Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The cottage was a quaint thing close enough to the coast that it would have sold for an exorbitant amount of money, even with its dust filled alcoves and fraying old carpets. The rounded windows let in the sunlight that glimmered over the water, casting light over the kitchen table with its two hand-carved chairs. Paintings in varying states of completion lined the walls, most propped against the ground and the wall, gathering dust.

Martin looked at it all from the doorway, his hand frozen on the key in the lock, and thought he couldn’t imagine his mother in this place, leaning over her canvases, salt in her hair. But then, she’d come here before she’d had him. And the few pictures that survived of his mother as a young woman had always seemed as if they featured a stranger with an unfamiliar smile. His mother had had the smile lines to prove it, though Martin had never seen her put them to use. 

He swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat, jiggling the key out from the lock and closing the door behind him. She had left this place to him, and yet he felt like an intruder, like he was poking around in a stranger’s home. The deed to the cottage burned a hole in his pocket all the same, signed with his mother’s shaky scrawl. 

An attempt at reconciliation, one of his distant aunts had assured him in the hazy fog the day of the funeral. 

Martin looked at the paintings propped against the cream colored walls, and thought differently. He knew his mother well, far better than the distant relatives who hoped they might have been included in the will. Martin had scoffed under his breath, seeing them, knowing what little his father hadn’t squandered of his mother’s inheritance had long ago been depleted to pay for her costly treatments. 

He hadn’t known this place existed, though. He couldn’t help but think she could have sold it when they desperately needed the cash, to keep them from slipping into debt. Instead, Martin had dropped out of school and worked anywhere that would take him, if only to avoid those resentful glances she sent him from her wheelchair, as if he were a tumor she had taken too long in deciding to cut away.

Martin looked at the cottage, and could only think of his mother’s voice in his ear, in her hacking voice, whispering, look what I had, before you. Look what I could have been, the life I could have lived, without you.

The deed to the cottage in her will read like a gift, but Martin knew it was meant to be a punishment. 

He dropped his bags on the floor, his shoulders sinking and muscles aching. The train ride, busy with all kinds of Summer crowds, had left him sore from his hunch in the middle seat between two tourists. He wished he could have shared their enthusiasm. For any other reason, he would have loved visiting Scotland. He looked around the cottage, with its well-loved kitchen and hand-carved tables, and felt nothing but dread and lingering grief. 

He had a few weeks to figure out what to do with it all. Sell or stay. Both left a bitter taste in his mouth when he considered them. 

Instead of mulling it over again, Martin left, locking the cabin up tight behind him. 

There were a number of kitschy shops lining the beachside. Martin couldn’t help but find them endearing as he walked by, even knowing the prices would be exorbitant for the same meals and souvenirs one could get for half-price farther inland. In the sunshine, with the sea breeze working to cool the heat, that fact hardly seemed to matter. He peered through the shop windows with mild interest, pausing for a moment in front of a small bookstore with a cat asleep and pressed against the glass. The books inside seemed to range from new to well-worn. There was an artfully patterned sign propped up against the glass that read: “Trade in old books!”, next to a slightly less carefully penned--though just as cheery--sign that read: “We’re hiring!”

He thought, absently, of the bookshelf in the cottage, with the books so old their bindings were peeling like paint.

After a half an hour of wandering, pretending himself a tourist, Martin reached the closest grocery store, the name of which seemed common throughout town: Magnus Grocery. He recalled seeing several Magnus-owned stores in the area, and idly wondered how wealthy you had to be to have half a town named after you. 

He wandered the aisles without much direction, adding items to his cart that he vaguely recognized having eaten before. Paying attention to it all just made him think of the question: stay or go. When he reached the checkout stand with his cart of haphazardly chosen items, the man behind the cash register--effortlessly handsome, with brown hair that looked artful even when he raked his hands through it, a frazzled look on his face--swore into the store phone, shooting Martin an apologetic look as he hung it up. “One sec,” the man said. The name tag on his shirt read “Timothy.” “I’ll be back in one sec, sorry about this.”

“Oh, that’s...fine...” Martin finished, watching the man’s retreating back. He had a very impressive power walk. 

Martin waited patiently, eyeing the growing line behind him--at all the other registers, really--and the souring faces of the wealthier tourists, used to faster service. Martin, used to being behind a register, didn’t envy the staff. After a few minutes, the man--Timothy--returned, a veritable whirlwind of a human being. He scanned Martin’s items with a speed that was almost frightening, all while saying, “sorry about that. You know how it is. Tourist season. And we’re understaffed.” 

Martin nodded politely, even though he’d never worked in anything like a tourist town. “Sure, no problem,” he said.

“How’re you liking the place?” Timothy asked him as he worked, tilting his head with a glint in his eye. “Here on vacation?”

“Uh,” Martin said, “something like that I suppose.” When Timothy only waited, curious, he added, “I’ve inherited a bit of land out here.”

“Oh, no way?” Timothy exclaimed, grinning. “So you’ll be a regular soon enough?”

Martin hesitated, a little overwhelmed by the enthusiasm, but Timothy only continued, with that genuine smile, “whereabouts?”

“Um, it’s little cottage,” Martin answered, “just off the North coast.”

Timothy’s eyebrows raised. “Not the old dusty one no one’s even rented out of in years?”

Martin huffed a laugh without much humor. “The very same.”

“Well,” Timothy said, good-naturedly, “it’ll be good to see a new face around. Everyone’s practically a neighbor. What’s your name?”

“Martin.”

The man smiled at him again, so quick and easy it seemed like Martin should have been able to as well. It should have been reflexive, but recently Martin had been feeling the strangest way, as if he'd forgotten exactly how. “Tim," the man said. "Stop by and visit, would you?” He dropped his voice to a whisper, then said conspiratorially, “distract me from the Americans. They’re quite rude.”

“Excuse me?” a woman a few people down the line piped up, as if on cue, “is there any way we can speed this up?”

Tim muttered something unflattering under his breath all while shooting her a smile and an apology. It was quite impressive. “Sorry ‘bout that, mate,” he said, turning back to Martin and finishing up with his groceries. “It’s way nicer in the Winter. Slower. Slow enough that some of us can even manage hobbies outside of work.” He said the last bit in a low whisper, as if conveying some precious secret.

