly followed by the sound of Jon clearing his throat. “Er, are you almost done in there? It’s- It’s nearly seven now, and I, um, still have a bit of, ah, getting ready to attempt.”

Martin was already opening the door before he’d fully decided what to say, only knowing that thinking would take too much time and sometimes it was better to just do. Jon was standing there, hand still raised, although he drew it back in on himself. He’d finished his left braid since Martin had left him, and both braids were loose among the cascades of rippling dark brown hair down his back. Martin swallowed tightly.

“Y-Yeah, um, sure, here you go.”

He pressed himself flat against the door so that Jon could slip by, trying to decide if he should apologize for the mirror still being slightly fogged up at the edges, now with a hand smear on it, or if it would be better not to bring attention to it. He watched Jon, not really breathing, as the other man approached his cosmetics bag and started rooting through it. Their eyes met through the rapidly clearing mirror.

“Um, do you need…?”

“Oh, sorry, I was just- forgot I still need to do my hair too. Is the thing,” Martin said weakly.

Wordlessly, Jon took a step to the left. “Well, it’s a big mirror.”

“Right.”

Martin found himself near Jon again, swearing he could feel phantom warmth emanating from him, and tried desperately to focus on both getting his hair the rest of the way dry and getting it to curl correctly, which was a feat in itself.

Beside him, Jon was fiddling with his own hair, scooping it up, twisting it into the mimicry of a bun, then letting it fall again. “Right,” Jon said quietly, and his expression in the mirror was a reflection of intense concentration, the kind that he’d sometimes get in work when Martin would bring him tea and he wouldn’t so much as look up, eyes laser focused on his work with his brows drawn tight and papers frozen in his grip as he mouthed the words to himself. Now was something similar, and Martin go the distinct sense that Jon had all but forgotten about him, as he watched his own actual boss who was in fact his superior, shove all the scattered stuff to one side, brace himself onto the counter’s edge, then actually hoist himself up and on, competing with the sink for space and access to the defogged mirror.

Martin took a long moment to gawk, staring at Jon who was now sitting primply on the counter, legs drawn up, awkwardly twisted so that he could use the mirror to help maneuver his hair behind him, hairpins in his mouth, elastics around his wrist, and a comb and a brush haphazardly in reach.

“Uh,” Martin asked, wary of the chaos unfolding. “Do you, um, need help?”

“No, not right now, I’m fine,” Jon mumbled around the pins, in a way that more sounded like he was absently answering a broad range of possible questions and there was a good chance that he did not in fact realize that Martin had said anything at all. “Say, Martin, could you give me a hand?”

”Oh, uh, sure! I’m ah, not good at hair though I’ve never really had the experience-“

“Just put your hand here please, hold this,” Jon said, and without waiting latched onto Martin’s wrist, nearly unbalancing himself from his perch on the counter in the process, and moved Martin’s hand up firmly to apparently secure the braids out of the way of some sort of complex bun he was doing that Martin could not even fathom the inner workings of.

Martin froze, unbreathing, terrified he’d mess this up despite the fact that his job seemed to be just staying somewhat stationary as Jon frowned and twisted more in an effort to correctly assemble whatever the hell he was doing. Martin tried not to get lost in the feeling of Jon’s hair, very soft and smelling of fruity shampoo, and was forced to jolt slightly as Jon gave another, “here hold this,” and handed him an elastic and several hair pins.

Martin risked a glance at himself in the mirror to confirm that yes, his face was very red again, but at least Jon very much would not be noticing right now, as everything beyond his current field of concentration would be unfathomable to him.

“Right, you can let go now,” Jon told him, and proceeded to expertly twist the rest of his hair just so, before taking the time to fiddle with strands and move them around, plucking pins out of Martin’s hand on occasion like a penguin selecting the perfect stone, flittering to look back and forth over each shoulder to try and gauge at his efforts in the mirror. Martin was only able to observe the struggle for so long before he suddenly had an idea, as he spotted a handle peeking out of Jon’s bag, and he leaned over without thinking to pull out a handheld mirror with a crack running up its plastic grip.

“Here, would this help?” And something about the movement seemed to finally get Jon’s attention, as his eyes noticed Martin for seemingly the first time in the last several minutes.

“Oh yes, thank you, can you hold it a little higher please?”

Martin obliged, trying not to think about or get lost in the way that Jon’s intense focus was now directed in his general vicinity, and what it would be like to be the subject of that scrutinizing, hypnotic gaze.

“There,” Jon said with finality, and Martin blinked. Jon was twisting a bit to see himself better, something like a fraction smile on his face, as he turned around with minimal grace on the bathroom counter so that Martin could get a better look. “What do you think, Martin?”

It was… Oh wow okay, let’s fall a little more in love, shall we?

Jon’s hair was twisted up into a bun, which was nothing new admittedly, but he had a braid on either side of his head crowning him, which were also pulled back and twisted artfully into the bun, swirling in a way that Martin couldn’t help but be lured to. That, mixed with Jon’s half smile as he turned to look at him, brought a smile to Martins’ own face.

For a moment, they were both grinning, bathing in the euphoria of a hairstyle success.

That was, of course, until they both looked away awkwardly, Martin rubbing at the back of his neck while Jon turned back to the mirror, absently poking and prodding at bits without committing to anything, perhaps moving a hair pin deeper in. God, the amount of hair pins that Martin had seen him use-

“Do you want help?” Jon asked, voice a little loud. “Um, with your own hair?”

“Oh,” Martin squeaked. “Oh, um, no, probably not. There’s ah, not much more I can do with it. It’s, um, too short to braid anyway.”

Jon snorted, a sound that startled both of them, and then Martin swore that Jon’s face had a smile but he didn’t dare hope- “Well, I think I can do a small one, if that’s what you want,” Jon teased, and Martin’s heart did a flip.

“Alright.” What. What the fuck did his mouth just do without even consulting the rest of his brain what-

Jon stared at him for a moment, but before Martin could try to pretend it was just a continuation of the joke, Jon was nimbly scooting closer to Martin’s side of the counter, completing a perilous journey overtop of the sink and to the other side and only almost falling in four times. “Lean a bit closer. Do you want it on the back, or by the ear, or what are you thinking?”

“Um, your choice?” Was it claustrophobic in here or was Martin’s voice just literally shrinking and condensing into itself to become its own blackhole?

“Right, how about I just… Closer please, Martin.”

Martin’s face was very heated now, but he pressed against the counter obediently, ducking his head slightly to give Jon better access to his hair, which meant that Martin was becoming very well acquainted with the details of Jon’s band t-shirt. It looked faded and well washed with the rocketship logo peeling in places. He could see the dipping of Jon’s elbows into his line of sight, but other than that he could just feel the small deft movements of Jon’s fingers giving light tugs to a small bit of his hair on the side, and Martin found that he couldn’t breathe again.

At one point Jon cursed, pulled a little tighter, and then a minute later started feeling around the counter with one hand and Martin very surreptitiously nudged a plastic hair elastic into his path. Jon picked it up, applied it, then let go. “Right. Is that okay?”

He leaned out of the way so that Martin could see the mirror, and besides his very red face he could see a tiny braid on his left side that could be swept behind his ear. He leaned forward, intent to see it better, and only noticed a moment later that he was very nearly on top of Jon, who was trapped on the counter leaning awkwardly out of the way.

“Oh! Oh my god I’m so sorry-!”

“No, no, it’s quite alright-”

“-Sorry! The braid is amazing by the way.”

“Is it? I hope it's not too childish, but there’s not much to be done with short hair-”

“Oh I love it Jon,” Martin gushed, and only barely managed to restrain himself from slapping his own hands against his mouth. “I, um. I mean… thank you?”

“Er, your welcome,” Jon said tersely, and began the long arduous process of scooting over the sink and back to the other side of the counter to root through his bag. “I just have a few more things to take care of here and then we can go get breakfast, if you don’t mind waiting.”

“Oh! No, I don’t mind. Um, should I…?” Martin hovered in the doorway of the bathroom, glancing nervously between the rest of the hotel room and to where Jon was scowling as he dug around his cosmetics bag.

“Hmm?” Jon said, but he was already checked out of the conversation. That neglect, combined with Jon poised so primly, head arched to show off the braids twirling through his bun, had Martin stumbling from the bathroom to go wander to the otherside of the room. His face felt hot, and he knew ruefully that it wasn’t just the lingering heat from his shower.

Martin ended up idling for a moment in the middle of the hotel room, absently patting his pockets, running his hands over the soft material of his jumper, twisting a finger through his hair, just trying to figure out what he should be doing next. He felt ready. He was ready, he thought. Was there anything else…?

One of the walls had a heavy looking decorative mirror, and Martin paused in order to assess himself, hoping a visual might help him hone in on something he might be missing. It was just… he never really got the chance to dress up for things, not that he really had much to dress up with, but there were some days where doing a little extra just felt… fulfilling.

He ran a finger over the bumps of the tiny braid, half obscured by other curls. Traced it all the way down to where it ducked behind his ear. Absently found himself fiddling with his earlobe. Oh! That was something he could do!

He dug through his bag, having had the forethought to bring anything that he remotely might want to wear for the wedding, and victoriously brought out a small plastic baggie with a selection of earrings he’d nervously shoved in. He’d pierced his ears back in highschool and frequently wore earrings in early adulthood, but he’d petered off the last few years to the point where it had been several months since he’d remembered to wear any, since he only ever wore them outside of work. Still, when he’d been packing, nervously shoving in a few selections of outfits, the small box of jewelry on the corner of his dresser had caught his attention enough that he’d remembered to tuck away a few sets.

Martin tried on a few pairs of studs, half obligatory. Some circular black ones, some square white ones, that should compliment his outfit. But he knew there was a pair he really wanted, and after some hesitation, he allowed himself to indulge.

They were a larger set of studs, a bit heavy especially after going so long without, and were shaped to be soft pink roses set against gold. Martin had fallen in love with the colour all those years ago when he’d first seen them in a store, and had toyed with the idea of dyeing his hair a similar shade. To see them glinting on his earlobes, subtle in their hue, large enough to garner a bit of attention past his curls, and a matching pastel with his jumper, Martin allowed himself a slightly satisfied smile and a tight twist of his heart.

That was, of course, when Jon decided to abruptly come charging out of the bathroom, and without real reason Martin jumped and his hands flew to cover his ears as if there was something to hide because it didn’t- he wasn’t sure if-

“Sorry, Martin, I’ll just be another minute and a bit,” Jon was already saying. He went past Martin without even a glance, over to root through his luggage. “I just need to get dressed and, uh, do a few other things, and then we can head down for breakfast.”

