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So here’s the thing: Martin has absolutely no idea what Michael’s deal is. And sure, okay, that’s probably their whole point or whatever, but it is distinctly inconvenient when he has a big, hopeless crush on them. And try as he might, he just can’t figure out if he has any chance at all, which serves him right for having feelings for a thing basically walking around with a giant sign reading “mixed signals” pointing at them.
Yesterday, after weeks of working up the courage, he’d asked them out for coffee and been soundly rejected.
Today, Michael’s in his apartment at the crack of dawn, trying to lure him out to… wherever.
So, to recap: what the fuck?
It’s not that Martin’s unhappy to see them as much as he wishes he was. Even through a stark wave of embarrassment and hurt, part of him’s still so happy to look up and find them there.
He couldn’t really say when his feelings from Michael went from all fear and distrust, waiting for the other shoe to drop after they saved Sasha, to eventually tolerance, to amusement, to actually looking forward to their presence, to developing a small crush on them. Which then, to his horror, developed into a not-so-small crush as he desperately tried and failed to backpedal to fear.
Worse still, somewhere along the way he must’ve misinterpreted things horribly and imagined some sort of reciprocation for that crush, enough to make him actually try and do something and not just live the rest of his life daydreaming in silence (his usual plan). It’s actually easier for him to talk casually, romantic or not, to people he doesn’t know, who aren’t his friends and coworkers, who he doesn’t need to worry quite so much about messing everything up with. He didn’t expect weird hallway monsters to ever fall into the latter category instead of the first, but that’s just his life now.
Still, he’d given it a try. He’d spent two solid weeks talking himself into, out of it, and back into asking Michael out, and finally gotten his chance.
Martin had taken long enough packing up that he was actually able to convince the others to go on ahead while Jon holed up in his office, and he’d looked up from his bag to find Michael there, door at the ready. They’d escorted him through it to a few blocks away from his flat, giving them a bit more of a walk home, a bit more time spent together, which had seemed a little promising. They’d even pulled a bright yellow umbrella from, well, somewhere, to hold over him when it’d started to drizzle—which had seemed a lot promising.
Breathing in the cool, rain-soaked air, pulling the shaggy fabric of his scarf tighter around his neck, Martin had tried so, so hard to ignore the nervous pounding of his heart. When they’d reached their destination, he’d turned to face them on the sidewalk instead of going up, and they’d stopped too, looking at him curiously.
“Um, I was, I was wondering if you’d…” Martin had started,forcing out each word like pulling teeth, slow and painful. “If you’d like to get a coffee with me sometime?”
Michael had tilted their head to one side, still smiling blankly.
“Coffee? What for?” Martin was not prepared for this answer. Admittedly, he wasn’t really prepared for any answer, but especially not that.
“Well, to drink, I guess. Or-or tea, we could—”
“I don’t drink coffee, Martin. Or the tea you’re so… fond of.” They say, easily dismissing the idea entirely with a few words. His tiny speck of confidence had crumbled down to dust.
“Right, sorry! That was dumb. I’m guessing that means you also wouldn’t want to get dinner? Or anything like that?” It was stupid, and he’d wished more than anything that he could just stop talking, but by then his nerves had been going going haywire and so was his mouth.
“Your food is another substance I avoid, yes. You—”
“Yeah, of course. Sorry, I forgot about that. Um, okay I’ve gotta—I’d better get going now. Sorry!” Martin had hurried through the door and up the stairs into his flat, pretending the entire time that he wasn’t running away. Of course he knew Michael didn’t really do the whole eating thing, but they’d sometimes sit with him while he had his tea, so he’d just thought—whatever.
He’d been stupid, and they’d clearly had no interest in spending time with him in that way. Despite his best efforts, he can’t get their expression as he’d left out of his head, looking after him with their eyebrows creased, edges of their smile curling down with something he can’t help but see as pity. Poor, hopeful Martin.
All of which just makes the situation at hand even more confusing.
Martin cringes and has to resist the urge to make a face at himself just thinking of it, instead turning his attention back to the Michael in front of him, who looks more eager than pitying.