Despite everything, Martin found himself smiling back, and it felt almost right. “Oh, really? What do people do around here? Scuba dive?”

Tim grinned. “You jest, but I’ve heard of way more outlandish hobbies.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, plenty of us are self-proclaimed cryptid hunters here on the coast,” the man replied. “Lots of spooky things hiding away in the ocean.”

Martin huffed a laugh that felt more real. “Like mermaids, or something?”

The man’s smile turned into something smaller, but no less genuine, as if they were sharing a private little joke. He shrugged, bagging Martin’s items, his eyes strangely bright. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

When Martin made his way back to the cottage, the sun was slowly making its way down, painting the town in a soft orange. He regretted having walked if only because the groceries weighed on his already sore muscles, but he supposed the view of the water was worth it, no longer blocked by a wall of tourists. The deep blue swells glittered in the light, a thousand sparkling diamonds. He could see why his mother had liked it out here, though it was difficult to associate her with anything bright or happy like the smiles he could see on the faces down by the beach. For a moment, he closed his eyes, taking a breath. Perhaps he only needed to extricate her from this. Put her firmly in the past where she belonged. 

When he returned to the cottage, his hair windswept and full of salt, he looked at all its dusty corners and took in the creaking sound of it in the winds straight off the water. Though it was a cozy space, it still made him feel so small, as if the windows were looking down at him like two harsh eyes behind their reading glasses. 

He set down the groceries on the kitchen table, then noticing the dust, he drew a finger against the table and drew it back, crinkling his nose. “Right,” he murmured, glancing around. “Suppose that’s the first step, then.”

He’d never minded cleaning. He liked the monotony of it, the practiced motions, the gratification of seeing progress unfold before his eyes. He liked how he didn’t have to think, how he could give the frantically spinning cogs in his mind a pause . If his mother had called him absent-minded, clumsy, it was always because he was worrying about something days ahead of when he was supposed to even consider it. Now, he didn’t think about the cottage, or his mother, or what he was going to do now that he didn’t have to stay near her in the city. He didn’t think about what his life was for if it wasn’t for someone else. 

He simply scrubbed at the grime and the dust with a single-mindedness that had the job done far too soon. 

And once that was done, he put the groceries away. Took stock of the linen and towels. Fired up the washer for those things that hadn’t seen the outside of a closet in years. Studied the bookshelf with its antique books that might have been worth something. 

He approached the paintings last, with the hesitation one might reserve for wild animals. He took the first in his hands carefully, brushing away the fine layer of dust. It was unfinished, but only just, lacking details. It was of the cottage, painted against the bluffs at dusk. His eyes fell on the initials, artfully penned in the right corner in the sand. She’d had a steady hand when she’d done so. Hands that didn’t tremble yet, with side effects from medication. Martin ran his thumb over the initials, M.B. Mary Blackwood. Another thing, like this cottage, that had never really felt like his own. 

He took a shuddering breath, quickly lowering the painting and wiping at his eyes. Later. He could think about it all later. 

He needed some air. 

It was nearly sunset by the time he finally got the finicky lock to turn and he heard a telltale click. The breeze had picked up, and he debated the merits of turning back to fight the lock again to duck in for one of his warmer jumpers, but, after a moment, he decided against it. It was a shock to his skin, but not an unwelcome one. The wind carried the smell of salt and the smack of the waves was just loud enough to drown out his thoughts. While he could admit he could romanticize being alone a bit too much, in the moment, he was grateful the cottage was set by itself, bracketed by the bluffs on the right of the small stretch of beach. 

He tugged down his sleeves to rest over his hands when the wind blew again, resolving for a brief walk along the shoreline. He walked slowly, watching his feet sink in the sand, eyeing the little mole crabs that burrowed away as the waves lapped on. The cry of seagulls was growing louder, and when Martin looked up, he could see a spot along the shore where they seemed to congregate. He squinted, and could just make out something dark against the sand. A beached animal perhaps?

Whatever it was, the gulls were squawking relentlessly, and Martin felt a pang of pity for it, though it was probably long dead. He made his way over, waving birds away as he went. Though, as he drew nearer, he slowed, his heart rising to his throat. He could hardly see through the flurry of feathers, but he could make out one thing.

A human hand, curled against the sand. 

The breath left his lungs. “Oh my God.” He took a shaky step, then another, dread rising up in him like vomit. He couldn’t help but wonder if they were already dead, if they’d drowned and washed up onshore, and god, there was no one else about, who was he even supposed to call? “Oh God, oh God,” he breathed as he went. “Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.”

Despite his trepidation, he moved faster, stumbling along the water that he could see lapped against what looked like a pair of bare legs. He batted his hands at the gulls that flew too close, waving them away. Finally, the ones closest beat their wings and moved back, squawking indignantly, but Martin hardly spared them a thought. 

His eyes landed on the person in the sand, his heart hammering so quickly and violently he was sure it would break his ribcage. It was a man, naked, lying so still and his brown skin so close to gray Martin thought, for a moment, that what he feared was true. But he saw the man’s chest slowly rise and fall, and, pressed against it with a limp hand was something like...a thick, spotted brown coat. The man’s skin was littered with old, faded scars, and while Martin certainly noticed that, it wasn’t what caught his attention. No, what drew his gaze and kept it there was the sluggishly bleeding wound in the man’s shoulder, perfectly circular. 

Martin had no real life experiences regarding the matter, but he’d seen enough movies to recognize a bullet wound.

And he’d seen enough movies to know he was already in way, way above his head. “Ohhkay,” he breathed shakily, trying to settle the frantic race of his thoughts. He couldn’t seem to stray from the fact that the man had been shot. It seemed idiotic, but he’d thought that kind of thing was far more rare than the movies made it out to be. And it also begged the question of who shot him, and would they still be looking for him, and oh God, was there some kind of Scottish mafia and would they be after him --?

The man on the sand twitched, and then moaned in pain, and Martin’s hands fluttered around him uselessly.

He should call someone. Call 999. That was what people were supposed to do when someone was bleeding out right in front of them, right?

He dug in his pockets, and then froze, nearly letting out a well-deserved expletive. He’d left his phone in the cottage. “Okay,” he breathed, “okay, okay.” He crouched down, tentatively reaching out, watching the man’s face. It was rather impressive that he still looked like one of the most beautiful men Martin had ever seen, even while heavily scarred and convincingly half-dead. Genetic lottery, that.

