Work Text:
“ ... Thinking back to her voicemail, I don’t think I really took it seriously at the time. It sent chills down my spine, sure. That desperation in her voice. But it’s such a common idiom, you know? When she said her boyfriend was crawling out of his skin, how was I supposed to know- Jesus Christ!”
Jon jabs a finger at the tape recorder and drops his head into his palm. It's been a week full of flesh-related statements, each more gruesome than the next.
Generally, that would be fine. Morbid is practically part of the job description after all. He could have at least blamed them for his recent lack of appetite. If the rest of the symptoms hadn’t set in.
The exhaustion was nothing new - Jon frequently fell asleep in his office and woke up disoriented among the stacks, sometimes sans shoes or glasses. Sleep walking? Something more nefarious? He couldn't say.
Then, the cough. An expected consequence, he told himself, of rooting through dusty statements for a living after spending the majority of your early twenties cooking up your lungs.
Finally, today, the fever.
Jon doesn’t own a thermometer, but there’s an unnatural chill in his bones and his skin is hot and sensitive to the touch. He feels ill.
Elias popped in around 7AM to drop off a fresh stack of statements, including the one he's reading currently. How he knew Jon was there two hours before his shift was scheduled to start is a mystery. Why he felt it necessary to deliver this particular stack in-person is even more perplexing.
Jon sometimes goes weeks without seeing his elusive boss, and he's generally given free reign to select and organize statements as he pleases. The sudden micromanaging sets him on edge more than he'd like to admit.
Elias has a habit of popping up whenever it's least convenient, though. Nose running, throat aching, Jon hadn't paid much attention to the clothes he threw on that morning, dug out of a pile on his bathroom floor (a pile he meant to wash, but hasn't been home enough to see it through).
Jon must've looked like shit, because Elias had paused on the threshold of his office that morning after tapping on the door with that light, eerily familiar pattern.
"Goodness, are you quite all right, Jon?"
"Erm, a bit under the weather, apologies for my appearance."
“Not too ill to work, are you?” Beneath the sickly sweet concern was something dangerous. Something like...
“I was going to see if you’d have Martin follow up on a few new cases for me, but if you’re under the weather, hm… I could have you both take the rest of the week off, let you catch up? In fact, I believe Martin's been picking up quite a few extra hours, I'll have to speak to him about that...”
Like a threat. It’s only Monday.
“No!” It bursts out of him before Elias even finishes his sentence, frantic and loud.
Jon clears his throat, lowers his voice to a volume that sounds less insane. He doesn't get sick often, but when he does it always seems to make him overly emotional. “No, that-” would crush Martin, “That won’t be necessary. I’m fine. Really, just some allergies.”
He tries to look sincere about it, giving a pathetic sniff for good measure.
Tim and Sasha poke fun at him for practically living in the Archives, but Jon hasn’t worked a single extra shift without an inconspicuous cup of tea appearing on his desk, sometimes with a granola bar, fruit, or sandwich if it's the weekend.
At first, his paranoia told him Martin was watching, waiting for the perfect moment to get Jon alone so he could strike. (More than a few times, Jon poured the suspicious beverage down the drain in the break room and then purposefully made rounds outside his office, trying to see if Martin looked surprised to see him wandering around upright and un-poisoned.)
The truth turned out to be much simpler. And a man picking up extra hours to support his chronically ill mother isn’t the type to be plotting a violent murder in his free time. Probably. He's not even a halfway decent liar.
The bottom line is, Martin needs this job. Jon is not going to be the reason he loses a week's worth of potential pay. He’s not going to ostracize the only person he’s now certain isn’t quietly trying to off him.
Elias had only grinned, and Jon wasn’t sure whether the shiver that ran down his spine was from the building fever or something else entirely.
“Excellent. Meeting in my office at 2PM sharp, don’t be late! Tim and Sasha will be attending as well, I have some important developments to share with you all.” And then he swept out, shutting the door firmly behind him before Jon could protest.
Shoving the tape recorder away, Jon drops his head into his hands and groans. Sasha and Tim were never elated about his promotion, but at least they pretended to be supportive in the beginning. Since Prentiss and the Great Worm Incident, they seem to have realized exactly how incompetent he is, and the facade is slipping.
It doesn’t help that he’s terrified all the time.
Or that his skin currently feels sensitive and hot all over. Maybe the boyfriend from the statement had the right idea.
He imagines Elias gazing at him disapprovingly, scolding, ‘Crawling out of your own skin won’t excuse you from your responsibilities, Jon,’ and he stifles a hysterical laugh.
