Archive of Our Own

Martin has confessed a lot of things to the archivist over his years at the Institute. Told him about lying on his resume and dropping out of university, about the struggles with his mum, about the weeks he spent locked in his apartment hiding from Jane Prentiss and her hive or whatever. Laid out his fears and failures.

He’s noticed how Jon encourages other people to spill their secrets to him, has seen it over and over again. The click of the tape recorder, the hiss of the tape and then the words “Statement of …”

He’s felt the power of the archivist’s compulsion himself – not the tight, cold grip to force out your secrets he’d been expecting. It comes instead as a warmth that settles over you like an old blanket, softly encouraging you to feel at ease, to spill all your deepest thoughts out for him. It’s lovely. And insidious.

But none of that is the point. The point is that there is one thing Martin intends to keep for himself. He won’t tell the Jon how he feels about him. He won’t. A man’s got to have some things just for himself. Even though it would be obvious if the Jon ever cared to look up from his statements and take notice. He doesn’t. He hardly pays any mind to Martin aside from the moments he’s actively handing him a cup of tea or a case file. So his secret is safe.

Or it was until Melanie and Basira decided Martin was an excellent source of entertainment. Normally, he wouldn’t really mind this. Martin’s used to people talking about him, and at least the comments they make aren’t cruel. They’re friendly. Supportive, in their way. They invite him out to drinks and try to get him to exorcise his feelings by talking it out. They attempt to set him up with friends of friends. They’re sweet.

But they’re also not subtle.

The trouble comes one afternoon when the three of them are milling around in the hall after their lunch break, Martin with a cup and saucer in his hand that he intends to drop at Jon’s office.

“Seriously, Martin?” Melanie exclaims when she looks down at his hands. “At the very least let the bastard fetch his own tea.”

“Oh, leave him alone, Mel,” Basira says. “He’s hopelessly devoted.”

“I just think he needs to eat something,” Martin protests, careful not to tip liquid onto the biscuits balanced on the side of the saucer. “Get some antioxidants.”

“Oh, please …” Melanie starts, just as Basira says “You know you’re going to have to cool it if you expect your little secret to to stay secret.”

At the last “secret” there’s a thud, and they all look up in unison to see Jon there in the middle of the hall. It’s rare to see him out of his office in the middle of the day. Usually he gets in early and stays late, always surrounded by that mounting pile of statements and tapes at his desk.

But there he is now, frozen like a deer caught in headlights, bent halfway down to pick up his fallen phone.

For one horrifying, wonderful moment, Martin finds himself the sole focus of Jon’s attention. His eyes, bright and flashing, bore into Martin’s own and they both stay perfectly still.

Then Martin recognizes the look in Jon’s eyes, plays back the last five minutes of conversation, and connects the dots. Hunger. That’s what it is.

He flees, speed-walking down the hall toward the stairs even as Jon calls after him.

“Martin? Martin!”

Martin makes it to the stairwell before Jon can reach him, or pop off a question, thank goodness.

“Doctor’s appointment!” he shouts over his shoulder. “Sorry, boss!”

Then he’s up the stairs and out into the main lobby where he can see sunshine and sense fresh air just beyond the big gilded entry doors. Jon does not follow.

It’s unlike Martin to skive off work early, but he figures it’s not like he can really be fired. And besides, the new head of the institute seems to want to keep himself to himself. So he heads back to his flat and spends the rest of the afternoon and evening with the television blaring, trying to drown out the worry in his head that the secret-hungry archivist won’t be able to let this go.

He will, eventually. Martin is almost sure. He isn’t of that much interest to Jon, who has to know that any secret of Martin’s must be paltry. Hardly even a snack, much less a proper meal. It’s really just a matter of avoiding him until he gets distracted by something else. Easy, right?

Why is it that the one time Martin’s almost hoping for a big old apocalypse-style diversion everything turns calm and breezy? Ok, so he doesn’t actually want an apocalypse. Just a monster or two. Little ones. A bloody distraction. But there’s nothing.

Instead he spends the next couple days out doing “field research” on old cases. It’s mostly digging through dusty files in the back rooms of half a dozen village halls. When his allergies start to get the best of him, he decides that it’s probably been long enough for any interest in him to fade.

It’s a bit of a shock, to be honest, when he comes back to the office Wednesday morning, and Basira gives him a wide-eyed look and a shake of the head as he walks toward his work station.

“He’s been asking about you,” she hisses at him over the top of her cubicle wall. “A lot. It’s getting weird.”

“Shit,” Martin says, folding in on himself at his desk and resting his head in his hands. “Did you, um, tell him anything?”

Honestly, he’s almost wishing she has. It’s not Jon knowing that worries him most, though that on it’s own is distasteful. It’s the idea of saying it himself. Of watching Jon’s eyes as he hears Martin say the words and then seeing them fill with dismissal and derision. Martin knows better than most people. You never feel as invisible as when someone’s staring right at you but looking through.  

Basira, however, is holding her hands palms up in a gesture of innocence.

“He only asked where you were and when you were getting back. And I answered ‘I don’t know’ to both. Every time. Which, I reiterate, was a lot.”

“Alright,” Martin sighs. “Thanks, I think.”

He feels bad. Basira’s got better things to do than fend off their over-eager boss. She’s still trying to track down Daisy, has made it her own personal mission. They never found her body after everything happened with the Unknowing, and Basira is determined to take that as a hopeful sign. Martin’s offered to help, but so far she’s insisted on going this one alone.