“Oh! Yeah, ah, of course. Take your time,” Martin replied, hands moving to be clutched to his chest, a little unsure of what he should be doing, as he watched Jon march right by again without looking Martin’s way, listened to the shutting of the bathroom door before he finally let out a breath.

“Right,” Martin mumbled. He glanced back over at the mirror, let one finger run over the edges of the flower jewelry. Took a breath. Now that he was thinking about it… it would be fine, wouldn’t it? Or Jon could just tell him if it wasn’t. He’d never worn earrings around Jon before. Not that Martin needed or was looking for permission or anything to know what he liked and to wear it, but if Jon didn’t think it would be a good idea… if his family wasn’t… if… It was just the conversation in the car, the ‘ah, that makes sense’, the bitterness that corresponded with it. If Jon wanted to avoid it, to avoid playing into things and stereotypes and roles, then Martin could go without the earrings. That was all there was to it. Right.

He ended up having to wait around a bit for Jon, something anxious twisting in his gut. He sat himself back down on the bed, fiddled with his phone, tugged at an ear, watched the clock tick forward. It wasn’t that long of course, but every minute felt like ten when you had somewhere to be, before Jon opened the door and stepped back out. He scanned their hotel room briefly, as if expecting someone else to be there, pausing long enough to draw Martin’s attention and oh. Oh.

If Martin had thought that his face had been all possible shades of red and pink already, then he had just discovered a new colour. Jon was one picture of movement, a swirl of something phantasmal and elegant, as the long black skirt he was wearing coallessed and expanded around his ankles at the whims of his steps, flaring as he walked. He had a soft looking light brown cardigan overtop of a patterned top, and all at once Martin was overcome with the need to see if it was actually as soft as it looked, to wonder what the fabric felt like.

God it wasn’t- It wasn’t even the same shock as seeing Jon wearing something as casual as pajama bottoms and band t-shirts instead of the jumpers and tweed vests. It was the shock of elegant, airy casualness that somehow sucked Martin’s breath away and yet returned it all the same.

Wait, fuck, how long had Martin been staring, with Jon looking like he was caught in traffic, unsure of which way to turn?

“You look nice,” Martin said dumbly, because obviously he had to say something. Oh good, there was that yelling within his brain again.

“Oh,” Jon said just as dumbly. “I, um, was just about to ask, um, if I looked alright?”

You look perfect, amazing, gorgeous, an absolutely beautiful person I will never stop having a crush on for as long as I live- “Oh. Yes. You look very alright, Jon. Um. I like the skirt?”

Martin watched as Jon’s fingers bunched into the fabric, as Jon took a hesitant step back. “Really? You don’t, ah, think it’s… weird?”

Martin blinked briefly, felt the tightrope out before him. Took a breath, felt the smile as he looked back up to meet Jon’s gaze. “I think it’s lovely, Jon. Why would I think anything else?”

Jon’s eyes widened just a fraction, and Martin missed the exact moment that his ears went red, but then Jon was very deliberately looking to the side and away from Martin, finding something interesting in the hotel patterned carpet. “You know… I think I made a mistake.”

“Oh…?” Shit, fuck, what had Martin said to make him think that, oh god how had he screwed this up he thought he’d been supportive-

“Yeah,” Jon said ruefully, looking back up, and there was something to his expression that Martin couldn’t pinpoint. “You see, I was under the impression that Martin had come with me on this trip, but now I see I’ve actually just brought Tim along, since he’s decided to try to use his filing clerk wooing prowess on his own boss.”

“Oh.” Oh, oh thank god it was just a- “Jon, are you making a joke?”

Now Martin could see it, the glint to Jon’s eyes, the barest upturn to the corner of his lips, even as he delivered in a perfectly flat tone, “Well I certainly hope you don’t think I’m being serious.”

How had Martin ever thought differently? He grinned, a full bloomed smile, and actually found himself giggling, because it was just so absurd, and Jon was standing there with his arms folded and a downward glare and now he was looking up uncertainty as Martin bursted into laughing, and god Martin couldn’t stop-

“I, um, did you,” Jon began uncertainty. “Did you not think I was joking?”

“N-No! I just, um.” But Martin didn’t dare go revisit what had already passed. Instead he managed to pull himself together, still unable to help smiling at the way that Jon seemed to be flustered, arms still tightly crossed but with just as much of a glare as helplessness. “Here, smile!” And without hesitation Martin brought up his phone, deftly swiping to the camera app. This time he wasn’t quick enough for Jon’s guard to be down, but there was still something endearing about his petulant scowl as he absolutely glared at the camera with unmitigated vitriol.

“Martin!” Jon snapped, but it only made Martin’s grin grow wider.

“Come on, Jon, it’s just a few photos,” Martin argued back.

“Absolutely not. I thought we were past all this picture business,” Jon replied tersely with a tight wave of his hand, eyes flicking around the room with a frantic nature as if he thought Martin was either going to attack him or take another photo, and with the preparedness of a man ready to dive behind the nearest furniture should that happen.

Martin glanced up at him, making a face he hoped conveyed how ridiculous that sentence was. “I said I thought it’d be best if I had a few pictures of you on my phone. So, um, now’s as good of a time as any to have a few more pictures.”

Jon made a sputtering noise. “Um, no? I'm wearing the same outfit I’ll be wearing at the wedding Martin, isn’t that, oh I don’t know, a little suspicious?”

“Not really. Why wouldn’t I have pictures of you before the wedding? You can take some pictures of me too,” Martin went on. “Make it even.”

“How does that make it-!” Jon huffed, throwing his hands up. “Now is really not the time, we’re on a schedule, we’re…” He glanced at the bedside clock. “... admittedly a bit early. Fine, just-! Fine. What am I supposed to do?”

“Oh, uh, just smile? I mean, if… if you don’t want to Jon then that’s okay-“

“No! No whatever I just,” An incredibly world weary sigh. “You have a point, is all.”

Jon stiffly gathered himself, obviously biting back a scowl, head turned slightly off to the side. He offered what, Martin could only assume, was Jon’s carefully studied concept of a smile but it was... No. No it was not what Martin would consider a smile. It was, ah, the physical expression, mouth upturned yes, but more forced than any customer service smile Martin had ever presented on a bad day. It brought a huffy laugh out of Martin, which immediately returned Jon’s scowl, which softened incrementally after a moment and offered a much nicer expression. The lighting in the room still wasn’t the best, but that didn’t mean that Jon didn’t look, well, amazing as Martin took the photo. Hypnotic in a way that Martin couldn’t explain, drawn to the sharpness of his eyes that- Wait. Was… was that...?

“Oh. Are you, um, wearing mascara?” Martin asked eloquently, lowering the phone.

Instantly Jon’s shoulders were drawn up, eyes shifting from the hotel carpet to Martin to back down again. “...Yes. A little.”

“Oh. Um. It’s very nice.”

Jon looked up at him again, his face somehow softer although Martin couldn’t place what it was, but maybe it was just that there was the slightest upturn to the corner of his lips. Another picture taken. “Well. Um. I certainly hope so. That is the point, isn’t it?”

Martin tried to formulate a response. Tried to acquaint himself with Joke Jon, as was apparently his new identity, but he never even had the chance before Jon was suddenly pulling out his own phone and holding it up and wait, stop- “Smile, Martin.”

“What-!” Martin yelped, and he was painfully aware of the shutter noise the phone made but he still tried to hold up a hand to partially obscure his face.

“Come on Martin,” Jon said, a teasing lilt to his voice. “You were the one who said it was only fair that I got to take pictures of you too.”

“Oh well yes but just- I wasn’t ready for it!”

“Mmm. Now doesn’t that sound familiar?”

“Oh come on Jon-” But Martin had made the mistake of lowering his arm, and he winced as the damning shutter sound went off again. Still, he tried to school himself with a quiet huff, moving his arms to brace himself against the bed behind him, and doing his best effort of a genuine smile as he looked up at the camera. He was pleased to hear the shutter click again now that he was ready for it, and even more pleased that Jon lowered the phone after. “Are we done here now?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jon said with a raised eyebrow. “Are we done Martin?”

They stared at each other for a moment, before each turning away.

“...We should be getting breakfast.”

“Right.”

The rest of their getting ready was done in silence as they gathered their things and put on their shoes. Martin tried to keep his head down, getting ready with efficiency, but kept finding himself distracted by Jon and the- the movement that he possessed now. The swirls of the skirt with each start and stop, the fluttering cardigan still a size too large for him, the way he rolled up the loose sleeves. It was- Jon was alive and vibrant and he was everything and Martin could only think back to one of his poems stuffed into hiding in his backpack. If only Martin could be as alive and- and resplendent like that...

Somehow they ended up in the hallway, Jon tugging the room door closed and making sure it was locked, and Martin glancing down the hall, realizing that people were actually awake and about now, travelling back and forth. He saw a couple holding hands lazily walk by, head resting on a shoulder, and he found himself craving a phantom weight before he jumped slightly at Jon’s voice behind him.

“Right. Shall we go then?”

“Should we hold hands again?” Martin blurted, ripping his eyes away. Oh god oh god what the fuck brain what the fuck?! “Er, I mean, can I hold your hand?” That was not better! Now Jon was looking at him and Martin definitely shouldn’t have initiated this, he didn’t want to make Jon uncomfortable, he was probably already going to be uncomfortable today there was no reason-

“Oh. Um, alright. Last minute practice doesn’t hurt I suppose,” Jon said simply, and he reached out, and with deft ease that Martin could never hope to achieve he somehow got their hands interlocked and-! Jon’s hand was warmer and softer than Martin remembered, and all at once it was like he couldn’t breath yet was breathing too much, his blood carrying too much oxygen so his brain could do nothing but work harder and chase useless thoughts and wonder about how Jon’s hand could possibly be so small and warm and delicate and how was this okay or even legal-

When Jon moved forward toward the lift, absently tugging on their linked hands, Martin could do nothing but follow. He was caught, hook, line, and sinker, by his brain’s own stupidity and the dumb luck the universe gave him for no other reason than to watch him suffer.

Unfortunately, Martin did not have the forethought to have considered the elevator. It was painful enough waiting for it, absently reassessing himself in the nearby decorative mirror, watching as Jon poked at his own hair again. Within the lift it was worse. It was several suspended moments of pure awkward silence, trying not to move too much next to Jon, to not jostle him, yet being increasingly aware of his own paranoia that his hand was probably growing sweaty and the instant he moved Jon would realize that and he’d never want to hold his hand again and-

“Oh, I think I forgot to mention,” Jon spoke up from beside him. “I, um. Like your earrings. And jumper. They’re a very nice colour.”