He’s going to have to pull it together if he wants to sell the allergies bit.
Jon's come to work sick before. Only an exceedingly nasty bout of stomach flu has kept him out of the office, and by this point he's got a schedule down. Come in early, get out early, as he'll steadily worsen the later it gets. Fill up a large thermos with water and choke the entire thing down throughout the day. As illness is a trigger for his leg and hips to act up, his cane is a necessity (though he tries to keep this obvious sign of pain out of sight of the others if he can help it). These points accomplished, he shuts himself in his office and suffers quietly until the day is through.
Which would've been fine, if the head of the institute hadn't called a last-minute meeting for god-knows-what and insisted the entire archival crew attend.
The problem with Elias’s office is that it sits at the top of a long flight of stairs.
Jon has trouble making it up on a good day. Today, it's almost more than he can bear to grip the cold side rail and pull himself onto that first step.
Almost halfway up, Jon shudders to a halt. To his frustration, he feels hot tears welling up behind his eyes. He’s made it this entire morning suppressing his shaking and coughing. He's ignored the aching in his leg, leaving his cane propped against the corner of his desk as if it were merely a precaution. Perhaps the comforting smile he shot Martin in the break room came off as more of a grimace? But overall he’s made a point to leave his office door open and be seen perusing the archives on his own when he needs to find something.
Sasha came in to update him on her progress during his lunch break when he was planning on sleeping, but he made it through with minimal snapping.
Allergies. If anyone asked, he's got allergies.
Now, after all that, these blasted stairs are going to be the end of him.
He leans heavily on the stairwell, trying to stay upright as his entire body shivers uncontrollably. Looking upwards, he tries to blink away the moisture. His head is foggy and he feels hot and cold all over.
Elias emerges from his office just as Jon reaches the center landing, and for a horrifying moment he thinks the other man might try to help him the rest of the way. He can’t quite put his finger on why the thought of Elias’s hands on his hands, shoulders, under his arms, is so abhorrent, but it makes him nauseous.
His boss doesn’t move from his position, though. He simply stands at the top of the stairs. Observing. Watching. His face is entirely neutral as Jon falters in his struggle upwards. It feels like a physical weight, that gaze, like a spotlight pressing him down into the carpet.
“Ah, sorry, just… just give me a minute, you can go ahead and start without me-”
Elias straightens his suit and raises his voice so that it echoes down the hall a bit. “I apologize, Jon, but it is the head archivist’s responsibility to attend these meetings alongside his assistants. Of course, I wouldn’t request your valuable time unless it was necessary.”
Jon winces. He feels heavy, and the thought of lifting his foot and propelling himself up just one more stair makes him want to cry. At the same time, he's already fifteen minutes late at least, Tim and Sasha are waiting, and they definitely heard Elias's entire monologue.
They’ll assume he’s dragging his feet on purpose, because he thinks himself too important. He’s tired and sore and his leg is aching but if he doesn’t move they’ll hate him even more than they already do, and then they’ll be relieved one day when he goes missing, when it’s his body that turns up in the tunnels beneath the archives, worm-ridden and decaying-
A voice rings out behind him, curious but firm.
“What’s going on?”
Between Jon’s flushed face and Elias’s sneer, Martin’s fairly certain he has enough context to understand the situation. He asks anyway though, swallowing his anger for the moment.
“What’s going on?” Jon stiffens, swipes a sleeve across his eyes, and turns an even deeper shade of scarlet. As if he’s the one who should be ashamed by this spectacle. Martin nearly sees red.
“Everything all right, Martin?” Sasha leans out the door of Elias’s office, drawn by the noise. She’s followed closely by Tim.
Of course, Elias starts in on his bullshit, “Apologies for the delay, I’ve located Jon and we should be able to begin soon-”
Martin rolls his eyes and begins climbing towards the idiot on the stairs who can barely stay upright but apparently thinks taking a sick day will kill him. He isn’t quiet in his approach, but Jon still flinches when Martin lightly grasps his upper arm.
Martin can feel the heat of his skin through his thin shirt sleeve. He tries for the commanding tone he had a moment earlier. Doesn’t quite get there.
“Er… Jon, you’re burning up, and you look like you’re about to keel over?” It comes out as more of a question. The smaller man tugs away weakly, snapping.
“I’m fine, you don’t know what you’re talking about-”
“Right, it’s just you’d have firmer ground to stand on if you weren’t using the railing as a prop-”
"I forgot my cane!"