“Um, sir?” Martin asked, gently poking the man’s arm. No response. 

Martin ran a hand through his hair, eyeing the slowly sinking sun. It would be dark soon. It would get colder soon. And the man’s skin was already like ice against his fingertips.

Martin had read somewhere that you weren’t supposed to move people that had been injured if you weren’t a professional. He’d definitely heard that somewhere. The breeze blew at him, already freezing.

“Okay,” he said again, screwing his eyes shut before steeling himself. “Okay, I’m...I’m gonna get you somewhere warm, okay?”

The man, predictably, didn’t respond, still as a corpse. 

“Okay,” Martin said, trying to steady himself as much as he was trying to comfort an unconscious man. “You’re gonna be okay.” 

It took a bit of planning to figure out how best to move him, so as to avoid jostling the wound. Martin ended up bracing for the weight of him in something like a bridal carry, keeping his eyes firmly on the man’s face and not the more exposed bits that were suddenly very close to him. When he made to lift, however, the coat the man had clutched in a limp hand slipped away from his fingers and toward the sand, and the moment it dropped, the man jerked in Martin’s arms, startling him so badly he nearly dropped him. 

“Hey, hey, y-you’re okay,” Martin tried to soothe, but that only seemed to set him off further.

The man’s breaths came shorter, the huffs of them tickling Martin’s neck. His eyes blinked open blearily, bloodshot and eyelashes crusted with sand. “Where,” Martin thought he heard him croak, though it was difficult to tell with how slurred and mangled the word was, “where ‘s it. I need...n-need...”

Martin blinked, looking down at that pelt, like seal-skin, that the man had dropped. That must have been what he wanted. Martin crouched and reached with some difficulty to grasp the coat in the sand. When he brushed his fingers against it, he nearly reared back with the feeling like a small electric shock and when, at the same time, the man in his arms gave a full body twitch, letting out a high, keening sound. “Hey,” Martin murmured, immediately brushing the strange feeling off, “hey, it’s okay. I’ve got it.”

The man’s chest was rising and falling in a way that seemed to indicate he was still agitated, but his eyes were already more foggy, distant, and then he was stilling in Martin’s arms again, his head lolling onto Martin’s shoulder. 

Martin cautiously studied the rise and fall of his chest as if to reassure himself, because otherwise, he was so still in Martin’s arms he might well have been a corpse. He was far lighter than he should have been as well, when Martin managed to get on his feet, and still so cold. 

“You’re okay,” Martin kept saying, as he trekked back to the cottage, nervously glancing at the man’s face. He kept the seal-skin in his grip, wary of letting it fall again, for fear of the man squirming out of his arms and injuring himself further. “You’re okay.”

Perhaps Martin had a shred of good luck to his name after all, because upon returning to the door, the old lock didn’t give him a moment’s grief, and the door swung open under his hand. He moved as quickly as he dared to the bedroom up the stairs, gently lowering the man down on it. For a moment, he stood there looking down at him, his mind a storm of thoughts and empty all at once. Blankets, he managed, towels and blankets. 

He settled the still dripping seal-skin coat on the dresser table opposite the bed, and then raced to the dryer where he’d moved most of the linen and towels. He bundled as many of them in his arms as he could, nearly tripping on a trailing bit of fabric as he made his way up the stairs. He used the towels first to dry him as best he could, and then piled on blanket after blanket, his hands trembling so badly it took a few minutes longer than it should have. 

When he glanced up at the man’s face, his eyes were blinking open again, blearily, feverish sweat already breaking out over his brow. His eyes were a very dark brown, and when they finally found Martin’s, his breath left him. 

“You’re alright now,” Martin managed, around a tight throat. 

The look in the man’s eyes still seemed feverish despite the fact that they remained locked on Martin, his breaths tearing out of him, fast and almost fearful. “Give...give it back,” the man croaked. “Please. Please, I...I can’t. I can’t...” The man’s eyes darted around the room, wild, and landed on the seal-skin coat on the dresser. He jolted as if to sit up, but went gray with pain, a whimper escaping the tight press of his lips. 

“Oh God, don’t--you’ll hurt yourself,” Martin said, his hands fluttering, gently lighting on the man’s uninjured shoulder to guide him back down. The man jerked back from his touch, wide eyes swinging back to look at him, fear plain on his face. Martin drew his hands back immediately, his heart pounding. “Look, I’ll--I’ll get it for you,” he tried, moving around the bed to the dresser. The man’s eyes followed him, a look of such immediate distress creasing over his face when Martin’s hands hovered over the coat that he couldn’t help but hesitate. 

But then the man said again, his voice almost breaking on a sob like a wave on the rocks, “ please, ” and Martin decided he would do anything not to hear him sound like that again.

He took the coat in his hands and brought it back to the bedside in a single breath, holding it out. “Here,” he said shakily, “th-this is what you want, isn’t it?”

The man looked at the seal-skin, then up at him with wide, bleary eyes as if he couldn’t believe Martin had deigned to bring it over to him. He took it from Martin’s hands quickly, as if he thought Martin’s fingers would scald it, but carefully, as if handling old, crumbling parchment.

Again, there was that feeling, like a jolt of electricity, and Martin was aware enough this time to think it truly strange.

The man brought the coat to his chest and clutched it there, closing his eyes, his breathing finally slowing. 

The exhaustion of it all seemed to be working to pull him under, but not before his eyes opened again, the black of his pupils wide and expansive in the low light of the room. Martin couldn’t pinpoint the look on the man’s face when those eyes met his, half-lidded and tired, but whatever it was had his heart pounding long after the man’s breaths had evened out and the room had gone quiet save for the sound of them, like the distant waves along the shore.

Chapter Text

“Come on,” Martin muttered, pacing with his phone pressed to his ear. “Come on, come on—“

Three rings in, the call dropped, just like the calls before. He swore under his breath, peering at his phone screen and moving it this way and that to try to get a signal. He’d tried the ancient landline, untouched since at least the mid 80’s, and couldn’t wrangle it into working either. It made a concerning clicking sound whenever he brought it to his ear, and then a high static noise that discouraged him further.