“Oh,” Martin said intelligently, unconsciously bringing up his free hand to run a finger along the edges of one rose stud. He glanced down at Jon, who was so close to him, absently tracing his eyes over Jon’s hair and past his ear and- Oh. “You, um, have your ears pierced too?”

Jon’s hand shot up in a mimic of Martin’s own initial panic, fingers pinching at the two slight indents in the earlobe that Martin had somehow only noticed after seeing them from so close. Actually, there were two small bumps in the cartilage at the top of his ear too. Had- had Jon gotten an industrial piercing as well? “I, um. Got them pierced years ago… in uni.”

“Oh.” Martin bit his lip, but he couldn’t help but end up asking, “Was it, ah, because you were in a band?”

“What? No! No...” Jon said tightly, wincing. “Well, I suppose a little. Yes? But more so no.” The mascara, Martin noted, made Jon’s eyes that much sharper when he glared up at him. “What about you? When did you get yours pierced?”

“Oh. Um. Highschool.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, uh, probably not how you’re supposed to do it though,” Martin ventured, cheeks a bit red. “Another kid did it for me with a safety pin.”

“Oh. That’s, uh…” The elevator slowed, jostling them a bit, and for just an instant Jon’s shoulder was leaning on his arm, leaving with a warmth quickly missed. “Sounds painful?”

Martin huffed as they stepped out of the lift, hands still linked. “Not as painful as the infection was,” he said dryly and there was, alright, there might have been a bit of nostalgia in his voice, but he remembered being so pleased at the time. Not with the infection of course, but with the contentment of having been able to get something he wanted. It hadn’t been getting his hair dyed like he originally desired, but it had been close. Actually maybe… maybe he should do that sometime. Indulge himself and buy some hair dye to use at home, except he’d probably need to get it bleached first…

He got too distracted to hear Jon’s reply, but then before he could ask him to repeat it they’d reached the restaurant. There was a waitress this time, ready to seat them, and for a moment Martin longed for their table next to the window from last night, so he could craft a eulogy for himself over candle flame, but instead they were seated near the center of the room, which was significantly more busy with the breakfast rush.

As they were shown their table, made for two, Martin got inexplicably overwhelmed. No doubt the waitress thought they were together and dating- God everyone they passed in the significantly more awake hotel probably thought they were a couple or maybe just really good friends depending on the person- and Martin had no idea what to do with that.

But then Jon’s hand was slipping easily from his, almost as if it had never been there to begin with, as Jon took a seat with the graceful swirl of his skirt. Martin sat too, much less gracefully. The table felt too big between them, and yet too small. Martin’s brain demanded them to hold hands again, but the better, more socially conscious part of his brain decided the best course of action was to stand up and leave and go find a nice ocean to throw himself into.

But because Martin was unsure of where the closest body of water was, he instead placed his drink order alongside Jon and picked up his menu, determined to decide on what to order before whatever nonsense was about to happen, happened.

It turned out that nonsense was not a lot. Jon seemed distracted, sitting idly with his head on one hand after they ordered, never quite looking at Martin, or so Martin thought. But after awhile he began to realize that Jon had actually been glancing his way a few times now.

“Jon?” Martin asked, having caught him staring again, but this time Jon didn’t look away, tense, biting his lip. “What, ah-“

“The piercings are lopsided!” Jon blurted.

“What-!” Martin exclaimed, hands flying to his ears.

“Sorry!” Jon said, eyes wide. “I didn’t mean-! What I meant was… I just noticed? Um, you mentioned the safety pin thing and I got thinking about how good of a job highschool teenagers could do at piercing ears so then I got staring and I just noticed that they aren’t… perfectly symmetrical?”

“Jon!”

“It’s not that noticeable!” Jon insisted. “I didn’t notice at all until I was looking for something, I- I actually think it’s interesting? It… gives character?”

“Character,” Martin repeated flatly, still holding his studs between his fingers, unwilling to take them away. He remembered studying himself in the mirror as a teenager and knowing they were a bit crooked, but he just sort of forgot after all these years... “Really?”

“Yes, really!” Jon huffed, folding his arms and looking away. “Character is a good thing.”

“Sure, Jon.”

“It is!”

Martin tried for a smile, and even managed to drop one hand, but he still couldn’t help fiddling with a rose stud with the other. God he wasn’t even sure what to do with- with the information that Jon had been looking at him all this time. And he’d hardly noticed. And what did that say about Martin? And why was he someone worth staring at?

“...I was also thinking I should start wearing earrings again myself,” Jon ventured after a moment. “It’s… been awhile.”

Their eyes met across the table.

“It’s been awhile for me too,” Martin admitted, glancing away. “I thought job hunting would be easier without.”

“I… thought it’d be more professional without,” Jon confessed. Martin let out a snort before he could stop himself. “What?!”

“Nothing, just you and,” Martin paused. “Professionalism.”

“Yes, well, I am your boss. I am supposed to be upholding a certain level of standard that…” Jon trailed off at the flat look Martin was giving him. “Right. Well um. Right.”

Martin looked away again before his face revealed any fondness, and instead vyed for distracting himself in the usual way: by being on his phone as he replied to good mornings from Tim and Sasha, and ignoring their not so subtle nagging about if there had been any cuddling last night. Which of course, brought Martin’s thoughts right on back to Jon again, and to the fact that the restaurant curtains were opened, letting in a healthy dose of sunlight that even managed to reach their table, highlighting Jon’s careful bun just precisely, and adding a glimmer to the far off look in his dark eyes, the depths of which were like tar for Martin to become ensnared in, never escaping, always yearning, time to wake up and return to the present Martin-

The clink of their food being served managed to bring him back, but it didn’t last. Except slowly, it began to be that Martin was getting to be more distracted by Jon’s movements than his looks. He kept shifting every few minutes, sparing glances at the window or checking his phone between bites of food. It was all starting to set Martin on edge, worrying him despite the fact he knew he didn’t have to worry yet.

“We’ve still got time,” he suggested, hoping to diffuse whatever was amassing.

“Yes, yes, I know,” Jon replied tersely.

“Um. Is something…?” The matter? Bothering you? Will asking make it worse?

“Nothing,” Jon said immediately. He ran a hand over his hair, fingers becoming feather light to check his bun, scarcely risking moving anything. It was only then that he tilted his head up enough to meet Martin’s eyes, and Martin could see that the slight smile there was only professional. “Just. Um. H-How’s your food, Martin?”

“Oh, um, good, I-“ Martin could see a desperate plea for small talk when it was presented to him, so he tried to engage as best he could. He answered, then asked Jon about his own meal, then made some offhand remark about what a nice day it seemed to be shaping up to be. Scraps of things that were dry and brittle, difficult to find and harder to articulate in any manner resembling casual. Yet for better or worse they both persevered, even after their meals were finished, before finding reprieve and haven within their phones as what could generously be called conversation died away.

The instant the digital clock on their phones flicked to nine on the hour, Jon was up from his seat, having paid the bill already, leaving them idling away the extra minutes. “Shall we get going then?”

Martin tried to keep pace, but by the time he’d gathered his jacket and pushed in his chair, Jon had already thrown him off by offering up his hand. This time, there was no confusion about accepting, and Jon all but dragged them from the restaurant and up to their rooms again.

They got ready to leave quickly and in silence. Martin double checked he had everything on him, his wallet, his jacket, his unrequited and extremely bothersome crush on his boss, the extra room key, before he hovered by the doorway. Jon was taking a second longer, checking hair, fiddling with his clothes, before he too joined Martin at the door. “Right. Ready to go?”

Jon seemed even more distracted as they went back down the endless lengths of the hotel hallway. He kept tugging on the ends of one sleeve, scowling down at the floor, and when they were waiting for the elevator, he paused to stare at himself in one of the decorative mirrors set above a fake brittle plant.

The lift dinged, and the doors opened. Martin stepped in. Jon did not.

“I’ll, um, meet you in the lobby,” Jon said quickly, flashing Martin the fakest grin he’d seen in all his years of retail working. “Just, um. Forgot something in the room.”

The elevator doors closing didn’t exactly give Martin an opportunity to protest, and the next thing he knew he was alone in a simultaneously too vast and too small metal box with nothing except a newfound concern for Jon he didn’t know how to articulate. It… the wedding was certainly a dawning terror in their life, one that Martin kept forgetting about, before jolting into remembrance and dread. He could already feel a first bout of adrenaline overtaking him, and he tried to shake it out before he was out in the lobby and back in public. Was… Was Jon just distracted with that? He must be. It was sort of a daunting task, lying to everyone, pretending to be in love, or a lack of pretending in Martin’s case.

Martin had to dodge around some other patrons as he left the lift, still descending into his own thoughts. He tried to find a place to sit down and be out of the way of everyone, but the lobby was a lot more busy now than it had been late last night. He ended up on a stiff cushioned chair, on edge, fiddling with some pamphlets he found on the low table. If he slid a few flyers into his coat pocket then no one would be the wiser.

It felt like forever and no time at all, when, on Martin’s one hundredth nervous glance upwards, his own leg bouncing with a sort of consistent adrenaline, he finally spotted Jon hurrying over from the elevators.

He didn’t register what was wrong right away. Just that something was different, although he couldn’t pinpoint what. But as he rose to greet Jon, he finally picked it out.

Jon wasn’t the same blur of swirling movement he’d been all morning. Sure, the loose edges of his soft looking cardigan flared out with his rapid approach, but the skirt full of alluring whirls that Martin was staring at all day... had been unceremoniously replaced by a pressed set of trousers.

Martin blinked, trying not to stare, but there was that dread in the back of his mind. The knowledge that… that...

Jon made no mention of the clothing swap. He simply greeted Martin with a barely there grimace of a smile before nodding impatiently in the direction of the hotel doors. “Shall we be going then?”

“Jon…” But Martin wasn’t sure what to ask. Wasn’t sure if he could ask. So instead he just went with, “...Are you okay?”

“What? Yes. Of course. I’ll be better once we get to the venue though, so let’s be going,” Jon rambled, something tight to the corner of his eyes, already edging in the direction of the doors. But he must have caught something in Martin’s expression, something he wasn’t quick enough to hide, because just a bit, Jon’s shoulders seemed to drop. He let out a heavy breath, the kind that he used when Martin brought him tea at an inconvenient time, or when he’d walk past the bullpen only to see all his assistants having a competition on who could find the cutest cat video and wanting his opinion. That sort of overly weary sigh. “It’s just… We’re going to be sitting a lot, Martin. Trousers were more practical.”