It’s fine. It’s going to be fine. Probably Jon just wants to assign him some more case research. Follow up on Mr. So-and-so. See if he’s dead or just missing under terrifying circumstances. Business as usual.

Except it’s not, and Martin can tell as soon as he knocks on Jon’s office door and lets himself in. There’s something about the way the man sits up straighter at the first hint of his presence, hits him full force with a smile that Martin can’t help but interpret as shark-like.

He brought tea and biscuits as a sort of peace offering, he supposes. A nice black Darjeeling with two sugars and Jon’s favorite biscuits – jam and custard Jammie Dodgers. So much for being all posh, Jon, he thinks. He dunks them, too. Martin has seen him do it.

“Ah, Martin,” Jon greets as soon as he shoulders the door open. “There you are.”

“Here I am,” Martin agrees, setting the mug and plate down on the corner of the desk, pushing aside a precarious stack of tapes to do so. “Made a little progress on the Tannehill case. I’ll type up my notes and add them to the file this week.”

“Oh,” Jon says, seemingly thrown off by the reference to work. “Right. Well. Good. Ooh. Biscuits.”

Martin has to use maximum effort to repress the smile that wants to slip over his face. Is it weird that he finds Jon’s inability to have a normal human conversation charming? He can discuss primal horrors for hours, but small talk is apparently beyond him.

“Join me, won’t you?”

“What?”

Martin blinks, slipping back from his musings to find Jon clearing a chair of detritus and pulling it up towards his desk.

“For tea,” Jon says, as though that clarifies anything. “I thought we might have a chat.”

Oh. Yeah, that checks out.  He’s probably lucky Jon decided to take a slow approach, but that doesn’t stop the nerves from suddenly igniting through his body. Martin feels the sweat pop out on his forehead.

“I would love to, Boss, but I promised Melanie I’d help her with a project,” Martin’s voice is pitched too high, and it cracks at the end of ‘project’ in a mortifying way.

“Oh, right,” Jon says. “Well then.”

“So I’ll just be going,” Martin says, backing away from the desk quickly and feeling behind him for the door handle. It’s completely ridiculous that he doesn’t want to show Jon his back, one of those animal instinct things. He feels hunted. “Bye!”

He’s out the door before Jon can say anything in reply, legging it at an undignified pace to make it back to his work station.

For the rest of the week, Martin spends most of his time in the institute library stacks on the upper floors of the building. They’re technically open to scholars and students, but few enough people take advantage that it’s usually quiet up there. Peaceful.

He records statements, supplements files with additional research and tries, very hard, to leave well enough alone. He creeps down to the archives a few times a day when he’s confident Jon will be out doing interviews or locked away recording statements, using the time to collect more files, sort through mail – setting aside anything coming through for Tim for when he’s finally released from hospital and back to work –  and leaving fresh tea and biscuits on Jon’s desk. Sometimes a Satsuma, because scurvy is still a thing even in the 21^st century. He doesn’t care if Melanie rolls her eyes at him when he performs this task. Martin’s half-convinced his offerings are the only real sustenance Jon takes in regularly. He’s just so thin.

Once, he mistimes it, and he’s just closing the door on Jon’s office when he sees the man himself coming out of the stairwell into the archives.

“Shit,” Martin curses under his breath. “Shit, shit, shit.”

His normal exit is blocked, even if he doesn’t think Jon has noticed him yet. Martin panics and ends up throwing himself head first into artifact storage to hide.

Artifact storage is proper creepy, with the low lighting for “preservation” and the odd smell of decay that suffuses the high-ceilinged, echoing room. It’s not the friendly smell of aging and disintegrating parchment that you get in the library and in the older sections of the archives. There’s an element of rot to it, over-sweet and unsettling.

There’s a teapot on a pedestal display that starts whistling a song out at him as soon as he approaches it. It can’t possibly be boiling as there’s no heating element and no water, but that doesn’t seem to stop it. He’s not sure how he knows, but Martin is certain that if he were to drink a cup of tea poured from the pot, the dregs would foretell for him a very nasty, inescapable death.

Instead of listening to the high-pitched siren song, Martin sits himself in a corner. He plugs his ears with his fingers and drowns out the remaining noise by mumbling Kipling poems to himself.

“No easy hope or lies/Shall bring us to our goal/But iron sacrifice/Of body, will, and soul …” he whispers into the dark.

Martin knows that Kipling was a racist, colonizing bastard, but his father used to read his poems to him before bed when he was young, before he left. It was the sort of manly shite he went in for, and maybe he thought the messages would be improving for his rather disappointing son. But Martin hadn’t realized that at the time. He’d just found comfort in the drum-like cadence of the words – his first experience of poetry outside nursery rhymes – and in his father’s rare, undivided attention.

They’re still comforting – those words, the beat of them – even after everything. By the time Martin’s made it through two poems, the ominous whistling has stopped and, when he peeks his head out the door, the hallway is empty. He breathes out a sigh of relief and scurries back upstairs.

Thing is, he knows he can’t avoid Jon forever. He isn’t stupid. So he’s taking a two-pronged approach to the problem. He figures he can’t be forced to expose any secret feelings if those feelings go away. Which means Martin needs to find a date. Get over someone by getting under someone else, as the saying goes. Not that Martin’s about to jump into bed with anyone. He’s been told before that he moves so slow that it’s easy to mistake him for a statue, but he’s just always believed in getting to know a person before he, um, gets to know a person.