He brought the pages of the curling phone book in the kitchen close to him, double checking the number before dialing on his cell again, his finger tracing the number back to the name just to make absolutely sure it was right. Magnus Hospital . Christ, the name really was everywhere. 

He’d been alternating trying 999 and the local hospital directly for about half an hour, and had had no luck at all.

The phone rang in his ear once, twice, three times. Then, miraculously, a fourth.

“Magnus Hospital, how—“

The call abruptly dropped.

Martin swore loudly, but quickly went quiet when he thought he heard a sound from the bedroom, like a whimper. 

“Oh, please don’t be dying,” Martin murmured, readjusting the phone against his ear after quickly pressing redial. He rushed up the stairs, phonebook in his hands.

When he entered, the man from the beach was shifting under the sheets, his head turning and eyes screwed shut, but he didn’t seem to be lucid. He was still clutching that seal-skin coat to his chest as if he could absorb it through his skin and wrap it around his heart. 

Martin swallowed hard, the sound of another dropped call ringing hollowly in his ear. He placed the phonebook on the bedside table and gently reached out to place the back of a hand on the man’s forehead, checking his temperature. His skin was burning up, sweat beading on his brow. 

Nervously, Martin peeled back the blankets to get a look at his right shoulder. It was still bleeding sluggishly, the drying blood nearly catching on the blankets. The skin around the wound was shot through with veins that looked inflamed, almost black. 

Yeah. He was in way, way over his head.

Martin pressed redial with a trembling finger, walking unsteadily over to the pile of towels he’d excavated from the dryer. He took one, running water over the edge of it at the bathroom sink. “Come on,” he murmured into the phone as he worked, He returned to the man’s side with the towel and sat himself on the chair he’d dragged up the stairs. He leaned over him, dabbing with the towel to clean off what blood he could. His mum had to have kept a first aid kit somewhere, he thought, as the phone again dropped the call. He pressed redial almost on reflex, dabbing around the wound with his other hand. 

Someone picked up on the second ring. “Magnus Hospital, how may I help you?”

Martin blinked, his brain stuttering. He dropped the towel, both hands going to clutch the phone, breathless, “hi! Hi, hello, oh, thank God, I-I need an—“

He was so absorbed in the call that, when a hand shot out and grabbed his wrist, he nearly dropped his phone in surprise. “Jesus —“

“No,” the man on the bed croaked, eyes half-lidded but locked on Martin, dark and intent, “no hospitals.”

Martin stared at him, dumbstruck. “But—?”

“Sir?” the woman over the phone prompted. “Are you in need of emergency services?”

The man on the bed looked at the phone in Martin’s hand and then reached for it, even as his expression screwed up in pain. Martin held it back out of his reach automatically, dumbfounded. “Are you insane—?”

The dial tone rang out. Another dropped call. Martin stared at the phone in his hand, dismayed.

When he looked back at the man on the bed, he saw the man didn’t even seem concerned. Instead, the man was staring down at the coat in his slender hands, his fingers absently brushing over the short fur. His brow was furrowed as he looked down at it. “You did give it back,” he murmured pensively, still sounding a little dazed with pain.

“I almost had her,” Martin said, ignoring the strange comment, staring down at his phone in his hands. “Why would you…?”

“No hospitals,” the man repeated tiredly. When he looked at Martin his eyes were a little foggy, but there was something considering in them, as if he were sizing Martin up. “Please,” he said, begrudgingly, after a moment. 

Martin gaped at him. “Okay, I don’t know anything about gunshot wounds, but I do know it’s not smart to just let one be—“

The man actually waved a careless hand, though the movement made him wince. “I’ll be fine,” he said, his voice slurring slightly. “I just need to get it out.”

He eyed his shoulder, clumsily pulling down the blankets and, to Martin’s horror, he made to reach into the wound with a finger. 

“ Oh no,” Martin said, reaching for his wrist to stop him. “No, we are not doing that.”

The man wriggled his arm weakly in Martin’s grip, a long-suffering look on his face, as if Martin were being the unreasonable one. “What’s this we?” he muttered, eyes narrowed. “It’s my bullet wound.”

“Yeah, your bullet wound, which already looks infected,” Martin shot back, still holding his wrist. “O-Or something. Pretty sure it’s not a good sign that it looks like that.” The thump of the man’s pulse against Martin’s fingers was strangely distracting. “Look, I got through to Magnus Hospital before, let me just—“

“No,” the man gasped out, his face suddenly more ashen, if that were possible. “No. Please.”

Martin stared at him, again taken aback by the sudden fear in his voice. “ Why ?” he asked.

The man swallowed, that fear lingering on his face even as he looked away, eyes skirting nervously. He glanced down at the wound, and a flurry of expressions flashed over his face, so quick Martin struggled to give them names. Rage, disgust, fear. So much fear.

Martin studied his face, his own heart pounding. “Who did this to you?” he asked, not entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer. Then, “Are you…afraid they’ll find you again?”

The man looked at him warily, lips pressed tightly together. He clutched the seal-skin coat closer, the pads of his fingers burrowing in the fur. “Please,” he said again, as if the word pained him. “I just need something to get it out.”

Martin swallowed dryly, pressing his hands together in his lap to keep them from shaking or from doing something foolish like reaching out. “Wh-what about a medic? O-Or a nurse? If you don’t want to go to a hospital, I…I could call someone in the morning—“

“No,” the man said, blinking around the fog in his eyes, physically fighting to keep lucid, “no, it’ll be much worse in the morning. I don’t know what state of mind I’ll be in then. It has to be tonight.”

Martin looked at him, then down at the wound, his stomach already turning. It must have been his imagination, but he could have sworn those stark, black veins had spread the slightest bit further. “I don’t…I don’t have anything…I-I haven’t even found the first-aid kit—“

“Do you have a knife?” the man asked. 

Martin balked at him. “A—? I’m not giving you a knife. ”

The man looked ready to shoot back a scathing reply, but he shifted and his face creased in pain, his breath catching. When his eyes opened again they looked very dark. “I don’t think you understand,” he said. “I need this bullet out tonight. Or I don’t know what I’ll do. Please, you’ve been—“ he cut off for a moment, his breaths still sounding ragged from the lingering pain, as his eyes raked over Martin’s face, “unexpectedly kind,” he finished stiltedly. “I…I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

Martin stared at him, feeling strangely flushed and hopelessly confused. “What are you talking about?”