And Martin said, “Of course.”

And Jon turned away.

And that was all there was to it.

(Or, Martin knew, that was all that would be said.)

Jon took the lead exiting the hotel, leaving Martin bereft and staring after him. He moved too quickly, so Martin was forced to resolve himself to simply keeping up, and to not pay attention to the uneasy itch beneath his skin, and to not fall behind and be lost like the memory of a black skirt made of movement.

Chapter Text

They were idling in the parking lot, staring at the sprawling green park before them tucked neatly between city buildings. Across the cut lawn was the setup of white folding chairs, flower woven arches, and deliberately laid petals amongst a thin array of nicely dressed guests and staff.

For a moment, Jon and Martin just stared through the windshield, taking it in, neither quite sure how to speak again.

The drive had been largely quiet, with Jon maintaining a white knuckled grip on the steering wheel, shoulders growing stiffer every time Martin glanced over. Martin, meanwhile, found himself trying to ignore the anticipation that coiled thickly in his gut, giving him a faint nausea which he tried not to entertain.

They hadn’t talked much.

Martin wasn’t even sure if he remembered how to speak. He couldn’t think of words, all he could think of was the repetition of the line ‘it’s happening’ over and over within his brain, and a faint undertow of worry for Jon that only grew stronger the longer they drove without a word exchanged.

He swallowed now, glancing over to the driver’s seat. “Should we be going?” he ventured, but made no move to open the door himself. The engine of the car was still running, a background noise to ease the mind, although the vehicle was in park, and their seatbelts were still fastened.

“I don’t see her,” Jon responded distractedly, eyes never leaving the venue before them.

“...Sorry?”

“My grandmother,” Jon elaborated vaguely. “I don’t think she’s here yet.”

“Oh,” Martin said. He remembered Jon talking about his grandmother at the start of the week, before this nightmare began. In the archives, looking hunched and miserable and uncomfortable, enough to make even Tim give in. It wasn’t nice that Martin was reminded of that moment now. The grandmother. The one they needed to impress. The real reason for all of this. “Are you sure she’s coming?”

“I am,” Jon said, a bit too quickly. “I’ve been keeping tabs on the Facebook group. She’ll be here for sure, just… not yet.”

“Oh,” Martin repeated. “Do you… want to wait for her out there? Or here in the car?”

Jon made a small keening noise then, which sounded simultaneously like an agreement, disagreement, and a plea for death. Martin could empathize deeply.

“Let’s just wait in the car then,” he suggested gingerly. “Do you, um… Can I ask what’s wro-“

“What am I even supposed to say to her Martin!” Jon blurted, throwing his hands up and off the wheel and Martin’s eyes tracked the movement as he jolted back. “I don’t-! There’s- There’s no script to follow! What am I supposed to do, tell her that hey grandmother, sorry I don’t have a girlfriend anymore, but look! I have a new boyfriend now! So that’s cool anyway I’ll just be leaving this wedding now, don’t ask follow up questions please-!”

“You had a girlfriend?” Martin questioned, lagging briefly, before his mind caught up and Jon sent him a sharp scowl. “Sorry, sorry! Not the point! I, um… I mean, why not just say something like that?”

“Here is my boyfriend, don't ask me questions?”

“N-No, um, just about how you have a new boyfriend now, his name is Martin Blackwood, and um, you broke up with your girlfriend.” Oh yes Martin just weasel your name in that’s not weird or anything this is all going fine-

One of Jon’s eyebrows raised pointedly upwards, and Martin’s gaze followed its journey with a sinking feeling. “Really? It’s that easy, then?”
Martin tried not to wince at the seething tone. “Yes, really,” he said back, voice stiff, something in him recoiling at being talked down upon again. Probably not the best time to nearly snap at his boss, but it wasn’t like Martin was in the most relaxing of scenarios right now.

“Well, alright, why don’t you show me then?” Jon said, voice still reedy. “Pretend to explain to your grandmother or mother or father or whomever the situation.”

Martin winced, but powered on. Jon didn’t know about his family, just like he didn’t know about Jon’s. That wasn’t the point of any of this anyway. The point was to get Jon thinking straight again, to relieve whatever tension had caused his voice to shake and his fingers to curl into his palms.

“Hullo mum,” Martin began eloquently, trying not to feel stupid for making eye contact and addressing a spot of air oh so politely. “I’m happy to see you’re doing well. I’ve been doing good as well, great actually! I have a new boyfriend you see, this is him. Yes, I did break up with my last boyfriend, I was meaning to tell you but we haven’t gotten the chance to talk in a while, but I really want you to meet my new partner.” Martin winced, turning back to Jon. “Or something to that effect. How long ago did you break up with your girlfriend?” Was this a sore spot? Was Martin being an asshole?

“Oh, back in uni,” Jon answered distractedly. “Just… sort of forgot to bring it up to her.”

“Uni,” Martin repeated, flabbergasted.

“Hush, I need to focus,” Jon muttered, clearing his throat. His eyes flicked closed, giving Martin a full view of the mascara splayed down over the tips of his cheeks, before he opened them again and fixed his gaze on a point over Martin’s shoulder, turning more in his seat to face Martin, and oh wow that sure was a lot of attention being directed awkwardly his way. “Hell- Hello grandmother. Yes, it is good to see you again too. Yes, I’m doing well myself. I, um, wanted to introduce someone important to you actually,” Jon continued, voice transitioning awkwardly into his best crisp, posh tone. “This is my boyfriend, Martin Blackwood.”

God, to hear it said aloud, directly from Jon’s lips, made something twist tighter within Martin, and he swallowed tightly, mouth dry, before giving out a chipper, “Hullo! It’s nice to meet you!” which was enough to startle Jon, who obviously wasn’t expecting him to reply back. Martin paired this with a short wave to the interior of the car. He did so in a manner that he hoped was friendly, but really just made Jon scowl and was a nice distraction from a case of inconvenient heart palpitations.

“This is stupid,” Jon declared, and Martin was about to reply something sarcastic back, maybe. A bit more banter. But he stopped because he wasn’t sure—it was difficult to tell, with Jon angled away from him, but he could almost swear there was the slightest upturn to his lips. The heart palpitations were very apparent now.

“We’re doing good,” Martin insisted, clearing his throat again to give his best customer service voice. “Hullo, Ms. Grandmother of Jon. Yes, I’m Jon’s boyfriend. We’ve been dating for awhile.”

“Ten months to be exact,” Jon added in dryly.

“So this is a well established relationship and not suspicious,” Martin continued. “Wouldn’t you agree, Jon?”

Finally, the smile was a bit more obvious. “Oh yes,” his voice was still a withering desert. “This is not a ploy to fool you at all grandmother. You see, I am capable of having a love life and definitely did not leave it to the last moment. I have had many people hanging off my arms since we last met. I am a very romantic person.”

“He is very romantic,” Martin added seriously, both of them deciding to be making eye contact with a leaf that had fallen onto the windshield. “I was swooned, genuinely, and not in a fake manner at all.”

“No fake dating to be found here,” Jon mused, and his voice had shook a little at the end, his shoulders trembling as he held a hand up to cover up his mouth. Martin was less subtle in suppressing his own snort of amusement, and they both relaxed back into the seats of the car, watching as more people arrived and congregated slowly. It would still be awhile until the ceremony started.

Suddenly Martin’s gut felt heavier again.

“We got this,” Martin said, into the open air. It had been empty. Saying it somehow made it full.

“We got this,” Jon mumbled into the steering wheel. “If only Sasha could see us now.”

“We’ve peaked.”

“We’re entirely competent.”

“The best, I’d say.”

“She’s here.”

“Sasha is?” Martin asked dumbly, right before his brain caught up with how stupid that was and where Jon was looking. He jolted up, following Jon’s eyes out the window. There were a few older people wandering around, so he wasn’t sure who Jon’s grandmother was supposed to be exactly, but Jon’s gaze was unwavering.

“Should we go then,” Martin ventured to ask, voice now gone quiet. He tried not to be disappointed that Sasha had not magically shown up at the wedding.

Jon breathed out, near silent, in the absence left as the keys were removed from the ignition and the background noise of the engine died away. “Alright. We’ve got this.”

The car doors gave a condemning thud as they closed behind them, and Martin had to take a moment to just reorient himself. His shoes crunched a bit on the grip of the asphalt as he moved, and the sun felt hot on his cheeks. A quick tug on his clothes to smooth them out. A quick run of his hand over his hair, catching on the small braid he’d forgotten about. Something in his heart twisted again, but it was overshadowed by nerves.

An elongated glance over the park revealed more guests than before, but there was still at least another thirty minutes before the ceremony started. Jon reconvened with him in front of the car, and for a brief moment they just exchanged nervous looks as they stared at the venue and the white and the flowers and the people.

Jon was compulsively smoothing down his cardigan again, Martin noticed, and feathering fingers over the bumps of the braids in his hair, checking the bun. Not that Martin could comment, when he felt as if he was already wearing the cuffs of the sleeves of his new jumper down to the fray. Jon’s eyes were steadfast, focused on where his grandmother was. Martin could make out who he thought it was now, a elderly woman, hunched, talking with other people quite a distance away, closer to the venue.

“Right,” Jon murmured, and it was barely a breath.

“Right,” Martin echoed, and it was none the louder.

Martin took the initiative this time, hand out, palm up, and was in turn privy to the way that Jon’s eyes lingered on the offering for just a moment, before he sighed shallowly and placed his hand on Martin’s.

It was weird, in a faint, phantasmal way. Jon’s hand might have been smaller, but it felt like Martin’s hand was the one being enclosed around and held.

On some unspoken cue, they left the safety of the shadow of their vehicle, and their feet moved from asphalt to grass as they made their way across the park and over to the venue. The white chairs. The flowers. The arch. The people.

It was very clear they were heading in a line straight for Jon’s grandmother. Jon’s footsteps were quick and efficient with purpose, so sure, that Martin doubted anything would be able to halt their approach. It turned out he was wrong.

There were still a few people making last minute arrangements to the set up as they passed by, moving a few things, unfolding the last chairs, tugging on the white piece of thin fabric that acted as a long carpet up the aisle. Somebody moved towards them, enough in their periphery that Martin didn’t take notice, until suddenly they were being hailed down by someone stepping in their way.

“Hey!” the man said with a laugh, and his eyes were bright as he looked at Jon. “I haven’t seen you at a family event in awhile.”

“Oh,” Jon said, a little too much like he was dying. “Yes, it has been awhile. Now if you’ll excuse me-“

“I think the last time was when we were still in school,” the man chuckled, somehow more in their way than before, and Martin felt the tinges of frustration, second hand from Jon. “What have you been up to, Jonny?”