“Follow me, assistant, there are… things that need to be revealed,” they urge, offering their large, jagged hand to him again and telling him absolutely nothing. And then, when he just squints at them, midway through lifting his mug to his mouth at 8 in the morning, they surprise him with, “Please, Martin?”
Which is so not fair. How can he resist when they actually ask nicely? It might be even worse because he’s not even sure that they’re playing dirty on purpose. He shouldn’t. Really, really shouldn’t. Getting his hopes up just to be rejected once is plenty, thanks, and Martin shouldn’t encourage himself when Michael clearly doesn’t mean anything by it. He won’t.
Martin takes their hand. He sighs while doing it, taking his time setting down his mug and standing, resolutely keeping his face turned down into something just shy of a scowl, but he takes it. They’ve kept it from cutting him, their palm dancing with just a hint of static against his own.
“Fine, lead the way.” It doesn’t really come out as detached as he wanted it to, and their face splits (he doesn’t use that word lightly) further into a grin like he’s made their whole year. He thinks what he’s made is some sort of mistake.
Michael leads him through their yellow doorway, and he’s so distracted to still be holding their hand (stupid, stupid) that it takes him a bit to realize that they’re not passing through for a moment to reach some other place like usual, but heading deeper and deeper into the hallways themselves.
Martin searches himself for some hint of fear, or caution, or even just resentment at their rejection, and comes up empty. Instead, he just watches as, beside him, Michael walks along, looking just a bit on the wrong side of human. Their dizzying, splintered reflection, nothing but a black silhouette with eyes and a grinning mouth of swirling neon, jumps from mirror to mirror beside them as they go. As he watches, it turns at him with a smile that’s all teeth, giving a little wave.
And it’s just small things like that which gave Martin the now obviously misplaced courage to ask Michael to coffee anyways. Unless they’re pulling off an extremely delayed trick of some sort (which isn’t really impossible, but his heart promptly shuts that prospect down), they seem to genuinely enjoy spending time with him, often seeking him out, either just joining in with whatever he’s doing or occasionally whisking him away somewhere for an outing.
Plus they’ve taken to handing him things randomly, little gifts like books or pretty framed pictures or fancy teas, though they seem offended whenever he tries to pay them back with anything better than gifts of his own. That took him a bit to figure out, and when he tried to actually pay them back for some really nice, very expensive wool for his knitting because he felt bad, they’d all-out hissed at him and sulked for a few days, which proves… something? Maybe?
And then there’d been the hair thing. Well, two hair things really, one for each of them. Over the time he’s known them, Michael’s long mane of curls has gone from purely yellow-blonde to… not quite that. Most of the time, it still looks the same, but in certain lights, patches of it now glint with flashes of iridescent color, little strips of jewel tones. Sometimes, he catches himself tilting his head around to catch their hair from different angles just to see it shine. And that definitely wasn’t there when he first met them, he’s sure of it.
It’d been the other hair thing that had really meant something, though. Or, he’d thought it had, but again, in retrospect, Michael’s habit of playing with his hair is just nothing at all.
He’d been caught off guard the first time it’d happened.Martin had been reading out loud to them—Michael can certainly read for themself, but they’d asked to hear what he was looking at, and it helps Martin get a little more used to hearing his own voice for whenever he actually works up the nerve to share some of his own poetry. They’d made a questioning noise at him, and, without really knowing what they were asking, he’d nodded (remember what he said earlier about a lack of caution? Yeah, that’s not even new.)
Surprisingly slowly, even delicately, they’d reached over and tucked back a curl that’d fallen forward into his face a little bit. Martin’s not ashamed to admit that he’d stuttered the word he was on and then lost his place entirely, had to desperately find it again before it was too obvious. Which was a completely justified reaction to that sort of thing. Worse still, they’d paused for a moment, and the burst of giddy excitement he’d felt had dipped back to disappointment at the loss of contact, only for them to start carding their fingers through his hair.