The man looked at him again, eyes dark, and then sighed. “I don’t have time for this,” he muttered, and he pushed the covers back with a wince of pain. Martin only realized, watching numbly, what he was trying to do when he sat up and shifted, leveraging his legs to get them settled over the ground.

It served as a very sudden reminder that he was still buck naked.

“Woah,” Martin said, quickly looking up at the ceiling, his face aflame. “Aha, um, maybe you shouldn’t--?”

And then, of course, because it was just his luck, the man tried to stand, and his legs immediately gave out from under him. Martin saw it in his periphery and reached out on reflex, his hands catching on the warm, smooth skin around his waist, and then every bit of him was  suddenly pressed up against Martin’s front, and oh God, he was so warm and so naked--

The man grumbled something, his hands shifting to brace against Martin’s chest, and Martin was very glad for the fact that the man didn’t seem to be very observant in the moment, because Martin was sure his heart was beating hard enough to be felt. The flip-flopping feeling  in his stomach only grew when the man drew his head back slightly, and his breath ghosted against Martin’s neck, and those hazy, dilated brown eyes met his, very close indeed.

“Hm,” the man said, staring at him, so close to Martin’s nose he blurred a little in his vision. “You’re very strong.”

“Um,” Martin squeaked, “thanks?”

The man took a breath and then seemed to feel steady enough again to settle back on his feet, and Martin was torn between withdrawing his hands as if burned or lingering just in case he fell again. He was so aware of how hot and sweaty his palms were, and the other man was so, so naked. 

Martin glanced at his dresser, doing some quick mental cataloging of his clothes, settling on an old T and jeans that might fit the other man, given Martin had been holding onto them as guilty inspiration to maybe hit the gym once in a while. Admittedly, they’d be better used for this.

“Um,” he began, carefully averting his eyes again now that the man was standing on his own, “look, I have some--some clothes you can borrow, if...I mean, no offense, but I’d really prefer if we got you in some clothes.”

The man stared at him for a moment, just standing there, lilting only slightly, before sighing, long-suffering, as if Martin was asking some great favor of him. He muttered something, something that sounded strangely like humans, before saying, more clearly, “Fine.” He held out a hand, expectant, still swaying a bit worryingly. 

Martin blinked down at his outstretched hand before his mind caught on all the exposed skin again, and he averted his eyes. He thought if he wasn’t so flustered, he might have thought the man very rude, but as it was, he was just grateful he’d agreed, and Martin could drag his thoughts away from dangerously gay territory. “Okay, um, one--one sec,” he said, turning and opening his dresser, digging through it as quickly as he could. He withdrew with that T-shirt that he wouldn’t care much about getting bloodstains on, but couldn’t find that pair of jeans he was thinking of, so he settled on a pair of sweats with a drawstring that he hoped the man wouldn’t slip out of too easily.

He turned, and jumped when the man was right behind him, peering into the dresser over his shoulder with a muted curiosity. His face was a bit grey in color, sweat beading on his brow, and he had an arm wrapped around himself and a hand braced around his other arm, leading up to his injured shoulder. 

Martin stared at him worriedly, and asked, “are you--are you sure you don’t want to...lay down, or...?”

The man didn’t answer him, instead reaching out with his good arm and gently wrangling the clothes from Martin’s grip. He tugged on the sweats easily enough, one-handed, but he did nothing to stop them slowly sinking off his hips, the drawstring untouched. Martin quickly reached out to grab the waistband, his fingers just barely brushing against bare skin, and there  went his heart again, his face aflame. It didn’t help that the man only stared at him, blandly curious, when he did, and didn’t make a move to do anything else, the T-shirt clutched loosely in his grip.

“Um,” Martin squeaked again, “h-here, I can just...”  He very quickly, with slightly trembling fingers, tied off the drawstring, trying to cast his mind away from how close they stood, and how the man’s eyes never left his face, as if fascinated. “There,” he said, finishing, and Christ, they still hung low enough to make Martin think a bit too much about hipbones in general, but admittedly this was better. His brain no longer felt actively on fire. 

“Um,” he said, when the man just continued to stare at him, as if he were the alien one, “are--are you going to put that on? Or--I could try to find something else, if you don’t like it...?”

Blinking, the man looked down at the T-shirt in his hand, unfurling it with a little shake of his wrist. It wasn’t much to look at, just one of those free, promotional shirts Martin had gotten somewhere years ago, but the man studied it as if it had been on the wall of an art gallery. Finally, he seemed to find it acceptable, because he raised it over his head to slip into it.

Or, at least, he tried to. He half-raised his right arm to get it into the sleeve and hissed in pain, doubling over. 

“Oh,” Martin gasped out, reaching out with fluttering hands that didn’t know where to settle, “shit, here, let me--” He paused, going still when the man flinched at his movement, jerking back and curling his arm around his body again. It seemed to be instinctual, a reflex, but there had been a flash of fear in his eyes that made Martin’s mouth feel dry.

“Sorry,” Martin said, hoarsely, as the man slowly straightened up again, that wariness shed moment by moment as he watched Martin carefully. “I was just...I could help, if you’d like?” Martin suggested, pointing to the shirt.

The man glanced down at the shirt as Martin pointed, and though he stared at it, it seemed as though his mind were a thousand other places at once, his mouth a flat line. His eyes dropped to his shoulder, and something in them hardened. He looked up at Martin, and then said, “fine,” handing the shirt off to him. “Once we get the bullet out.”

Martin, half-caught in a hasty kind of relief, nearly choked on air when he registered that second half. “Sorry, 'we'--?”

“Where did you say your knives were?” the man asked, brushing past him, walking a bit strangely in the sweats, as if he wasn’t used to the feeling of fabric brushing his legs.

“I--?!” Martin whirled around, following him where he made for the bedroom door, “I didn’t--” he started, but he came to an abrupt stop when the man did too, watching as his brown eyes settled on the bed. Or, not the bed, he realized, as the man again brushed past him, but that seal-skin coat. 

Martin watched as the man struggled to bundle up the coat with his one, good hand. He took a step forward, offering, “I could--”

But the man looked up at him with eyes narrowed, and said, lowly, “you’re not to touch it again. Do you understand?”

