Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jon had been tired as of late. 

Of course, that wasn’t anything unusual in the slightest, as he wasn’t sure he had actually felt truly well rested since high school, but there was something that had been feeling different. It was less like the familiar exhaustion that weighed heavy in his bones when he moved or exerted himself too much, but instead more like an odd kind of jet lag, something that came in waves and shifts, washing over him at different points over the day. 

It had felt wrong to do anything about it, of course, because he had learned to live with his body's constant pushback against doing anything but sitting, eyes half-lidded and chin in his hand, at his desk. The constant underlying haze of tiredness had become such a part of him that to have another layer added to it didn’t feel like anything at all. There was no reason to do unnecessary work to account for something that would eventually adjust, fading into the background of the many struggles of his work life. 

He was sure that if he told anybody about it, they would say otherwise. They had a habit of doing that, disagreeing with him. It was always ‘that’s not healthy, Jon,’ ‘see a doctor, Jon,’ ‘what the fuck , Jon,’ and he was right sick of it. 

He just didn’t have room in his life for sitting down and changing things about himself for no other reason other than Martin pinching his brow and chewing the inside of his cheek with concern whenever they saw each other in the office. Sure, maybe his reluctance to address anything was creating a knot of issues that would only grow harder to unwind, but dwelling too much on that concept was, again, a waste of his time.

All of the worried, pitying little mutters chattered aggravatingly in the back of his mind as he dozed through one of his heavier waves of exhaustion, a paper held in his limp fingers staring back at him as he found himself rereading the same two lines over and over again in a pathetic attempt to actually process what it said.

 He didn’t feel very much like moving, instead just distantly wondering if he was actually going to get anything done this morning or if he would just have to turn in early tonight and show up with two cups of coffee tomorrow. 

That would at least show some kind of initiative, wouldn’t it? If he just spoke more loudly about the whole going to bed early than he did about the coffee, maybe his assistants would back off for enough time for Jon to learn how to pretend to get his shit together. He faintly congratulated himself for coming up with a plan before realising he had to start rereading his paragraph from the beginning again, letting out a long, exhausted sigh. 

That was when two soft knocks on the door to his office snapped him awake, very suddenly and jarringly reminded that there were sounds in the world other than his own slowed breathing and the hum of the heating across the room. He jolted, fumbling for a better grasp on his paper and rubbing an eye beneath his glasses as the door handle gently turned.

“For god’s sake, Martin,” he huffed, frustration stirring in his chest at his moment of zoning out being interrupted. His annoyance with the particular assistant had been at a peak lately, something about knowing that he had been staying overnight at the archives and was somehow getting less work done than usual. He knew he had been paranoid and the entire worm situation had been traumatising and stressful for him, but Jon had used up all of his patience a while back. 

He scowled at his paper again, the words all feeling like they were melding together annoyingly, the ink bleeding into incomprehensible smudges. “What’s the point of knocking if you just open the door immediately afterward? I’ve told you this before.”

“S-sorry,” Martin stuttered, gaze flicking nervously over his shoulder as he shuffled toward Jon’s desk and set down a mug of tea in front of him, reaching for the half-filled cup Jon had unintentionally left to go cold during a previous wave of fatigue. He saw Martin’s gaze dart for a moment between Jon and the mug, a flicker of hurt crossing his face at it being unfinished, no doubt. It wasn’t Jon’s fault that he hadn’t been very thirsty, of course, and he kicked himself for the spike of guilt piercing his chest with Martin’s expression. 

“I just- I knocked quite a few times before, and you… didn’t answer. Both Tim and Sasha said you were in here, but I didn’t want to pound on the door or-” he cleared his throat, the worry Jon had grown so used to, yet so frustrated with, filling Martin’s eyes. “You were being very quiet.”

Jon glared back at Martin a moment, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at the fidgeting figure clutching the abandoned cup of tea. Jon hadn’t heard anything, of course, but some part of him declined to believe that he had been that sleep-deprived. He could work just fine while exhausted, he never got to the point where he wouldn’t hear someone knocking several times on a door a few feet away from him. 

And yet it was hard to believe Martin was lying. 

So Jon just blinked away his suspicion and huffed, straightening the paper he had been holding and shaking his head dismissively. “Fine. Just- trying to get things done here, alright? You forget some people here are actually competent.”

He didn’t bother to look up at Martin’s reaction as he heard the footsteps quickly move back toward the door, knowing it would probably just make him feel like he was being an asshole. Granted, he absolutely was, but some weak part of him timidly pointed out that Martin hadn’t actually done anything wrong, and he didn’t want to have to think about it too hard.

Jon felt the reluctance of his muscles as he reached for the mug sitting on his desk, the movement still sluggish as he grasped the handle. He was already feeling tired again. 

When Jon finally shut the door of his flat behind him, he had long decided that he would make good on his promise to his assistants about going to bed early. It hadn’t actually had much to do with the fact that he had made a promise, Jon didn’t have time to think about petty obligations to others when he had a massive mess of an archive to organise, it was more to do with the fact that he had been entirely unproductive that day. 

The warm glow of his floor lamp was pleasant on his face as he wearily set down his bag, running a hand through unwashed hair and taking a deeper breath of air that wasn’t so thick with the smell of dust, mildew, and old books. His oddly arranged bouts of exhaustion had been horrifically inefficient for his work, barely being able to get through a couple of papers before giving in to the urge to cease all movement and instead sink his face into his hands. 

So all he had to do was set an alarm and then go to bed at some obscenely early time to make up for the robbed sleep that was no doubt doing this to him. He didn't even have to make up that much, he just needed to make it to another point in the many stages of sleep deprivation that allowed him to at least pretend to function. 

As he dragged himself over to the bathroom to shower, however, he passed the kitchen and paused, the only actually attentive part of his mind pointing out that he hadn’t eaten lunch that day. Or breakfast. He hadn’t even eaten that much dinner the night before, and yet somehow he had been sitting at his desk all day thinking it was sleep deprivation that had been doing this to him. 

Jon never did end up getting the extra sleep he got home early for. After finally getting into bed, and having eaten a full meal, he figured his body should have jumped at the opportunity to get a full night’s sleep. And yet after dozing off around ten thirty, an hour later his mind decided it was enough and he found himself blinking awake, blankets heavy on his shoulders.

Any disbelief or confusion that may have taken hold of him was immediately lost to a kind of disappointed acceptance, because of course this would happen to him. Of course he would try to take responsibility for his own health for the first time in months, eat food that didn’t taste good because it was what humans were meant to do, finally get a sliver of rest only to have it torn away from him at eleven fucking PM on a Tuesday evening. 

He was still tired, he found, as he reluctantly got up to open one of the curtains, just to check that it was still dark out and his clock wasn’t broken. His clock was evidently not wrong, the only light outside a streetlamp glowing through a canopy of branches across the dark street. It was Jon’s sleep schedule that was broken, not anything else. 

He couldn’t even take advantage of the insomnia to get any work done, as he hadn’t brought any statements or files home with him that day. He had planned entirely to sleep for almost all the time he was home, and even that very simple plan had been foiled. 

Jon defeatedly realised that there was nothing left to do but accept that he was a disaster, wait until he felt tired again, and then go back to bed. So he did, mind and body completely drained as he slid the covers back over himself and stared blearily past the curtain he had left open. The glow from the distant streetlamp blinked and changed with the breeze through the branches over it, distracting in a way but also lulling him further into his not-quite-sleep daze.

Jon’s last miserable hope was that maybe, instead of just lying there with his eyes wide open staring half-dead at a streetlamp until he had to get up and return to work, he would be able to catch at least one or two more hours of sleep that night. 

It didn’t happen.

“And next time, actually bring me the statements in order! ” 

Jon’s irritated mutters to himself followed after Martin as he gently shut the door behind him, taking a deep breath and making his way back over to the break room. Maybe it was Martin being more sensitive lately, but the eggshells Martin walked on every day to keep Jon from snapping at him seemed to be getting more fragile every time he walked in. 

Tim and Sasha already kept out of Jon’s office when they could, so they probably hadn’t noticed anything. But no matter how cautious and friendly Martin went out of his way to be, he seemed to be searching for something to be angry about, anywhere from a crumpled edge on a file to Martin’s handwriting being too messy for him to properly read.

As difficult as it was spending a moment outside Jon’s door emotionally preparing himself before he went, Martin knew it was just because of stress. They were both on edge, with Martin sleeping in the archives and still seeing shiny white worms in every tiny movement, every glint of light on a reflective surface, every spot just out of his vision he could still feel ever so slightly writhing. 

He knew it was making Jon stressed as well, which was his greatest regret, far more than any paranoia of his own. The man clearly wasn’t doing well, no matter what excuse he made when Martin went in to check on him. Jon was also very clearly getting tired of Martin, the resentment he knew Jon to hold only intensifying with the disaster that had been the Vittery case. 

And yet Martin clung to hope in the form of Jon still asking to be brought tea, just pointing out that it had gone cold instead of just turning down Martin entirely. 

Of course, Martin would never jump to the conclusion that Jon still wanted to see him at the usual intervals over the day, but at least it meant that Jon was aware enough to know how much it would hurt to be told to stop the ritual Martin considered his only useful job at the archives. 

His hands shook on the half-finished mug he had taken from Jon, chest aching distantly as he poured the remainder of the tea down the sink. Just- the tea he had made, specifically for Jon, with just the right amount of milk and no sugar, as requested. He hadn’t… done anything wrong, of course, it was probably something to do with Jon, whatever had been making him so stressed out lately. 

It was alright. He wasn’t hurt.

Martin set the mantra on loop in his mind as he cleaned out the mug, figuring that if he was this upset over his boss, who didn’t like anything, not drinking as much tea as usual, he probably needed to get more sleep. He was just being irrational. 

As he opened the cupboard to get another teabag, though, Martin hesitated, halfway through the familiar motions of making Jon’s tea when he paused. There was another set of teabags sitting just behind the earl grey, a variety pack of herbal teas Sasha had requested when she had a sore throat earlier in the week.

His hand drifted over to it, pulling it from the cupboard and seeing that there was plenty left, stacks of colourful paper packets with labels in flowery fonts. He felt his gaze lingering on the packet labeled chamomile, gaze flicking back in the direction of Jon’s office.

It felt stupid to keep giving Jon the same tea that he knew was just sitting on the archivist’s desk if he didn’t want it, doing the same thing and expecting different results and all that. How much could it hurt to try something different?

If Jon didn’t like it, then he could just not drink it. Martin had been collecting half-full cups from the desk for nearly a week now, what was taking one that was full? He was being silly anyway, thinking too hard about something that Jon might not have even realised was important to him. Worst case scenario, Jon did actually take the tea and then shouted at Martin for getting the wrong kind. Then that was something Martin could fix by going back and getting him another cup, instead of just apologising profusely and making pathetic promises about not doing it next time. 

The sharp ding of the electric kettle finally boiling snapped him out of his very intense internal debate over one cup of tea, making up his mind as he picked up the packet of chamomile and tore it open, refusing to let himself overthink it any more. It was just tea.

Jon didn’t look up from his desk as Martin slipped inside and placed the mug on the coaster, offering a brief smile that he hoped Jon at least saw. The archivist still looked stressed, an eye twitching beneath his glasses as he squinted at the font and his knee jittering beneath the table. Definitely didn’t look like he needed anything caffeinated.

Martin quickly stepped out of the office, a touch of pride fluttering in his chest at having done anything without being shouted at. He let out a breath, some of the built-up anxiety unravelling as he walked back to his desk. It would be okay.

“ SOMETHING’S WRONG WITH JON!”

Sasha’s head snapped over to the door as the sound of the handle slamming to the wall rang through the office. It caused a bit of an issue for Tim, who was leaning against her shoulder, but before he could complain about being whacked across the face by her earring he saw Martin standing in the door frame.

…Now, Martin was a naturally anxious person. He had never been too confident, being easily spooked and most of the time was more skittish woodland creature than man. Everyone who had to work with him had gotten used to that, and knew how to either just deal with it or temporarily convince Martin that he didn’t constantly need to have a monologue of apologies prepared. Sudden waves of panic were even more frequent as of late, usually accompanied with some rushed, shaky rambling about worms. And yet after this long working side by side with the assistant, Tim could not describe the fear alive in Martin's eyes.

He stood with his hands trembling at his sides and tears glistening in his eyes, chest heaving and panicked breaths filling the room. His entire face tight with a true, terrifying distress that Tim needed a moment to even register. 

“...Wrong?” Sasha finally repeated, the first one to move as she quickly got up from her seat, setting the folder she had been looking through onto her desk. She strode over, Tim following as Martin swallowed a gasp and gestured wildly over his shoulder. 

“I- I went into- I went into his office earlier today and he- he wasn’t moving so I assumed he was just resting which was stupid because Jon never ever naps at work, but I just let him be because I figured that he needs the sleep after what a mess he’s been lately and after I left I didn’t hear from him but then after four hours, I went- I went to bring him his tea at ten, I wondered if he was doing alright and he was still lying there with his file open to the same page and his glasses in the same place on his desk and then I couldn’t hear him breathing and I think he might be-! ”

“Martin!” Tim cut him off, reaching to take ahold of the man’s shoulder and snap him out of the hysterical ramble. Martin choked on a breath, sounding like he was suppressing a sob as he shakily placed a hand on top of Tim’s. 

“Calm down,” Tim reassured him. “Worst case scenario, Jon is dead, Sasha gets to be archivist, does a better job than he ever could, and you don’t have to be told to shut up every day.”

“Tim-” Sasha huffed, already shouldering past Martin and toward the office, “we should actually check on him, god knows he might have actually passed out from starvation or something.”

Martin, looking consoled by neither of the two responses, hurried after them, wringing his hands together with breathing no less panicked as they approached the frosted glass of Jon’s door. Sasha was the one to open it, cautious but sure as she stepped inside. 

Sure enough, over Sasha’s shoulder, Tim saw a figure slumped over the table, calloused fingers failing to grasp the edge of a folder and grey-streaked hair in disheveled strands over the man’s face. His glasses were on the desk, but looked more like they had fallen off as opposed to being set there. 

Jon’s head was rested on his forearm, expression completely relaxed with sleep and looking like a different person without the constant tightness of stress and anger. It was difficult to tell if his cracked lips were drawing any breaths, but he looked surprisingly peaceful for the most high-strung person Tim ever had the misfortune of meeting. 

“Christ, Martin, what the hell did you put in his tea?” Tim smirked, glancing over at the assistant as Sasha strode over to check for a pulse. 

But instead of scolding Tim for telling a joke as they all stood over what might have been the corpse of their boss, Martin’s face entirely drained of colour, eyes widening with horror as his breath hitched again. 

“Don’t tell me you-”

Martin cut him off with a strangled noise, nearly tripping over himself as he reached for the mug on Jon’s desk. Empty. Tim saw tears suddenly spring into Martin’s eyes as he clutched it to his chest, breathing somehow picking up even more. 

“Shit!” he croaked.

“Oh, god.” Tim grimaced, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Martin, what did you do?”

Martin, breathing unsteady, slowly turned back to meet Tim’s gaze with some terrified mixture of guilt and terror as he set the mug back on the table. “I- I- I got him a different kind of tea than I usually do, just because I was getting worried that he didn’t like the type I got him anymore, and- and what if he was actually secretly allergic to it and the moment I left the room he went into shock and-”

“His heart’s beating, everyone,” Sasha announced, straightening up from the desk and letting go of Jon’s wrist. “Martin, I don’t think you’re capable of killing anybody , nor do I think Jon’s kept an allergy to tea secret his whole life,” she snickered, walking over to rest a hand on his shoulder. “I’m relatively sure he’s just asleep.”

Martin stuttered helplessly for a moment, shoulders beginning to sink with relief but eyes still red-rimmed with tears. “But- but when I came in here, I- I couldn’t h- I couldn’t hear breathing and I-” 

“Yeah, probably because you were hyperventilating too hard to actually hear it,” Tim scoffed, tilting his head to get a better look at Jon’s face. He looked even more stupid when he was asleep. 

“O-Oh, okay, so what if he is just asleep?” Martin managed to splutter, gesturing tensely at the unconscious form. “That’s still bad! Jon doesn’t ever fall asleep at work, and he’s been like this for hours and hasn’t moved! Do- do we tell Elias?! Do we call-”

Sasha shook her head, walking over to the archivist. “We should just try to wake him up. He probably needs the sleep, but I don’t think he’ll be happy to discover that he’s missed the majority of a work day.” She sighed, hesitating a moment before nudging Jon’s shoulder with the back of her knuckles. “C’mon, Jon. Up with you.”

“We should draw something on his face,” Tim proposed, gesturing to the highlighters strewn across the table. “We’ve been given such an opportunity here, if we don’t do something to fuck with him-”

“He’s- he’s not gonna wake up,” Martin choked, lip trembling as he shook his head panickedly. “He’s not- something is wrong with him, a-and, it’s my fault, and-”

“Ok, yeah, this is actually a bit concerning,” Sasha frowned, brushing some of the hair out of Jon’s face. “He might just be a heavy sleeper, but… how long did you say he’s been like this for, Martin?”

“A- at least four hours. Four and a bit,” Martin replied, shuddering as he fumbled for his phone. “We should call an ambulance or something, he-”

“Martin, that’s a bit extreme-”

“Do it, it’ll be hilarious if the cops show up and he’s actually just asleep-”

“Tim!”

“What?”

“Look, just to be safe, Jon, he-”

“Martin, don’t do that, we really-”

“What else do we do?! ”

“Look, give me your phone.”

“ I don’t want him to die!”

“...Mmph.”

The assistants were suddenly silenced by a muffled grunt from the desk, the form slumped onto it stirring as the others waited with bated breath. Jon yawned, eyes cracking open and his head lifting weakly from his forearm as he blinked blearily. 

His gaze sluggishly found the three assistants standing over him, lips parted and eyes glassy. 

“...Wha’s going on?” he mumbled, wiping his lips and beginning to sit up straighter.

“Jon…?” Sasha asked cautiously.

Jon fumbled for his glasses with an uncoordinated hand, clumsily fitting them back over his face and blinking the sleep from his eyes. “Mm?”

“Are- are you alright?”