“Just Jon,” Jon answered almost as tightly as his grip was on Martin’s hand, like he was a last lifeline. “I’ve been working. Anyway-“

“Oh, where at?” the man asked. Martin felt as though he might be dying.

“I do research,” Jon said curtly. “Again, if you’ll excuse me-“

“Hey, wait!” their assailant protested, “C’mon, it’s been years! I wanna know what my lil cousin has been up to! Like, uh, who’s this?”

Now Martin was suddenly being paid attention to, which was a novelty in itself. He tried not to let it get to him, or to feel like his finger bones were splintering in Jon’s grip, and he instead offered a pleasant and very social smile as he stepped forward with his free hand to shake. To clarify, Martin, in no capacity, actually wanted to shake hands, but it was the polite thing to do, and Martin was nothing if not polite. “Martin,” he said helpfully. “I’m- I’m Jon’s plus one.” Shit, he meant boyfriend! Was it too late to correct? Would that be suspicious? He didn’t mean to mess up on literally the first attempt and he’d sincerely been about to say boyfriend, but he got caught up on it, something in his subconscious taking control as a sort of self preservation instinct. Dodge and avoid. Like the talk about flags.

“Liam,” the man said. Oh thank god, because Martin had a creeping feeling that Jon definitely did not remember his family member’s name based on past history, and Martin did not need his theory proven right. He, in turn, noted and stored away the name, in the same way he’d file away a name when working with statements. Just another statement giver, don’t think of him as Jon’s real actual family, and- “And uh,” Liam continued, and his eyes flicked down to their hands for a moment, something uncertain on his face, before he looked back up, eyes darting between them. “Do you… ya know, mean like plus one plus one? Or, um…”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Jon replied dryly. “If that answers your question.”

“O-Oh. Yeah, just uh… huh,” Linus suddenly couldn’t seem to look at them, his body posture shifting from confidence to uncertainty. It made something twist uncomfortably in Martin’s gut, heavier and darker than before. Unfortunate, but not unexpected. Same with the words that came next. “You uh, swing that way now, huh?”

“Yes, well, life will do what it will,” Jon said flatly, which almost made Martin snort. It appeared that Jon also seemed content to treat Liam like a statement giver, being just as dismissive and curt as he was with them at the Institute. “Now, if you’ll excuse us…?”

“W-Wait,” Liam stumbled, perpetually in their way. “I still wanna catch up with you and stuff. What, uh, what’s been new in your life?”

“My boyfriend,” Jon said tonelessly, and Martin was now actively holding back a wheeze.

Holy shit, if he wasn’t in the middle of this, Jon’s responses would be so fucking funny. Liam was slowly withering under Jon’s deadpan replies, unused to the Head Archivist Premium Treatment. As it was though, it was… an experience, to be on Team Jon in a conversation. Normally Martin was with Tim and Sasha, sharing their perspective as it seemed to always be the assistants versus the archivist. Mostly right now it was just a call back to Jon’s same flat wit he sometimes used in the Archives. Like when Tim would remark that Jon looked like the living dead, and asked if he’d slept at all, to which Jon would look him straight in the eye, as if Tim had invoked an ancient mummy's curse, and reply with a deadened ‘no’.

However, the unfortunate part was the great look of discomfort on Liam’s face as he shuffled his feet and still somehow remained, and Martin, before he could think better of it, took pity on the man. “What about you? What are you doing?”

“Oh, um, I’m watching them finish setting up the venue,” Liam replied, audibly relieved. “And waiting for the bride ‘n groom to get here.”

“They’ve chosen a lovely colour palette, haven’t they?” Martin continued, and he ignored the distressed grip Jon had on his hand. It was fine, they were getting out of this situation, it was just going to take a moment, Jon could just be patient.

Simultaneously, their little group turned to look at the venue for a moment. There was certainly a lot of white, but the flowers were bright splashes of varied colours, with a particular emphasis on yellow and purple.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I guess,” Liam said with uncertainty. “Never really had an eye for that sort of thing myself. Do you, uh, do interior decorating?”

God fuck. He was giving Liam a chance and he was not fucking making it easy.

Martin took a painful moment to briefly wonder how he’d managed to stumble into this stereotype. Had somehow apparently taken an interest in something that was not the norm, had set off some form of gaydar, and he found himself squeezing Jon’s hand back tightly, not sure if it was from slight panic or an internal exasperation and a need to set something on fire, as he stammered off a, “N-No. Just. I’m an art person, I suppose. Um. Into the arts. Like literature and painting and stuff.” He was absolutely not into painting.

“Oh, really?” Oh god why had Martin decided to try and revive this conversation. Frankenstein’s monster was hanging on by spider thread, just let it go. This was Martin’s life now, wasn’t it? He’d been around Tim and Sasha for so long, not really socializing outside of work, and as a consequence he’d somehow forgotten the feeling of wanting to implode into a black hole and force the universe to start over.

“Yeah, uh, oh! Actually, I just remembered that me and Jon need to meet someone before the ceremony,” Martin said quickly, making an escape route at supersonic speed. He felt like fucking google maps. Recalculating… “Sorry to cut this short, but we need to get going. I-It’s been lovely meeting you though, Liam,” Martin said with a quality customer service smile, and a nervous look into the distance, where he could just see Jon’s grandmother moving between a few relatives.

“Oh, uh, yeah of course. It was nice to meet you too, Martin,” Liam said with a nervous chuckle, and seemed to have at least composed himself back into an easy stance again as he turned to Jon. “And it’s been great catching up, Jonny. We should pick this up later. You’re coming to the family lunch thing, right?”

Jon, who had been standing very still next to Martin, who Martin did not have the chance to glance over at yet, was quiet for a suspicious second before answering, clipped and unsure, “...Family lunch thing?

Both Liam and Martin were looking at him now. “Yeah,” Liam said. “The family lunch thing. You don’t know about it?”

“I don’t recall getting an invite to it,” Jon replied curtly. “So no, I was not aware.”

“Oh, well, uh, consider this your invite then. After the ceremony, all us Sims are meeting up for a free lunch and to catch up ‘n stuff,” Liam explained. “So, like, obviously you should come too. And of course you’ve got to bring Martin.”

“And… everyone’s going to this?” Jon clarified slowly, with a raised brow.

“As far as I know, yeah.”

“Mmm. Well, we’ll be there, then,” Jon said with reluctant finality. “Come on, Martin, it’s time to go. Goodbye, Liam. I suppose”

“Yeah, see ya, Jonny.”

Mercifully, they made their escape, carefully putting ample distance between themselves and Liam, hands held tightly. When Martin looked ahead of them though, he realized with a bit of dismay that Jon’s grandmother seemed fairly engrossed in talking to other people, which might result in its own fiasco to interrupt. Thankfully, they were still a bit away, and Jon seemed to have the same idea as their pace slowed on its own, until their feet dragged slowly on the grass as they nearly stood still, watching from afar.

Jon’s hand reaffirmed itself in Martin’s grip, and Martin felt more than heard Jon’s tight breath out. “I swear I didn’t recall getting an invite to lunch,” he began.

Oh. Oh right that. The new situation that Martin hadn’t even had time to grasp because he was still too overwhelmed by the current situation. “It’s fine.”

“No, I mean I didn’t forget. I-I would have written it down. I didn’t know this was happening, I would have discussed it with you first—should have discussed it with you first. Sorry,” Jon said with a wince. “You’re uh, not obligated to go, of course. The agreement was attendance at the ceremony and reception, so of course I’d understand if you wanted to opt out of the lunch, and I’ll be fine going on my own-“

“Jon,” Martin said, mind buzzing. “Jon, no, that’s-... I’m fine with anything. I said I was—still am—fine, with anything. I signed up for family stuff at a wedding, so it’s not like I’m mad because we’re doing more family stuff at a wedding. I’m just, ah…” What was he? Martin had no idea what he was going to say next. He wasn’t sure what there was to say next. There weren't enough details, there wasn't enough information. “Nevermind. Do you think you could text me that picture of the invite though? I want to read it over myself and make sure we’re not missing anything else.”

“Of course,” Jon said very quickly. “I understand. I just. Um. Need my hand back though. To text you.”

Martin blinked for a moment, before remembering very spontaneously that he’d been holding Jon’s hand like a lifeline for the last five minutes at least and holy fuck since when had that been happening?! “Oh, right, o-of course. Sorry about that!”

“It’s fine,” Jon replied distractedly as he swiped through his phone. Martin waited patiently until his own phone buzzed, and he could read over the invite for any details missed. To Jon’s credit, it didn’t mention anything about a lunch, so maybe Jon had just missed whatever additional memo had been sent.

“Um, I think my grandmother’s not talking to anyone at the moment,” Jon cut in uncertainty. “Are we- are you still good to meet her right now?”

Martin froze, eyes fixed on his screen, trying not to let the way Jon was checking in on him make his brain turn to static. The phone was an assuring weight in his hand, and he reluctantly pushed it back into his pocket, turning to face the task before them with a tight nod to Jon.

In the uncertainty, they forgot to link their hands back together as they started walking again.

Jon’s grandmother spotted them before they reached her. She turned out to be a shorter woman, who looked like she’d bore the brunt of life long enough to hunch her back, tilting her over slightly onto a walker for balance. There were heavy lines etched into her face and hands, and the grey in her hair was deep seated. That wasn’t to say she wasn’t imposing, didn’t stand tall for her height, didn’t have sharp eyes and a firm step.

When she was close enough to glare, that’s when Martin saw a lot of her in Jon. The same slight resting frown, sharp jawline, and arched nose. The same lengths of hair, twisting back, Jon’s bearing streaks of grey in a similar shade to her own. Her eyes were flat from under where her brow was drawn, and it was the same kind of look that Martin remembered from work a lot, but had been absent for the past day.

“Jonathan,” she said formally, when they were close enough to be addressed. They stopped in front of her, and although she was a good few inches shorter than Jon, she was just as imposing. There was no move made to acknowledge Martin.

“Grandmother,” Jon responded just as curtly, and for a moment their expressions were just as identical, making Martin feel a deep discomfort and slight flash of anxiety. Well. More anxiety than he was already feeling from just general existence.

But then her brow loosened, her shoulders dropped a centimeter, and something like a smile wove its way onto her face as she moved forward with open arms, setting aside her walker. “It’s good to see you again,” she said, with something softer to her voice, eyes closed as they hugged.

Martin couldn’t help it. He felt a pang somewhere inside him. The sight of Jon slightly hunched over to properly hug his grandmother, that sort of familial embrace done with ease and sincerity, was bringing back that sense of absence.