Martin faltered, thinking that, before, the man had hardly looked threatening, half-drowned and weak, but there was something in his posture and his expression with that coat in his hands that reminded Martin of those stories of injured animals, afraid and desperate enough to lash out even when it didn’t benefit them.

Martin wanted to gently wrangle the coat out of his hands, because he knew from experience the thing was still water-logged and heavy, and the man already looked seconds away from keeling over, but instead he swallowed, and raised his hands placatingly. “Fine,” he conceded, “I won’t touch it. But why don’t you just leave it on the bed? No need to lug it around everywhere.”

The man’s eyes narrowed at him suspiciously, but he seemed to consider it, studying Martin and then the coat in turn. “Do you know what it is?” he asked Martin, his voice low, rumbling, strange.

“A coat,” Martin supplied immediately, the words coming to his tongue before he’d really thought of them. “Some kind of animal pelt, like a seal’s? Don’t know why you’re so attached to the thing. It kind of reeks.” He clapped a hand over his mouth as soon as he said it, as a flurry of expressions passed over the man’s face.

“I’m--sorry, I don’t...I don’t know why I said that,” Martin mumbled, mortified, but strangely, it looked as though the man was...pleased with his answer, some of that tension in him finally settling. 

“Fine,” the man said, letting the seal-skin rest back on the bed. “We’ll leave it here. But you’re not to touch it. And of course it reeks, everything reeks up here. You, for instance.”

Martin blanched, taking a quick, longer intake of breath instinctively, to see if he could smell any hint of sweat or B.O. on him, but it just smelled like sea-salt in there to him, and any whiff he caught of himself was just detergent from his clothes and the faint, citrus scent of his shampoo.

“Is your kitchen downstairs?” the man continued, heading for the door again. “That’s where you lot keep the knives, isn’t it?”

Martin stared at him, long-suffering, and blurted, “enough with the knives! Seriously, you actually think that’s a good idea?”

The man sighed, turning to look at him again, his expression set, serious. “I need,” he said, “to get this bullet out. Or things will get worse.”

“What things?” Martin asked, feeling a bit of hysterics coming on.

The man sighed again, as if Martin should have already known what he meant and it was a great inconvenience that he didn’t, and instead of answering, he turned again to the doorway.

“Hold on, just--just let me find the first aid kit, alright? I’m sure there are some tweezers in there, or--or something like it, if...” Martin swallowed nervously, then said, “if you still insist on not needing a hospital, which--which I think is a terrible decision, by the way, and if I got any reception, or--or had a car, you know, I-I’d probably just veto that decision, seeing as it’s terrible, but since you look maybe two seconds from passing out and possibly not waking up again, it’s not like we seem to have many other options, but--but I want it known that I still think this is a terrible idea, and...” The man was staring at him, very intently. Martin trailed off. “What?”

“What is a tweezer?” the man asked, fascinated.

Martin stared at him for a long moment. “I...” He opened his mouth, closed it, then repeated the process. “I’m sorry, what...?” His mind raced through several questions he should have asked from the very beginning, things like who on earth are you and where did you come from and what happened to you, but strangely the one that caught in his brain and rolled off his tongue was, “what’s your name?”

The man blinked, brow furrowing further, and he seemed almost offended. “Why would I give you my name ? We hardly know each other.”

Martin stared at him for longer this time, long enough that the man sighed, and conceded, “if you must call me something, you can call me Jon. I suppose. It’s not my full name, mind you. I’m not the kind of idiot that gives away his name to strangers to do with what they please.”

“Um,” Martin said, still staring at him. “Okay. I’m...I’m Martin. Martin Blackwood.” When the man-- Jon --looked at him sharply, he said, nervously, “I...I guess I don’t mind giving you my full name. Um. I actually...” he should have stopped there, but something about being under the scrutiny of those dark eyes made him feel like he was in a bit of a freefall, the floor not sitting right under his feet, and so he kept rambling, “I don’t actually have a middle name, but I...sometimes I like to sign my name with an initial, a K, I--I think it flows better, somehow. Um. Yeah.”

Jon tilted his head, studying him. “You are a very peculiar person,” he said after a moment, before turning to the door again. 

Martin lingered where he was for a second longer, a hysterical kind of amusement rising in his throat at the absurdity of it all, before lurching forward again when he heard Jon nearly lose his footing on the stairs. “Jesus, just--hold onto the railing, you lunatic--”

He all but forgot the seal-skin on the bed entirely, as soon as it was behind him.

Chapter Text

Martin held the tweezers in his hand, squeezing nervously. “Okay,” he murmured, “okay. It’s just—just in, squeeze, out. That’s all.”

Jon regarded him with sheer, cutting boredom from his perch on the couch. “Yes, by all means, talk the bullet out—”

“You shush,” Martin said, indignant. “I’ve never—I-I don’t want to get this wrong!”

“Of the two options available to us—out and in—there is only one wrong answer,” Jon replied cuttingly.

“I mean I don’t want to hurt you,” Martin sighed.

Jon blinked. He shifted a fraction, as if uncomfortable. (Of course he was, Martin mentally chided, he was still bleeding sluggishly from a bullet wound onto Martin’s nice towels). “That’s…I’ll be fine. I just want it out.”

“Right. Of course, I—right.” Martin angled the tweezers, trying to keep his hand from shaking. He did wish Jon could have done it himself, as he’d previously insisted, but he’d approached the delicate task of operating the tweezers rather like smashing the bits of a stapler together, so Martin had vetoed that decision. Appraising the weeping hole in Jon’s shoulder made Martin want to reconsider.

He took a breath and leaned closer. “I’m—I’m going to…” He settled his left hand on Jon’s bare shoulder to steady himself, trying not to simply think skin!skin! like some kind of freak. “Is this okay?”

“Martin,” Jon said. “Just get it out.”

“Right, s-sorry.” He went in with the tweezers and Jon, who seemed oddly fascinated by them, craned his head and followed the motion until the small prongs of metal met flesh, then he hissed and turned away.

“Sorry,” Martin whispered, pressing deeper, “oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

It was a bit like playing the most gruesome game of Operation ever. Blood immediately welled from the small hole as Martin pressed the tweezers inside, drawing a bitten off noise from Jon. Martin desperately wanted to look away, but he worried he might do more damage that way, so he swallowed his queasiness and pressed on. It took two tries to latch onto the bullet, during which Jon made horrible, cut off noises into his arm. Martin held fast, gritting his teeth, and slowly worked the sliver of metal out.