The archivist stared blankly at the three of them for a moment, eyes still glazed, but the man was very much alive and breathing. Sasha’s lips were pressed tight with concern, the only one able to speak, Martin had buried his face in his hands and was faintly choking something about Jon being dead, and Tim quickly tucked the highlighter he had picked up into his back pocket.

“...Yeah.” Jon blinked heavily again, words still slow as his brow pinched with confusion. “S-sorry, what are you all doing in my office? …Why’s Martin crying?”

“Happy two forty-six PM, Jon!” Tim grinned, setting his hands on his hips. “You just fell asleep at your desk for four hours, how was it?”

Jon’s gaze drifted down to the file he had almost been holding, not even seeming to have the energy to snap something back at Tim. “Ah. That is… unfortunate.”

With a particularly pained sniffle from Martin, Tim set a hand on his shoulder, letting out a breath. “Martin was very worried for you, Jon. Actually, I think he was in more danger of passing out or going into shock than you were, almost called an ambulance because he thought you were dead ,” he smirked, to which Martin flushed red, continuing to calm his uneven breaths.

Jon only shook his head, brushing the stray strands of hair out of his face as he looked back over his work. “No, I’m- I’m alright. I’ll…” he sighed, waving a hand dismissively. “I’ll clean up, you all get back to work.”

Tim and Sasha glanced at each other, doubt still glinting in Sasha’s eye, but Tim only fired the archivist a finger gun and turned on his heel. “Got it, boss! And maybe try to breathe louder when you fall asleep again, so Martin can actually hear you over his own panic.”

“Tim-” Martin whimpered, letting himself be guided out of the office by the hand Sasha had wrapped around his wrist. The last thing Tim heard was another one of Jon’s tired sighs as he continued to shuffle paperwork, and yet it lacked the usual bitterness and irritation it usually carried.

When the door closed behind them, Tim nudged Martin’s shoulder. “How was that? A whole conversation with Jon and he didn’t snap once! It’s a sign, I think. He likes you back.”

Martin’s face reddened further and Tim felt a sharp glare from Sasha, but it worked well enough, Martin’s sniffling beginning to subside as he took deeper breaths. 

“He was surprisingly not angry at all of us standing over him and yelling while he was asleep,” Sasha hummed thoughtfully, glancing back at the door. “He should take naps more often.”

“Damn, if that’s what four hours of sleep does to him, imagine if he actually had a sleep schedule.” Tim snorted at the mental of Jon walking into the archives energetically and without any eyebags in sight. He gasped. “What if Jon is actually a nicer person than Martin, he’s just too much of a wreck to show it?!” 

“I very much doubt that.”

“It could be possible! Really, he just-”

They were cut off by the sound of the door handle turning, the office door opening to reveal Jon’s trademark unimpressed glare.

“I told you all to get back to work.”

It took the rest of the day for Martin to recover from The Chamomile Incident, and he still found his hands trembling slightly on his pen as he finished up his work. He could still hear Tim’s laughter occasionally ring from the other room, the man clearly having found the whole ordeal extremely entertaining, but Martin couldn’t get it out of his head– the way Jon’s shoulder had just shaken limply when Martin first tried to wake him up, Jon’s relaxed, almost alien expression as he rested against the desk, the bottom of the empty mug staring up at him as he realised what he had done. 

It was over now, he reminded himself, just his daily heart attack being a bit more intense and drawn out than usual, and he was fine. Jon was fine, he had just… fallen asleep. He had been tired, Martin had given him herbal tea, and he had passed out over his desk. He still couldn’t help feeling that it was still his fault, though, as Jon was likely still upset about having skipped out on half a day of work, and would soon figure out that it had been because of the tea all along. 

Martin was lucky to have escaped the room in the first few minutes when Jon was too groggy to register what had actually happened. He let out a shaky, relieved breath as he flipped over his paper, reaching for his own cup of tea and glancing across the room at the clock above Jon’s door. Just half an hour left, then he could go home and rest, avoiding having to look Jon in the eye and hopefully returning the next day having entirely moved on. 

Six minutes later, the frosted glass door opened sharply, Martin’s gaze immediately lifting to see Jon staring directly at him. He felt the blood drain from his face, cold dread washing over him as he saw that none of the relaxed fogginess in Jon’s eyes remained. His jaw was set, and tone icy as he addressed the assistant. 

“Martin. A word, please.”

Martin swallowed, shakily getting to his feet and hearing Tim and Sasha’s chatter from the next room fall silent, clearly having heard the door open. 

“Okay-” Martin squeaked, knowing full well that actually nothing was okay, and he was wholly screwed over. He clumsily set down his pen and nervously followed Jon into his office, throat tight and doing his very best to keep his expression schooled into something that wasn’t pure terror and regret. He knew what was coming, and yet could do nothing to prevent it as he nervously shut the door behind him, biting the inside of his cheek as Jon sat down at his desk. 

“Right.” Jon let out a breath, and the fact that Martin couldn’t quite figure out what it meant made it infinitely worse than Jon being clearly angry. Jon cleared his throat. “About that tea you brought in for me earlier.”

Martin swallowed, palms sweaty as he nodded minutely, voice weak as he croaked out an apology. “I- I’m so, so sorry, Jon, I promise you, I just took the wrong one and wasn’t thinking–  I can make up the work you didn’t have time to do if you’d like, and- and of course I’ll remember next time to-”

Jon held up a finger, silencing Martin and instead reaching for the mug that Martin had caused such a massive disaster with. 

“No, it-” Jon tilted the cup to check if there was any left before handing it back to Martin, expression stony. “It was actually quite good. What was it?”

Martin blinked, hands still shaking as he clasped the mug. Surely Jon was messing with him, this being some elaborate punishment for practically drugging his boss’s tea, and Jon had spent the past few hours plotting how to make this as painful and convoluted for Martin as possible. Surely he didn’t actually-

“...Er- chamomile? I- I believe,” Martin managed to wrangle the words together, feeling his posture going tenser as he waited for the trick, the snap, the part where Jon pointed out what a terrible assistant and friend he was. 

“Ah,” Jon let out a breath, running a hand through his hair as he dragged another piece of paper toward him. “That… that does explain some things. Shame. I quite liked it.”

Martin found himself standing there with his mouth half-open, having spent so long trying to figure out if this was a trick that he nearly missed the opportunity to offer Jon a new kind of tea.

“O-Oh! Well, if you liked it, I can… try to find something similar! Th- that tastes the same, but isn’t, er- designed to get you to fall asleep?” He quickly ran through the other types he had seen in the cupboard, only praying that if he could come up with something, the inevitable berating for his screw-up might be lighter. “Er- there were a couple of other kinds of teas I saw there, lemon ginger, pomegranate, maybe- maybe hibiscus?” Martin offered hurriedly, still having no idea if this was doing anything. 

Jon tapped his fingers on the edge of his desk thoughtfully for a moment, looking distinctly not angry to the point where Martin only felt his palms grow sweatier. It felt so wrong .

“Or- or if you don’t like any of those, I can try to find-”

“No,” Jon cut him off, turning over the paper on his desk. “Hibiscus sounds good. If you could make me a cup now before you return home, I’d appreciate it.”

Martin nodded quickly, glancing down at the mug in his hands as he tried to process it, his mind still taking a moment to catch up as he turned toward the door. “O- of course. I’ll be right back.”

As Martin hastily gathered the materials he had already put away for the evening, he found himself repressing a wave of something, the only thing he knew being that he shouldn’t let himself feel it yet, not until he had confirmed that this wasn’t just Jon deciding to try less explosive, but equally cruel techniques in getting Martin to listen to him. 

He steered his mind away from the road of potential evil plans being set up against him by rifling through the cupboards, opting for debating over sugar or honey instead of creating awful humiliating scenarios in his head. He decided on honey. 

“Here you are,” Martin breathed as he set the tea down on Jon’s desk, having to clutch the mug with both of his still-shaking hands to keep it from spilling. Jon didn’t reply, but also didn’t say anything about the interruption, setting down his pen and reaching for the mug immediately. Martin felt his chest tighten with anxiety as Jon lifted it, the held-back emotion he was quietly ignoring churning in the back of his mind as words tumbled in a clumsy string from his lips again.

“It’s generally supposed to be served iced, I think, but that would take letting just one mug cool down and then adding ice and it had already been steeping for longer than I thought it would and I didn’t really want to keep you waiting, and- and I added honey because I thought it would work better but you might also be meant to have it with mint or lemon or something like that? But we don’t have any at the moment. I can always-”

“Martin,” Jon’s voice was cold and unwavering as he set the tea down, Martin’s nervousness feeling like it was fermenting in the nectar air as the archivist looked up. “It’s perfect.”

“...Oh,” Martin breathed in response, hands prying from where they wrung each other and sinking back to his sides. 

He felt his brow furrow with a complete inability to process what had just been said, standing still for what felt like far too long trying and failing to put the meanings of the three words together in his mind. He felt like his mind was lagging, but he got far enough as to nod, taking a step back toward the door. 

“Okay,” he replied, expression still locked somewhere between shock and astonishment. “Okay, I’m- okay. Is- Is that all?” he asked weakly.

“Yes,” Jon confirmed, picking up the cup again and taking another sip of it. “That is all. See you tomorrow.” He clicked his pen, getting back to work, and Martin swallowed, turning on his heel and walking out of the office. 

He shut the door gently behind him with a soft click, mind completely blank as he walked back to his desk to gather up his things and head back to where he had been staying in the archives for the night. He felt faint as he stuffed his phone charged back into his bag along with his set of headphones, and suddenly there were tears in his eyes.

Apparently the suppressed emotion had been an overwhelming wave of joy and relief, something bursting to life in Martin’s chest, aching as he reached up to clutch it. It was the stupidest reason he had to cry ever since– well, earlier that day when he had cried over Jon taking a nap, but there was nothing he could do as he saw a teardrop land on his bag, the stain sinking into the canvas. 

He had made Jon say something was perfect. Martin had made Jon happy .

He scrubbed the tears from his eyes beneath his glasses as he picked up his bag and took a deep breath, well aware that any moment Jon might leave his office and see Martin having one of his breakdowns right there– but this wasn’t at all like what had happened earlier. 

As he heard Tim and Sasha packing up, keeping his head ducked as he hurried past Jon’s office, it was all Martin could do to keep himself from tearing up further. 

The slight gust of air from the door closing brushed against his burning face, a wet, relieved laugh escaping Martin’s throat. He could barely stop to wonder at what point he had fallen for Jon enough that a comment so simple could bring him to tears. 

Jon’s condition had not been improving. He would have loved to say that it had been a one-off thing, a couple days in which his sleep schedule shifted oddly and he had been a bit messy at work until he recovered from it and went right back to being himself. 

That was not what happened. By the end of the week, all the symptoms of whatever strange illness he had developed only heightened, plus a handful more tacked on to make life more difficult. 

First, his sleeping habits had not done anything resembling lining up to a normal human sleep schedule, in fact, they had been quite steadily moving in the opposite direction. His insomnia had converted to restlessness, body lurching and aching to walk around or move or do something late at night, and his evenings were now filled with the feeling of the carpet in front of his window being crushed into even, repeated footprints as he paced back and forth in front of the opened curtains. 

His days, in contrast, were still chores that he forced himself to scrape through, really only being able to stay awake long enough to finish statements, but even then he found himself completely drained when he clicked off the recorder. Every second was one he fought through to keep his eyes open, knowing that he should definitely see a doctor about the issue or at least try to rearrange some of his work hours with Elias. 

But he wasn’t going to, because he still knew that this was stupid. Nobody else in the archives had a particularly good sleep pattern, he trusted, so why the hell should he be the only one to have accommodations made for it?

It only made sense to deal with it, choking down coffee that really only made him feel more ill and not very energetic, in vague hopes that he would be able to make it home and finally figure out a solution just by thinking about it hard enough.

Despite all of this, he still refused to let himself fall asleep over his desk again. It only made sense, work being the only place he felt exhausted and having the time and space to pass out for a few hours in his office, but not only was it unprofessional, his experience last time had been… less than optimal. 

Letting himself drift off and rest his head down beneath the heavy haze of chamomile had been one of the best feelings Jon had experienced in months, finally having no choice but to give into sleep and the pleasant way it washed away the weight he carried. After waking up again and finding that he was attentive enough to get things done, he had been in the best mood he had been in longer than he could remember, and yet he was not going to do it again.

Jon didn’t have much of a grasp left on his dignity, his job being ‘man who reads fake stories about ghosts into a tape recorder in between yelling at his assistants and bitching about labelling,’ but he had enough to not want to be eternally tormented by Tim for the rest of his career. Sasha would have been disappointed in him, he could feel it, if he made it a pattern, and that was painful enough on its own, not to mention… Martin. 

As well as that, his involuntary four-hour nap had only done him a small amount of good, relieving him of the exhaustion for the rest of the day, but the rare feeling of being refreshed subsided when he returned home again and his insomnia once again kicked in. It wasn’t ever going to be worth it to try to learn to take naps, unless he changed everything around entirely. And when there was the option of just slapping himself across the face every twenty minutes to keep himself from passing out, anything else seemed like far too much work. 

He had been bringing home statements to record during the night, which seemed to be helping, but that was far from the end of the list of Jon’s concerns. For example, his tendency to skip out on meals had started to get even more out of hand as his hunger increased and everything he tried to eat became less and less appetising. He was sure that there were plenty of terrible things loss of appetite could be a symptom of, and being half-starved was definitely making his job of staying awake during the day tougher, but he continued to let it be. 

The lack of sleep had apparently also been affecting his eyesight, adding another layer of inconvenience and frustration to the entire situation. It was astonishing how much more painful life was when it was just slightly harder to read small text, having to repeatedly clean off his glasses to no avail. All the words smudged across the page ever so slightly, making him feel nauseated when he stared at the lines of type for too long. That would have been fine, of course, if his job didn’t include sitting at a desk and reading tiny black type or strings of numbers all day before sorting them into different folders labelled with equally frustrating lines of tiny black letters. It wasn’t the worst of his problems, of course, he was much more concerned by the fact that he hadn’t eaten anything for three days besides half a container of applesauce at 4am and a piece of dry banana bread, but it really didn’t do much to quell the growing storm of exhaustion and irritability.

He figured at some point it would snap. He would run completely out of energy and collapse over his desk from starvation and sleep deprivation, and have to be taken to the hospital, where they would discover all the scientific and medical reasons for this. They would look at him and discover his glasses prescription was six years outdated, his sleep issues a symptom of extreme stress or some other disease lining up with his eating problems, his back pain, his headaches and inattentiveness, and give him whatever medications would finally end the madness. 

God, did Jon hope that happened soon, and he could drop the act. He just wanted it to be over , really, as there was only so much he could take of the constant cycle of being drained then restless, all the while starving and being in constant pain. Part of him even wanted to try to make it worse, finding ways to get it all to come to a close quicker, ripping himself apart along the seams that would hurt least before the more painful, unpredictable collapse, anything that would-

“Jon?”

Martin’s face was pale as he peered through the gap in the door, still grasping the handle and brow pinched with concern. Jon didn’t even stop to ask how many times Martin had knocked, as it had at least been more than once, if Martin had eventually opened the door on his own. Apparently his internal laments over his lack of attentiveness had been yet another reason he had completely zoned out. Wonderful.

“Yes. What is it?” He narrowed his eyes at Martin’s worried expression, jaw setting with annoyance. “Did you see a worm again?”

Martin blinked, quickly shaking his head as he opened the door further. “Oh- no, no, I’m alright. Just worries me a bit when you do that… staring thing. I brought you more tea.”

If Jon hadn’t immediately been able to smell something sweet and floral, he might have been annoyed, as he had reached a point where most milk teas barely tasted like an actual beverage at all, just something he was choking down for the caffeine and knowledge that he should. 

But when Martin stepped inside and shakily placed the mug on Jon’s desk, the aroma was pleasant, probably the only thing that had been keeping Jon from dying of dehydration this entire time. He couldn’t help but let out a relieved breath, as stupid as it was that a cup of bright pink tea was his only solace in the wasteland that was his quickly declining health.

As much as Jon’s shoulders stiffened with pain as he reached across to take the mug, hand brushing Martin’s, the taste of extra honey when he lifted it to his lips was somehow enough to slow the spiral of distress continuing to curl in the back of his mind. 

Martin was smiling when he looked up, quickly schooling his face back into something more neutral as he took another step back toward the door. He cleared his throat, gaze fixed somewhere on the carpet. “That- that’s all. And I’ll, er- tell Tim about the Tom Haan assignment and get to work on that.”

“Good. Tell me what you’ve found by the end of the day.”

The door shut with a click and Jon was alone in his office again, nothing but his statements and folders, his still-whirring tape recorder, and the ever-growing heap of issues building around him that he had no idea how to even begin to solve without ripping himself apart for all to see. 

…And his tea. He had that. 

Two days later, Jon wasn’t sure if he would be able to get to work. He had more energy than usual, he found, having found something vaguely resembling rest in sitting at his desk in front of his window the entire night, chin slumped into his hand and letting his mind wander through the labyrinths of recent statements, what follow-ups he wanted, which rooms were in most desperate need of organisation, anything more helpful than moping over his current state. 

It had worked surprisingly well, and he had almost forgotten that his body was on the verge of failing him when the streetlamp outside flicked off beneath the soft light of the sunrise. The alarm he had never bothered to turn off rang out, only reminding him of the miserable hope he served of thinking he would soon need to be woken up at 7am every morning, that he would get things together soon. 

And then he tried to stand up. 

He lifted his chin from his hand, letting out a shaky breath and starting to get to his feet- When he heard something crunch , choking on a breath as pain burst across his back, the relatively painful and wildly uncomfortable feeling of bones popping and shifting into place. He tensed up, vision growing spotty, as he felt something under his neck align and snap into place, drawing in a hiss of pain through his teeth. 

He didn’t dare move his arms or neck, breathing ragged as he tried to move his chest as little as possible as he slowly stepped back around his chair. The pain pulsed and throbbed as Jon sank down on to the edge of the bed he hadn’t touched in days, eyes wide and pondering on how much that had not been a sound any human flesh should have been able make. 