Martin can’t name a single thing that happened in the next thirty pages he read. He is a little bit embarrassed to admit that part, but, well, he’s only human, and they’re…them. Since then, Michael will just start playing with his hair occasionally, carefully combing through it with their rough finers or twirling it lightly or (oh god) just resting their hand on his head for a moment, almost cupping his face. The sensation is. Odd is the only way he can really put it. It’s maybe a little pleasant, maybe a little staticky, maybe a little sharp on occasion (that’s no surprise, with those hands) but more than anything, Martin finds it painfully, achingly familiar.
When he was a kid, before he’d transitioned, one part of being perceived as a girl he hadn’t actually minded all that much was the easy physicality of it. He has lots of fond memories from before he cut his hair of the simple intimacy of sitting in front of a girl who’d ask and then just fiddle with his hair and sleepovers (usually the kind where the whole class was invited, but he didn’t mind) where they’d braided each others’ hair. It didn’t matter that, even back then, he’d been able to recognize himself as different from them in some integral way, and that they all knew it too, even if they were usually nice about it, this was something he was still a part of.
Now, instead of long and dark and thick, Martin’s hair is cut short, kind of an unruly length but still distinctly short, the roots the same black but the rest of it a fading pink, damaged from the dye. He likes it this length, likes the color, wouldn’t go back for the world, but between the length and some odd combination of growing up and transitioning, things he couldn’t separate if he tried, there’s nobody left to play with his hair. Sure, he has Tim, and Sasha, and Jon (and Jane’s technically his coworker or something now too, sure. fine.) and at least the first two are pretty comfortable with casual touches and hugs and stuff, but it’s not quite the same. From the years before that, and all the time away from them now, too, Martin often finds his greatest reaction to touch is just… surprise. The shock of something unfamiliar.
So when Michael had started that same habit so casually, it had meant a lot to him. Too much, maybe. Definitely. Evidently more than it had meant for them, but still. He can’t even really be mad at himself for that mistake.
The weirdest thing, though was the whole deal with the sweater. Not Michael giving it to him—he was used to their gifts by then, but no less appreciative of such a kind gesture. Sure, it was a little brighter than what he normally goes for, but of course Martin started wearing it all the time. When he finally wore it in to work, pretending that he wasn’t a little embarrassingly giddy just to be doing that because it was from Michael, everyone had liked it just fine and complimented him—except Jane.
Their relationship is already, well, tense, to put it nicely. Burning up the worms had burned their hold on her, too, and Sasha says it wasn’t out of pity, but as far as Martin’s concerned his friend was shaken up after nearly getting eaten, or replaced, or both, and took pity on Jane and let her stay with her to heal. Which turned into letting her stay permanently, including in the archives, and look. He’s well aware that it’s like, not entirely her fault she got eaten by a bunch of worms, but that doesn’t mean he has any sort of positive feelings about almost getting eaten by worms himself. Twice.
But Sasha evidently likes her, quite a lot, and Martin likes Sasha, and trusts her judgment, so he’s willing to silently hold his kind-of-unfounded, kind-of-extremely-justified grudge and awkwardly nod at her in the hallways when they pass, especially because she’s got an understanding of the situation they’re all apparently in and is more direct than Michael. Martin is so willing to put up with this in fact, that he’s more than happy to just pretend he doesn’t see the way they look at each other sometimes when they don’t think anyone will see, the tiny, brief touches they share which convey such a deep familiarity, the quiet words of fondness or reassurance, the way Sasha reaches over without a word and takes Jane’s hand when she starts scratching, her blunt nails finding the same skin over and over. That’s their business, not his.
The point is, him and Jane have a sort of tentative agreement to just not really interact more than an occasional nod, so he was more than a little surprised when he walked into the break room and Jane actually looked up from tearing her napkin into pieces to grimace at him.
“You reek of the spiral,” she’d announced, sounding none too pleased about it.
“Good morning to you, too. Sorry, what exactly does that mean?” He’d looked down at his sweater and back to her—it just smelled like a regular sweater, and he’d washed it several times since getting it, so it’s probably some aftereffect of getting wormed that made her notice anything at all. But Jane didn’t answer, just continued to curl up her lip at him—he’s never seen her and Michael in the same room, but he’s pretty sure there’s some mutual distaste there.