The wound began to smoke.

There was no other way to describe it—it was like it was burning Jon on the way out. Martin nearly lost the bullet in his shock.

Jon made a strangled sound. “Don’t—don’t stop! Get it out, get it out, get it out—”

Martin snapped out of his shock and inched it out. The skin and muscle it passed through burned and blackened, but Martin could see its edges now, somehow glinting in the light even while covered in viscera. “I’ve—I’ve got,” Martin said, over Jon’s rapid breathing, “a-almost there…”

Jon made a sound in the back of his throat, low and deep enough Martin felt it in his stomach. A sound…almost like a growl.

The bullet emerged in a final hiss of burned flesh. “Got it!” Martin exclaimed. “I—I actually got it!” He held it up into the light and his triumphant smile dimmed. The metal was covered in blood, but more ominously, the tiny casing was covered in odd markings. Lettering in a language Martin had never seen. “That’s…weird,” Martin breathed, bringing it closer and turning it around.

Jon’s breathing began to settle. Slowly, he turned his head back to Martin.

Blood soaked the little cracks in his lips, and, in the light, for a moment, Martin could have sworn his red-painted teeth looked like razors. But no, another blink and they were square and human.

Still covered in blood, though. “Jesus,” Martin breathed, “what the hell—?”

He caught a glimpse of more red, smeared onto his sweatpants where Jon’s arm rested against his leg. Unthinkingly, Martin surged forward, grabbing his arm and turning it over. Just below Jon’s wrist, at the vulnerable meat of the inside of his forearm, was a perfect circle of little, pinprick wounds—a perfect cast of what seemed like every tooth in Jon’s mouth. “What the hell, Jon!”

Jon leaned closer to the bullet held between the tweezers, letting his tongue dart out and lick at the blood on his lips. “Better the arm than you,” Jon murmured, his attention transfixed entirely by the bullet.

Martin might have pressed at that, but he was suddenly caught by how dark and wide Jon’s pupils had become, eclipses his irises nearly entirely. How…angular and hungry his face looked in the overhead light.

Without warning, Jon lifted one of the towels from the couch, ignoring the many wounds he bled from, and used it to snatch up the bullet from Martin’s tweezers.

Holding the bullet through the towel, Jon strode across the room toward the hearth and, before Martin could protest, he threw the whole bundle into the fire.

The towel was dry enough it caught in a moment, filing the room with an awful smell. Jon stared down into it, his eyes almost…otherworldly. A grin twisted his mouth, slow and triumphant. “Take that,” he said under his breath. “You bastard. Try and find me now.”

“My towel,” Martin protested weakly.

Jon turned to look at him, the side of his face lit by the fire. “Thank you,” he said, so earnestly, in his deep rumble.

Martin swallowed dryly, still holding up the tweezers like an idiot. “Uh…um. Y-Yeah. Of course.” He chuckled nervously. “Couldn’t very well have you bleed out on my sofa. Which—” He stood. “Let me look at that arm. I have some extra bandages here, I could—”

When he turned back around, Jon had extended his arm out to him without hesitation, regarding him expectantly. Compared to the twitchy, wary Jon he’d first met, this was…a shocking show of trust.

Martin approached with care, telegraphing his movements as he took Jon’s hand and turned his wrist into the light so he could get a better look. By all rights, it should have looked nastier, with how deep the teeth had gone, but blood was already clotting. And the shoulder…those pulsing, black veins had all but faded, only an occasional well of blood running down Jon’s chest.

Martin frowned but worked to bandage them anyway. All the while, Jon stared at him quietly.

“What,” he murmured, after his nerves had stretched.

Jon blinked. “What?”

“You’re staring at me,” Martin said. He could feel his cheeks betraying him, growing hot.

“What else am I supposed to be looking at?” Jon asked, genuinely baffled.

“I-I don’t know.” Martin wound the gauze around Jon’s arm. He hadn’t even winced at the splash of disinfectant—must have hurt much less than the bullet. “You could look at the—the decor—”

“I don’t want to look at the decor,” Jon said simply, still looking at him, devoid of that harsh wariness from earlier. Comparatively, the expression on his face was almost…soft.

Martin’s face was on fire. “Fine. Whatever.” He turned to the bullet wound, applying more disinfectant with a pad of gauze.

Jon gave a flicker of a wince at that but still refused to look away from Martin. “How are you doing that with your face? Making it that color?”

This made the issue with Martin’s face worse. “Can we talk about something else?”

Jon sighed. He looked out into the middle distance, then said, “I’m starving. That’s not really a good thing for me.”

Martin was surprised into a snort of a laugh. Jon blinked at him and stared at his mouth, which Martin pretended he didn’t notice for the sake of his sanity. It was one thing to have an attractive stranger bleeding in your living room. It was another if they wouldn’t stop looking at your mouth.

Martin affixed the bandage in place and cut the rest of the gauze off. “Let’s see what I have in the fridge,” he said.

The answer, unfortunately, was nothing. He really should have shopped with more intention at Magnus Grocery. He pulled a single avocado and a bag of shredded cheese from the fridge, considering them in each of his hands with tired resignation. Setting them aside on a counter for the moment, he rifled through a few cupboards. “Well, there’s…there’s a bit of Kraft mac-n-cheese, looks like. Hm, but no milk…”

“I can’t eat any of this,” Jon groused.

Martin pulled back and looked him. Half joking, half tiny-bit-insulted, he said, “What, you’re too good for a snack of shredded cheese straight out of the bag?”

Jon’s frown deepened. “I can’t eat it, Martin,” he said, as if Martin were a bit slow on the uptake.

Martin blinked in realization. It would have been just his luck, that the first person he’d hosted in…well, ever, would have dietary restrictions. “What can you eat then?”

“Meat,” Jon said.

Martin waited for more, but none came. “Meat,” he echoed.

Jon nodded earnestly. “Fish, preferably. But I’ll eat any kind really. In a pinch. If I’m hungry enough.”

Martin stared at him. “Right…I can just pop down to a fish and chips shop—”

“Raw,” Jon said.