He didn’t doubt it had something to do with the slouching issues he had been making note of lately, but the question remained if that had been something moving back into place, or something moving to a horribly, horribly wrong place. 

After a few minutes of calming his breathing and blinking the shock from his mind, he ever so slowly began to lift his arm again, testing if this was going to lead to more unpleasant cracking sounds, his arm falling off, or something worse. 

Nothing happened. His shoulders ached distantly, no worse than anything Jon had felt as a result of having poor posture, but he could move them again without feeling like one of his bones was perpendicular. He tried the other arm– same result. 

So, naturally, he shook off the last of the shock and got back up, checking the time again and going to continue getting ready. If it wasn’t an issue anymore, there was no reason to be concerned, and he didn’t want to be late. 

His mind continued to drift through the various smaller tasks he wanted to get done at work that day, hopefully get a recording done of one of the stranger statements he had been digging through, set up a visiting time for a Dr. Elliot he had been contacted by, and a few vague plans on trying to figure out something like he actually felt like eating that evening before he passed out again and had to wake up to the sound of Martin’s sobbing.

He would be fine. He just had to keep making it through the days, getting his job done, and that started with getting his bag together and heading to work. Whatever work was there he would finish in time, and even though he was already running late, he had just enough hope to convince himself that it was going to be a decent day. 

But when he reached across the table in the dining room to grab his keys on the way out, he heard something tear .

It all happened so fast.

Wet splitting ripped through the air, the sound too fleshy and the pain too searing for Jon to make the mistake of assuming it was anything other than skin . Air was sucked from his lungs in a shuddering gasp and his vision went white, a sharp pain across his hairline joining the rest of the flare of agony as he evidently slammed his head against the edge of the table. 

He choked out another gasp for breath and felt his palms slam against the hardwood floor, posture crumpling as the pain refused to cease. 

It wasn’t like earlier this morning, when it had been over in an instant, no, Jon felt another whimper crawl from his throat as he heard the tearing open of fabric, seeing the sleeves out of the corner of his eyes fall loose as the back of his sweater was torn open. 

His back felt like it had been lit on fire, the warm, thick slide of blood down his torso mingling somewhere in the eruption of excruciating pain down his body.

Jon had never, ever asked to know what it felt like to be torn open, and yet here he was, splitting from his own shoulder blades on the floor of his dining room. 

It just kept going, his muscles spasming and shifting without his permission and inflaming all of it more, and he realised that he could feel something moving, something that wasn’t him. 

It was heavy, crawling out of what Jon could feel of the fissure in his back, something twitching and writhing and blooming against his raw skin. He tasted bile in the back of his throat as he felt it scrape and shift beneath his skin, trapped beneath layers of flesh and readjusting itself with both slow, churning movements and sharp, agonising jerks. 

Something was escaping him, and Jon wondered if all this time he had been slowly made into a home for something else, a shell slowly withering away as whatever this was had been thriving and now was ready to claw him open and leave him a bloody, split husk on the ground. 

It was all Jon could do to rest his sweat-sleek cheek on the dining room floor, the cool hardwood a momentary relief from the feeling of his back being set aflame even as he choked and gasped through his broken breaths, lungs being shoved and pressed by whatever was emerging. 

The blood loss and head trauma was getting to him as well, growing dizzy and even more nauseated on top of the pain, and he could feel blood beginning to both drip down his face and pool, warm and slick, around his stomach and soaking into what was left of his sweater. 

His winking vision continued to blur and spin, but through it Jon was just able to see something resting in front of him, so still and quiet in comparison to the wet, tearing cacophony digging through his body as if it were scavenging for something. 

His phone. 

With one weak, shuddering arm, Jon jerked forward just enough to grab it with a bloodstained hand, a pained cry wrenching itself from his throat as he did so. In between stabs of pain from the piercing, changing thing in what was left of his shoulder blades, Jon managed to pick it up and open it. 

He chose the first contact he saw, vision too blurry to see very much and hands too shaky to actually be sure what he was typing. His thumbs left messy crimson stains over the screen, the stark red of fresh blood in prints over the keyboard. 

But he got a message through. 

Feeling abit off. Takign day to rest

Jon’s sense of self and time was too distorted by pain and dizziness to tell how fast the response came, but it did eventually. It was the last thing he saw, the recipient becoming clear as the bubble appeared on his screen. 

Martin Blackwood

alright! hope you feel better soon ^^

And then Jon passed out.

Chapter Text

“Martin, what are you smiling at?” 

“Five bucks that he’s thinking about Jon.”

“I’m not taking that bet, Tim, I owe you enough.”

“Oh! Um-” Martin quickly shut off his phone, blinking and turning to see Tim and Sasha setting down their bags and walking over to him. He bit the inside of his cheek, pressing back the flutter of emotion in his chest. He was trying very hard not to think too much about the fact that Jon had texted him as opposed to anybody else in the archives. “S- sorry, just- yeah. Jon’s finally taking a rest day, he won’t be in today.”

He caught Tim and Sasha glance at each other, Sasha’s eyes narrowing suspiciously in an emotion that didn’t quite reflect the pride in his coworker Martin had been feeling himself. But Tim grinned, setting his hands on his hips. 

“Good for him! Bet he finally got sick or passed out or something. Did he admit that he really just needs to lie down for a day?”

“Yeah! Well, he- he said he’s feeling ‘a bit off,’ so close enough.”

“As if he hasn’t been dead on his feet for two weeks now,” Sasha scoffed as Tim walked over to peer over at the phone, elbow resting on Martin’s shoulder. 

Martin glanced up as his gaze traced through the messages, the playfulness in his eyes slowly fading. Martin felt his chest clench, just praying that Tim didn’t bring up any earlier messages or take his phone or something, but he didn’t.

Instead, Tim tilted his head, brow furrowing. “He misspelt two words.” He glanced up at Sasha. “Jon doesn’t misspell things. Hell, I got him drunk once and he still texted me that he had made it home safely with perfect punctuation.”

Martin squinted at his phone again, realising he had been too occupied with the mere concept of a normal, not-yelling-at-him kind of text from Jon that he hadn’t even picked up on everything else about the message. “Sh- should we be worried?” 

Sasha moved to read the text as well, a frown tugging at her lips that Martin really didn’t like. He knew full well he had been paranoid about plenty of things lately, especially having just nearly called the cops on his boss taking a nap, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how Jon had supposedly been receiving texts from him about being sick as Martin sat in his living room with no power and watching every single crack in his windows and doors for worms. He wasn’t sure if that made it more likely for it to be a similar case, or more likely for him to falsely assume it was. Still– if Sasha was worried, he trusted her judgement more than he did his own. 

“...I’m not sure,” Sasha replied eventually. “If there’s something really wrong with him-”

“Then it’ll be a normal Tuesday.”

“You know what I mean, Tim.”

Martin clutched his phone to his chest, feeling his heartbeat running faster than usual and trying to keep himself calm. If something had happened to Jon, it wouldn’t be made that much easier by him panicking over it, and if it was just him being too tired to type properly, then it was good that he was resting and Martin didn’t need to worry so much. 

“H-how about I leave it be for an hour or two? And… and if anything else happens, we get another text that doesn't sound like him, something else weird happens, that kind of thing, then–”

“ Then you can panic and tear up at the idea of anything happening to our lovely prick of a boss,” Tim smirked, clapping a hand onto Martin’s shoulder reassuringly. “And we’re here too, remember? We won’t disappear. If something is wrong, it’s not like you’ll have to solve it all on your own.”

Martin took a deep breath, letting himself take in the first actually helpful thing Tim had said the whole time as he glanced once more at the text and turned off his phone. “Alright. Thank you.”

“Yeah. I’m sure he’s fine.”

When Jon finally woke up, he could smell blood. He didn’t quite know why he was able to recognise it so quickly, as he wasn’t exactly in the kind of profession to be around blood that often, but it instantly clicked in his mind that the heavy, coppery sense filling his senses couldn’t have been anything else. He kept his eyes closed as he came to, as for some reason his skull was pounding painfully and he didn’t think opening his eyes would actually let him see anything. 

His ribs ached against something cold and hard but his back was warm, as if beneath a heavy blanket, cheek pressed against what felt like hardwood, and– 

Fuck.

The memory suddenly flooded back to him, phantom pain of his skin being shredded through like paper, the searing gash exploding across his shoulders, and to his horror, he could still feel something on his shoulder. And he had a terrible, sinking feeling that it was not a blanket. 

Thankfully, the blistering agony had simmered down to a dull, pulsing ache over his back, but whatever had clawed its way out of him was still there , weighing him down against the floor of his dining room and holding him in place. He felt eerily like a bug pinned down, not even daring to struggle in fear of the pain in his back.

It was heavy, reeking with the smell of blood, both fresh and dry. He could feel it ever so slightly twitching, nerves on edge but in too much pain to do anything but remain lying there against the hardwood. 

“Christ-“ he croaked over the blood on his lips, breathing ragged and ears ringing as the words dissolved in the air of his empty flat. He was alone.

So he opened his eyes. His eyelashes were sticky with blood and glued together, flecks of rust-colored dust crumbling off with the drying blood on his eyelids. 

It wasn’t much better when he dared to tilt his head, seeing that the stain that had pooled around his head in a gruesome halo in the hardwood was nothing compared to the damage on his back. 

He could feel blood soaking the back of his neck and trimming his hair, still wet as it rimmed the gash in his back, which he could still feel beneath the twitching being resting on top of him. Slowly turning his head to try to get a better look, even the slight movement firing a spike of pain down his side, he caught sight of it-

It was deep red, like everything else, but it didn’t seem like flesh- It was thinner, too stiff, and it looked too… soft. And its odd, spasmodic movements no longer seemed like something it was doing on its own, instead closer to the slight twitches of a fresh corpse.

Jon figured that if it was going to kill him, it would have by now. So he reached around, hand trembling, and tried to touch it.

Pain flared across his shoulder blades with the movement, but his fingers were just able to clasp the edge of whatever it was, and even soaked with blood, it was surprisingly plush beneath his fingers. It didn’t move any more, either, to Jon’s great relief, and even as his fingers came away with somehow even more blood on them, he had actually been able to move without passing out from the agony again. 

It took quite a few more deep breaths before he made the attempt to sit up, strained inhales pressing his chest between the floor and whatever the hell was on his back. But finally, he made the decision, taking one final breath in before slowly climbing up to rest on his forearms. His back muscles pulled and twisted, shoulder blades protesting against being shoved against each other and clamping some of the flesh that wasn’t his between them. 

Jon let out a shuddering gasp, throat dry and the taste of blood still metallic on his lips, but he had made up his mind. He was going to find a way to at least sit up instead of just lying on the floor, hoping someone eventually walked in and saved him. 

His mind flicked frustratingly to Georgie and he suddenly missed being able to share a flat with somebody. He didn’t like the idea of the Admiral walking in on him soaked in blood, though. That he was happy about. 

On the next deep breath, after the wave of pain had died down again, he slowly moved to climb to his knees, still hissing through every slight movement, as each sent sharp bolts of heat crossing beneath his skin. He finally made it, though, and the strange flesh thankfully moved as something inanimate should, unpleasant as it tugged in the places it was glued onto him with blood but otherwise remained still. 

He had just enough strength in his trembling arms to push himself off the floor, slowly climbing to a standing position and reaching around to press what he now identified as odd bloody flats of not-exactly-skin to his back. He winced at how strange it felt, but he knew they were partially connected to his own flesh by something , at best blood and at worst shared muscle and sinew, and keeping pressure off his split, raw shoulders and back seemed like the best option at the minute. 

Head spinning and vision still set at about 240p, Jon slowly straightened, seeing his phone sitting on the ground in front of him. His own bloody fingerprints were still painted across the screen, a rather unsettling sight, but there was absolutely no way he was going to get back down and pick it up now. God , everything hurt. 

Jon figured the best thing he could do at the minute was to make his way to the bathroom so he could at least see what was going on, and hopefully begin to clean up some of the very upsetting amount of blood he could feel peeling and dripping across various pieces of skin– he didn’t even know he had enough blood to lose that much and stay standing. Then maybe after that he would get a glass of water. 

Between careful, shaky steps and rough gasps for breath, Jon slowly began to move across the dining room and over to the open door of the bathroom, the sticky, plush feeling on his hands terribly eerie. There was nothing more he wanted than to try to tear it off of himself, just rip off the band-aid and leave it, pried from his shoulders, on the ground to get rid of. 

But he knew that if the pain didn’t end him, the blood loss would. As much as he hated whatever it was for being there, they seemed to be keeping most of his back from being an outpour of even more blood, and considering how lightheaded Jon was feeling, slitting that open wasn’t a good idea. 

His hand clamped onto the door frame of the bathroom when he walked in, his own blurry reflection greeting him. From what he could make out, his skin was ashen, a ruby trickle tracing between his eyes and running down his nose and to his upper lip. His sweater was an absolute wreck, matted down the front with blood and, as he had expected, ripped open directly down the back. 

And when he turned–

Only able to judge from the rough shape and way they folded, Jon had a hard time figuring out what was going on with the new flesh, but as he began to shift his arms to get a better look, the image suddenly snapped, almost violently, into his mind. 

They were wings. 

It wasn’t that something had escaped him, no– they had just grown there, finally erupting and cutting through the layer of skin they had been beneath as they did so, connected tightly across his shoulders and base of his neck. Very connected.

They were scrunched awkwardly with the way he had an arm on them, but there was a thicker layer where they joined with his shoulder blades, an upsettingly secure looking joint. They were wings, and they were not coming off anytime soon. 

It took a long time to clean up. Not only was it excruciatingly painful to peel the sweater off of his raw, tender flesh where it had stuck on, he had to cut some pieces off, trembling hands nicking his skin with the sharp scissors and absolutely ruining one of his favourite sweaters. He left it in a rust-colored, shredded heap in the corner of his bathroom, taking a deep breath of the copper-tinged air as he kicked it aside. 

He made the decision to try to at least wash off the wings slightly, as awkward as it was to reach around to his own shoulders with a washcloth and sponge off some of the blood. 

By the end of it, his face was glistening with sweat from exertion and entire torso feeling as if it were aflame, but beneath the layer of gore he saw that the wings were actually a soft, spotted brown with eyelike rings and the texture of peach skin. 

He refused to admit they were pretty, of course, as they had caused him an indescribable amount of pain and a sick day from work he had been trying very hard not to take, but a reluctant awe swept over him as he realised they were that of a moth. 

Jon spent another ten minutes sitting on his bathroom floor, hunched over to keep the wings from pulling down against his tired muscles too harshly, heels of his hands buried into his eyes as he processed everything. He kept trying to make it all make sense in his mind, to search for someway that would piece everything together, and there was one glaring obvious answer, but most of the time he spent there was trying to find a way to all the bits and pieces that had been picking his life apart by its screws not fitting into that answer. But he gave in eventually.

He was turning into a moth. 

Having no idea what to do with that information now that he had it, Jon only reluctantly got up from the bathroom tile, scrubbing his eyes and going to wash his hands one more time. 

The wings, his wings, thankfully were far lighter when they were not soaked with blood, and were much less of a burden to him. He didn’t have to hold them up manually all the time in fear of them tearing off his back under their own weight, though he still did when he had a free arm. 

He knew that by keeping them safe he was probably only giving them an opportunity to grow closer and cling to him tighter, but he had no other option. He had to go into work tomorrow, he couldn’t risk his life slicing off a pair of wings while he was already in such bad condition. So he let them be. 

As he shut the door to the bathroom behind him, Jon slowly moved to grab a loose t-shirt that he had left thrown over the back of his couch, hating the feeling of his shoulders being warm with the layers of wings but air cold on the rest of his bare torso. It was not comfortable, not at all, to have to stuff already delicate wings and skin beneath another layer of fabric, but it was enough to keep him from having to walk around his flat shirtless.

Then, cautiously walking back over to where his phone was still resting on the ground, Jon did his best to keep himself from thinking about the massive person-shaped bloodstain on the wood and what a bitch it would be to clean up. He just leaned over to pick up his phone, the strain on his muscles piercing and causing him to draw in a sharp breath through his teeth before he finally was able to grab it. 

Beneath the thumbprint stains he saw seven missed calls from Martin, five texts from Tim and two from Sasha, all over various points in the past… five hours. Fuck.

Jon took a deep breath, wiping the bloodied screen off on his shirt and walking over to the couch to lie down on his stomach. At least that took some of the literal weight off of his shoulders. Then, dread already washing over him as he rested his head down on a pillow, he called Martin back. He was not excited to address this. 

“Blood loss.”

“Mm, no. Doubt it.”

“Thirst?”

“He had three cups of Martin’s tea yesterday, he’s fine.”

“Starvation.”

“Hm. Nah.”

“‘ Nah?’ I haven’t seen him eat in two weeks!”

“Nope! He had four –” Sasha held up the appropriate amount of fingers as Tim stared at her, brow furrowed. “–grapes on Monday.”

Tim let out a sigh, tapping his fingers thoughtfully on the edge of the table. “Alright… how about a completely unrelated injury that’s just a result of him being too sleep-deprived to stand.”

“Ooh, that might be it! I can absolutely see him slipping and cutting his head open on a table or something like–”

“Guys, can we not?” Martin protested weakly as he sank back into his chair, another call to Jon ending up in voicemail. He couldn’t count how many times he had heard the tiny snippet of ‘this is Jonathan Sims, leave a message, and keep it short, ’ the familiar voice just enough to give Martin the smallest flutter of hope before realising Jon still wasn’t picking up his phone. 

His panic had peaked around midday, ending up calling the archivist three times in a row out of distress, and had now simmered down to a kind of horrified defeat as Tim and Sasha continued to treat it all like a joke , passing a stapler between each other as they cheerily discussed how their boss might have ended up dead. Martin was not unfamiliar with the usual carousel of terrible scenarios spinning in his mind, but the music playing in tune to Tim and Sasha’s giggles was not helping. 

Martin had no idea how to explain the fact that just felt like something was terribly wrong, even if he had absolutely no proof, something that Jon would have been annoyed at him with if he was there. 