Anyway, he enlists Tim’s help in setting up an online dating profile. He’s still laid up in a hospital bed, but in a better mood than he’s managed in a long time after wreaking some fiery vengeance upon a load of creepy circus folk. He seems more than happy to help.

“Mate, you can’t use a passport headshot for your profile picture,” Tim whinges, looking over Martin’s first attempt on his phone.

“Well then tell me what to do,” Martin says, tugging at the ends of his hair in frustration. “I clearly haven’t got a clue.”

“Just leave it to me,” Tim says, thumbs already speeding across the screen as he makes corrections. “I think I have a nice pic of you from last year’s Christmas party.”

“Wearing that awful jumper?”

“You look nice in green,” Tim says with a dismissive wave of the hand. “I’ll just crop out the evil elf. Trust, duckie. Give me a little trust.”

Well, it’s not like Martin’s got a better idea. He lets Tim have at it.

In the end, Tim’s work must hold up. It’s a little over a week before Martin sets up his first date. They settle on a Friday evening to meet, and Martin feels a flash of something in his gut that might be hope. Not like he’s falling in love or anything. It’s just a first date. But it’s a start of something. It’s him being proactive with his life. And it feels good – just good – not to be moping and pining over someone who will never want him back.

“This is good,” he tells himself, trying to get his nervous leg jangle under control while he waits for his date to arrive.

A woman at a nearby table looks over at him with some concern, and Martin realizes that he’s talking to himself aloud again, and he should probably get a handle on that. He plasters on a fake smile and waves congenially to the woman, which makes her turn away in a huff. Not crazy, just jittery, he’d like to tell her. But he doubts it would do any good.

Martin rubs a sweaty palm against his knee and surveys the restaurant from the vantage point of his cozy booth in the back – all sleek dark wood and chrome accents. It’s a gastropub, a little posher than he’d usually go for, but there’s nothing wrong with putting your best foot forward for a first date. It’s not really lying, or at least that’s what Tim told him when he’d helped pick it.

He’s already ordered a house-brewed brown ale, and he takes a sip of the nutty brew while he cranes his neck, looking over toward the bar to see if he can spot his date yet. The restaurant is starting to fill now, a crowd milling around the dark walnut bar, but he can’t find the face he’s looking for.

Tim had cackled for a full minute when Martin had showed him Graham’s photo. He’d burst a couple of his stitches, and Martin had to call in the nurse.

“You don’t half have a type, do you mate?” Tim said, once his wounds had been redressed, and the nurses had left him to rest.

Martin felt his cheeks flame as he stuttered out a denial.

“He-But he doesn’t look anything like …”

Tim cocked an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to finish the sentence.

“Like, like anyone in particular.”

Tim’s answering laugh had been cut off by an “Ow, shit, ow!” as he clutched his side.

“You deserved that,” Martin sing-songs.

“Worth it,” Tim wheezed.

They really don’t look that much alike, Martin thinks. Hardly worth Tim’s reaction. Sure, there are a few things, superficially. The salt and pepper hair, the nose is … similar, he supposes. Maybe Martin just has a thing for men with disapproving eyebrows.

He’s moved from leg jangling to drumming his fingers on the tabletop in a complicated rhythm when he hears someone approaching and looks up.

“What?”

His fingers still, his jaw drops. He hears the rush of the ocean in his ears and realizes a split-second later that it’s the roaring beat of his heart.

“What?”

“There you are, Martin,” says Jonathan Sims. “Bit of a crush in here. Took me a devilish long time to find you.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, just settles down onto the bench across from Martin and brushes something from his sleeve. Cigarette ash, Martin thinks, from the smell of him. He really should stop smoking. It’s a terrible habit.

“J-Jon,” Martin manages to stammer out at last. “You can’t be here. I’m expecting someone. I – I have a date.”

“Oh him,” Jon waves a hand dismissively in the air. “Not coming.”

“How do you –”

“Well, rather has come, now gone. I ran into him outside and told him you weren’t going to make it.”

Martin blinks rapidly, the words filtering slowly into his brain.

“You what?”

“And really Martin, he’s far too old for you anyway. I’d almost call it a cliché.”

Martin feels all the blood in his body rushing into his face, and his head goes a little swimmy.

“Wh—”

No, he can’t say what again. It’s starting not to even sound like a word anymore. Just noises mushed together.

“How,” he tries experimentally. Yes, that works. That one’s still a word. “How did you even know I’d be here?”

“Tim,” Jon says with a shrug that barely moves his shoulders. “He told me where I could find you.”

Martin sucks in a shocked breath.

“Jon you didn’t. He’s still recovering from having a building exploded on top of him.”

“Well I didn’t threaten him at gunpoint.”

Martin levels a glare at Jon. He’s scowling, arms crossed and foot tapping audibly under the table. Well, if he can be pissed, Martin can too.

“That wasn’t really my first concern,” he bites out.

“Oh, I didn’t compel him either, Martin. Seriously. I didn’t even see him. He texted me. Said he owed me one.”

Damn it, Tim, Martin thinks. It’s not even that out of character for him, honestly. At his heart, Tim’s always been chaotic neutral. He likes to poke at things and see what will happen.

“Owed you one?” he asks, because that’s the sticking point in his mind.

“Never mind,” Jon says, reaching for the glass of water laid out at his seat.

“Jon,” Martin says, from between his teeth.