"-and running a fever of, hm, I'd say at least thirty eight degrees!"
"Excuse me, I forgot you were a licensed medical professional-"
Elias, done smearing Jon to his coworkers, cuts in. “A fever? He should have said something- Jon, I would have taken a firmer stance when I checked in privately this morning.” Somehow, Martin doubts this. “In that case, I insist you take a few days to recover... as we discussed.”
Martin thinks that will be the end of it, at the very most he'll catch a few pointed comments when his boss returns, but Jon’s reaction is visceral. He rips his arm from Martin’s grasp, lurches up the next few steps, and stumbles to knock his knee in a painful thud.
Martin startles and reaches to catch him, but Jon rights himself (if somewhat painfully). He’s rambling now, professional demeanor burned away to reveal something desperate and paranoid.
“Really, I just missed my lunch break, blood sugar’s a bit low, silly mistake- there’s no need for dramatics-”
“Right on the nose there, this is needlessly dramatic,” Tim mutters to Sasha.
Martin shoots him a look so sharp that Tim holds his hands up in mock defeat. Honestly though, leave it to Jon to make a sick day sound like a threat of execution.
Elias tilts his head sympathetically. “Don’t worry about the meeting Jon, we’ll reschedule. It’s really not a big deal.” His voice is syrupy sweet, and something about it sends a shiver down Martin’s spine. “Tim, Sasha, you’re excused. Oh, and Martin, once you get our Head Archivist settled, could you join me in my office for a moment? There’s something I’d like to discuss about your hours.”
“I- yeah, sure.” Martin nods.
Jon makes a strangled noise in his throat.
“Excellent.” Elias closes his office door, leaving Tim and Sasha to share an exasperated glance on the landing.
Jon slumps to sit on the stairwell, one hand still grasping the railing so tightly his knuckles are white. His jaw is clenched and his chest is rising and falling rapidly. Tim doesn’t spare Jon a glance as he descends, but stops a few steps below to face Martin.
“Guess we’ve got a spare half hour. I’m going out for lunch. Sash?”
She shrugs in that detached way of hers. “Sure.”
He raises an eyebrow at Martin as if to ask, Are you coming with us or not?
Martin sighs and gestures helplessly at John, sparking a loud scoff. Tim still refuses to look at Jon, but calls over his shoulder, “Go home, you’re embarrassing yourself.” Within moments, the door slams behind him.
Even though Martin assumes (hopes?) that particular parting shot was meant for Jon, he still flinches.
Maybe he is embarrassing himself. Maybe Jon would rather suffer in silence and alone. But he looks so vulnerable hunched on the stairs, radiating heat and blinking back tears, and Martin can’t stand leaving him there.
“C’mon Jon. I can help you grab your things if you’d like-”
“If you knew what was good for you, you’d have kept your mouth shut, that was none of your business-” He stands abruptly, looking for all the world like he’s going to try and storm off, before the blood rushes from his face and he stumbles instead, missing a step.
Martin catches him before he tumbles down the entire flight of stairs. Pressed against Martin’s chest, the heat radiating from Jon’s skin is even more apparent. It takes the bite out of his words.
“Right, you’re very scary, I’ve learned my lesson. You can threaten me all you want from the break room. Should have a medical kit down there at least, maybe some paracetamol…” he steadies Jon with a hand on both of his shoulders as Jon straightens, glaring at the floor and refusing to make eye contact.
He doesn’t pull away from Martin’s touch this time though, and whether he’s finally chosen to accept help or is just too exhausted to fight it, Martin decides he doesn’t care.
With some maneuvering (mostly around Jon’s pride), they make it down the remaining stairs, across the hall, and into the break room. Jon sinks onto the nearest plastic chair with a wince while Martin rummages through the cabinets for a thermometer.
He finds a small tub that might have been stocked from the floor of someone’s car. There’s an ancient thermometer, some mismatched band-aids, off-brand antibacterial cream, and a nearly expired box of paracetamol.
“Aha! All right,” he gently places the box on the table near Jon’s head, “just lift up for a sec, there we go-” unthinkingly, he reaches to place the thermometer in Jon’s mouth. Jon snatches at it, scowling.
“I’m not a child, Martin!” Martin throws his hands up.
“Well then quit acting like one!” He does relinquish the thermometer though, a bit sheepishly. Old habits die hard and all that. He feels a strange watching Jon sullenly stick plastic in his mouth, so he busies himself making tea. It’s silent for a few moments.