He was caught so painfully between wanting to do more about the situation, resenting all his previous unwarranted panic, and being so scared that this was just another case of him being irrational, jeopardising any future attempt to warn people of something. It was so difficult, flipping back and forth and constantly debating in his own mind, desire fragile enough to be swayed by even the slightest note from Tim or Sasha or a fresh potential outcome appearing in his mind and he just couldn’t think over all the noise.

…He always figured paranoia would be more simple than this. 

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just- you’ve got to admit it’s a little bit funny, haven’t you?”

“No?! It’s not at all?” Martin cried, digging a hand through his hair. “You can’t just talk about Jon being replaced by some creepy, horrible, almost-Jon and then laugh it off like I’m not going to be thinking about that for the rest of the week, Tim!”

“Oh, Martin, don’t worry,” Sasha sighed sympathetically, passing the stapler back to Tim again. “We’d notice if that happened, alright? To any of us. We’re just joking, really. If we didn’t joke around here, the archives would just be you panicking and Jon pretending he isn’t stupid while being stupid.”

Martin was about to snap a reply, offence prickling in his chest, when he was interrupted by his phone ringing, the buzzing opening to some song Tim had told him he might’ve liked– and he did. He immediately scrapped the comeback on his tongue and gasped, picking it up with wide eyes as he saw the name in bright, bold font. 

Jon! ❤️

“It’s him! Both of you shut up please, it’s him–” Martin drew in a shuddering inhale, hand shaking as he tried to answer as quickly as possible. When he did, Tim immediately leaned over the table to set it on speaker, gaze flicking over to Sasha with the unmistakable ‘you’re about to owe me ten pounds,’ grin on his face.

“Jon?” Martin breathed, heart pounding in his chest. 

There was a pause, a far-too-long, terrible pause, and then a voice–

“Yeah.”

He didn’t sound… good. Which was surprisingly not a bad thing for the situation, as Martin would have been infinitely more concerned if Jon sounded perfectly cheery, it was much more Jon’s style to sound completely exhausted and a total wreck, but Martin would have preferred it sounded a bit less– pained. Not in the ‘I haven’t slept in weeks’ kind of pain, but physical pain, like his breathing wasn’t quite moving all the way through him and he was trying not to move more than he had to as he answered. 

“Are- are you alright? I know you said you were feeling, er, off, ” Martin repeated, the evident lie sounding even stupider. He couldn’t believe he had trusted it, even for a moment. “But Tim pointed out that your text looked weird and I tried to call you but you didn’t answer and-”

“Fine,” Jon cut him off with a sigh, one that didn’t sound quite full enough to reassure Martin very much. “I was asleep , Martin. Like I told you. Resting. I do apologise for misspelling a singular text explaining that I was very tired and was going to lie down, I happened to be very tired at the time and was just going to lie down,” Jon replied, mirthless sarcasm dripping from his voice. 

“Ah,” Martin swallowed, trying to sound hurt by Jon’s words, knowing that was the intention of the message. He found that he couldn’t, though, not when relief washed over him in a cool wave, finally calming the storm of anxiety that had been brewing in the back of his mind. He didn’t even care that it had been the second time in two weeks he had nearly had a full paranoid breakdown over Jon taking a nap. “S-sorry, then. Are you feeling any better?”

“Sure,” Jon provided unhelpfully, the odd strain on his voice feeding the remaining spark of concern in Martin’s chest. “...“It’s just you there, is it?”

“Er-” Martin paused, looking up to see Tim’s eyes light up, suddenly nodding vigorously. Martin swallowed. “Yes, it is.”

He heard Jon sigh on the other end, his heart aching at how truly defeated it sounded, so different from his usual huffs of annoyance. Jon sounded drained . “Tell Tim and Sasha that I’ll be talking to them tomorrow, alright?”

Martin didn’t at all like the idea of Jon trying to come in a day after sounding like this, even if he had no idea what had actually happened. Jon himself didn’t even sound like he wanted it either. “Are you sure? If you need more time I’m sure we-”

“Martin, I don’t need you to babysit me, alright?” Jon snapped from the other end, the iciness of his words slicing through the exhaustion. “Part of being an assistant is not questioning everything I say and do because you don’t think I can take care of myself!”

It was not so much the words that wounded Martin as did the slight hiss that followed, something that sounded like it was trying terribly hard to mask pain as he continued to speak in that unsettling, rougher tone that Martin could only hope was the result of Jon just waking up. 

“Sorry,” Martin sighed, biting the inside of his cheek. “Just- worried about you.”

“...The only thing you need to be worried about is the follow-up I assigned you.” 

There was a silence, the rustle of something shifting from the other end, and Martin saw that Tim and Sasha’s expressions had changed slightly too. Sasha looked less like she was trying to keep herself from speaking and instead was frowning at the phone, and Martin couldn’t place why. He was plenty stressed enough just trying to keep himself together on a phone call with Jon, let alone having two people who both knew how he felt listening in. 

“Look, Martin, I- I do appreciate the concern,” Jon added eventually. “I have some things I need to sort out, but I don’t need help with it. The most you can do is just stay in the archives, keep safe, and not stress yourself over this. S-same extends to Tim and Sasha, of course, but- yeah. I’ll call you if anything gets worse or it’s out of hand or any of that, if it makes you feel better.”

“That would be good,” Martin replied weakly, tracing a circle on the table with his free hand. “Thank you, Jon.”

“...Sure.” There was a pause, Jon clearing his throat, before he tacked on a simple, much more formal, “See you tomorrow.”

Jon hung up and Martin let out a breath, forgetting that Tim and Sasha were sitting across from him for a moment as he let the anxiety jittering in his mind settle down. Jon was okay. He wasn’t dead or replaced, and if he was injured, which Martin couldn’t quite trust Jon’s reassurance on, he wasn’t in such danger that he couldn’t speak. And, as reckless as Jon could be, there had to be something in the fact that the man thought he would be able to return tomorrow.

“Well, that’s good, at least,” Martin sighed, sliding his phone back into his pocket and trying to keep back the heat rising in his face. Not that it mattered, of course, Tim and Sasha both knew full well how he felt about Jon, but it was still embarrassing.

“Oh, Martin,” Tim was leaning back in his seat, arms folded across his chest. “You know, I really had hope there, when he asked if it was just you? I thought ‘oh! Jon must be asking so he can start being really sweet and not actually a burnt-out, unpleasant person, we’ll get to finally see what Martin gushes over him about,’ but nope! Still the same old Jon.”

Martin swallowed back the urge to say it was far kinder than Jon usually was to him, realising that it did not help his case in the slightest, and just exhaled, feeling his cheeks tinge with pink again as he reached for some odd file or paper to flip through. “Tim, we’ve talked about this before, okay, I- just- I’m just glad he’s alright.”

“Well,” Sasha frowned, lifting her hand in a so-so gesture as she set a stack of folders down. “We don’t know that for sure yet, do we? Not to upset you further, of course, but he did sound a little bit like he was calling us with a knife in his back.” 

At Martin’s expression, she snickered, waving her hand dismissively. “Joking, Martin. We’ll just have to wait to see him tomorrow.”

Jon’s morning was not going to plan. That was, of course, in the more general sense of having woken up to discover that the massive brown moths’ wings fused to his back with several centimetres of what must have been cartilage were not actually the result of a hallucination from sleep deprivation. He had also overslept.

Apparently becoming nocturnal did not prevent the blood loss from truly taking everything out of him, and after responding to Martin’s call he didn’t have the energy to do anything else but lie there on his couch. 

The only productive thing he had done was email Elias about moving to a night shift, something he thought would require much more paperwork and meetings, but to his relief, Elias seemed more than understanding of it, assuring Jon that it wasn’t an issue and not even bothering to ask why he wanted to change the hours. 

With the slight consolation of actually having done something about the mess he was in, Jon had been feeling just good enough to clean up the worst of the blood on the floor and then collapse onto the couch again, silently lamenting the ridiculousness of the situation until sleep finally settled over him. 

…He resented how comfortable a blanket the wings turned out to be, as he had not woken up until it was already five past his usual arrival time. 

Between getting up, having a small panic attack over remembering that he had to show up to work in the state he was in, finding clothes loose enough to fit and hide the wings beneath them, and being unable to move too fast in fear of growing lightheaded again, Jon did not leave his flat very prepared. 

Taking the Tube was horribly uncomfortable, too many people pressing up against his back and elbows to the still-tender flesh across his shoulders. Thankfully, the wings didn’t so much seem in danger of tearing under their own weight anymore, but that didn’t mean they were perfectly healed, still sensitive and raw with freshly grown nerves. 

His relief of being able to step off and onto the platform was only momentary, as the dread began to set in about the questions he would be receiving when he arrived at the archives. Sasha, he knew, would back off if he told her sternly enough, Tim would bother him non stop throughout the day no matter what he said, and Martin… Well, his plan had been to show up looking put-together enough to convince the assistant that he was fine, but that had been properly derailed by his own uselessness. 

Jon could already feel Rosie’s annoyed gaze flick up when he walked into the archives, burning into him as he kept his head low and tried to get to his office as swiftly as possible, doing anything to avoid running into–

“Gooood morning, Jon!” Tim’s nauseatingly cheery tone stopped him dead in his tracks, the sound of footsteps crossing in from the other room a sickening sound in his ears. “Sleep well? We all missed you very much yesterday.”

Jon let out a breath, turning to face the assistant as he walked in and leaned against one of the desks. He really should have just kept walking to his office and shut the door as a way to display that he was not in the mood for Tim’s usual bullshit, but a nervousness suddenly set in about turning his back and he ended up defensively turning to glare at the assistant instead.

“ Wow , you look like shit,” Tim gasped, more in awe than anything that could be taken as an insult. Jon knew it was true, of course, he had been asleep for far over twelve hours and hadn’t been able to shower or shave or even fully wake up before arriving there. “You sure you aren’t just a corpse that drank too much coffee and tricked itself into thinking it could keep walking around?”

“Thank you, Tim, but I don’t have time for this. There isn’t-”

“Jon, wait.” 

Tim’s voice was suddenly lower, shifting his weight off the desk and walking over to where Jon was standing. He drew away, not liking the idea of anybody getting close enough to him to potentially catch a glimpse of the wings beneath his coat, but Tim’s expression was no longer teasing, the playfulness dying in his eyes as he lifted his hand to Jon’s face.

Jon pulled away, snapping a protest as Tim slid his glasses off, and– Jon’s vision didn’t change. It was still the same blurred, unfocused portrait of the office and the assistant in front of him, turning the glasses over in his palm. 

“One of your lenses is broken,” Tim frowned, brow furrowing as he tapped the glass. Jon would have been annoyed at his complete disregard for smudging them, but he had a sudden sinking feeling that it didn’t even matter as he saw that a break had spiderwebbed over the lens, damaging it beyond repair. “Like- fully shattered. Christ, what happened to you?” Tim asked, shoving the glasses back into Jon’s only slightly shaking hand. 

“I was tired , alright? I-”

“Look, Jon, everyone here knows how much you love your vague answers and brushing everything off, but this is fucking absurd ,” Tim hissed, taking a step closer. He didn’t miss the opportunity to take advantage of the extra several inches of height he had on Jon, towering over him. “You send a messy text to the assistant you hate the most, go AWOL the rest of the day, call us sounding like you’re lying sprawled out across the floor, and then show up the next day half an hour late with broken glasses and no explanation. We all have our moments to be wrecks around here, but you’re the only one who can’t fucking admit–”

“Tim, lay off on it, please.” Jon cut him off through gritted teeth, entire body only growing tense as he felt the threat of the wings beginning to stick up beneath the neck of his coat, fear flooding beneath his skin where stubbornness usually resided. Apparently, the desperation leaking into his voice was enough to get Tim to take a slight step away, eyes narrowed.

Jon let out a breath, reaching up to run a hand through his hair and trying not to wince as his fingertips scraped the wound on his hairline. “...Thank you. I really am fine, I pr-”

“There’s blood on your forehead,” Tim cut him off, jaw clenching again as he reached up to tap a finger against what Jon now remembered to be a streak of dried, flaking blood. “You really had to complete the look, didn’t you, Jon? Looks pretty old, too. Probably got it yesterday. Too much of a wreck to clean it off, but the wound is still–”

“I know! ” Jon hissed, grabbing Tim’s wrist and wrenching the hand away from his face. He pressed the urge to raise his voice back down his throat and let his quiet seething do the expressing for him, just wanting the situation over with . It was hopefully his last day for a while having to face the assistants, and only forty minutes in it was already going terribly. 

“It hurts, Tim, and it was my fault. I was tired, fell, and hit my head. I pushed myself too far, got hurt, and lied to Martin over the phone, told him I was fine because I- he- he’s- he’s insufferable when he panics and I don’t want to deal with that. I was reckless. Screwed up. Is that what you want to hear from me?” 

Jon finally found his way to the end of the sentence, the image of Martin’s horrified expression branded and gleaming like raw, burned flesh in his mind. 

He hated when Martin panicked. 

He looked up and saw Tim’s expression slowly shift, the bitterness giving way to a reluctant acceptance. To Jon’s relief, his shoulders slowly sank, Tim running his tongue along his teeth as he slid his hands back into the pockets of his jeans. 

“...Yeah. Yeah, you know what, I think that was what I wanted to hear from you,” He replied, nodding slowly. “Would’ve been nice if it was in response to one of my texts yesterday, but I’ll take it now.”

Jon cleared his throat. “Tim, your texts yesterday were ‘wake up loser or im switching all the caps on your pens,’ followed by ‘dont reply to this if ur gay,’ and then ‘lmao’ sent fifteen minutes later. Tactful, I must admit, but not exactly prompting a full confession,” he added coldly.

Tim stifled a snicker, humour flickering across his expression once more as he rubbed one of his eyes. “Christ, I wish I got you saying that on tape, Sasha’s going to kill me when she finds out she missed you trying to say ‘lmao.’ But fine. I forgive you this time, Jon. As stupid as you are.”

Jon quickly buried the guilt of having Tim forgive him without knowing the full story, taking a deep breath and focusing on getting the rest of the situation cleaned up. “Thank you. And you won’t bring up what actually happened yesterday with Sasha or Martin?”

Tim narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“Because it would be pointless.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Tim tilted his head back with exasperation. “No, Jon, the point is to make you see that you have got some shit to fix. Happy you admitted there’s a problem, of course, but you can’t just say that and then just start it all over again until you end up worse. Are you that thick? Do I really have to explain this to you?” he asked, letting his hand fall back to his side.

Jon cleaned the unbroken lens of his classes on his shirt exhaustedly. “Okay, then if I do something to fix it outside of continuing to lie, will you agree not to tell Sasha and Martin?”

“By the end of the day.”

Jon held out his hand for Tim to shake and the assistant took it, finally relenting and taking a step back. Jon was just enjoying his moment of breathing room when the door opened and Sasha walked in, weaving her way between chairs and desk edges as she pored over a packet clutched between neatly manicured nails. 

“Hey Tim, did you– Jon! Welcome back! Oh my goodness, that coat looks adorable on you,” she grinned, walking up beside Tim and pressing the papers into his hands. “Is it new?”

“No,” Jon replied curtly, slipping his broken glasses into his back pocket and trying to subtly move his head just enough so that his hair covered the wound on his forehead again. 

“Oh. Well, it suits you. Tim, did you print this twice or something? I swear that I already filed away a copy of this statement.”

“Right, yeah, the printer was acting up. I wanted to fix that, actually, here. I’ll take this and then meet you by the copier. I’m sure Jon has work to do, I’ll stop pestering him,” Tim replied with a pointed glance at the archivist. 

Jon nodded simply, more than ready to finally be in a room where Tim was not there breathing down his neck. “Yes. Thank you.”

The sound of the door handle clicking behind him as he finally made it into his empty office had never been such a relief.

“You know you can just get up and ask all of us to come in here instead of emailing us all individually, right?” Tim was leaning against the wall as Martin shut the office door behind him, the crowdedness of the office already setting Jon on edge. It felt small at the best of times, and when he was trying to both keep people at enough distance from the wings and also have all three of his assistants in his office at the same time, it was starting to feel hard to breathe. 

“I was busy,” Jon huffed, before realising he had forgotten to turn off the recorder from his last statement and clicking it off. “Look, I need to tell you all about a… a change around here.”

He saw Martin glance nervously to Tim for an explanation, but he didn’t look over, only raising an eyebrow at Jon expectantly. “Yeah? And I assume it’s a bit more significant than ‘I finally got someone to change that horribly flickery lightbulb outside artefact storage?”

“It is.” Jon took a deep breath, knowing that there wasn’t really a way to explain his change in work hours without sounding incredibly suspicious, but it wasn’t like the assistants were oblivious to everything that had been happening. People were observant when they were concerned, Jon had found, and it was going to be the death of him. 

He cleared his throat. 

“This will be my last day at the archives.”

Silence pulled taut through the room, strung tightly as Jon shifted beneath the weight of three shocked expressions. 

“You’re-” Even Sasha was partially speechless, the light from Jon’s desk lamp gleaming across her glasses. “You’re quitting? ”

Jon, immediately realising what he had just said and how much it sounded like something he did not mean, held up a finger.

“Er- wait. That… that could have been phrased better. Hold on, I- I meant-” Jon took another deep breath and started over, quickly rerouting to find a better, more clear way to explain it. He saw Tim and Sasha look over at each other again, puzzlement working its way through the surprise in their eyes. 

“This will be my last day shift at the archives,” Jon corrected himself. “I’m still working here. I’m sure none of you have failed to notice that I’ve been having… health issues. Lately. And while in the past it has not been any of your business, it has begun to affect my work. I have spoken to Elias about it, and… well, he confirmed that it would be beneficial for me to move to the night shift, at least to test it out.”

There was another unpleasant pause, in which Jon picked up a couple papers on his desk, more for the sake of having something to do with his hands than to actually look at them. 

“Alright,” Sasha finally replied, hands set on her hips. “Let me know if there’s anything you need me to take over from you, as long as it’s not– you know. The entire job of Head Archivist.”

“Yeah, course,” Jon nodded. “...Thank you, Sasha.”

Glancing over to the other two, he saw that Tim had been staring judgementally at him, expression still trying to work itself out. His eyes were narrowed in the silent question of ‘what are you trying to pull?’ 

Jon did not answer.