“Look, I –” Jon pauses, shakes his head. “Tim is under the impression I somehow, er, protected him during the Unknowing ritual. When the explosives went off.”

“You protected him?”

“I don’t … Martin, I really don’t know. I had the sense at the time that I was sort of protected from proceedings. And I did try to shield Tim from the worst. But he still got rather blown up. So I don’t think I really get points for that.”

He lowers his eyes, lashes brushing his cheeks while he appears to attempt to meld his body into his seat. Something in Martin’s chest twinges.

“Odd use of a favor,” he says softly.

It’s then that the waitress arrives at their table. She can’t be older than 18, wearing an intimidating amount of eyeliner and something mesh and sparkly under her work apron. Clearly anxious for the end of her shift and the night ahead.

“Have you decided?” she says with an exaggerated sigh.

“You know what you want?” Jon asks him.

“Yes,” Martin responds faintly.

He orders a lentil green curry and Jon orders steak frites.

“Rare,” he says, then seeing Martin’s wince. “Er, medium rare?”

Once she’s gone with a roll of her eyes, Jon turns a sympathetic glance on Martin.

“Um, you’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

Martin can’t help but huff out a laugh.

“I don’t understand how you’re not after all the statements you’ve read. The flesh.”

A shiver runs down his spine, and his stomach twists unpleasantly.

“Surely pork would be worse.”

That startles a snort out of Martin

“It’s really not a competition,” he says.

“I can flag her down,” Jon offers. “Change my order?”

“No,” he sighs. “No, it’s fine.”

“Alright,” Jon nods. “Now. Where were we? Is that a new shirt? You look nice in green.”

Martin does want to have composure in this moment. Really, he does. He wants to very firmly and steadily ask Jon why he’s here commandeering his date and pretending like nothing at all is happening. But he can’t quite wrap his tongue around any of that.

Instead, his jaw is flopping open and closed like a guppy because did Jonathan Sims just say he looked nice? Sure things have been better between them in recent months. It’s been a good long while since Martin’s received a proper dressing down from his boss, and he occasionally remembers to say thank you for the tea. But compliments are really not a part of their dynamic.

It’s a step too far, really. And in that moment Martin just sort of … Relaxes. He decides, in a brilliant leap of logic, that this cannot be happening and therefore it, well, it just isn’t, is it? It’s too ridiculous for him to do anything but just go with it.

“Thank you,” Martin says, settling back in his seat. “And you look very cozy.”

He allows himself to really look his companion over for the first time since he arrived. He’s wearing a thick-knit grey cardigan over what Martin swears is another jumper, or possibly a sweater vest, with an understated Fair Isle pattern. Either way, it’s more knitwear than a normal person could reasonably manage. He also dropped a scarf, a long burgundy homespun-looking thing, beside him on the seat when he arrived.

Martin fights the smile that’s tugging at the corners of his mouth. He can’t help but be charmed by the way Jon’s clothes are always just this side of too much. Elbow patches and tortoise shell glasses? Really Jon? It reminds Martin at little of the Doctor. Does Jon watch Doctor Who, he wonders? Does he even own a telly?

The top button of his shirt is open, and as Martin watches he tugs at the collar nervously, pulling it further open in the process to reveal a little more of that long, pale neck crossed by a faded silver scar. Daisy gave him that one, which Martin doesn’t like to think about. But then looking at any specific patch of Jon’s skin is enough to make Martin uneasy.

There’s the mottled and shiny burn on his right hand from Jude Perry, harsh pink fingerprints climbing up to encircle his wrist. The tiny silvery circles visible on his forearms, when he pushes up his sleeves, are from where Jane Prentiss’ worms tried to burrow into him. Martin’s pretty sure the grey at his temples and laced through his hair is courtesy of some horror he’s not yet privy too. He’s really too young for that yet. Jon’s entire body is a record, an archive of all the things that tried to kill him and failed. He really should take better care of himself. Martin should make him. Or just do the job himself.

“…Just a bit cold out,” Jon is saying.

“Hmm,” Martin agrees.

“Martin? Are you quite alright?”

He has to shake himself a bit, out of his brooding, and reach for conversation.

“Fine,” he says. “I’m fine. Jon, have you ever seen Doctor Who?”

Jon blinks a couple times in rapid succession at the abrupt change of course, then nods.

“Years ago. My grandmother used to try to distract me with reruns. Never lasted very long, though.”

“What, too implausible?”

“Just … Daleks,” he replies with a sneer.

“Oh please,” Martin folds his hands together and leans forward on them. “Please go off on Daleks.”

“I mean, I know BBC budgets weren’t always what they are now, but to expect anyone with an active brain cell to think a robot with a plunger and whisk as its primary weapons is the biggest threat in the galaxy? I was eight, not an imbecile.”

“Oh, be nice to the Daleks. I think they look cool. They’re very …”

“Retro?”

Jon quirks an eyebrow at him as he says it, and Martin feels himself smiling again, like a besotted fool. Which he is. Dammit.

“Well, yeah, retro,” he mumbles around a sip of beer.

“Yes, I’m familiar with your aesthetic.”

It’s so not a compliment. But it almost feels like one with the way Jon says it, his voice a low rumble pitched only for Martin’s ears and his eyes roaming over him, catching at details like a bird distracted by something shiny. He’s not used to this much attention from the man, and it might be going to his head a bit.

It’s a little startling to Martin that the conversation just keeps on going. He expects it to dry up at any moment, but they move on easily from Jon’s television criticism to trading childhood anecdotes, barely pausing when their meal arrives with another round of beer.