Martin had been younger then, yet for some reason, he could always remember vividly the way his father would lean over to hug his mother hello. How it got more stiff that last year, leading up to something that Martin had been too young to quite understand, yet comprehended intimately even at that age.

Jon’s grandmother stepped back, hands still resting lightly on Jon’s shoulders. Her eyes observed him critically, from top to bottom, sucking in a deliberate breath. “I assume you’ve been alright, then?”

“Of course,” Jon said, and his voice was softer now too, something fond.

“Eating fine?”

“Yes.”

“Keeping busy?”

“Of course.”

“Staying out of trouble?”

Jon huffed a laugh at that, smiling and taking one of her hands. “Well, I try to.”

She made a noise that could only be described as a harrumph, muttering, “Not that it ever does you much good.” But it was affectionate.

Martin was at a bad angle, hovering near them, so he couldn’t see Jon’s exact expression, but his grandmother chose that moment to let go of Jon’s shoulders and focus on returning her walker to its position in front of her, leaning idly as she continued, “Don’t suppose you still have that Barker girl looking out for you?”

“Ah, no,” Jon said, shifting his weight slightly. “We, uh, broke up some time ago.”

Martin had no idea if that was his cue to jump into the conversation or not, but if it was then he missed it. Jon’s grandmother made some other noncommittal noise, her eyes still assessing, the grip on her walker tightening and loosening idly much the same way that Jon’s fingers were fiddling subtly with the edges of his cardigan.

Finally, she just sighed. “Still causing trouble then.”

Jon smiled to the ground. “Naturally.”

Of course, she chose that moment to suddenly acknowledge Martin, eyes snapping towards him with something impatient. “Can I help you with something?”

Martin’s brain, which had idly been chanting ‘Hello, I’m Jon’s boyfriend!’ since the car was parked, chose that moment to conveniently forget the one line he had, and when Martin searched for words to say, all he found was the Window’s startup noise. “Oh! Oh, well, um, actually, you see-“

“He’s with me,” Jon cut in, oh thank god. Then, Jon cut in more, right into Martin’s processing power, as a motion towards him was all the warning Martin got before Jon’s hand was grabbing his and their fingers were intertwining, and Jon was gesturing to him with his free hand. Fuck, Martin hadn’t gotten a chance to rub his hands on his trousers to make sure they weren’t sweaty before they were holding hands again oh god-! “Grandmother, this is Martin Blackwood.”

“H-Hello,” Martin stammered, restarting. “I’m Martin Blackwood, Jon’s boyfriend!”

Fuck.

Fuck! Martin why did you say it like that he already said your name that was the most awkward way you could have put it now they’re both staring at you because you spoke way too abruptly and loudly curse you bathroom mirror you have forsaken thee holy fuc-

“It’s nice to meet you,” Martin added, mind screaming.

Jon’s grandmother observed him for another moment, giving him the same critical look over that she’d given Jon, if not with an even sharper fine-toothed comb. Then she looked back over at Jon, and didn’t say a fucking thing.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Jon said helpfully.

“I heard him,” she mumbled idly. She was looking at Martin again, but thankfully it was slightly less piercing this time. More like a knife instead of a scalpel. “Was this after you broke up with Georgia?”

“It’s Georgie, and no, that was back in uni. Me and Martin haven’t, uh, been dating too long,” Jon explained, his expression cringing.

“Uh, ten months now, I-I think,” Martin added helpfully. He should really stop talking now. Yet here he was. Continuing to say things like a moron. A buffoon. A person who says stuff. “It’s, uh, good to finally meet you?” Right, well let’s just say our name again shall we since we seem to be in the business of repeating things.

For another heartbeat, she didn’t say anything, her attention fixated on Martin. Then she smiled, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes, although almost none of her smiles had so far. Her hands remained folded on her walker. “It’s nice to meet you too,” she told him. “Your name was Martin, wasn’t it?”

“Y-Yep! Um, what do I call…?”

“Rosa,” she answered simply. She leaned more easily on her walker. “It's good that at least Jon has someone looking out for him again.”

“O-Oh! Well, I mean, we look after each other,” Martin said timidly. He was almost about to joke about how as his boss, it was Jon’s responsibility to look after him, before promptly remembering why that was a terrible idea.

Rosa gave a half smile again. “Either way, it’s apparently quite the feat to win the heart of my grandson, so I must congratulate you on that. Jonathan has decided to make it difficult on himself by believing the romantic life doesn’t suit him,” she said deliberately, looking at Jon again now.

“It’s just hard to find the right people,” Jon said defensively, drawing up his shoulders just the slightest bit more.

Crap, Martin should do something! “That’s- yeah, well I- it’s just-“ Martin used stutter! It was super effective! Martin thought sarcastically.

“Well, you found someone now, I suppose,” Rosa continued, ignoring Martin. Bless her. “So I’m glad to see you taking care of yourself. Ah, Martin, dear, do you think you could give me and Jonathan some time to talk before the ceremony starts? Perhaps you can go and find some seats for yourselves.”

“O-Of course!” Martin stuttered once more, but that was more of just an automatic response. He looked over at Jon for a moment, somewhat reluctant, then moved to release his grip on Jon’s hand.

It wasn’t that easy though. It never quite was.

For a moment, Jon’s fingers only tightened around him in response, and when Martin paused, questioning, Jon moved closer. Suddenly Jon was standing in front of him, the sun felt a hundred times warmer on his face, and he was painfully aware that Jon’s grandmother was looking at them expectantly. And then he just- Jon just-

Jon reached up on his tip toes, bringing their faces closer, eyes searching Martin’s for a moment, for something Martin couldn’t comprehend, too lost in how the mascara made Jon’s eyes all the more intense. But then Martin got the message, as much as it made his heart stutter and brain sweat, and he tilted his head just slightly in permission, and Jon’s lips were briefly pressing against Martin’s cheek, in a kiss no more solid than what would be delivered by a phantom. The noise was slightly exaggerated, for something so light.

Then Jon was back on the flats of his feet, his face set with something softer there, near fond in what they were acting out, and he said, with maybe some forced familiarity, “I’ll see you later, love.” And it sounded natural.

It made Martin’s brain whirl for a moment, trying to catch up.

He told himself there was scarcely any hesitation, and he caught himself quickly, filing that away for later, because this was an act, and he was on a stage, and if there was one thing he knew it was how to pretend, and it was just like lying on his CV again. Yes, Martin had experience in kissing Jon. It was listed right there, under social skills.

There was something affectionate, fluttering, and Martin grabbed onto that to make his own face fond as well. Their hands were still intertwined, and Martin made sure to hold Jon there for just a moment longer, to complete the act.

“See you,” he said, as softly as he could manage, pouring all his low-key yearning into those words. And they were close. So close, that Martin could feel the warmth radiating from Jon’s body. Martin couldn't ask here, not with a witness, but he paused for as long as he could, asking silent permission, hoping Jon would pick up on what he was trying to do.

Then Jon, with a subtle grace, tilted his head down just slightly, much the same way Martin had tilted his face, and it was so easy, the way Martin leaned forward to peck the top of his head, keeping it light and brief as Jon had done for him.

When Jon straightened, he had just the faintest smile, that got a bit wider as Martin watched. That was before their hands finally let go, and Jon was turning back to his grandmother, and Martin was turning to go find them seats, and he could no longer see his expression.

But he could see Rosa, for just the slightest moment.

And the thin line of her lips as she watched them.

So Martin left.

Even as he did, shoes soft on grass, he couldn’t help but throw an anxious glance back over his shoulder. Jon and his grandmother were standing a little ways off from the venue and the other guests, isolated. Their backs were to Martin as they talked, and Martin could just catch the small gestures, the way that Jon fiddled, the way that Rosa’s hand would occasionally shift to his shoulder or to touch his arm. Martin hoped it was okay. He also knew none of it was his business.

Martin didn’t end up finding seats right away.

He tried, he honestly tried. The first problem was that Jon hadn’t given him any idea as to where he wanted to sit. The second problem was just… people. Lots of people, slowly trickling in. People with words they wanted to share with him. Not that Martin minded too much. It was sort of hard not to get caught up in the wedding rush, that slight delight that rose up and dosed the brain in chemicals. It was a celebration. It didn’t need to be all bad.

He talked with some of the other guests. Got asked lots of times who he was here for—the bride or the groom. Answered the groom, even though he knew that he was really here for Jon.

That’s how he ended up wandering to the seats farther back, as more people got seated and the front rows filled up quickly. Martin also liked to think he had some understanding of Jon, and of himself, and farther back seemed more appealing.

That was also how he drew closer to a cluster of men in suits, chatting amicably with each other. “Oh hey, how’s it going?” asked one on the end, when Martin wandered too close.

“Oh, um, it’s going well,” Martin replied automatically. “How are you?”

“Alright,” the man responded with a sort of easy smile that reminded Martin vaguely of Tim. And not- not because this guy was actually sort of hot or anything, now that Martin was paying attention. It’s just that he had a nice smile. He was cute with a soft-featured face, was built large like Martin, and was a bit taller too, and could, theoretically, perhaps even lift Martin. Not that Martin necessarily wanted to be lifted. It was just a thought. “I’m Evie.”

“Oh, uh, Martin,” Martin said, still overcome with the realization that at some point in his life he’d found himself surrounded by very lovely men. This was definitely part of that point, happening right now in this moment.

The little grin that he got in return was not helping things. It’s not like Martin wanted to collect crushes like scented soaps! It just sort of happened. And now he had a hall closet filled with a bunch of soaps that he couldn’t go through at any reasonable pace. At least his hands always smelled like mint or lilacs or whatever it was a coastal breeze smelled like. Not kitchen lemon though. He didn’t know why there were always so many offered soaps that were kitchen lemon but he’d argue it was hardly a smell. Just smelled like soap! Why would he get fancier soap that just smelled like soap? Wait, there was a point to all of this- oh right wedding.

“So, who are you here for, the bride or br- the groom?” Evie asked, reminding Martin that this was not soap before him, but a very lovely man.

“Oh, uh, neither actually,” Martin stammered. “I’m actually just here with my, uh-“ Boyfriend. “-boyfriend.” Nailed it. “He’s cousins with the groom.”

“No kidding?” Evie asked, and he looked more attentive now, smiling a bit more, still in the same easy and effortless manner. “I’m friends with Pat, actually. That’s why I’m one of the groomsmen. Who’s your boyfriend?”