“Weeell… doesn’t Sasha, sometimes? I’m not the only one friends with Michael.” Considering aforementioned distaste, he’s not sure how she manages to balance Jane and Michael successfully, but apparently Sasha’s got it figured out somehow.
“No. That’s not how it works, you know.” Martin doesn’t know, not even a little bit, and he has a feeling nobody’s going to explain anything anytime soon. “Sasha is marked only by herself, I’m not that… flashy.” She’d nodded to his sweater, then ducked around him and out of the room. Martin had just stood there, unsure of what to make of that entire thing and now slightly self-conscious.
Now, he’s glad he slept in the sweater last night, feeling right at home in the spiraling hallways.
“Where are we going, exactly?”
“Hmm… how can I be ‘exact’ with you when the location itself knows no boundaries? When there are no edges, when there are not, even, names?” Michael croons, tugging him gently around a corner, looking back at him with delight in their eyes. His fault for asking.
“Okay, how about a not-exact answer?”
“I have something to show you, Martin. Further in.” They sound so excited, a slight buzz winding its way just under their voice, that he doesn’t push further.
Not to mention there’s something poking in at the edges of his senses, distracting him. It takes him a moment to even recognize it as sound at all and not just a feeling. It’s a little like humming, a little like singing, a little like the shrill whistle of a tea kettle on a cold morning: a layering of thin almost-melodies over and over and over each other, starting faint and not getting louder, not really, but submerging him just the same. It’s beautiful even as the sharp notes drill into his ears. There is no Voice, and the walls around him do not sing, but there is music there all the same.
Martin turns his face casually away from Michael, wiping away the warm blood trickling down from his nose. If they see, they might turn him right back around, and Martin doesn’t want that.
Luckily, Michael isn’t quite meeting his eyes anymore, but he can see the slight glow coming from them anyways, can feel the lines of racing static against his fingers where theirs hands intertwine. There’s a sort of shifting in their outline, a blurred double image dancing around them that he has to close his eyes against, however unwillingly. Their reflection in the mirrors has tripled in height, hunched to fit in the frames.
They turn a corner and before them is another door, but it’s not the usual yellow one that Martin knows would take them outside. Instead, this one is an elegant, dark wood, simple but beautiful. The noise that isn’t there seems to fill everything in Martin’s head, and he sways to it. Michael nods towards him and he steps forward, twisting the handle.
The room inside opens up and out, fading into the background, but he hardly notices that. Inside is… a sort of structure, if it can even be called that, the boards of the floor and the frames of pictures and thin strips of mirror, even entire doors, stretched out stick-thin, tangling together towards the ceiling. These strips curve to form a sort of thatch above their heads, and dappled walls on either side, peeling back to open up a small pathway right in front of him with more open spaces on either side. The carpet beneath his feet has changed too, growing from the old, worn-down and faded repeating colors to a soft mat of tangled deep green, reaching up around his shoes.
The tent of wood itself is decorated, and Martin steps forward into it wonderingly. Iridescent curls of ribbon wind between doorknobs and baseboards, strings of yarn hang down and brush his face, and he even sees a few clumps of tea bags hanging down by their strings. He can’t quite pin it down, but he thinks they might be… vanilla chai for some, and others chamomile? but Martin suspects he might just think that because those happen to be his favorites. The ground, too, is littered with objects, little piles of nautilus shells in stripes of brown and cream, the green, curled ends of ferns, even little pinecones, their spirals all on display.
More than anything else, though, there are flowers. Dried and hanging, trimmed and held in vases wedged in between mirror fragments, or sprouting very much alive and growing from the ground, the boards of the structure itself, even the ceiling. White lilies, yellow chrysanthemums, purple wisteria draped over everything, and dozens more he can’t name. Through it all, the singing persists, not deeper but seeming to reach inside of him now, shaking everything, so loud and like he isn’t even hearing anything all at once.