It’s odd to think of Jon separate from the environs of London, but he talks about growing up in Dorset and Martin marvels at this new unexplored aspect of him. When he mentions combing the beaches for fossils whenever he was able to escape his grandmother, convinced he might find a full dinosaur skeleton, it’s ridiculously easy to draw the line between that boy and the man who finds it impossible to let go of a mystery even when it leads into danger.

“Of course you did, Scooby Doo,” he mutters fondly, mostly sure his words are drowned out by the crowd and disappear into the glass he’s holding to his lips.

“Always thought of myself as more of a Velma,” Jon says dryly, fiddling with the edge of his glasses.

It shocks a giggle out of Martin. Jon doesn’t laugh, but the way he purses his lips together tells Martin he’s pleased at the joke’s success and is attempting to contain it.

Martin doesn’t have much experience with the seaside. Not that they were ever that far away from the coast in Manchester, but his mum was never much one for exploration, even less so after she got sick.

There was one trip he remembers when he was nine. Mum and dad decided to take him up to Blackpool over the Easter holiday, bickering sharply the whole drive. He remembers it being bitterly cold, a threat of an early spring snow in the air, but they’d still spent a couple hours walking out on the pier.

He tells Jon about it, focusing on the tiny details – his father buying him a 99 flake cone despite the weather, it melting from the heat of his hands and dripping down his arm, leaving his jumper sticky, the fit he’d thrown when his parents had tried to get him to have a go on the big wheel. Martin didn’t like heights even then.

The thing he remembers most clearly, though, is losing his favorite hat. It was a red bucket hat he’d picked out at the charity shop, drawn to the bright color so different from anything his mum chose for him. He’d worn it everywhere, until it had faded to a pale salmon hue. Then, there on the pier, it had been whipped off his head by an aggressive seagull, and dropped into the sea once it was revealed to be not a fish. He can picture it now, sinking into the dark water with a bubble and a glug. Martin really misses that hat.

“Flying rats,” Martin spits. “They’re a menace.”

Jon nods astutely.

“Clearly dark creatures,” he says, dryly.

“Something funny?” Martin asks, focusing on the way Jon’s lips are twitching.

Jon shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “No, I’m just imagining you at age nine. With the cheeks and the freckles and everything. And your little hat.”

He hides his mouth behind a hand and leans in on his elbows, but the crinkle at the corners of his eyes gives his hidden smile away.

“Stop it,” Martin says, heat rising up his neck alarmingly.

“I really don’t think I can, Martin.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“But you must have been …”

“No,” he warns, leveling a finger in Jon’s direction.

“So adorable.”

Martin’s stomach swoops even as he gapes at Jon once again. It’s not a compliment. It’s not. He didn’t say “Martin, you’re so devastatingly handsome.” Adorable isn’t a good thing. But it does make him feel a certain way when Jon says it like that.

“Shut up,” he snips.

Martin tries to shake it off, that feeling, tearing what’s left of the naan on his plate into tinier and tinier pieces. He hears rather than sees Jon settling back into his seat, playing with his fork, the scrape of it across his empty plate.

“So how is the poetry going?” he asks, voice more distant than it has been all evening.

Martin jerks up to stare.

“My what? Wh-What did Tim tell you?”

Jon shakes his head.

“No one ratted you out, Martin. I listen to every tape in the archive, and you don’t always remember to erase your old work.”

“Oh, God.”

“If it makes you feel better, I’ve really only heard snippets.”

“I was just fooling around,” Martin says. “I like the sound from the tapes.”

“Yes, I can tell. You know, some of what you wrote wasn’t at all bad. When you’re not trying to imitate Keats.”

“What’s wrong with Keats?”

Jon makes a face and shakes his head.

“’A thing of beauty is a joy forever?’” he quotes with obvious disgust. “Anyway. I’m trying to say I liked some of yours. It’s better, you know. When you’re just yourself.”

Martin’s not sure how to react to that. He feels himself leaning forward across the table like Jon possesses his own kind of gravity. The restaurant feels over-warm, and they really are very close to one another. When he scoots up, their knees knock together, and Martin can smell Jon – cedar and leather from his aftershave, cigarette smoke, bergamot from too many over-steeped cups of tea. He always forgets the tea bag in the mug when he makes his own.

He hates how easy it is for him to slip like this, leaning towards Jon like he’s the fucking sun, accepting any little scraps of goodwill he can salvage. The whole night has been disorienting, and right now Martin feels a desperate need to restore the natural order of things.

He sits up straight, places both hands on the table, clinging with a white-knuckle grip.

“If it’s all the same to you,” he says. “Could we get this over with now?”

“I’m sorry?” Jon asks, a crease forming between his eyebrows.

“You didn’t come here for dinner Jon. You’ve got questions, yeah? Want me to make a statement? Let’s get it over with.”

 For a moment, Jon looks torn. He chews on his bottom lip and studies his fingernails.

“Or,” he says, slowly. “We could skip that? If you like. You haven’t seemed particularly keen up to this point. And I suppose you are entitled to some privacy.”

It looks like it physically pains him to say it. Martin snorts.

“What are the chances you’ll actually be able to move past this?”

“I’ll … Try?”

Martin sighs, scrubs at his face. Sure, he could keep dodging Jon, hope that he won’t get too hungry to resist, but the thought of doing it is suddenly exhausting.