“Oh, um, Jon. He’s over there,” Martin said, pointing across the lawn to where Jon and his grandmother were still talking, feeling vaguely like he needed proof of having a boyfriend or something. Coincidentally, it just so happened that as they looked over, Jon happened to be briefly glancing their way as well, and even across the distance his eyes found Martin’s almost instantaneously. Nearly took his breath away too, goddamnit Jon. Him and his piercing stare and his beautiful eyes and his beautiful mascara. What a prick for making Martin’s heart beat so. Stupid beautiful men.

Martin waved at Jon.

Evie also waved at Jon.

Jon, slowly, with immeasurable hesitation and perplexity, raised his hand and gave a stiff wave back.

Martin’s face went a bit red at that, but he tried to ignore it as he turned away, wondering to some petty deity why Jon looked so awkwardly adorable.

“So um, how long have you been friends with Pat?” Martin asked, in hopes that if he changed the subject and had a normal human conversation, his body might forget to cram more blood into his facial vessels and leave him be.

“Oh, back since like, highschool I think,” Evie answered easily, and Martin actually found himself relaxing slightly. It wasn’t like with Linus, er, Lestor, or whatever Jon’s cousin’s name had been. Evie didn’t suddenly become awkward or look at Martin weirdly or anything like that. If anything, he was more at ease, if that was possible. It was nice. “Been friend’s with Marcie for nearly as long. They’ve been dating for quite awhile, then were engaged for quite awhile, so this wedding has been a long time coming.”

Then the conversation just progressed a bit. Martin asked some more questions, then Evie answered, then asked some of his own that Martin answered. It was nice. A nice change of pace, even if Martin was a bit preoccupied, but arguably he had every right to be. He was surrounded by cute guys, one of which he could physically pick up, the other of which might be able to pick him up. It was a very reasonable thing to be preoccupied about.

That, and how Martin had to sort of lie or skirt around some topics. Like when Evie asked what Jon was like, and Martin had to first pretend that he knew Jon in any meaningful capacity, and then had to correct himself from almost automatically saying ‘he’s nice’. He instead substituted that for something a bit closer to the truth, along the lines of ‘Oh! He has a prickly exterior but deep down he’s really sweet!’ or something to that effect, although admittedly it was a bit hard to stammer through his thoughts of Jon, which felt inappropriate at how endeared they were, except Martin was supposed to be endeared by Jon—and so the struggle went.

Those were two reasons for being so distracted. The third was that... well, now Martin found himself sneaking more glances Jon’s way, trying to pretend that Jon didn’t look alone. Sometimes Jon caught his eye, and there seemed to be just a bit of a smile. At least Martin liked to pretend there was.

It was only when Martin saw Jon finally, finally break away from his grandmother and start heading over, that he was able to relax.

He made note that most other guests were seated, and was able to say goodbye to Evie. Most of the other groomsmen had moved off in preparation for the start of the ceremony, but a few had lingered, and had introduced themselves to Martin, although he couldn’t recall their names very well.

“It was nice to meet you Martin,” Evie said.

“It was nice to meet you too,” Martin replied, and actually meant it. “Give the bride and groom my best wishes.

A smile, again. “Will do.”

And then Evie was gone and Martin was quickly finding a spot in the back corner for himself and Jon, where there were several chairs in the row not taken, and sat second to the end, so that Jon could sit on the edge in case he needed space. Then Jon appeared.

“Sorry,” Jon said, in typical Jon fashion, eyebrows scrunched as he stared at where Evie had gone, before turning his focus back to Martin. “Did you need me for something earlier? You were waving?”

“Oh! Oh, um, no, I just was saying hi. Uh, are these seats okay? I know we’re in the back but the front is pretty full and I wasn’t sure where else to sit…” Martin mumbled. He then lost focus spontaneously and entirely, as Jon, for reasons completely beyond human comprehension, discarded the completely empty seat next to Martin on the end of the row, and instead gingerly picked his way past Martin’s knees, like he had passed the sink on the bathroom counter that morning. He even placed a hand briefly down on Martin’s shoulder for balance that left a burning warmth in its wake. Martin was all too aware of the proximity, not even able to breath until Jon had slipped by, plopping himself down with a huff into the white folding chair on Martin’s other side, as if his decision making was someone else’s fault. Knowing Jon, that could actually very well be what he was thinking.

“The seats are fine,” Jon said absently, leaning back and folding his arms, and at the same time, allowing their shoulders to brush. Fuck. “Thank you for getting them.”

“O-Oh. Of course. Um. Can you see okay?”

“Fine.”

“Okay.”

Martin fiddled with the sleeves of his jumper, letting the feel of the soft fabric soothe his mind somewhat as he set his eyes to look dead ahead. He wasn’t exactly a small man, and the seats themselves didn’t quite meet his width, which meant he was sort of in Jon’s space and Jon was close and Jon was hunched in on himself with a nebulous expression and Martin had probably fucked up on his choice of seats and-

“Did the talk with your grandmother go okay?” Martin asked, instead of addressing any of that.

“What? Oh, yes, fine. She was… fine. Lovely. Glad I’d gotten on with someone,” Jon responded curtly, and that was the end of that.

With small talk guillotined and off the list, that just left Martin to return to fiddling with the ends of his jumper sleeves, waiting and going on his phone and checking the time, until the seats had almost filled up and the air filled with the sounds of people talking.

“Sorry,” Jon whispered softly then, unexpectedly, below the background hum of voices. His arms were still folded tightly, his hands gripping them, as he hunched a bit further into his shoulders. “I… I haven’t been the uh, the friendliest towards you today, Martin. I’ve been… tense. So sorry about that.”

Martin blinked, but Jon wasn’t looking his way, and Martin wasn’t sure what was happening. “You’re alright, Jon,” he posited tentatively, but that was apparently the trigger.

Jon turned to look at him, a definite scowl etching his features as his eyes searched Martin’s for something Martin wasn’t sure of. “It’s not,” he insisted vehemently. “It’s- I’ve just- I’ve just been fucking things up today, and I’ve been rude to you, and distant, and I just can’t seem to- to…” Jon huffed, running a hand over his hair, fingers bouncing over the bumps of the braids. “Whatever. Just. I wanted to apologize.”

“Alright,” Martin said. It was the only thing he knew to say. “But I’d like to say that you’ve been fine to me, from my perspective at least. I didn’t expect this to be a walk in the park, Jon. I’ve been to weddings in the past, I… I know what they’re like.”

“What they’re like,” Jon echoed.

“Stressful,” Martin clarified. “And I don’t imagine it’s easier when you’re… when you’re pretending to be with someone who you don’t want to be with.”

Jon was quiet to that, but at least his arms had loosened somewhat. Martin tried to give him space, but their hips and elbows brushed again regardless. Then Jon made another noise again, under his breath, and Martin hadn’t understood that it was a partial laugh, until Jon said, somewhat amusedly, “Well, bold of you to assume I’m here with someone I don’t want to be with.”

Martin paused. Uh.

“But you do have a point,” Jon ploughed on, with a flippant gesture of his hand. No wait Jon go back to what you just said- “We’re still pretending to be together I suppose. If you’re still doing alright, then we should probably hold hands again, since apparently that’s all couples do.”

“R-Right. Of course.”

Except Jon didn’t just hold hands.

No, their bodies brushed again, or at least that’s what Martin thought it was, until Jon’s weight was actually leaning against him, head falling to his shoulder. Warm. He was warm. And light. And a pressure that was consuming every function of Martin’s brain, and that made his breath become startled for a moment.

Jon was leaning against him.

Then he had the audacity to reach out and link their hands together across Martin’s lap.

“Is this alright?” Jon checked. What the fuck do you think Jon???

“Are- Are you sure you’re alright?” Martin asked instead. He was sitting very stiffly now.

Jon shrugged, and Martin felt every part of the movement, before Jon wiggled a bit to get more comfortable, much the same way he’d settled on the bathroom counter that morning. Like a cat finding a comfortable spot.

“Uh, here,” Martin stammered, raising up the arm that Jon was leaning against so he could lean against his side more directly. “Um, I can rest my arm across your shoulders. If that’s alright.”

Jon blinked at him, but settled himself again. “Yes, that should be alright.”

So that’s how Martin ended up in this situation, with his arm around Jon’s shoulders, and Jon’s head tucked against him, and their hands being held over their laps, and the entirety of Martin’s lungs and heart were trying to strangle him from within.

“Oh, right, I actually wanted to apologize as well,” Martin stammered. When Jon looked up at him, he clarified. “For earlier. With your grandmother. I, um, kissed your head. And I wasn’t able to ask first, and I just took your head tilt as permission and, um, that was presumptuous of me. So I wanted to say sorry for that, for not respecting the boundaries you’d set when we were driving to the hotel.”

“Oh,” Jon said, and it was quiet. “That’s… you’re alright Martin. I mean, yes, it was established that we’d ask first, but you didn’t do anything wrong, in that specific instance. You read the situation correctly. I, um, also wasn’t able to ask, but I think you said you were okay with being kissed without asking. So long as it wasn’t, uh, on the lips.” Then he paused, enough for Martin to confirm, before continuing. “And, in the future, I-I think it’d be okay to assume you can kiss me if I tilt my head like that. If we’re in a situation where we can’t ask out loud. Maybe that would be a better system.”

“Alright,” Martin agreed. “So head tilt is a yes to being kissed.”

Jon huffed. “I think that’s about the situation.” Then he paused, and again, with an outstanding lack of explanation, tilted his head slightly down, so Martin could see the top of it.

“I,” Martin paused, sweating. “Do you want me to kiss you now?”

Jon let out a sigh again, like the very embodiment of the universe was disappointing him, but he didn’t move although Martin was pretty sure he’d rolled his eyes. “Yes, Martin, that’s what this means. We are pretending to be a couple, after all.”

So that’s how Martin found himself leaning to the side slightly, pressing a quick kiss (A kiss???) to the top of Jon’s head, smelling fruity shampoo. Then Jon was straightening up again, and he turned to face Martin more, and Martin got the motion, so he leaned over so that Jon could peck his cheek. Oh wow. So this was just normal then.

At least Martin wasn’t as focused on the phantom feeling of the kiss anymore, considering he had his whole entire-ass crush leaning bodily on him, pinpricks of contact that wouldn’t leave him be. Not that it was bad. Not that he wasn’t able to relax slightly, as he felt Jon relax, and at least Jon’s arms weren’t crossed anymore, and he could lean against Martin.

For a moment, it was difficult to remember that they were here for a reason, until someone somewhere started playing music, almost tricking Martin into believing that he was actually in a romance movie, before promptly remembering again, oh right. Wedding.