Martin stared at him longer. “Right,” he said again. “Sashimi. I-I can do that.”

Jon nodded again. “Thank you, Martin,” he said.

Martin flushed. Suddenly his wallet didn’t hurt so much at the thought of sushi. “That’s—it’s fine. Look, why don’t you…you’re covered in blood. You can use the shower on the second floor. Towels are under the sink. I can also plan to buy some more clothes that might fit you better.”

Jon studied his arms. “It would be nice to feel the water again,” he said, which was an odd way to express a desire to be clean.

“Right,” Martin said again. “I…I’m just going to…” He inched toward the door.

Jon nodded and turned to head upstairs without another word, a man on a mission. Martin looked after him, perplexed. What an odd man, he thought. What an odd, distressingly pretty man.

Tim made little comment at his quick return to the grocery store, but raised his brows a bit at the amount of sushi grade fish he bought. “Jesus.” Tim grinned. “You hosting a get-together or something? I’m hurt.”

Martin laughed nervously. “Ha. Something like that.”

Tim winked as he bagged the groceries—some actual necessities, mostly fish. “Enjoy,” he said. “I expect an invite next time.” Another wink.

“Ha. Yeah, that’s—maybe, haha…” Maybe when I don’t have a mysterious, injured, half-naked man in my house, he thought as he gathered up his bags.

On the route back, he tucked into a store called Magnus Apparel—(which, Jesus, did the guy actually own the whole town?)—and perused the isles, picking out things he imagined would fit Jon. When he arrived at the checkout counter, a thin, unnervingly pretty woman with a name tag reading “Nikola” ran her eyes over the clothes. “Bit small for you,” she said. “Perhaps.”

“That’s—" Rude, Martin thought. “That’s alright, they’re not for me.”

Nikola clucked. “If you’re sure. Jared could help with that, if you wanted him to.”

Martin frowned. “Sorry?”

“At the gym,” Nikola said, her pristinely white smile a bit too wide.

Martin tried not to bristle, packing on his own polite smile. “Ah. Thanks for the tip.”

“Certainly,” Nikola said, in her too-cheery tone.

She rang up the first item, and Martin nearly had a heart attack. “That’s—that’s just one—?” Martin hadn’t expected quite so many digits.

“Nothing but the best at Magnus Apparel,” she said brightly.

“Right,” Martin said, blinking the exorbitant amount from his eyes. “I think…I think I’m actually going to pass on these. Thanks so much, though.”

Nikola’s smile did not even falter. “Are you sure? You could see Jared first, if that’s—?”

“No, no, thanks though,” Martin said, backing away. It was beginning to unnerve him, just how fixed the woman’s smile seemed.

He breathed easier when the shop was behind him. He made to just return home when he noticed a nondescript thrift shop at the corner called What the Closet?. Ducking inside, he was met with dim lighting, grunge music blaring from distant speakers, and…more of an antiques shop than a thrift store, really, though there was clothing hung up round the back wall. A young woman with choppy black hair, a T-shirt with a ghost, and dark sunglasses sat behind the register, bopping her head to either the store’s music or whatever played from the single earbud in her left ear.

Martin quickly made a pass of the clothing, which was much more reasonably priced, and picked out another few garments he could imagine Jon wearing.

He went with them to the counter and waited expectantly.

The woman didn’t acknowledge him.

Martin cleared his throat, which made the woman jump and stare at him through her sunglasses. “Um, hello. I have a few, um, items—”

“You trying to scare me to death?” she said. “Jesus. Scanner’s over there.” She jerked her head at the price scanning gun on a stand about a meter to the right.

“Oh, sure,” Martin said.

She considered him in silence as he scanned the clothing through, then said, “You’re new. I haven’t heard your voice before.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m—” Martin stopped when the particular word choice filtered through and realization hit him. “Oh! Oh, I—I didn’t realize you couldn’t—couldn’t, um…”

“Couldn’t what?” the woman asked, voice barbed.

Martin floundered, until her mouth pulled into a sharp-toothed grin. “Ah, I’m just fucking with you,” she said. “Yeah. I’m blind. Usually folks just know to announce themselves by now.”

“Sorry,” Martin murmured.

She shrugged. “’S fine. No harm done.” She extended a hand in his direction. “Melanie,” she said.

“Martin,” he said, taking her hand and shaking it.

“What’s brought you here?” She asked. “The vacationing? Or the other stuff?”

“What…other stuff?” Martin asked.

Melanie’s smile widened. “Well. If you don’t know, I won’t ruin the surprise for you. If you stick around long enough. Just be careful when you go looking, not to look too long,” she said, lowering her dark-tinged glasses to reveal twin, milky white pupils.

“Darling,” a voice called out from the bowels of the store backrooms, “are you scaring the tourists again?”

Melanie leaned back in her chair, grinning. “That’ll be $65.95,” she said sweetly.

When he made his way out, she made sure to call, “And don’t touch any of the dolls! They’re haunted!”

When Martin returned to the cottage, he sagged a moment against the door. Scottish islanders were so weird.

“Did you find food?” Jon’s voice drifted from the stairs.

Martin looked up and he nearly choked on his own spit. He realized he’d only ever seen Jon run absolutely ragged, painted worrying shades from fatigue, blood, and dirt. When Jon descended the stairs draped in Martin’s slightly oversized clothing, the long curls of his damp, black hair thrown over his shoulder with his fingers running through them, that fact had never been so apparent. He looked unearthly.

Jon ran his eyes over the bags Martin had brought curiously, itching at the bare spot at his wrist where the bite mark somehow looked even less prominent than an hour ago. “I’ll need you to replace the bandages, if you don’t mind,” Jon said. “They didn’t seem like something that should get wet.” He snorted. “So little can up here. Stupid…”

When Jon breezed past Martin to take a look in the bags, Martin caught a whiff of his shampoo in Jon’s hair and his brain short-circuited.

Oh, he thought. Oh, no.

Jon made a pleased sound when he found the fish, straightening and tearing open the packaging with fingernails that, for a moment, flashed strangely sharp in the light. He took the filet and bit into it, sliding the bite from the fine bones with his teeth.

Martin gaped at him, and Jon met his eye with his cheeks bulging like a squirrel. “What?” he asked around his chewing.

“Nothing,” Martin breathed.

It was going to be a very long night.