Martin discretely wipes at his nose again, hoping that the bleeding hasn’t moved to his ears (he feels, well, definitely not normal, definitely overwhelmed, but not more than he can handle, not worth more to him than this), and turns to face Michael. They’re stunning like this, hair fanning out from around their head like it has a mind of its own, curling and unwinding and endless. And, when he looks closer, he sees that even the green of their irises has changed, spinning with slivers of color.
“It’s beautiful,” he whispers in place of saying the same about them, and Michael smiles. They’re wringing their hands together a bit, his eyes finding it hard to follow the movement.
“Do you like this?” Their voice, too, is melodic, if melody mixed with the scraping of a knife against metal.
“Of course! This is—this is incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it. You made this?”
“This as well. It’s for you, Martin,” they say, speaking of something they hold cupped in their hands. He couldn’t say when they managed to pick it up, or if they even did, but that doesn’t matter now.
Michael opens their oversized hands to reveal a little felted sculpture, the kind they’ve been absentmindedly making the last few months, using their fingers instead of any needles. Unlike the others, this one moves.
A little field of bright green wool, fluffed delicately, with a tiny white, brown-roofed farmhouse sitting on one of the miniature hills. The details alone are gorgeous, but above the field hangs a small, dark storm cloud. As he watches, holding the gift in hands that suddenly feel much too clumsy for something so delicate, it rolls gently over the fields and the house, pin-prick drops of blue rain cascading down from it and seeping into the green surface. He can actually hear the sound of the rain falling, somehow more peaceful from the light buzz of static that runs underneath it.
For a second, all he can manage to do is stand and gape.
“You want me to keep this?” His voice is high and strained. Out of all the little gifts, this feels incredibly personal, so much that it makes his heart ache.
“If you’d like it. I understand that this display is… elaborate,” they murmur, hands whirling faster.
It really is, in a way where Martin really doesn’t know what to make of it at all. He feels like he’s been on the emotional rollercoaster of his life in the past few days when he really just wants to be on an emotional kiddy ride instead. Is this an apology, that they can’t return his feelings? The gift a consolation prize? Or are they just trying to brush past things, an out from the night before that he should feel grateful for. Maybe they’re just proud of it and he was the only one not busy, the only one to show it to.
Carefully, Martin reels back in his expectations like a runaway kite, how much all of this makes him feel. He knows it’s probably not even a big deal for Michael, and he should at least try to keep from embarrassing himself more. After all, they’ve made it more than clear they’re not interested in him like that.
He takes a deep breath and steps out from inside the structure, making sure to step around the bunches of daisies and trinkets beneath his feet. It’s really no less impressive from outside, resplendent from any angle. He tries to make himself seem casual and not obviously, horribly love-sick.
“Thanks, I’ll find a safe place for this.” He clears his throat, tries to find the right tone. “It’s definitely, well, a lot, but it’s pretty! Have you shown the others?”
Michael stills. “They have not seen it. Would you. Like them to?”
“Well, I think they’d like it? It, um, looks like it took a lot of effort, and they’re your friends—well, not Jane, but—well, I’m sure they’d love it, I mean.” Martin stammers out. Maybe they’re embarrassed about… something? Maybe it isn’t finished and that’s why they don’t want Tim, Jon, and Sasha seeing it, though he’s sure they’d love it as much as he does.
“They are my friends,” Michael agrees.
They don’t say anything else, and Martin’s out of things to say that sound casual and normal and friendly instead of “I care about you so much it hurts”, and suddenly the terrible awkwardness of yesterday afternoon has caught up to him. His palms are starting to sweat against the beautiful, precious gift cupped in them, and he shifts his weight from foot to foot. Michael’s hair is no longer moving, falling easily into place against their shoulders, and they’re beautiful like that, too. Martin clears his throat.
They smile a neutral sort of smile at him (Michael has lots of different smiles), standing there while he also stands there. They’re both sort of just standing there in this wondrous place, and Martin has to do something or he’s going to start really freaking out.
“So, that’s what you wanted to show me, then?” He winces at the way the words come out as soon as he says them, sounding too callous, too impatient, but Michael’s expression remains entirely unchanged. He thinks he might be getting used to the almost-music at last, it doesn’t seem quite so all-encompassing anymore.