Then- “I just want to go home, it doesn’t matter anymore,” Jon mutters around the thermometer. Martin turns to see him curled in on himself like a crumpled piece of paper.
“What- what doesn’t matter anymore?” The thermometer beeps, startling both of them, and Jon draws it out with some disgust, wiping it on his sweater. His movements are slow and clumsy.
“Pass it over, what've you- Christ Jon, 39.5?”
“M’fi-”
“If you say you are fine I swear to god I will shove this thermometer down your throat.” Jon coughs weakly, sinking his head to rest on the table in the crook of his elbow.
“I just want to go home.” If his voice wavers a bit, Martin isn’t going to point it out.
“Okay… all right, okay, but only if- look, I’m calling you a cab, and if that gets any higher before it gets here I’m taking you straight to the A&E. No questions asked.”
Jon moves his head in what could generously be considered a nod. Something tickles the back of Martin’s brain even as he tries to piece together a reasonable argument that will convince Jon to come home with him for a night without implying that he can’t take care of himself.
“Hang on, what did you mean earlier? That it doesn’t matter anymore? Do you need, I mean… is it work?”
Jon doesn’t move from where he’s slumped, but he does peel his eyes open with great effort. “S’not my work, s’your work,” he slurs. Clears his throat, tries again. He sounds exhausted and his words run together. “I tried, I get it- I mean I don’t because I don’t have anyone that I care about, but I know you do, and I know you need the… the time. But you can’t have it if I’m not here, and I can’t even do that. I can’t even be here.” Martin’s eyebrows knit together.
What in the… what?
For a moment there he thought Jon was talking about… well. Tim’s ‘you’re embarrassing yourself’ is still ringing in his ears, and alongside Jon’s declaration that he doesn’t have anyone he cares about, Martin's feeling pretty sensitive about his apparently obvious infatuation. But no, no, this is something else Martin, get your head out of your ass.
The tea kettle whistles, giving him a moment to gather himself, and on his way back to the table he grabs a blanket from the top shelf as well. It’s a bit old and moth-eaten, but it’s soft, and Jon hasn’t stopped shivering since he sat down.
“There we go,” placing the tea on the table, he eases Jon upright, biting back a smile at the whine that rises in Jon’s throat. “Just making sure you’re warm, that’s it,” Martin pulls the blanket snugly around his narrow shoulders, and seeing Jon’s flushed face and the moisture caught in his eyelashes, he makes a decision. “S’not ideal, just until I can get back- I do need to step into Elias’s office before we go- but I’ll tell him I’m taking the rest of the day off as well.”
He's not leaving him here. At the same time, he pauses and waits for Jon's response. Sure, Jon looks adorable flushed and fumbling with the blanket, but he’s obviously very ill and not his usual self. Martin wants to respect his autonomy as much as possible, doesn't want to overstep any boundaries.
Especially considering that if Jon remembers any of this tomorrow he might never speak to Martin again, simply out of the sheer embarrassment of being perceived as human.
“No… no ‘ospital…” his hand reaches out to grasp at Martin’s jumper and Martin catches his hand.
“No, no hospital. I hear you. But I am going to get you home and make sure you have liquids and proper medication. That’s the deal. If you don’t feel comfortable with that I can… erm, call someone for you, but- you’re not going home like this alone.”
Might’ve been a low blow, but he’s ninety percent sure that Jon has no one else to call. Martin takes his silence as confirmation. “I’ll be right back.”
He gently untangles their hands and quickly strides out the door before Jon can catch the deep blush exploding across his face.
Not the time, Martin.
Elias is on the phone when Martin reaches his office, and seems impatient to get Martin on his way. Apparently he’ll be splitting time between research and assisting Jon until they can find a replacement for someone who quit last week.
It feels like a bit of a demotion, but Elias is happy enough to let him leave early so that he can continue his call in private.
The entire exchange only took about ten minutes tops, but Martin has this ludicrous picture in his head of the archivist wrapped in a blanket, running down the street like a madman to escape the humiliation of Accepting Help.
When he actually gets back to the break room, it’s somehow worse.
Jon is hunched over, glasses fogged, silently crying.
Martin freezes in the doorway for a moment, petrified. He rakes through his memory and realizes he’s never seen Jon cry before. Not after Prentiss, not when Tim and Sasha started giving him the cold shoulder, not when he had a bad chronic pain day with his leg.
He once told Tim jokingly that he wasn’t sure Jon even had tear ducts. Tim had only chuckled and ruffled his hair. Oh, he’s got ‘em all right. Just uses them at the most bizarre times.