“Well, Jon, we’re sure gonna miss having you around here,” Tim finally exhaled, folding his arms. “Really, who are we going to watch walk into the breakroom and almost stick a fork in their eye because they forgot which hand they had their glasses in?”

“That is the kind of incident I am hoping to avoid by doing this, Tim,” Jon replied through gritted teeth, fighting back the mildly humiliating memory. 

“Martin?” 

He turned to face the quietest of the assistants, who was not even looking at Jon at all, gaze stuck somewhere on the carpet at the base of Jon’s desk. And when his eyes lifted to meet Jon’s, it became very clear that his cheeks were tinged with bright pink. 

“Oh! Er- yes. I’m alright with that.”

Martin swallowed nervously, nails picking at each other as if his mind was weaving through something far beyond what Jon had already considered in his decision to–

And then Jon remembered that Martin was still staying in the archives. 

He supposed that was what he got for planning out such a significant change in his schedule while recovering from blood loss and what was probably a minor concussion, as he had completely forgotten that he would not be alone in the building at night after all. 

That… threw a wrench in his plans. Of course, it would still be easier to keep the wings hidden when there was only one other person in the archives, and that person was asleep , but there was still a much higher risk of having to explain it all. Not to mention it was… well, it was Martin. He was far too sleep deprived to begin rationalising the odd feeling of his heart dropping when his mind fit the pieces together, but it didn’t matter, anyway. 

He wasn’t just going to tell Martin to go home. As frustrating as it was, there was still danger that Jon would not brush off and send Martin marching back to, and that meant letting him remain in the archives where it was safe. So it would have to do, he figured, as reducing the risk by two people was better than none. 

“Good,” Jon replied sternly, doing his very best to not look like he had just come to that realisation. “And as the person I’ll still be seeing the most is Martin, he will be relaying any information and updates that the work I will be leaving on your desks cannot. Understood?”

There was another pause, Sasha shifting to fit her hands into her coat pockets, then she nodded. “Yes.”

With the general agreement following, Jon nodded, turning his attention back down to his papers. “Right. You’re all dismissed.”

“Martin, relax.”

“I am relaxed.”

“I can hear your mind racing from over here, Christ,” Tim scoffed as he walked around the other side of the table, sinking down in the chair beside Martin and setting a hand on his shoulder. “Look, I understand you’re excited, and–”

“Tim! Stop- stop saying things like that!” Martin protested, weakly pulling his shoulder out of Tim’s grasp and ducking his head back toward his work. “I won’t even see him very much, I’ll be asleep and he will be getting his work done. I’m going to be talking to him less than I do now, anyway, it- it doesn’t matter.”

Martin was well aware that he was overthinking all of this. He had kept repeating the same ‘it doesn’t matter,’ in his mind, but it had not kept him from playing it at all cool when Jon had brought up that he, too, was going to be staying at the archives overnight. That meant being alone with him, even if it meant talking to him overall less often, and Martin’s heart was not doing a very good job at keeping calm about it. 

It was even enough to offset the disappointment of realising that the text Jon had sent him was probably a result of him choosing the first contact he saw and not some elaborate, subtle hint. Tim would have immediately pointed out that Jon was too dense for that, but Martin had let himself believe it anyway. 

“Come on, Martin, I know gay panic when I see it.”

“I’m not panicking.”

“You’re panicking. And that’s okay! I will leave you to that as long as you don’t completely lose your mind over it, and then you ,” Tim got to his feet again, setting a hand on top of Martin’s head, “will tell me tomorrow how it went.”

“And I will say that I brushed my teeth and went to bed, did not run into Jon, woke up as he was going home, and that was it,” Martin replied bluntly, picking up Tim’s hand and moving it away. 

“Mm. Sure,” Tim smirked, walking over to pick up his bag again. “Well, Sasha’s waiting outside, so I’m headed home. Good luck!”

“Martin, I thought I’d find you here.”

Jon’s voice was quieter than Martin had expected when he stepped into the break room, hands still in the pockets of the coat he had heard Sasha gushing over earlier in the day. The significantly more casual outfit didn’t do much to help Martin’s goal of convincing himself that the night would be just like any other day at the archives, except Martin wasn’t doing any work, which was a normal day anyway if you were to ask Jon. 

He was trying to keep himself from being too much of a wreck, but already Jon was speaking softly, no laughing or chatter from the other rooms to fill the dusty air. All that filtered through it were the streaks of evening light from the windows, highlighting the specks floating around faded shelves of books and files. 

Martin cleared his throat, biting the inside of his cheek. “Yes? Sorry, I was just cleaning some things up,” he explained hurriedly, feeling the need to justify being somewhere other than tucked away in his own small room in the archives already. 

“Have Tim and Sasha left?” Jon asked, not leaving the doorway. He instead seemed to hover there, as if waiting for something, and it only made Martin feel more nervous. 

“Yeah, around half an hour ago,” Martin replied, glancing over his shoulder at the archivist as he set another mug in the dishrack. “Why, did one of them leave something of theirs behind?” 

“No, no, I was just wondering,” Jon replied, shifting to lean against the door frame slightly. Martin just nodded, turning back to the dishrack and continuing to sift through what had been left in the sink. 

The clinking of spoons and mugs filled the silence between them, and Martin could feel his hands growing clammier with every second that passed. It felt like Jon was deliberately testing Martin, seeing how long he could go in silence before inevitably screwing up and blurting something stupid. He kept his mouth shut, though, focusing on the smell of the dish soap and sound of plates clinking together. It was one of his favourite sets of sounds, the comfort of the evening drifting in as he cleaned up for the night and got ready for bed.

He always left just one mug and tea bag out for himself, having grown a reliance on getting himself a cup of tea before falling asleep, and there was a patch of orange dusk sunlight that always crept its way through the blinds and landed on the counter that he set his coaster on. Martin knew that if anyone else knew about how important it was, how much effort he went into putting the coaster just there in the spot of light, having his spoon on the opposite side of the mug’s handle, they would either think him childish, insane, or both. 

That was why he did it when everyone else had left. 

And now Jon was here, and Martin was quietly waiting for the question as to why he was so certain about every small detail of his little ritual, so that when Jon finally spoke again, having not left the entrance to the room, he braced himself. 

“Martin?”

“Yes?” he replied quietly, hands falling still on the scrub brush he was holding. 

Jon shifted against the doorframe, clearing his throat in the way that Martin always struggled to decipher, having to guess in a split second if it meant he was about to be shouted at, or if Jon really just was clearing his throat and was about to turn on heel and leave the room. 

“Could…” Jon paused unnaturally in the middle of his request, something indescribably different about the way the singular word hovered with the dust in the quiet air, but it had already clicked in Martin’s mind. 

He understood just fine. 

“Of course. Hibiscus again?” he asked, ducking his head toward the sink in fear of Jon seeing how forcefully he was biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from smiling.

“Yes. Extra honey, please. I’ll be in my office when it’s ready,” Jon finally seemed to find his words again, low voice steadying. Martin saw his form straighten up out of the corner of his eye as well, posture correcting itself as Jon turned, calling the last of the sentence over his shoulder.

Martin’s hands were shaking as he reached up to get another mug from the cupboard. 

The rest of the evening passed quietly, as was to be expected when there were only two people in a building that expansive, but it was still one more than Martin was used to. He could hear the clicks of a tape recorder and Jon’s voice ringing from his office, the low sound a pleasant ambience to the evening. 

Even if the words he did catch seemed to be describing something about people full of rot and flies, it was still Jon’s voice and Martin enjoyed having it there. There was something about being able to stop what he was doing and hold his breath, able to hear it distantly from where he stood in the breakroom. 

He made both cups of tea to the hum of it, ducking into his room to set his own cup down on the old desk he was using as a nightstand, then rounded back to Jon’s office with the floral tea he had requested. The ripples across the top catching the flickering light outside artefact storage only served to remind him of the tremors in his hand as the warmth seeped into his palms from the World’s #1 Boss mug Tim had bought a few months ago. He liked using that one for Jon’s tea. 

Martin knew it had been entirely a joke, of course, he wasn’t that stupid, but from Martin’s perspective, it wasn’t a lie. He was grateful to have a job at all considering the circumstances, and he could sit for hours talking about everything he loved about Jon. He figured that warranted the title of #1 boss, joke or not. 

Jon was just finishing a statement when Martin opened the door, walking inside and setting the mug down. He was distantly sad to have the heat of it leave his hands, but that only made him more grateful that he was giving it to Jon. The ache of wondering if Jon didn’t like his tea anymore was only an echo, lingering from before the incident with the chamomile, and something in his chest instead felt warm as Jon took the mug. 

“Thank you. Are you headed to bed?”  

“Yeah, everything’s locked up but I’ll- I’ll check over it again before I settle in. You’ll be alright here?” Martin asked, clasping his hands behind his back. 

Between navigating his way through his absolute tangled mess of humiliating feelings, there was still concern, having never gotten a real explanation as to why Jon was doing this at all. The ‘health complications’ Jon had brought up made sense, but still had Martin stressed over what shifting his work hours couldn’t solve. 

Staying up late wouldn’t change the fact that Jon hadn’t been wearing his glasses all day and hadn’t even seemed to notice. What if not having a usual lunchtime made his aversion to eating worse, or he didn’t have people to walk into the room and snap him out of those odd trances he went into from time to time, if they were unrelated to his sleep issues? He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was still danger, and it clenched in his chest even tighter than the notion of worms creeping into the archives ever could. 

“Yes. I’ll see you in the morning, and if you need to speak to me at any point, please knock ,” Jon added pointedly, and a stab of guilt pierced Martin’s chest. He had… forgotten.

“Right,” he pressed his lips together apologetically, nodding. “I will do that.”

“Good. Night, Martin.”

“Night, Jon.”

As a result of repeatedly getting distracted by the sound of Jon’s voice drifting through the office door, form shifting in the desk chair through the frosted glass, it took Martin longer than he had hoped to get ready for bed. Most of the usual contents of his bag were scattered between tables as a result of having absentmindedly left them there as he cleaned up. By the time he finally got everything together again, checked the perimeter for any doors left unlocked, changed out of his work clothes, and brushed his teeth, it was nearly midnight.

Finally, though, he had the presence of mind to collect himself and head back down to his room in the archives, taking a deep breath of the dusty room that had grown so familiar. He had memorised the labels of all the worn binders on the wall across from where his couch was, having ended up staring, half-asleep, at every little extra blot of sharpie ink dotting the i’s and crossing out incorrect dates on collections of files. 

Those were mostly on the nights he couldn’t sleep, for as safe as he had been told it was in the archives, it was always those nights when his mind would drift directly to the sound of knocking on his flat door, or the conversation he had heard between Tim and Sasha about secret underground tunnels where unspeakable things resided, everything he didn’t want to be thinking about as he stared up at the tiles ceiling. 

This time, though, it felt safer. He couldn’t hear Jon’s voice from where he was lying anymore, but there was still something secure about knowing that he wasn’t alone in the archives. That his slowing breaths as he slid the covers over himself were not the only ones in the entire building, that there was something beyond the walls that would not be cold should something go wrong. It didn’t matter that he could already imagine Jon’s annoyed expression if he was interrupted during his work, the bitterness in his voice as he reminded Martin to knock, it was the fact that there could be a voice at all, and it would be Jon’s. 

It was so strange, so childish, to be so comforted by something as tiny as the concept of not being alone , but Martin couldn’t help the way the usual tension sank from his shoulders, breaths easier as he let his eyes sink shut. 

He slept better than he had in weeks. 

Jon did not expect to get very much work done on his first night shift at the archives. Of course, he was feeling more conscious than usual, the boost of energy that came with being part nocturnal coming in handy as he waited for Martin to fall asleep, but he expected the night to be more dedicated to figuring things out. He decided it would be worth setting the statements aside to instead get some of the quiet he needed from the complicated day it had been. 

He had stayed in his office, reading through files and ignoring the stuffiness of the wings against his back, as he heard Martin’s footsteps continue to pad back and forth between rooms, evidently having forgotten everything he owned in different places. 

Finally, though, Martin retreated to his room, and once Jon had gotten up to check that the light had been turned off, he felt safe enough to remove his coat. 

The back of Jon’s neck was slick with sweat as he peeled the coat off, the heaviness of it having tormented him all day. It wasn’t so hot outside that it had been suspicious to wear it, but it also wasn’t pleasant , especially not when he already had wings stuffed beneath it. With the weight of the extra layer gone from his shoulders, Jon was tempted to pull off the oversized t-shirt he had thrown over the wings as well, but a fear continued to linger that Martin would walk in blearily at any moment, asking if Jon had seen this or that, forgetting to knock, and Jon did not want that. It would be enough to explain the wings, and even worse if he happened to be shirtless in his own office. 

He did, however, manage to get the back of his shirt tucked under the joint of the wings at his shoulder blades, sticking out over the fabric and down his back. It was tedious and painful to even move his arms that much, the cloth still chafing against the only half-healed seam between his back and the foreign flesh, but it was better , and that was all Jon needed. He would figure out a way around it when he returned home and had more time. 

The general relief from the stress of the day coupled with the pleasant, heavy scent of Martin’s tea drifting from that ridiculous mug Tim had bought him was almost enough to make Jon want to just bask in it, but his urge to actually get something done took over and he set himself to work instead. 

He finally felt alert enough to keep himself focused on work that wasn’t just statements, and within the first two hours he had gotten more done than he had in the past week. It was so strange, how easily it was to resist the urge to sink his head onto his desk and fall asleep, when the only light in the room was the friendly glow of his desk lamp and he wasn’t fighting a very frustrating shoulder pain. Even after getting up to clean off the blood Tim had brought up earlier in the day in the bathroom, he didn’t struggle to pick up his work again afterwards.

It wasn’t perfect, of course, his eyesight was still shit whether or not he had his broken glasses on and he found himself still prone to his bouts of getting extremely distracted, but Jon didn’t need perfect. He just needed something that wasn’t a constant seesaw between exhaustion and agony, and he had gotten more than he could ask for. 

Jon even felt relaxed enough that the concept of Martin staying in the archives with him didn’t bother him as much, eventually forgetting about it. He decided it was probably because Martin wasn’t awake to be messing anything up, and as long as he was fast asleep, Jon did not care that he was there. 

Overall, it wasn’t a bad night. 

When 6 AM crept in, Jon even found himself disappointed that he would have to return home again. He knew that soon, Martin would wake up, Tim and Sasha would arrive, and the peaceful quiet of a night he felt like he belonged in would end, just like that, with the blue-grey light creeping in through the blinds at the front of the archives. 

His productivity would end too, he realised, as he picked up the coat he had taken off from the back of his chair and pulled it over his head again. It was stifling and uncomfortable again, but nowhere near as bad as it had been the day before. He slowly let pride sink in for having found, at the very least, a temporary solution to a situation so ridiculous he barely even believed it himself. Something bloomed in his chest as he stared down at the heap of files he had relabelled with actually legible handwriting, the statements he had finished recording, and the empty cup of tea sitting on the edge of the desk. 

He was just folding up his post-it note to-do list when he heard the door handle turn, jumping as he very suddenly remembered that Martin was still here . Preparing to begin another unfriendly reminder about remembering to knock, Jon took a deep breath, but as he turned the door handle stopped moving, lifting back to its original position. There was a pause, and then two knocks lightly tapped against the wood. 

“Come in,” Jon sighed, trying not to sound amused. The door handle turned a second time and he saw Martin step inside, carefully balancing a very full cup of tea. 

The assistant had clearly just woken up, bleary eyes doing their best to focus on the ripples across the surface of the mug and soft hair mussed from sleep. He had gone to the effort to change into work clothes, but one of his sleeves was cuffed and the other wasn’t, the collar of his shirt not properly untucked from the sweater he had fitted over it. He looked… well, Jon couldn’t find the word for it, but it didn’t bother him, so he didn’t go to the trouble to point it out. 

Martin blinked sleepily as he set down the tea, and Jon realised he had been standing there and staring at Martin without saying a word. Jon cleared his throat, trying to shake off his own daze, and went to pick up the mug.

“Thank you, Martin.” He saw Martin blink, then smile, and Jon suddenly was struggling to remember what he had meant to say after that. “I was- er. R-right, I was just packing up to head back home. Did you sleep well?”

“Oh- yes, actually,” Martin replied, voice still slightly hoarse as he took the stack of files, all with appropriate post-it notes for Tim, Sasha, and Martin respectively, that Jon handed him. “Paranoia was a bit easier on me, I think. How was… er, staying up all night doing archive work?” Martin asked as Jon set his bag on the table and packed up his laptop. 

“Quiet. Productive. Tell Tim and Sasha I’ll probably be sticking to this schedule in the future, at least until something changes,” he exhaled, slipping his broken glasses into his bag and hoping Martin didn’t notice. If he did, he didn’t mention it. 

“And now you’ll go home and get the sleep you need to make up for it?”

Jon zipped up his bag, hooking it over his shoulder and downing the rest of the tea Martin had brought for him. He reluctantly found himself missing Martin’s usual two-hour intervals of stepping into his office to refill his mug and check in on him throughout the day, but it was a ridiculous thing to take for granted anyway. 

“Yes, Martin, I will. And you will be sure work actually gets done today without me, otherwise I’m telling Sasha that she’s in charge and giving her full permission to take away people’s phones if they aren’t getting their assignments done.”

Martin swallowed, nodding as he hugged the three sets of files to his chest. “R-right. Well, it feels odd to tell you now, but… Sleep well, Jon. I’ll see you this evening.”

Jon flicked off his desk lamp, looking around the room for anything he had left behind, then let out a breath. 

“...Yes. See you this evening.”

Chapter Text

Martin shrunk away from Tim’s hand ruffling his dishevelled hair as he walked past the assistant’s desk. Martin’s gaze lifted to meet his, exasperation already setting into his features. To Tim’s surprise, though, that was all it was. He looked unusually well rested, more light in his eyes as he tried and failed to duck out of the way of the hand Tim set on his head. 

“Whatever you’re about to say, Tim, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Oh? Not feeling like sharing, are we?” Tim smirked, picking up one of the papers Martin had been sifting through and inspecting it. It was in Jon’s handwriting, dated to the day before, and the lettering was neat, almost to a suspicious degree. Tim set down the paper. “No worries, Martin, if it’s private, then I understand.”