“It was. Is there…hm. Are you ready to leave, Martin?” They gesture, and there’s the door, like it never left at all. They seem to be waiting for something. Martin pauses, trying to figure out what, before duh, it’s him saying yes to their question.
“Oh, sure, I guess. Thanks for showing me this, though! It’s really pretty,” He squeaks in the understatement of the century, stepping over and out.
“Of course.” They say nothing else as they pass back the way they came. Or, what would be the way they came, but much shorter. Now, it’s only a few steps between the first door and the second, and he can’t manage to catch a glimpse of their reflection at all. Martin’s back in his flat before he knows it, clutching the little landscape tightly.
Suddenly, inexplicably worried that they’ll just slam the door on him if he isn’t fast enough, Martin spins to face them. Michael’s face is still that blank sort of smile, disconcerting to him now in a way it hasn’t been for a long time, their hair unmoving, their eyes still.
“Uh. I’ll see you on Monday, then?” He asks, trying to make it not sound like please.
They nod, just once. “You will.” And they’re gone.
Martin sits down at his kitchen table. Then Martin thunks his head down onto his kitchen table. For a moment, he just presses his face against the coolness of the shabby old wood, before turning to gaze sideways at the miniature rainfall that they made for him.
Why does he feel like something just went wrong?
Martin isn’t able to shake that uneasy feeling the entire weekend. There’s this gnawing sense that he messed up somehow, except whatever thing he messed up is completely invisible to him, with nothing to even indicate that it’s there at all. Michael hadn’t responded to him like they were upset or even offended (had they? definitely not. right?), and besides, they’d just been trying to show him a cool… work of art they’d made. And he’d complimented it, said that it’s good enough to show the others, accepted their gift without a fuss the way they like.
But part of him knows that’s not quite right. Sure, he can’t actually point to anything wrong in his own behavior or their response, but he still feels like he messed up, and not even in an overthinking-Martin way. Just the real way.
He doesn’t sleep well Sunday night, worried about having to face them the next day after what feels like two horrible failures. Directly after each other. Within a weekend.
Eventually, Martin gives up on sleeping entirely and wanders to the living room of his flat, mindlessly flipping through channels while slipping in and out of a doze. Finally, when it’s remotely close enough to actually justify it, he gets up and starts getting ready for the day.
He’s leaning against his dented kitchen counter, trying to eat a bowl of cereal fast enough that he won’t be late to work and feeling equal parts confused and tired of being confused when he tunes back in to whatever’s playing. He must’ve started watching the nature channel or something, because that’s undeniably David Attenborough’s voice narrating.
“...More surprising, he a very avid collector, with an appreciative eye for color. This male favors red and orange flowers, and he’s very fond of fungus.” Maybe it’s because he’s already thinking of the flowers Michael had shown him earlier that it stands out, but Martin starts really listening, walking over to the TV as the narration continues. “He puts these treasures on display within and around a construction that has taken him years to build. A giant bower, woven around a central sapling, carpeted with moss.”
On the screen is a sort of tent built from thin twigs, forming a big arch under which a little bird hops around, dragging flower petals and berries and shiny things into place to make a perfect arrangement. He stares, dumbfounded, at the screen while Mr. Attenborough describes how the brownish bird has spent such a long time building the bower, perfecting his song, practicing his dance. To woo a mate.
Martin pulls out his phone and googles “bower bird”. Some of them have bright colors, some of them particularly go after blue, he even watches a video of an orange one dilating and undilating each of its pupils in turn. He turns his phone off. He turns the TV off. He stands in his empty living room, one hand clapped over his mouth as though to stop whatever’s coming out. Probably nothing good, at this particular moment.
It’s not just that, now that he’s seen one, there’s absolutely no denying the resemblance of the structure Michael had shown him to a bower, but the fact that they’d shown him at all. He thinks about Michael urging him to follow them, Michael asking nicely. How their hand had started buzzing against his as they got closer, how they hadn’t been quite been meeting his eyes as they approached, the way the walls had started singing. A serenade, is what he thinks of it as now. He thinks of how the smell in the air really was from his favorite teas, of the yarn spread throughout the doors, the offering they made.