“No,” he says. “Ask your questions. I don’t think I have the energy anymore.”

Jon still looks a little pained, but his eyes light with something like excitement. He reaches down to shuffle through a leather satchel at his feet, bringing up a tape recorder and placing it on the table between them.

“Are you serious?”

Jon shrugs

“Anything worth doing is worth doing properly,” he says, fiddling with the tape inside the machine before pressing the red record button. “If this is alright?”

“Fine,” Martin says. “Just. Fine.”

Jon nods, folds his hands in front of him, and clears his throat.

“Statement of Martin Blackwood, archival assistant at the Magnus Institute regarding …”

He tilts his head subtly toward Martin, waiting for him to fill in the blank. Martin sets his forehead against the table and takes a long breath, then another.

“Secrets better left well enough alone,” is his muffled reply.

“Statement taken directly from subject by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute. Statement begins. Now, in your own time.”

Martin removes his head from the table, blinking wide-eyed up at Jon.

“Really?”

“Or I could, um, ask? If you’d prefer. Just, people tend not to like that.”

“I think I could use the help,” he says.

Jon nods.

“Alright. Well, then. Martin, what have you been trying to keep from me?”

It’s alarming how nice it feels settling over him, the cloak of compulsion that comes with Jon’s words. It reminds Martin of stepping into a warm shower on a cold winter day. The hot steam swirling around him and just out of it enough in that pleasant, hazy way that he’d answer almost any question without thinking. He wonders if it feels that way for everyone, and decides probably not. It really cuts down on the whole fear factor of it all, and that’s not what the Eye is all about.

Because Martin’s always had a stubborn streak, he fights it.

“That’s actually a pretty long list, boss,” he says, words coming fast and high-pitched, revealing his strain. “For the past six months I’ve been sneaking Basira’s Penguin’s from the break room and heavily implying it’s Tim’s work. At first it was an accident, but now it’s turned into a whole thrill-of-getting-away-with-it thing. Oh, I think I’ve convinced most of the staff that you technically don’t have a birthday because of a clerical error on your birth certificate. I just know you really hate surprise birthday parties, and it helps you’re so cagey. But it’s 15 November. I looked your file up so I could hide it. Let’s see. A couple times I’ve dissolved vitamin capsules in your tea because honestly, with your complexion, I’m very concerned about your iron levels. Then I stopped because you mentioned it tasted funny, and I worried you might think I was trying to poison you. It was during one of your, er, high paranoia periods –”

“Martin.”

“Yes, Jon?”

He levels Martin with a look that makes him feel hollowed out and singed.

“Tell. The. Truth.”

Martin looks down at his hands, playing nervously with a sugar sachet from the little canister on the table. The tug in his gut that urges him to just say it grows more intense.

“I think you’re going to be disappointed,” he says to the scarred wood of the table. “It’s not really that exciting, and everyone knows it anyway. I’m not the avatar of an eldritch horror. Or working for the web for under-the-table payment. Or reporting the many, many tax schemes that Elias is trying to pull to the HMRC. I’m not, like, secretly a pile of worms in a trench coat or anything.”

The sound Jon makes is closer to a growl than anything else, and Martin feels his stomach swoop.

“Alright,” he says, putting the sugar down and instead folding his hands together in front of him, sort of like he’s at a job interview. “Just give me a minute.”

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath in and releases it slowly. Give in, he thinks. It can’t be any worse than what he’s already feeling. So he allows himself to look Jon full in the face – the questioning arch of one brow, the firm set of his lips, his glasses tipping precariously down his nose so that he has to look at Martin over the frames. It never fails to make his heart clench, looking at him.

“Okay,” he says, and it’s a marvel that his voice comes out steady. But he manages, reigns it in tightly. “Big Secret, right?”

“Yes,” Jon says, impatiently, through clenched teeth.

Martin smiles, a wry and sad thing that tastes bitter on his lips.

“Jonathan Sims,” he says. “I’m in love with you. That is basically … It. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re also a right bastard most of the time. Rude and snippy and sometimes just downright mean. I’m not unaware of that. But even with that …” he pauses. Considers. Goes on. “Maybe partly because of that, I love you. Have done for an embarrassingly long time. Thing is, you’re all sharp angles and disappointed sighs, but I’ve been watching you for a long time, and I think I’ve got the shape of it.”

Jon’s eyebrow rises the tiniest bit higher, and Martin understands the question.

“It’s all an act,” he says. “Mirrors and smoke just like that ginned up RP accent of yours and your frankly ridiculous jumper addiction – No, Jon, you are actually wearing about five different sweaters right now, and it’s only September. Anyway. It’s like armor, maybe. To keep people from seeing just how much you care. Because you do, Jon. A lot. And a whole lot more than you want people to discern. You care about every person who comes into the institute with their own personal horror story, and about all of the people who work for you. Enough to abandon any pretense of self-preservation just to protect them, solve all their mysteries and help them feel safe. I know it’s not because you’re not afraid. You’re not an idiot, and I don’t think you’re fearless. I think you just want to save people the pain, if you can. It’s the oddest combination. You’re almost never nice, but you’re always good. And I think realizing that made me love you. I didn’t stand a chance, really.”

Martin takes another big breath, considers if he’s got anything more to add.

“Also, not for nothing, but I fancy the pants off of you, and when you say my name in that rumbly ‘Martin I’ll most likely kill you in the morning’ sort of way, it is almost enough to make me completely lose it.”