With the music came the hush of guests, and then a brief wait in which Martin found a sweet spot between the heads of guests to see the front, feeling the sun warm against his cable knit jumper, but not too warm, not in comparison to Jon.

Finally, there was a swell in the music, and all at once a murmuring started and people twisted in their seats to look back. It was a bit more awkward with Jon leaning against him, but Martin caught sight of the procession.

He couldn’t say that he was familiar with the order, but he tried to guess who was coming down the aisle as best he could. First it appeared to be the parents of both the bride and the groom, taking their reserved seats at the front. Then there was a well dressed older person with papers in their hands, who Martin could not even guess at until they were positioned at the front, and it became clear they were the officiant. The groomsmen came next, dressed in tuxes with yellow and purple flowers in their pockets, and more than one gave Martin a nod, and Evie gave him another grin and a subtle wave and Martin was only able to reciprocate the first gesture.

Finally, the groom came down the aisle. Pat Sims had a passing resemblance to Jon that was less strong than Liam’s. Black hair, a bit shaggy as it curled around the ears. A wider face with a less defined bone structure and a short beard. A politely happy smile, and a black tux with a yellow flower Martin didn’t know the name of tucked into its lapel.

Bridesmaids were next. Suffice to say that Martin knew none of them. Some had yellow dresses, while others wore suits with purple accents. Three flower girls came next, probably siblings of different ages, and looked to be from the bride’s side of the family. The oldest was actually the ring bearer, walking with a bit more pride. The younger two sprinkled petals on the carpet and stumbled on too fancy shoes, puffy dresses slowing them down. There was a lot of awing from the audience, and Martin could attest to the fact that the scene was indeed suitably adorable.

After, there was a brief pause and lapse in movement. People were straining harder to look back in their seats. Martin felt the soft pressure of Jon’s hand braced on his shoulder as Jon twisted to get a better view. The music grew quiet for a moment, in anticipation, and after a minute or two it swelled again and everyone seemed to relax slightly.

There was the bride, surging on the swell of the music. Marcie Carlin had a smile to her face, wider than anything, with hair twisted up into something elaborate and decorated with small beads. She was wider, and shorter than Pat probably, if she had not been wearing visible heels that made Martin’s feet hurt to look at.

She was, Martin noticed in a brief bit of internalized surprise and vague disappointment, not wearing any form of wedding dress, and instead had on a suit complementary to Pat’s, except with a vest and a purple flower tucked into the lapel. Those quick emotions were replaced almost immediately by something giddy, and perhaps euphoric in Martin, at how confident she walked with no dress to shuffle in but instead neat slacks.

He couldn’t say he would have chosen the same. The disappointment had come from Martin’s own sort of fondness of wedding dresses. He loved watching bridal shows to see all the designs and shapes and patterns, and just to see the way the dresses looked on people. He’d never admit it to anyone, but he’d long fantasized about helping a friend dress-shop for their wedding. It sounded fun.

Martin thought that one day, theoretically, he might want to wear a stunning white gown with all the intricacies on his wedding day. It was only a theory though. First he’d actually have to have someone to marry, and second he’d need a decent amount of funds that he did not have. Third… Well, he actually owned a few skirts, although they’d made their way to the back of his closet in recent years and he hadn’t taken them out in quite some time. They always looked pretty, and some days he put them on and it was fine, but other days, more often than not, he saw himself in them in the mirror and something would churn uncomfortably and there would be an unnameable distress that would overtake him.

A suit would probably be a better choice for him at a wedding, but that didn’t stop Martin from admiring all the dresses and watching shopping shows. He didn’t have to wear them to still appreciate them.

Then, because Martin was that lost to his musings, he glanced down at Jon and wondered if Jon would want to wear a suit or a dress at his wedding. Was that a legitimate question that Martin could ask? Would that count as small talk? He’d have to remember it and try it out and if it turned out to not be small talk material then all Martin would need to do was find the nearest river to do a jester’s jig into.

The bride reached the front with little problem, and stood before Pat, and they were grinning softly to each other and Martin, ever a sap, sort of wished that he’d chosen seats closer so he could see them better. God, he didn’t even know these people and yet he was happy for them. If he started crying at a stranger’s wedding he would never live it down.

The ceremony started, and the officiate stepped forward to give his speech. Martin, for the life of him, could not pay attention to most of what he was saying. If this were Martin’s wedding, he would cut down on the officiate’s time. He just. He really did not have patience for this. He preferred practicality.

The vows though, that’s where the real shit was. Martin could admit that along with some lovestruck poetry on various crushes, he had, at a few points, written little vows for no one in particular, but so that he could get good at them. Have some practice in case the time comes. Just. It was so easy for vows to be nothing special, just general praise of will and beauty and intellect and Martin- Martin liked his to be personal and direct and adoring and… well. Something special. Something loving. And… And he thought about his theoretical spouse too. What he would say to Martin. What the vow that embodied Martin would be like. It was in ways like this that Martin chose to be selfish, spending time fantasizing about what someone who loved him might say to him.

Pat’s vow to Marcie was about how she knew him so well. About how he loved exploring life with her, and wished to do so more in the future. About how she felt like a second half that made him whole. Very good. Martin would give it an eight out of ten.

Marcie’s was perhaps a bit more grandiose. She said she’d like to swordfight with him one day. That if they fought together then he could bear the shield and she could bear the claymore and they would never be defeated. It got a few chuckles, but Martin wasn’t actually sure if it was meant to be funny. She looked so serious saying it. That they protected each other, and belonged to each other, and were in love with each other. Nine point five out of ten.

Pat’s mouth was pulled tight for a moment as he looked at her, and- and without hesitation he surged forward a beat before she was done and hugged her. There was aweing from the crowd, and for a moment it felt like Martin was watching something intensely personal and he looked away guiltily.

The officiate finished up during their embrace, and they were still hugging each other when they kissed.

Flustered for reasons that Martin couldn’t put a name to, he looked down, then to the side, and noticed that Jon had his eyes glued to the couple, something intense to his stare, the corner of his mouth twitching as he absently rested a hand on top of Martin’s arm that was resting on his shoulder.

Then the spell was broken as the audience cheered loudly and stood, and the bride and groom made their escape, laughing, holding hands, looking longingly at one another but also sparing polite smiles for their guests. Jon watched them pass, standing up as well, clapping obligatorily, but he looked a bit distracted. Martin tried to make up for it by clapping more enthusiastically.

The procession filed out again. Evie gave Martin another grin of acknowledgement as he went past, but he was more focused on the bride and groom.

After the ceremony were pictures.

Martin had completely forgotten that was a thing at weddings, and from the way Jon looked like someone had just came in to give him a statement about a meat monster, he could guess that it had slipped Jon’s mind as well.

Guests slowly drifted away from their seats and across the lawn, breaking into groups and talking, with more distant friends and relatives preparing to leave while everyone else eventually reconvened where the photographer was setting up. For their part, Martin and Jon kept more to the outskirts, unsure. Well, Martin was unsure. He wasn’t entirely sure if they’d be included in the photographs or not, and while Jon’s behaviour seemed to indicate they would be, Martin couldn’t be certain.

The bride and groom were conversing with the photographer, and it became apparent that they agreed to do the photos with the most people first. A nice backdrop was chosen, with trees and a glimpse of a pond, and then people began to be directed into place.

Martin heard calls for the bride and groom’s families to come gather, and with a reluctant glance shared with Jon, they walked forward. Listening to the instructions, it became clear that Martin was to be included in this first shot, and he didn’t know how to feel about that, being deemed important via being Jon’s Definitely Real Boyfriend.

They ended up on the edge of a long line of people, many kneeling in front to make room, and the photographer backing up. Martin tried for all he was worth not to feel too awkward and guilty that he was in a photo he definitely had no right to be in, and instead put on a familiar smile that was all politeness, and generally fooled people for being genuine.

It was better than paying attention to how Jon’s hand had slipped into his, as they stood awkwardly close, Jon slightly in front of Martin as he was shorter in order to make room.

Idly, Martin wondered if Jon was even smiling at all, and then the camera flashed.

After that, it was relatives only, so Martin made his way to wait with some other people behind the photographer, leaving Jon to brave it by himself. Guiltily, but not guilty enough to return.

God, Jon did look miserable there, surrounded by cousins and relatives that he appeared to have no real inclination to talk to. His smile was better than what he’d forced in the hotel room, but it was barely to be considered a smile at all. Martin, against all better judgement really, made eye contact, and when he was sure that Jon was staring back, he grinned, then winked, because honestly he really didn’t have the self confidence to try and pull a funny face in front of this many people.

It worked though. Jon’s face screwed up in confusion for a moment, then softened, and he hesitantly smiled back, directing his eyes back to the camera at the last moment before it flashed.

There were a few more like that, then it was just the groom’s family, which Jon seemed equally displeased by, if not even moreso, because he was shoved farther into the middle. Martin tried again to make him smile, was semi-successful, and then it was over, and only close family remained. Jon paused to talk to some other people, before managing to make his way back to Martin fully.

“I’ve got the address for the lunch thing,” he began, as soon as he was close. “Everyone will be going there after the pictures are done. So, uh, we should probably start heading there now.”

“Alright,” Martin agreed, and turned to where they’d parked the car, but paused when he realized Jon wasn’t quite following. “Jon?”

“I- That is, I just wanted to say sorry again,” Jon mumbled, looking anywhere but at Martin. “For making you come to this whole lunch thing, with my family. I know that wasn’t in our agreement when I asked you earlier this week and you are under no obligation to go but-“

“Jon,” Martin interrupted, and found himself showing Jon a smile. “I agreed to come with you to a wedding, and if this is part of the wedding, then I’m there. I’m not going to be scared away by an awkward lunch of all things. I’m here for you.” Fuck fuck fuck he was in too deep that was ridiculous please Jon don’t look too deeply into this please-

Jon stared at him for an uncomfortable moment, but then he was moving again, and they were walking side by side back to the car. “But you would be scared away by someone’s uncredible supernatural experience on paper.”

“Oh my god, Jon!” Martin hissed. “Are you still on about me not letting you work on statements last night?”

“Well I wouldn’t credit that as being the only reason I’m bringing this up, but-“

“Jon, I literally go to the very haunted places the statement givers describe and sometimes even break in! So obviously I’m not even that scared of those!” More scared of losing his job, but Martin wanted to sound at least somewhat brave in front of his crush.

Jon was quiet for a moment, but of course never for long. “Probably shouldn’t discuss crimes in a public place.”

Martin idly wondered if denial was a crime that could be added to the board.

He also wondered if he deserved to buy himself more scented soaps after this.