“Tim, Christ, I’m telling you, I just–” Martin spluttered, face tinting pink again as he fumbled to keep his grip on his pen. “We- we barely even talked, I saw him in the morning, a-and-” Martin, clearly realising that his flustered attempts at explanations were not doing anything aside from greatly entertaining Tim, huffed defeatly. “I’m not gonna argue with you about this. He said he’ll be sticking to the schedule and- and assigned you some work, all the folders are on your desks.”

Tim was about to reply when he heard a dramaticized gasp from behind him, Sasha walked up to Tim’s side with mock offence across her face. “Teasing Martin? Without me? I’m hurt,” she grinned, before nudging Tim’s shoulder and nodding back toward her desk. “Could I get your help with the printer again?”

The first few hours of the day passed slowly, Tim sitting over the heap of follow-ups he had been assigned as he stared at the neat labelling of the folders. The amount of work Jon had apparently gotten done had moved into being slightly unsettling, the argument still replaying in irritating flickers in the back of Tim’s mind. He assumed he would have been more bothered if Jon had barely done anything to uphold his end of the deal, but he found himself even more frustrated and puzzled with the fact that he had . 

Not even a few hours later and Jon had announced a complete shift in his schedule, which hadn’t exactly been what Tim had in mind, but it fit everything they had agreed upon. And now Jon was apparently doing better, after just that singular decision, and it didn’t seem right . 

Not only that, but now that he was no longer coming in during the daytime, there wasn’t even a place for Tim to easily confront him about it– granted, he tracked people down and confronted them all the time for follow-ups, but it wasn’t so simple as just walking up to Jon in the office and asking what was going on . Though really, that didn’t seem too easy either, considering how their last confrontation went. Tim’s chest felt too tight at the fact that he had lost his temper again, and at work, no less, his confusion and annoyance mingling with a guilt he couldn’t fully accept was his– but also one he would never be able to turn away completely.

Tim’s train of thought was broken by the sound of Sasha sighing next to him, followed by the click of her setting down her pen. She shifted in her chair to face Tim, an elbow resting on the table. “So, are you going to tell me what’s bothering you? Or do you plan on just sitting there looking mildly irritated for the rest of the day?”

Tim glanced over, having failed to realise that his face had sunken into something more sullen and cold, the unfortunate seeping of his emotions into his expression when he had zoned out. He frowned, staring at Sasha confusedly as he tried to fight back the still quietly chattering aggravation in the back of his mind. “What?”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, you haven’t gotten anything done, and I don’t think it's because our lovely dedicated supervisor Jon isn’t here to cheerily arrive and check in on you.”

Tim failed to reply in much more than a halfhearted exhale of amusement. He knew he should have been fighting to at least manage a laugh, but he couldn’t get the frustrating churn of annoyance and guilt out of his mind, seeming to have seeped into his bones and was refusing to leave. It wasn’t something he could brush off, especially not now that Sasha had caught on to it.

She nudged her chair closer to Tim’s, sighing softly. “Seriously, Tim, I don’t like having to see you like this.”

Tim felt his throat tighten, trying and failing again to find a comment about how he didn’t either, as he knew it would just be followed by Sasha pressing him further. He did want to talk to her, of course, but his promise to Jon was tangling his decision-making, still not having decided if what Jon had done counted as filling in his end of the bargain. It did, probably, and Tim was just annoyed that based on the folders left out for them, Jon did seem to have gotten an eerie amount of work done, but it was still conflicting. He eventually decided that as long as he didn’t explain what had actually started the fight, he could say he kept his promise.

“...Jon and I had an argument yesterday.”

Sasha’s expectant expression loosened slightly, gaze lowering as she set a hand on top of Tim’s. He didn’t pull it away, keeping his jaw set. “Mm. That hasn’t happened in a while.”

Tim picked up his pen again with his free hand, more inspecting the engraving on it than actually trying to do anything with it. Part of him wanted to back down and leave it at that, but the few words had already taken some of the weight off his shoulders, so he did his best to continue. “Didn’t go on for very long, I just– snapped at him, and–” he cut himself off, glancing back up at Sasha’s painfully patient expression. “Look, I can’t tell you what it was about, he made– I promised not to tell you or Martin. I may have been a dick to him, but breaking that isn’t going to make me feel much better.”

Sasha hummed thoughtfully, tapping her nails on the desk. “Well, good thing I probably already know what it’s about,” she smirked, leaning back in her chair slightly. “Let’s see– Jon told us all about the night shift thing afterwards, so it couldn’t have been that, though it’s probably related in some way. If it had anything to do with his god awful case of being a gay wreck, you would’ve been weirder around Martin when we first came in, and if it was about me, you either would have not agreed to hide it in the first place, or, at the very least, I’d like to think you put a but more effort into not looking an irritated mess as you pretend to do your work. 

“And he made you promise to not tell me or Martin, meaning that it likely has a bit more to do with something between you two or just Jon himself than one of us in particular. So… I guess that just leaves, oh, right! That gash on Jon’s forehead I saw you staring at for the entire duration of yesterday’s meeting,” Sasha finished bluntly, before rolling her eyes. “Don’t worry, Tim, I would’ve noticed it anyway. All that glasses business, his weird wincing– he wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding it.”

Tim paused, unable to keep his lips from twitching into a reluctant smile as he shook his head. “Should’ve known. Yeah, I… he was being all weird when he first came in, which was a bit of a bother, but we’ve all been dealing with that. He’s been so defensive over nothing for weeks now, but I draw the line at showing up after a ‘day of rest’ with blood on his face, you know? 

“And now I can’t even check that he’s at least trying to get better, because all our updates are now coming through Martin, who’s too focused on how– pretty his eyelashes are, or whatever, to actually notice that he looks a week from death,” Tim huffed, bitterness winding its way back through his voice. He felt Sasha squeeze his hand, picking up his pen again. “For an institute about knowing things, our own boss seems pretty set on not letting us know anything.”

“Taking after Elias, I suppose. Best way to get a promotion around here– become incredibly mysterious and terrible at communicating, and if you turn into enough of a confusing, frustrating person, then they give you more important jobs,” Sasha snickered, glancing over at the door to Jon’s vacant office. 

“God, it’s a good thing Jon could never turn into Elias, too much of a mess. Otherwise, I’d be out of here.”

“Oh, yeah, Jon could never. Really, he could at least start with figuring out how to not repeatedly forget about the cut on his forehead as he tries to hide it from his coworkers.” Tim snorted, a softer smile breaking over Sasha’s face, and she let out a breath. “Really, Tim, what I’m hearing about this argument is that you’re concerned for Jon, Jon was being frustrating and defensive over it, and you got upset. I don’t think it’s something you should be beating yourself up for, alright? Not telling you to congratulate yourself on yelling at him or anything, but it might have even been what he needed to hear– he actually has work assigned to us today and hopefully is asleep at the moment.”

Tim finally nodded, running his free hand through his hair and allowing the words to sink in a bit further. The irritation had mostly faded, phone now resting idly on top of his work as he pressed his lips together. He still wondered if Jon was actually taking time to rest or if he was just continuing to be weird and shady in the privacy of his own home, but he did, at least, look to have been in good enough shape to get work done. 

“...Yeah,” he agreed, getting to his feet. “Alright. Er- thank you, Sasha. I’m going to go pester Martin about his crush on Jon til he gets me more tea as a peace offering, you wanna join?” he asked, pointing with a thumb over his shoulder.

Sasha grinned, setting down her work. “Gladly.”

Jon slid his bag off his shoulder and let it sink onto the couch with a heavy thump, already beginning to take off his coat and free the wings. His shoulders slumped with exhaustion nonetheless, but not quite in the same draining, insidious way the tiredness had been following him for weeks now. It wasn’t so much the shade looming over him, quietly peeling layers of him from his back until he could practically feel exposed bone flaking away from his being, but instead something… heavier, more tangible and close as he made his way back to his room.

It was so odd, to see greying morning light already flooding through the street outside, the streetlamp that was his usual companion to a sleepless night already having turned off. He wondered if he should close the curtains if he actually wanted to be able to sleep, but the way he thought the daylight spilling over the window box and through the glass was strangely beautiful, Jon figured he was fine leaving them open. 

He stopped, weary arms already reaching to pull out his hair tie, as he realised what a strangely good mood he was in. It was almost alien, to be feeling… decent, when he was both exhausted and also quietly grappling with turning into an insect . The joint along his shoulder blades was still sore and taking some time to heal, making more strenuous movements hell for Jon, but it had been an overall improvement from the back pain that had been bothering him before they had violently torn themselves out of his flesh. He had finally been able to make time to rest at a point he actually felt tired, reminded of what most people with an actual sleep schedule experienced when going to bed at a normal time. 

Part of him was incredibly unsettled at the strange turn for the better everything took once he made the choice to embrace what was going on, but like hell he would be changing it now. He drowsily prepared for bed and let the wings rest folded along his back as he finally got rid of his dreaded 7am alarm and instead changed it to 8pm, scribbling a reminder to himself to use the extra time he was leaving himself before going in to work to actually find something he could eat. 

Jon still clung to the hope that he would be well rested enough to figure out something he could eat that wasn’t the container of raisins sitting in the cupboard, as even feeling alright did not cancel out the fog of sleep deprivation growing heavier every passing day. 

After finally finding a semi-comfortable way to fit the wings around a pyjama top, the weight on his shoulders uneven from his poor job of drying them after his shower, Jon returned to his room, unable to ignore the lull of his bed any longer. His mind was clouded and had resorted to replaying the way Martin had smiled that morning when he arrived with the tea, so Jon took it as a sign that he needed to finally lie down. 

It was a bother to find a sleeping position that kept the wings out of the way, as lying completely facedown wasn’t the best way to go about it, but unlike his failed endeavours to get to sleep before this, insomnia grappling onto any slight discomfort as an excuse to keep him from sleeping, once he found something even vaguely good enough, he felt his eyes slide shut. 

The wings were heavy but soft on his shoulders, covers warm and head finally resting on not his desk but a real pillow, and the sound of his own breathing, even and already slowing, was all that filled the room. Even the morning light filtering through the window didn’t keep him up, lulling as it swayed with the shadows the branches outside cast across the floor, and finally , Jon was able to rest. 

When Jon woke up, it was dark outside. His alarm had been ringing for what must’ve been a few minutes, and the light that had been filtering inside was replaced with the familiar, but distant glow of the streetlamp. The good news about his timing was that as Jon groggily reached for his phone and shut off the alarm, just awake enough to coordinate his hand to the screen, he found that he had been asleep the entire day. 

The bad news, however, was that it came with a terrible case of brain fog. He could barely remember which way was up as he pressed his eyes shut again to spare him some of the disorientation, beginning to slide the covers off of himself. He shifted to sit on the edge of his bed, finding that he had been asleep so long that the folds in the sheets had left grooves in his skin.

As he moved to tie his hair back, his fingertips grazed the soft surface of the wings against his back, mind taking a concerningly long moment to register that they were still there. He figured that having slept for a rough twelve hours, the sleep deprived blur of the weeks beforehand felt like they definitely should have been an overly elaborate, yet still completely nonsensical, dream that had resulted from being passed out for so long. Including the fact that there were moth wings grafted to his shoulders. 

Jon let out a breath and began to get to his feet, attention drifting to the streetlamp through his window again as he stood up, and shifted his shoulders to manage the weight of the wings. 

It was in that moment, 8:07 on a Friday evening, that it finally hit him, with all the grace of a sixteen-wheeler– his drastic decline in health, the unnamed condition that had been weighing him down for weeks, was a result of him gradually turning into an insect . He, Jonathan Sims, was turning into a moth and there was nothing he could do about it.

Immediately regretting standing up, Jon sank directly back down onto the edge of his bed, the shift of his wings as he slumped forward doing little to help the panic he felt swelling to life in his chest. It was absolutely absurd , and Jon had long realised that, but if it took less than two weeks for him to go from feeling vaguely tired to enduring the pain of having wings split directly out of his back and leaving him bloodied and half-dead on his living room floor, what the hell was next?  

He didn’t even begin to understand how it was possible. Reason failed him as he searched for anything that might explain it, hands trembling in his lap as he muttered what he knew about genetic disorders under his breath, the possibility of it being a parasite out of the question, and as his panic raced far past what his quickly derailing train of thought could keep up with, he found himself reminded of every ridiculous statement he had been reading through recently. 

Exploding into worms, stapling on skin, apartments full of meat, the gradual transformation into an insect felt like it would fit right into it. He would never have believed it. Should someone else have recorded the exact same experience and sent it in, Jon would have blamed it on the medication for a mild case of shoulder pain working a bit too heavily, and god , did he want to use that excuse now. Maybe there really had been something other than chamomile in that tea Martin had given him. Surely somehow he had been on some kind of hallucinogen for the past two weeks, acted relatively normal otherwise, and the only thing it had caused him to hallucinate was an eerily consistently paced transformation into a moth. 

His vision had gone particularly blurry again and he grabbed his glasses off the bedside table with shaking fingers, sliding them onto his face to find that on the side that hadn’t been shattered, his vision was still the exact same terrible resolution. That was- that was part of the illusion as well, wasn’t it? His prescription had stopped working, and it had to be because of drugs of some kind, and not because insects generally had poorer eyesight than humans. 

As his breathing picked up further, Jon got to his feet, beginning to pace back and forth beside his bed. There was a reason for all of this, there had to be, if he could find an actually logical explanation for the dozens of recorded statements he had stacked up on his desk at the archives, he could find an explanation for this. And he refused to let it be that he was becoming a moth as punishment from a higher power for being a prick. 

He needed– he needed something, something that couldn’t have been sleep because he had just passed out, couldn’t have been to tell somebody because this was too ludicrous for anyone of a stable mind to believe, and it couldn’t have been caffeine because– 

His thoughts collapsed in on themselves again as he remembered Martin’s tea, how his sudden distaste for anything that wasn’t hibiscus tea only stacked more proof against Jon’s slowly faltering denial. With another cold wave of horror, Jon realised that most of the food he had actually managed to eat over the past two weeks had been either fruit or fruit based because of course it was. 

Dragging his hand through his hair again, his fingers scraped painfully against the scab that had formed at his hairline from the day he had hit his head– he did his best to fit the possibility of a concussion into an excuse for all of this, but he was forced to admit that plenty more had been going wrong before any of that. 

He felt his gut twist as he realised he didn’t have an excuse. He didn’t have an explanation or really any information at all he could use to prevent or understand what was happening to him. All he had was a pair of wings and only two and a half hours to scrape himself together before he had to go in to work and face Martin.

Part of him was glad that it was Martin. He had a feeling like that if it had been Sasha, she would have immediately figured out what was going on, Tim would have probably bothered him about any instance of him acting strangely until he snapped, but Martin… as unproductive as he was, he had an eerie amount of patience. The way he clearly was concerned for Jon but rarely brought it up was infuriating, of course, but it suited the situation better than any of the other assistants. He seemed perfectly fine not digging into Jon’s personal life, lacking both Tim’s persistence for information and Sasha’s ability to put the pieces together anyway. 

    The rest of him was more stressed about there having to be someone there at all, as it was enough of a struggle to be constantly thinking about Martin and whether he would walk in, forgetting to knock, and having more than a few questions about the wings. It was even more upsetting when Jon realised that if his life continued the path it was on now, it would become a more and more difficult act to hide. The wings were more than enough on their own, but if his diet, eyesight, and bone structure had already been changed… he swore if he grew antennae, he would cut them off no matter how much blood it might cost or pain it might cause. 

    After sufficiently crumpling the note he had left himself about food in a tense, shaking grip, exasperated at how easily sleep deprivation allowed him to brush off something so completely insane, Jon finally forced himself to leave his room. He doubted it would do much to prevent his spiral, but hell, maybe losing his mind in the kitchen as opposed to his room would be a bit more bearable. 

    Jon wished he could’ve said the tin of pineapple he had for breakfast tasted terrible and was a strange, unpleasant thing to eat first thing in the morning, especially considering he didn’t like pineapple, but it wasn’t. It would have been so much easier if it tasted like it should have, that way he could throw it away and have the slightest reason to believe that maybe he was not part insect but was just a whole, very confused and probably drugged human. And yet no matter how begrudging a bite he took, it was the best thing he had eaten in days. 

    Some of his internal concern was quelled at the fact that he hadn’t eaten a full meal in that long, reluctantly relieved that he now had a way to keep himself from starving to death, but he wasn’t happy about it. 

    He should have known that eating and sleeping wouldn’t just fix everything wrong with him. It was a kind of comfort he clung to so often, the knowledge that as messy as his life might have been, taking a day off to rest and eat a full meal was his last resort, a foolproof way to reset himself and be able to start from the beginning. 

He had never actually fallen back on it before, merely using it as a way to keep himself from spiralling, but now it had finally happened. He had gotten into such a terrible state that he needed it, and all it had granted him was the clarity to see what a disaster everything was. Mental clarity, that was. His vision was still awful.

Jon threw the empty can of pineapple away with a dull clunk in the bottom of the recycling bin, staring at it defeatedly before gathering the willpower to start getting ready. He could lament all he wanted about it, but he still had a job to get to, and hopefully it would allow him a night quiet enough to figure out a rationalisation he liked better, or, if he couldn’t come to another conclusion, a way to find an end to it. 

“Evening, Jon!”

“Christ, Martin, you scared me–”

“Ah- sorry.” Martin grimaced apologetically as he stood up from behind one of the desks in the office, the sudden appearance doing little to help keep Jon’s heart rate down. It was a kind of mental whiplash, having forced himself to trudge into work every day, barely awake and reaction time so slow that by the time he had picked out a statement to read, he was just getting to process Sasha saying hello to him on the way in. It was jarring, of course, to suddenly have the energy to be startled by something, but Jon preferred it to the exhaustion that had been haunting him otherwise.

“It’s fine,” Jon muttered, shifting his bag on his shoulder and feeling the wings brush against his back, a sensation he wasn’t sure he would ever get used to. “Anything happen in the office today?” 