Well, Martin thinks, so much for eloquence. 

He waits, muscles tense, and eyes unwavering, as Jon process what Martin’s just spewed in his direction. He watches as the look in his eyes transforms from hungry to slacked, full, sated. Jon lets out one soft, satisfied sigh. Then he looks down and fusses with the tape recorder.

“Very good,” Jon says. “That’s … Thank you, Martin. Statement ends.”

Jon presses the button on the tape recorder, and the faint hiss of the tape whirring inside stops.

 “How do you feel now?” he asks.

Martin blinks at him in surprise, but takes a moment to reflect. He does actually feel a little lighter, right in this moment, after having spilled his guts.

“Better?” he says. “Yeah. I think I feel better, all told.”

Jon nods once, decisively. It makes a lock of hair fall down into his eyes.

“Good. I’d hoped it might. Now. How about dessert?” He stretches his neck to see the menu scrawled on a chalkboard above the bar. “Sticky toffee pudding sounds good, but maybe you’re more of a crumble person? Pear and walnut. Hm. Martin? What do you think?”

There’s a hint of chill that starts somewhere in the center of Martin’s chest and spreads like a trickle of ice water out through his veins.

“T-that,” he sputters. “That’s it?”

Jon turns his attention away from the menu board.

“Did you have any supplemental material?” he asks.

Martin blows out a breath and feels his eyes prickle warningly. He reminds himself that he wasn’t expecting much from this. But it still hurts that Jon’s reaction to his confession is just … Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

“No,” Martin says. “Nothing else.”

“Good,” Jon nods and raises a hand to flag down the waitress.

“Ok, no, that’s a lie,” Martin says, words coming sharper than he intends, but there’s still ice under his skin and he hates this. He hates it.  

“What’s wrong?” Jon’s lowering his hand, screwing his brows together and leaning subtly over the table.

“Wh-” Martin screws his fists together. “H-how can you? I just ripped my heart out in front of you, and you have no reaction whatsoever. You’re just blank.”

“I’m really not sure what you want from me here.”

Martin tries very hard not to find his confused face endearing. It mostly works.

“Anything,” he says. “Literally any reaction. I’m not picky.”

“Martin we are in public.”

“Yes!” he hisses. “The very public place where you just made me make a statement about my f-feelings.”

“I hardly think that’s fair …”

“After you crashed my date and sent away a perfectly nice man ...”

“You didn’t speak to him. He really wasn’t that nice.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to! And now you’re sitting there thinking about pudding like we’ve just had a conversation about the weather. Christ, I don’t know what I expected.”

“That’s not …”

“Right, right. Heaven forbid Jon Sims be expected to express an emotion.”

“Martin!”

Jon’s voice is pitched low and forceful. He reaches across the table and grasps Martin’s wrist, fingers hot, pressing into his pulse point. Martin freezes, all senses suddenly focused on the heat passing between them.

“I repeat. We are in public. I can’t exactly be expected to express myself properly in front of a crowd of people. It would hardly be appropriate. Now, I suggest we order coffee and dessert, finish off a very lovely date, and then you allow me to walk you home and – er – anyway.”

“Date.”

Jon’s head tilts slowly to the side as he studies him.

“How else could this possibly be interpreted?” he asks after a long moment. “We’re having dinner. We talked about our childhoods. And pop culture. I complimented your poetry.”

“Is that what happened?”

“I realize I don’t have the most recent experience. But isn’t this what people do?”

Jon’s thumb is sketching circles on his inner wrist, and it’s making Martin feel a little drunk. He’s still not entirely certain what’s happening, but hope is fluttering, fragile as a moth, against his ribcage.

“No,” Martin says.

“No?”

He shakes his head. He can’t get a real breath in, and his head feels fuzzy.

“No,” he says. “I think I need you to tell me properly. How you feel. About me?”

He’s still not sure he wants to hear it, but he needs to.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jon mutters. “Really?”

Martin nods, mutely. He’s sure his courage will fade if he has to speak anymore.

Jon scrubs his free hand through his hair, but he doesn’t let go of Martin’s wrist.

“Fine. Just. Okay.”

He clears his throat, levels Martin with a look that might be a glare if there weren’t something bright hiding behind it. He watches as Jon swallows, the muscles in his neck jumping nervously. When he speaks, it’s like the words are being pulled painfully from his mouth.

“Martin, I am rather desperately – possibly pathetically – in love with you. And I am trying very hard to keep myself in check because you deserve a nice normal night out after all the things we deal with on a daily basis, but you are making that very hard to do so. Especially when you blush like that.”

“I’m not blushing,” Martin protests.

He fucking is. The anxious moth in his chest has moved up into his throat, and he thinks he might be sick from happiness.

Jon smirks at him.

Martin carefully removes his wrist from Jon’s grip, ignoring the little whine of protest he lets out, so he can knit their fingers together and squeeze.

“I want the chocolate gateau,” he says, biting down on a ridiculously big smile.

“I think that can be arranged,” Jon says.

They linger over dessert and tiny cups of espresso. After Jon’s paid the bill, over Martin’s protests, he loops his scarf around his neck one-handed, and tugs Martin up by the hand he’s still holding. If they were anyone else, Martin would hate them.

Outside, the night is cool with just a hint of autumn in the air. The stars are sharp and bright by London standards as they walk the ten blocks or so to Martin’s flat. He chose a place near his neighborhood in a fit of unearned optimism, and now he’s glad he did. It would feel unimaginable for them to hail cabs and go their separate ways at this point.