More than anything, he thinks about Michael looking at him, asking him, so very carefully neutral, if he wants to leave. The way they’d been waiting for something.
Martin spends so long looking at videos of bower birds that he really is late for work, then keeps right on watching them when gets on the tube and all the way until he’s there. Once he’s at the institute, he’s too wound up, too afraid of having missed his chance already, that he basically sprints inside, taking the steps down to the archives two at a time. He’s got so much momentum built up that he just bursts into the main room, out of breath.
Tim, Jon, Sasha, and Jane turn to look at him, someone asking some question, but Michael does not. Instead, they stiffen up, and he can track where their fingers trace thin scratches into the wood of the desk they lean against.
“Martin, you’re nearly 20 minutes late—” Jon starts, but Sasha nudges him sharply in the side the same moment that Martin cuts him off.
“Sorry about that, but I’m going to be even later.” He pants, feeling sweaty and hectic and horrifically alive all at once. “Michael, can I talk to you? In the hallway? Please?”
Without looking up, they nod, gliding on out after him, quiet. Martin purposefully doesn’t see the confused and/or meaningful glances he’s getting.
“Uh, could you take me to the bo—what you showed me on Saturday? Sorry.”
But Michael doesn’t object, just offering up a door and taking him through. Even avoiding his gaze, he can see the twist of confusion across their features.
This time, the walk to the bower is again a shorter one, but it feels less like they’re trying to get away from him as fast as possible and more like they’re just caught too off guard for any ceremony. Even still, it’s just as beautiful as it was the first time when he steps through into that dazzling, dizzying tangle of hallway and bloom.
Martin was so terrified of having ruined things already, of hurrying to make it right, that it hadn’t really occurred to him that he might be wrong. Until right now. Still, he’s come this far, and petrified as he is, what else is there to do?
“Can I, um?” He croaks, unable to finish, instead reaching out with both hands, palms up, and after a beat Michael places their stretched, warped hands into his own, dwarfing them easily. Finally, they look up at him, a sort of raw questioning in their eyes, just a flash of uncertainty before its concealed behind color and glimmer, that catches Martin right through the heart.
He takes a step backward, and then another, gently taking them with him into the shelter of the bower, making them duck down slightly to get under a bit of doorknob.
When they’re both in, he tries desperately to find the right words, or any words at all. Starting with the part he’s sure of might be good.
“On Friday, I was trying to ask you out. On a date, because I’m interested in, um, dating you. Romantically.” Well that’s maybe one of the worst, clumsiest ways he could’ve said it, but he didn’t really have time to prepare and, hey, at least now he’s said it. “I shouldn’t have asked about food, and then when I realized that, I just kind of panicked. But that’s what I was trying to do.”
Michael blinks down at him, their mouth curling into a smile at least, and, for once in his goddamn life, Martin lets himself read into it, lets himself hope.
“Ah. I believe what we have between us, then, is what you might call a misunderstanding. This is for you, Martin. All of it. I crafted this all… for you, to show you the workings of Myself.” They squeeze his hands in their own heavy ones. “Romantically.”
“Oh!” Is all Martin can manage, even though suspecting as much is why he’s here in the first place. “That’s, that’s great—that’s great! I think we, yeah, had a misunderstanding. I asked you about food, which you don’t eat, and you… built me a bower, which is more of a bird thing than a human one, so I didn’t really…” Martin’s brain has stopped producing any words that aren’t “Romantically! Romantically! Romantically!”
“What a funny game we’ve both been playing, hmm?” They pull him in closer to them, a bit of yarn tangling in their hair, and he lets himself brush it out. “Well, is kissing more of a bird thing, as you say, or a human one?”
Martin groans at the teasing but takes the invitation. He loops a hand around the back of Michael’s neck, feeling the buzz of their bare skin, and pulls them in for a kiss. He can feel the brush of their long hair against his face, the light press of their lips against his own, the closeness of them.This, at least, does apply to both of them.
Standing there, in the beautiful bower they’ve built for him, feeling them smile against his lips, Martin understands them perfectly at last.