Jon can't read his thoughts, but Martin somehow feels personally responsible for the snotty mess in front of him.
“Oh, hey, don’t… I mean let it out if you need to, I hate being sick too, but let’s get you out of here, yeah? That can’t be comfortable-” Jon drags his head up with great effort at Martin’s voice, and Martin smiles encouragingly, and Jon...
...starts crying harder.
“Hey, ahhh, Jon?” Within seconds Martin has a glass of water and a fistful of paper towels and he’s kneeling in front of Jon’s chair. “Can I take these off?” He gestures at Jon’s glasses.
Jon nods his head, distressed.
“Okay…” he eases them off and starts to clean them. He goes to pass Jon the water, but the archivist drops his face into his hands. In a muffled voice, he starts… apologizing?
“Sorry, I’m sorry, I should’ve tried-- I mean I told him, but I should’ve tried harder, and if I could’ve just made it up the damn stairs-”
“Told who what now?”
Martin thinks back to turning the corner and finding Jon, jaw clenched, gripping the stairwell, obviously hurting and unwell. Now that he thinks about it, Jon had his cane with him when he came in this morning, which usually means his leg is giving him a hard time.
Plus there was the unprompted smile Jon shot him earlier in the break room. Martin had been too busy trying not to fumble with the hot kettle, but at the time it did seem a bit... off.
He remembers Elias perched there over him, watching his pain and desperation, doing his best to imply that Jon had chosen this. Martin could swear he was smirking-
Not the time, Martin. He realizes he’s tensed and sloshed water on the floor and replaces the glass on the table with a sigh. Someone else can clean it up this time. His legs are starting to cramp and Jon is listing sideways. Time to wrap this up. His voice still shakes as he taps Jon’s forehead and offers him his glasses back. “Is this about Elias, Jon? Did he- before I got there, did he say something to you?”
The miserable look on Jon’s face confirms his guess.
“What did he say?” His voice comes out sharper than he means, but Jon is too out of it to notice. In fact, he looks like he’s trying to solve a complicated maths problem. His voice is warm and confused.
“Didn’t- didn’t he tell you?”
“Tell me what, Jon?” Silence. “Okay, I went to his office, he was on a phone call, he literally told me he needs some extra help in research the next couple weeks and to go ahead and take off early- what did you think he was going to say?”
Jon shrugs helplessly and shivers again. “Said he’d cut your hours if I left. Nothing to do if I’m not here, and I know you’re- that this is your job. And it’s only Monday,” he finishes despondently.
All the stupid, infuriating pieces fall into place. He just recently explained to Jon about his CV, why he lied. About his mum.
I don’t have anyone that I care about, but I know you do. It’s logic that only Jon, with a dangerously high fever, could come up with. Martin groans and tilts Jon’s chin up so that he can maybe get something past the fog of illness. For someone so smart...
“Jon. That’s ridiculous. He- he doesn’t even have the power to do that? I’m… I mean I’m salaried, just like the rest of you? And… and that doesn't even make sense, we do preliminary and follow-up work- so if we don’t do our work on time, that would slow you down, not the other way around?”
Jon blinks slowly.
Martin pinches the bridge of his nose. “I- god I want to murder Elias, but honestly, you can’t let him lead you around like that, yeah?”
Jon’s face starts to crumble and Martin hastily backtracks. “Okay no, no look, see, we’re good to go, we can talk about this later. And we will talk about this more later. But right now you’re obviously not,” he gestures wildly as if that will convey his point, “critical thinking skills. So. Yeah. Later.”
By the grace of god and Rosie, they make it outside with minimal issues. Martin straightens the blanket around Jon’s shoulders, adds his own jacket for good measure, and bundles him into a taxi. When the car starts moving, Jon, still shivering, drops his head into Martin’s lap.
Still not the time, Martin. But he does allow himself to card his fingers through the archivist's hair. If Jon leans into the touch, well, he's ill. They both get a pass.
They don’t talk later. In fact, Martin was right, the archivist manages to avoid him for an entire week when he returns to work two days later. It would have taken longer than a week, but one day Jon leaves his door cracked instead of firmly shut, and Martin pokes his head in to offer tea.
Jon threatens to fire Martin himself if he ever brings the incident up again, then proceeds to pretend nothing happened in the first place.
Martin does, however, notice that he no longer has to restock the tea in the break room. Someone has started adding fresh boxes whenever it gets low. Jon will never admit to it, but Martin does begin to wonder who convinced Jon that he wasn't good at caring for people, and just how long it will take to prove him wrong.