They don’t talk much as they walk, but the silence is an easy one, with their shoulders brushing, and Martin feeling the comforting weight of Jon’s eyes on him almost the whole way home. He’s almost sad when they reach his building. 

“Well,” Martin starts, a little awkwardly.

Jon’s standing on the first step leading up to the stoop of his building, and it puts them face to face. His eyes are dark, the pupils blown wide, and Martin squeezes his hands into fists to stop them trembling.

Then Jon’s pulling him in by his braces, and Martin’s going willingly. Their chests meet, and then their lips brush tentatively. Jon’s lips are cold and dry after so long outside, and Martin’s sure his own are as well. But they kiss once, twice and he feels the delicate thing inside him batter itself against his ribs until it breaks through, and his whole body floods with warmth.

Jon’s hands slide from his braces to his back, tugging him impossibly closer and Martin loosens his grip on Jon’s shoulders and lets one hand plunge into the soft nest of his hair. His other lingers on Jon’s neck, thumb gently tracing the raised line of his scar.

“Martin,” Jon sighs against his lips, and he’s never heard his name said like that before, never dared dream of hearing that tone from Jon.

It makes him surge forward to deepen the kiss, fumbling it so that their teeth click in a painful collision. The blood rushes to his face in embarrassment, but Jon holds him firmly in place and smiles against his mouth. It’s one of those rare, wide smiles untainted by hesitancy or sarcasm. Martin can’t believe he gets to taste it.

Jon’s hand on the nape of his neck guides the kiss into something gentle but deep. He slides his tongue experimentally against Martin’s, and it elicits a moan from deep in his gut. He floats along with the kiss, letting his mind grow hazy and the warmth of Jon’s body against his to seep into his bones.

When they do part, it’s only to press their foreheads together and share breath across the space of inches between them.

“Christ,” Martin whispers, and Jon’s response is a bubbling, carefree laugh that floats up into the night.

“Are you free on Saturday?” he asks, as he lays another kiss on just the corner of Martin’s mouth.

Martin’s brain is only just present enough to parse the sentence, but it takes effort

“Next week,” he nods. “Sure, I’m free. If you’d like to, um, whatever?”

Jon’s eyes narrow at him.

“Next week?” He huffs out, so indignant that Martin could swear the hair on the back of his neck must be standing on end. “Unacceptable. Far too long.”

“Oh!” Martin says, biting down on another smile. “You meant tomorrow? Okay. What do you want me for tomorrow?”

His heart swells at the idea that seven days is far too arduous a wait. They have waited a long time already, to be fair.

“Want to take you out, of course,” Jon says in his trademark ‘Martin, why are you being an idiot?’ voice. “I feel like this one only counted half because I didn’t ask beforehand.”

“So this is what it’s like when you actually ask me on a date. Instead of crashing someone else’s.”

“I suppose so.”

“You know what?” Martin says, barely able to contain his laughter. “I’m not mad at it.”

“So glad you approve.”

Jon brings him in for one last lingering kiss, then pulls himself away, tripping down the step and moving away a few feet, where he stops to look up at Martin.

“I’ll make a reservation,” he says. “Pick you up here at seven?”

“Sure,” Martin says. “Let me know you get home safe, yeah?”

When Jon nods his agreement, Martin forces himself to turn away and climb the steps to his front door.

He’s being silly, he knows he is, but he gets the oddest sensation, as soon as he turns away, that Jon’s just … Gone. No, not that he’s gone. That he was never there. The chill in the air is sharper after having grown accustomed to the heat of another body against his. But maybe that was only an illusion. Maybe Martin has always been this cold, stood up for his date and concocting fantastical stories while he walked home alone.

He’s frozen. His numb fingers fumble in his pocket for his key, and as soon as he pulls them out, he drops them.

“Shit,” Martin whispers to himself.

He has to check. Just check and know for sure what the truth is. So he spins on his heel, eyes searching the darkened sidewalk wildly.

And then there he is, not even moved from his spot right in front of the building, looking up at Martin with a sort of befuddled fondness.

“Jon,” he rasps out, and watches as the other man’s face transforms in a second to scrunched concern.

Martin doesn’t know how he’s possibly going to explain himself, but in the end he doesn’t have to. Jon bounds up the stairs two at a time, and before he can get another word out, he’s being pressed back against his door and Jon’s lips are warm and firm against his. He flings his arms around Jon’s neck and lets himself be kissed thoroughly.

“Jesus, you’re freezing,” Jon whispers, nipping at Martin’s bottom lip.

“Hmmmm,” Martin says, chasing his mouth as he withdraws.

Jon places one scarred finger against Martin’s lips, holding him still for a moment while he unwinds the scarf from his throat and wraps it once, twice, three times around Martin’s own. It gather’s under his chin and fills his nose with Jon’s familiar Victorian study scent.

Then he moves his finger and replaces it with another light kiss. Like he was only ever saving his place. Like Martin is a book he’ll want to read over and over again. Until his pages are dog-eared and his spine is unravelling.

“Goodnight, Love,” Jon says, and Martin can’t tell if the tips of his ears and nose are red from the cold or from a blush. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Night,” Martin echoes.

He bends down to retrieve his keys, but his eyes don’t leave Jon as he makes his way back down the stairs, and then down the block and around the corner. When Martin turns away, the cold doesn’t return. He buries his nose in Jon’s scarf and unlocks the door.