“...Not really, it was pretty quiet. Rosie said some people showed up with a delivery in the afternoon, but it turned out they had got the address confused or something and left. Tim and Sasha have both gone home, er– the folders should all be on your desk. Did- did you get some sleep?” Martin asked as he set his bag on one of the chairs and unzipped it. 

“Yes, it was… helpful,” Jon replied, before realising that he didn’t want Martin in the habit of asking him questions about his personal life and quickly changing the subject. “So if you or Tim have been taking advantage of my deliriousness to slack off, it won’t work any longer. I’ll be looking at those folders now.”

He propped his bag up on his shoulder again and walked past Martin, who chuckled nervously and stuttered something that Jon assumed was about tea, before making his way to his office. It was almost a luxury to be able to worry about whether his assistants were getting enough work done after spending so much time and effort keeping himself in a state to actually show up, so he flicked on his desk lamp and sank down in front of the stack of files that had been left for him. 

Sasha was caught up as always, everything that he had assigned to Tim was done, even if a third of it was in Sasha’s handwriting, but when he reached Martin’s folder, he paused. Something seemed different as he flipped through it, scanning both the handwritten and printed type with confusion as he tried to pinpoint what it was. It was Martin’s work, still, but when he lifted one of the statement giver profiles from Sasha’s folder to hold up to it, he realised what it was.

Martin’s papers were in a slightly different sized font. It wasn’t a drastic change, as Jon hadn’t noticed it right away, but all the lettering was one or two points bigger than the other files he had been flipping through. 

His immediate thought was that maybe it was some cheap trick to make it look like he had finished filling out more papers than he actually had, but it didn’t seem like the kind of thing Martin would pull. It was perfectly possible that maybe Martin had also just screwed up the formatting on something he had printed, but it was so specifically his work and it looked so strangely deliberate that Jon found his mind short-circuiting over it.

He had set it down and was beginning to sift through what he actually wanted to focus on when Martin knocked on the door twice, opening it with Jon’s response. He didn't seem any more nervous than usual, only quietly passing Jon his cup of tea and already beginning to turn for the door before Jon stopped him.

“Martin.”

He glanced over his shoulder, confusion flickering over his expression before it was replaced with his usual silent panic that Jon somehow always caught on Martin’s face. Surely he wasn’t this constantly stressed around Tim and Sasha. 

“Y-yes?”

Jon reached for Martin’s folder again, opening it and taking out one of the papers. He set it on the desk in front of Martin, whose face had grown pale as his gaze darted between the file and Jon’s expression. 

“Why is this in a different sized font than Tim and Sasha’s work?” Jon tried not to sound too accusatory, as he really was more curious than anything else, but he couldn’t quite fully purge his suspicion that it was some oddly elaborate way to do less work and prevent Jon from picking up on how little Martin knew what he was doing. 

Martin blinked, and Jon expected him to back away further, face tightening further with stress as he found that he had been caught lying, but instead his eyes filled with realisation. His cheeks grew pink as he shifted, finding a spot on the floor to stare intently at. 

“O-Oh, that. Sorry if- if you don’t like it, I just noticed that you, er- haven’t been wearing your glasses lately and, well, you looked to be struggling to read some of the- the files that weren’t statements, so when I was printing some things this morning, I- I figured that for less important papers, it couldn’t hurt to make the font size a bit easier to read, at least until you, er- get a new prescription or something,” Martin stuttered, still struggling to make eye contact as he took off his own glasses and turned them over in his hand. “Because, well, I know that it can be pretty difficult to schedule appointment these days, I- I have enough trouble myself with these and I’m not the one working six days a week, not- not to mention your new work hours making things more difficult, and–”

Martin’s nervous chuckle trailed off as Jon held up his hand to stop the assistant from rambling any further. Martin shakily put his glasses back on, gaze finally lifting to fix on Jon again. 

Jon took a deep breath, taking a moment to actually look over the paper, and sure enough, the shifted font size was significantly easier to read, no longer starting to give him a headache after the first few words. He didn’t even have to squint too hard to look it over, and even the handwriting was neater than what he knew Martin’s script to usually be. It was… helpful, he realised, as he slowly set the paper down, even if Martin had just told him a blatant lie and it really had been about looking like he had done more work. 

“Hm. Alright,” he decided eventually, sliding the paper back into the folder and reaching to pick up his cup of tea instead. “You can keep doing it, then. I’ll- I’ll tell you when I get a new prescription,” he added, recalling his shattered glasses sitting on his kitchen counter and how he very much doubted there was anything new lenses could do for him now. 

Martin nodded quickly, clasping his hands behind his back as Jon took a sip of his tea, reminded again that never before in his life had he enjoyed flowery tea. And yet here he was.

“And- and that font is okay? I figured I’d only make it a point bigger in case you didn’t like it or it was against some protocol I didn’t know about, but if it’s still a headache I can–”

“No, Martin, it’s fine how it is. Thank you,” Jon tacked on in the hopes of sounding dismissive, but it really just left his lips as oddly sincere, even though having Martin change the font size on some of his papers was the furthest thing from the solution he needed at the minute. 

“It’s no worries,” Martin replied quickly, smiling softly at the foot of Jon’s desk before nudging his glasses up his face again and looking back up. “Is there anything else you need?”

Jon shook his head, realising that he had gotten horribly distracted. He silently cursed how hard it became to focus when Martin arrived to bring him things, moving to rearrange the papers on his desk. “No. You should go to bed for now, really, I’ll be fine here.”

“A-alright. Night, then.”

“Night. Don’t leave the light in the hall on.”

Jon still found himself far more hesitant to take off his jacket that evening than he had been the night before, cursing himself for how reckless he had been– thinking that he could just assume Martin was already asleep the second the door to the storage room was shut, immediately and thoughtlessly revealing the wings like there wasn’t still danger. 

His sense of alertness was helpful, of course, but it began to transition over into feeling like every sound was the sound of Martin knocking, or worse, the click of the door handle. He should have reminded Martin again before he left. Much of Jon considered just leaving the jacket on the entire evening and only stretching the wings at home with the curtains shut and door locked, but of course it wasn’t that simple. 

His panic had temporarily masked how uncomfortable the wings really were when trapped under fabric, folding and caught at difficult angles, like a piece of paper caught in the wrong part of a drawer and crumpled messily whenever it was shut. They were surprisingly light on their own, but it just seemed to make them more prone to refusing to fit smoothly beneath another layer. 

When the heating kicked in and the familiar hum from the corner of the room started up, Jon could already feel the film of sweat that would grow across his back, wings trapping heat and making comfort an even more distant possibility. 

So all that Jon could do was wait as long as he could, hoping that Martin hadn’t picked up a tendency to stay up late, and make frequent glances to the clock until he was either sure Martin was asleep, or the feeling of discomfort became too much to ignore. It ended up being the latter.

Taking a deep breath as he pulled off his coat, he silently cursed how unintentionally friendly he had been to the assistant that evening. As unkind as he knew he could be, he was in a place where things were easier if Martin was scared of him, staying away from his office and never deciding to get too comfortable just arriving in Jon’s office. And yet the idea of it made Jon feel… unpleasant, something he couldn’t quite pinpoint in the way his gut twisted. 

Jon had never held back his criticism in the past, so why had he chosen now to feel so distasteful about it? It would help him keep everything together and find a solution without the panic and mess that would come with his assistants finding out, and all it required was him treating Martin like he usually did. 

He left the matter to think over later, instead taking the moment to stretch the stiffness from his shoulders. The wings shifted and unfolded, finally granted the space to straighten up and align against each other fully, and to Jon’s relief, the tension in his back and shoulders was lifted with it. 

It was bittersweet, in a way, how much easier it was to move when the wings weren’t pinned back. Being able to stand and not feel like part of him was still being compressed was helpful, and the wave of relief was from something as simple as taking off his coat– but there was something eerie about how right it felt. As upsetting and fantastical as this all was, Jon was forced to admit that the wings were a part of him, and he was more comfortable when he wasn’t trying so desperately to keep them out of sight. 

To make up for how unnaturally nice it felt to be able to stretch the wings as he returned to his desk, Jon decided the very least he could do was make a list of what he knew about the situation so far. He figured that if he was sitting there and letting the wings do what they wanted, he could at least start formulating a plan to either break out of the complicated hallucination that had created them, or at least be able to predict what might happen next to him. He at least wanted to be prepared if he found that eventually becoming an actual insect was inevitable.

Between reading statements and working on a list of police reports to ask Sasha to find, Jon kept a post-it note on his desk, collecting everything he knew of his ‘condition,’ combing through what were now frustratingly blurry memories of the weeks before for whatever else he had brushed off in his haze of exhaustion. He had convinced himself it would be helpful, in the same way it had been to be able to find something he could eat that morning, but seeing every stack up on paper did little to quell the dread mounting inside of him.

With every flicker of a memory that he moved to jot down as the next bullet point he felt his stomach sink further, the thick wall of doubt that had been doing its best to keep him safe beginning to deteriorate. His feeling of stupidity, scoffing at himself for thinking it was even possible, was beginning to give way to another kind of frustration in that he apparently was too stupid to notice it earlier. 

The feeling of productivity at least did well to keep it all at bay, focusing instead on both getting work done and occasionally pausing to listen for any footsteps from outside. Every addition to his list really only served to convince him that he needed to be even more cautious, and even between the occasional panicked reach for his jacket followed by the discovery that there was nobody there, as it was 4am, he only grew more grateful that he had changed his shifts.

What worried him most was the fact that some of his time was still being lost to bouts of distraction, something that he had written down but had nothing else he could associate with it, starting to ponder it and then blinking back to himself five minutes later having completely lost his train of thought. Not only was it frustrating and inefficient for getting work done, but it worried him. If anything, it was going to be the state he was in when he was finally caught in the lie he had created, so it became one of his biggest concerns, right next to how little he had been eating and the possibility of waking up one day with hemolymph instead of blood. 

Jon was just snapping out of one of the moments of complete distraction when he saw a light flick on in the office outside, sitting up in his seat as he heard the distant clinking of mugs from the break room.

He grabbed his coat and threw it over the wings again, too concerned about being caught to even lament how uncomfortable it would be to have to endure the trip home with the extra layer pressed and angled unpleasantly against his back. He quickly folded the scrap of paper he had been writing on and stuffed it in his coat pocket, keeping it as something he could look over when he returned home and had more time he wasn’t meant to spend working to think it over.

The clock had ticked over to 5:30am, the sound of water boiling filling the air, and Jon still hadn’t reached a conclusion as to what he should do , only that he didn’t understand what was happening, and things were far more likely to get worse than they were to get better. 

He reached for another statement, craving the relief of another assignment to pour his focus into, when two knocks sounded on the door, and he sighed.

“Come in.”

Realising that he didn’t want Martin to know he had been intently listening to every slight noise to be able to tell the exact moment he had woken up, Jon raised an eyebrow as Martin walked in. “You’re up early,” he commented, nodding to the clock. 

Martin hummed in affirmation, clearly still half asleep as he set the cup of tea he had brought onto Jon’s desk. 

“Your shift doesn’t officially start for a while,” Jon continued at the lack of a real answer, only slightly hesitant as he reached for the mug. 

Martin nodded again, rubbing one of his eyes blearily. “Yeah.”

Jon let out a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. And Tim had said he was difficult to get answers out of. Not only that, but Jon was unsettled at the idea of Martin waking up at times that were more difficult for him to predict. 

“Martin– why are you awake?”

Martin blinked, taking a moment to register the question before he bit the inside of his cheek, glancing down at the teacup. “I, er… yesterday I brought you tea right as you were leaving,” he explained, adjusting his sweater. “Felt bad, so I– set an alarm. For earlier.”

Jon glanced down at the cup of tea again. Sure enough, there was still a while until he had planned to actually leave the building, and he wouldn’t have to down the entire thing on his way out like he had the day before. 

Part of his mind jumped on it as suspicious, as there was no way Martin cared enough to pick up on something as trivial as that and go out of his way to fix it unless he actually suspected something else and wanted to catch Jon in the act, but there was a flaw with the theory. 

Martin absolutely was the kind of person to pull this, and Jon was unable to pinpoint how he felt about it. 

Jon had spent the entire night cramming a post-it note with twisted hypotheticals of insect legs and compound eyes, and did not want to use up more effort deciding if the half-asleep assistant, currently absentmindedly tucking a loose thread of his sweater back into his sleeve, was secretly plotting against him. 

    “...Ah, well– you don’t need to. I was just… in a rush to leave yesterday, and, well– you look like you could use the extra sleep,” Jon explained, grasping for another reason to keep Martin from cutting further into the precious hours he could work with the wings unfolded.

    “It’s not been as bad lately,” Martin replied sheepishly, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Promise.”

    “Well, yeah, God knows we could all use a bit more sleep around here,” Jon huffed, taking a sip of the tea. “Really, Martin, I can just stay a bit longer before I leave.”

    As much of an excuse as he knew ‘you need more sleep’ had been, Jon noticed that Martin really did look better-rested. He still looked like he had just woken up, of course, but the rings beneath his eyes had faded slightly from when Jon had last seen Martin. There was a sense of relief to it, seeing the assistant less tired, and he decided it had to be because he knew it meant Martin would get more work done. 

    After Martin had agreed and returned to his room, Jon was too reluctant to remove his coat again, but he managed to spend the last of his shift arranging the folders for his assistants. 

    He could still feel the post-it in his pocket as he nearly ran directly into Martin upon leaving, doing his best not to act too on edge and sorting out what to do when he returned home. 

    As much as Jon hadn’t wanted to make a pattern out of the cycle, having hoped to find a solution early and keep himself from getting too used to the wings, he slowly grew accustomed to it all. Over the next few weeks, that was how it was– he would arrive in the evenings, Martin would greet him and update on what had happened at the office, before going to bed and leaving Jon with his tea. Jon would stretch the wings and get to work, Martin’s files always in an easier font for him to read– and he would enjoy the quiet night until the sun began to rise again and Martin woke up. 

    It became a routine, the motions and sounds of it all growing familiar, and it became so easy to forget that what was happening was not only incredibly unnatural but potentially dangerous. Some of his concern was eased over time, though, realising that the only thing that was continuing to change was that his mind was getting clearer with the actually consistent sleep schedule he had developed. 

The wings were becoming easier and easier to forget about when they were unfolded, and he was learning to live with them– save the bout of frustration with how uncomfortable every shirt he owned had become to wear, in which he ended up cutting a hole along the shoulders of a few of his shirts. As rash a decision it was, he was never able to bring himself to regret it, as they were far more comfortable that way. 

He came to learn more of Martin’s routine as well, never able to fully commit to pushing the assistant away to keep the secret safe. After all, he had been… less than kind to Martin for weeks and yet still he took the time out of his day to check in on Jon when he could, changed the format of all of the forms he printed, always there to remind Jon if he had forgotten something while he was packing up.

More and more unnecessarily thoughtful gestures piled in Jon’s mind, making him feel something along the lines of sick, but less– unpleasant. What mattered was that he knew that it would take a lot more than his usual dismissive comments to get Martin off his back. 

In the end, his mistake was exactly what he had expected it to be– getting too comfortable. He didn’t know why he had thought for a moment that it could last forever. 

    Martin was having trouble sleeping. 

The sickly combination of exhaustion and recklessness was almost nostalgic in how long it had been since his paranoia had kept him awake. Maybe it was because it had been raining so heavily recently, earthworms surfacing from the damp soil he passed on the way to work, or the way the patter of the rain on the roof of the archives masked the distant, comforting drone of Jon’s voice as he read statements, but not even the cool handle of the corkscrew clasped in his palm could relieve the uneasiness enough for Martin to get himself to sleep. 

It was frustrating, to finally have felt like he was getting his sleep schedule back on track only to have it torn from his grasp by something as simple as a particularly rainy night in a place where it rained all the time. The frustration seemed to crawl over his skin, the promise of rest dangling over him, but as he watched the clock above the door in the storage tick over to one in the morning, a kind of defeat was beginning to set in. 

Martin didn’t particularly like getting up and wandering around the archives at night, as not only were they an objectively spooky place, but usually leaving the one small, warm room he considered his protection was the opposite of what he wanted. It only seemed to ever make it harder to get to sleep, leaving the warmth and light of his room and submerging himself into the cold, silent corridors of the archives. 

It was different now, though. His sleep problems had been kept at bay lately by the reminder that Jon was there with him, filling the ever-expanding sense of hollowness that had been a frequent visitor alongside his newfound paranoia. Recently, all it would take to help him get back to sleep was the thought of Jon in his office, occasionally a reflection on a time Jon had thanked him for the tea, and the fear that was so insistent upon seeping into him would melt away. 

The heating was still running in the main office, as Jon was up working, and there was the promise of a sound other than the thudding of rain on the roof above him– so this time around Martin figured that it couldn’t hurt to get up, get himself a cup of tea as an excuse to listen to Jon reading part of a statement for a few minutes, and then go back to sleep. Just to reassure himself that he wasn’t so alone, and then he knew it would at least be easier to get some rest. 

It took him a few minutes to build up the willpower, lying down on the wide couch that had been supplied to him as a temporary bed, but eventually he slid the covers off his shoulders and got to his feet. He didn't need much, he just wanted to know that the archives were not empty that night. That was all. 

Even the ray of light from beneath the door of Jon’s room felt friendly in the darkness of the main office, the glow from the desk lamp warm and spilling out onto the streak of carpet as Martin. He didn’t hear the tape recorder running, nor could he hear Jon saying anything, a quiet that made his stomach sink slightly, but as he made his way to the breakroom, he figured it was alright. Either Jon would start reading one soon, one that Martin would let himself listen to the first half of then return to his room. He preferred hearing just the beginnings of statements anyway, before they took a turn for the gorey or upsetting.

If he didn’t start a new statement, Martin decided he would just make Jon a cup of tea and check up on him. As much as he knew Jon could probably understand weird sleep patterns, he figured he would end up asking all those questions in that strange way that he did. Why Martin was up, why he had done his work this or that way or why he was bringing Jon tea, like he was there to just take notes on how people worked. Martin didn’t mind, though. To be able to talk to him was enough.

The hiss of the kettle started up and filled the room, Martin sinking down at the breakroom table to clear his thoughts. Chin resting in his hand, he shut his eyes and tried not to think about Tim’s expression should he find out that Martin had woken up at one in the morning to make a cup of tea as an excuse to talk to Jon, then immediately went back to bed. It sounded so pathetic when he viewed it that way, but realising that it was stupid didn’t give him another way to get back to sleep. 

So he inhaled and got to his feet, walking back over to the counter to finish making the tea.

He set down his own cup to finish steeping on the counter and picked up Jon’s, having chosen the mug from Tim again, and began to draw toward that same streak of bright light from beneath the office door. 

The glow of it reflected off the surface of the hibiscus tea, which had about three full spoonfuls of honey in it at this point. Martin had no idea why or how Jon hadn’t complained about it by now, but he seemed to enjoy it more the sweeter it was, and if that meant Martin could make better tea, he wouldn’t bring it up. 

Shifting the mug to one hand, Martin finally reached the door to the office, taking a deep breath before knocking twice. 

To his relief, he heard Jon sigh from the other side, calling back a tired, ‘come in.’

So Martin did. 

It took him a moment to figure out what he was looking at. 

There was a brief flicker of concern when he first saw that Jon wasn’t sitting at his desk, but the jumper Martin had been seeing him wear so much lately had been draped over the back of his chair. Jon himself, however, had gotten up to stand at one of the shelves in the office, flicking through neatly labelled folders with his back to Martin. Well– that’s what it felt like it should have been. 

It wasn’t quite- his back. Martin felt his mind struggle to figure it out, like there was a file it couldn’t load right, as he stared at the unfamiliar frame. There was something over Jon’s shoulders, vaguely fitting the same shape of a short cloak, but… different. It was a soft, gingerbread brown sort of colour, strange markings running along the edges and closer to where they were fit to Jon’s back. It was symmetrical, and when Martin’s gaze finally found the dark, round eyelike spots at the base staring back at him, the familiarity of the pattern sunk in. 

In that split second, Jon’s head snapped around to face Martin, light flashing as his eyes gleamed in the glow from the lamp. Martin realised that the glasses he hadn’t seen Jon wearing at all lately were back on his face, one lens shattered and splitting the view of his eye into miniscule fractures. When the glint fell from them, Martin suddenly saw that Jon looked petrified.

Martin felt his gaze slowly pull from the wings and down to the mug of extremely sugary floral tea clasped in his hands. Then up to the bright lamp flooding the heap of paperwork in a pleasant orange light, then to the desk clock beneath it reading 1:38 AM. 

He drew in a breath, holding it for a moment as he looked back to meet Jon’s deer-in-headlight expression. “...Why does this somehow make a lot of sense?”

Chapter Text

“Fuck. Fuck , I didn’t–”

Jon finally moved, breathing picking up as his hand twitched panickedly at his side, as if searching for something he could do. Messy half-breaths fell short between muttered curses, and he had turned to keep his back– and the wings– pressed to the shelf. 

“Look- Look, Martin, I can explain, I promise– this isn’t-”

Martin didn’t think he had ever seen Jon look so skittish, face growing ashen as the blood drained from it and he fumbled for words. He stepped forward to set the tea down the desk, wanting to at least not be holding boiling water as he tried to do something, and Jon only tensed up more, freezing like a cornered animal. Martin stopped, taking another step back and forcing himself to take a deep breath. He didn’t want to be the second person in the room panicking, so he just swallowed and tried to keep his gaze on Jon’s face as opposed to the wings. 

“Jon–”

“I- I’m telling you, I just-”

“Please calm down.” 

Jon fell quiet, chest still heaving slightly and Martin glanced down at the tea he was still holding. As many pieces seemed to fit together, Martin was still having trouble figuring out what the bigger picture was, trying to unravel the knot of confusion in his mind while also keeping Jon from passing out. The drumming of the rain on the roof above them was all that filled the space for a moment. Then, brow still pinched, Martin quickly shook his head, trying to shoo the proverbial fly that was his attempt at getting it to make any more sense. 

“Er- do you want to sit down?” he asked, gesturing to the desk chair again, and Jon was silent for a moment. 

Then he lifted a hand to run through his hair and nodded, peeling his back from the wall and walking back over to sit down. The wings shifted, a duller shade of grey on the other side now visible, but Martin forced himself to focus on the even more visible mental spiral Jon was pressing back as he approached the desk.

“...Okay. Um- yeah. Okay.”

His breaths were still uneven as he sank back down in his chair, taking off his glasses with a deep, slightly shaky inhale, and setting them in front of him. Martin set down his tea in front of him as always, as if it was not one in the morning, and Jon did not have a full set of moth wings grafted to his back. 

“So–” Martin stepped away from the desk again, watching as Jon reached a trembling hand forward to take the mug and he mentally searched for a place to start, scraping over everything he knew for something he could ask, turning it over in his mind as if searching for the edge of a roll of tape. “Um- wings.”

Martin saw Jon clutch the cup of tea tighter, shaky hands tensing around the #1 Boss mug. “Right.” He took a deep breath, the panic in his eyes still not having fully died away. “I don’t- I don’t have answers. I’ve been hiding it because I don’t understand , so if it- if you have all the same questions I do, you’ll… you’ll be sorely disappointed.”

There was still a slight tremor in Jon’s voice as he spoke, gaze fixed on a point on his desk and very clearly avoiding looking up at Martin. A pang of sympathy pierced Martin’s chest as bitterness seeped into Jon’s voice, a frustration he could tell Jon was doing little to press back. Martin himself had never been one too obsessed with getting answers, he was mostly alright dealing with that which he could never know, but he knew how Jon liked things to make sense. Be normal, have explanations, and fit within a normal span of reasoning. 

None of which, apparently, applied to the wings.

“That’s alright,” Martin replied quietly, brow still furrowed. “Er- sorry, could I see them? Again?” he asked, nodding to Jon’s shoulder. He knew that all this time Jon had been doing everything to hide them, and had been doing a surprisingly good job, but his mind was still processing, without enough information to put it together. 

To his relief, Jon nodded defeatedly, getting to his feet as Martin carefully approached the wings. In the brief moment he had seen them before Jon turned, he had been able to make out the pattern, but as he stepped forward and took in the soft frames of the wings. He had mostly been focusing on what they actually were, but when he took another step closer, Jon’s shoulders still tense, he realised that they were… beautiful. 

They were held like they were lighter than they looked, ever so slightly shimmering in the light from the desk, more like silk than anything. They moved just enough when Jon breathed that the markings gently shifted, making them feel so alive with rippled patterns of symmetrical eyelike spots and rays of white closer to his shoulders. 

They fluttered ever so slightly when Martin reached forward, breath stolen by amazement as he hesitated a moment and glanced back at Jon. His jaw was set and he was staring directly at the ground in front of him, expression difficult to read. 

“S-Sorry,” Martin said quickly. “Could- could I?”

Jon nodded, shifting slightly, though his gaze didn’t lift from the floor. “Yeah- they’re not actually that fragile. Thankfully,” his voice still held a tremble, more strained than Martin usually heard it, but he didn’t push any further.

He only gently lifted his hand again, timidly reaching back to brush his fingers along one of the stripes on the wing, letting out an awed breath. It was so much stranger to touch the wing’s soft surface, confirming that it was real, as opposed to just some complicated illusion or trick of the light. He traced the mark up to Jon’s shoulder, where a thin layer of fluff covered the joint, and then he turned his attention to the fabric surrounding it. The back of Jon’s button-up was cut in a stripe to make room for the joint, though it had been done messily, with no care to actually make it neat, and clearly not done with the proper scissors. 

“What did you do to your shirt?” Martin finally asked, poking the poorly trimmed fabric.

Jon paused. “...What?” 

Martin glanced up. “I’m… just asking.”

“Hold on,” Jon frowned, head lifting slightly. “You- I- I’m like this , and that is the question you want answered?” He glanced over his shoulder, scoffing. “I cut it, Martin, because I can’t just walk into an H&M and ask if they have options for people with wings .”

“W-Well, I know that, but it just doesn’t look very comfortable, you know?” Martin shrugged, tilting his head to look at it again. Jon hadn’t even bothered to hem it. 

He heard Jon let out a half-laugh of disbelief, wings moving with his shoulders as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just crumpling them under my coat isn’t that pleasant either. Turning into a moth against your will in the first place is pretty damn far from comfortable as you can get.”

“Mm, but that you can’t change. This–” he poked Jon’s shoulder again, “you can change. I- I actually have some thread in my drawer, if you have a spare shirt I can hem this one for you,” Martin explained hurriedly as Jon turned back around, adjusting his shirt with confusion written all across his face. There was a pink tint to his cheeks that must have been from the lighting of the room, and his gaze flicked back to the bag sitting against the leg of his desk.

“I- I suppose I do?”

Martin nodded quickly, clutching the sleeves of his pyjamas and trying to keep his hands from trembling too much. “Yeah– yeah, let me go get it, I’ll meet you in the storage room, that’s where my scissors are. You- you can tell me what you know while I work on it, shouldn’t– take too long. Um- okay.”

Martin found himself hurrying out of the office with one last glance at the wings, well aware that he was being abrupt but quietly fearing his heart may burst. He could feel it racing in his chest as he turned on his computer for light at his desk, breaths picking up as he opened his desk drawer. 

He forced himself to focus, as much as his mind was panicking as it flipped between being completely shaken up over the fact that his boss had insect wings , and being a trembling, flustered mess over the opportunity to actually talk to Jon about something that wasn’t statements or police reports or whatever else Martin was pretending he knew anything about. 

Shaking fingers found the small spool of thread Martin kept among the other trinkets and slips of papers he kept in his desk as opposed to actual work. He tucked it into his pocket and took a slow, deep breath to console himself before turning back toward the office door. He had not expected one night of insomnia to go this way.

Jon felt incredibly stupid. 

There was no other way to put it. As he fitted the spare shirt he had brought around the wings, one he kept in his bag as a result of the scars on his back occasionally starting to bleed again, the only emotion he could correctly identify was that of ‘I am the stupidest person alive.’ Gaze blurred with the warm, yet almost blinding light of his desk lamp, he knew there were plenty of other feelings there, too, he wasn’t completely shallow, but he just didn’t care to attempt to unravel or name them. 

He had told Martin to open the door. Weeks and weeks of making sure that Martin never slipped up and opened it without warning, pacing back and forth over and over with the fear of an unannounced entrance being the end to his dignity, and it had instead been his own failure to remember what it was actually for. 

And now he was here, having just been given a talking-to by his own employee about how disappointing the way he cut his shirts was, with no excuse and a pair of moth wings to figure out a way to explain. As he buttoned down the front of the shirt, the heavy scent of honey from the tea Martin had brought him almost was stronger than the smell of old paper and dust, and Jon slowly realised that there would have had to be a point where Martin found out. With the way it was impossible for Jon to avoid him and how insistent the assistant was on checking on him as much as he could, it was… inevitable. 

He just wished it hadn’t involved him freaking out and needing Martin to sit him down to keep him from hyperventilating . God knew Jon’s dignity was in pieces long ago, but this was another kind of humiliating altogether– he could feel his face burning as he straightened his shirt again. 

He slung the shirt Martin had asked to sew up over his arm and picked up his tea from his desk, warmth still seeping into his hands from the mug, and tried to collect himself. Strangely, if not helpfully, Martin seemed to be able to keep it together relatively well. Better than Jon, at least, and maybe it was that there were far worse kinds of bugs that Martin had been dealing with lately, so moths weren’t so bad anymore. 

In fact, he had seemed more fascinated with the wings than anything, and Jon could still mentally trace the path his hand had left when he had so gently brushed his fingers against the wings, the soft gasp of awe that had so easily filled the quiet office. 

Even now, after deciding that they would actually talk about it, Martin didn’t even seem like he cared if Jon didn’t have a full explanation, something that he could never imagine with Tim nor Sasha. No, there was something about Martin, acting as if all that really mattered to him was that Jon was able to at least tell someone about what he had been through, logic and meaning aside. 

Chalking up the nonstop flutter in his chest to just a remnant of his previous panic, Jon steadily pushed away the quickly unravelling knot of the countless unidentifiable feelings and left the office. The open office was dark, and Jon felt himself hesitate as he stepped over the threshold and into the shadow of the room, leaving the comforting glow of his office behind him. 

He shut the door behind him, though, forcing his breaths to steady slightly again, and pressed his hands tighter against the warm cup of tea that had been made for him. He made his way down to the storage room where Martin had been sleeping, some distant part of his mind recalling when he first allowed Martin to stay there, before any of this had happened. He remembered thinking so much of what he doubted had suddenly become so real, that the revelation had finally reached him when Martin had thrown open the door to his office. 

Apparently the information that the supernatural was very real hadn’t stuck with him enough, as it had immediately been followed up by being chosen to inexplicably become an insect. 

…It felt like something he should have looked back on fondly, but as simple a time as it had been, there was something about the night shifts, the hibiscus tea, sounds of water boiling and the breakroom lights turning on– it felt right, somehow. Even as he walked down the narrow corridor to the storage room, careful not to let his tea spill over the edges and ignoring how his heart was positively refusing to slow down, he couldn’t say it was– unpleasant. Just different, he decided. That was a good enough description. 

Jon tentatively lifted a free hand to knock twice on the door to the storage room, figuring he could at least return the favour, and when Martin called from inside, he turned the handle. 

Light flooded out into the corridor and Jon felt his shoulders relax slightly, stepping inside and seeing Martin already sitting on the couch, shifting a couple of the blankets aside to make room for Jon. He realised it had been a while since he had visited the storage room, and it had changed after weeks of someone living inside of it. 

The shelves against the walls were in disarray as usual, long untouched folders and loose sheets of paper only slightly irritating Jon to see, wondering what kind of information might be lost in the clutter, but he let it be. 

The desk inside was stacked with a handful of papers in Martin’s handwriting, though he couldn’t see what they were from where he was standing, poor vision and all. He could, however, make out doodles in the margins. A tape recorder and a corkscrew were sitting next to it, and a fire extinguisher was tucked just beneath the desk. 

“S-sorry it’s not the tidiest place,” he heard Martin apologise, looking back over to see that the assistant was biting the inside of his cheek again. “You know, organising things all day– doesn’t make me too excited to make sure all the shelves in here are in order.”

“No, it’s- it’s alright,” Jon replied quickly, shaking his head. “I’ll get to it someday.”

He slid the shirt he had been carrying off of his arm as he walked over to the couch, vision feeling even more blurred than usual as he sank down next to Martin and passed it off to him. Taking a defeated sip of tea, he could barely imagine how much time after this he would have to spend grieving the stability of his image. Or what had been left of it, anyway. 

Glancing over, he saw Martin set the shirt in his lap and unravel a small spool of grey thread, not bothering to question why he kept sewing supplies in his desk drawer. He watched Martin carefully find the neck of the shirt and fold one of the edges of the fabric gently, keeping it in place with his thumb as he reached for a pin he had set on the armrest of the couch. 

He moved as if the shirt was some expensive and delicate, not just a button-up Jon had mutilated with a pair of kitchen scissors out of raw exasperation– his breaths shook slightly but hands were steady as he pressed the pin through the first fold and began to tie a knot in the string. His wide, calloused hands were surprisingly agile with the needle he picked up, lifting to wet the frayed end of the thread on soft lips before sliding it through the eye of the needle. 

Jon was finally snapped out of the daze he had sunken into when Martin glanced up at him expectantly, and he suddenly remembered he had meant to be explaining something, not getting uselessly distracted by Martin’s sewing techniques. 

He cleared his throat, shifting on the couch as if it wasn’t actually quite comfortable, and clutched the mug he had been given tighter. It was difficult to find a place to start, but he forced himself to think of it as giving a statement, if statements required a lot less paperwork and were being explained to his assistant on a sunken couch as opposed to a tape recorder in an office. 

“...It took me too long to notice,” he started after a deep breath. “I- I can only guess it was because it started with the sleep issues? I don’t know at what point it became something other than… my usual work habits, but I didn’t question it when they weren’t improving. I thought I was just having a bad week, even when I was– well. You probably remember it better than I do,” Jon grimaced, letting his shoulders sink. 

“Yeah,” Martin replied quietly, gaze flitting away from the stitches to meet Jon’s, eyes shimmering with the pained afterimage of a concern that made Jon’s heart sink. It made him feel more guilty than he would have liked to admit, chest aching as he absentmindedly fiddled with the ring on his right hand. 

“Yes, well, I- I’m sure you can vouch that it was not… a particularly high point. I remember wondering when it would peak, when– when it became so bad that I had no choice but to do something, and then…”

“...Wings,” Martin mumbled around the pin he had held in his mouth, taking it out to slide it into another fold in the fabric. “Wh- when did they show up?”

Jon swallowed at the thought of what he had retained of the morning in question, a hazy, unevenly paced blur of hardwood floor and the taste of blood running over his upper lip, the searing agony that he didn’t think he would ever fully be able to scrub from his memory.

“The day I took work off, and they didn’t– hm. I think ‘showed up,’ is a very… gentle way to put it,” Jon explained through another inhale, already catching how Martin’s hands slowed slightly on the needle he had been drawing through the shirt. 

“What?”

“It’s- it’s fine. Doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Martin’s hand tensed on the needle, movements falling still. “When- when I called you, you said you had just been tired. You- you didn’t sound good, but I thought you just had gotten a- a headache or something-” Martin’s voice cracked into a disbelieving laugh, pained eyes still fixed on the shirt in his lap.

“And I lied ,” Jon replied steadily, jaw set as he did his best to fight down the mounting guilt in his chest. He had done it because he didn’t have any information or other options, and he preferred not asking for help even just in the office, let alone when it involved explaining why he was lying on his dining room floor at nine in the morning with bloodstained layers of flesh unravelling over his shoulders. 

“So I’m telling you now. It was bloody, it hurt, and I didn’t- I didn’t understand what was happening to me,” he continued, voice strained. “I just- I remember my head hurting, I was on- on the ground, and there was this feeling of… of something splitting out of my back, and it-” Jon drew in a shaking breath and took another drink of tea to silence himself, forcing himself to stay composed. He was trying to tell the truth, but also didn’t want to freak Martin out further, and describing just how incredibly painful that day had been was not the way to do it. He swallowed. “I didn’t– like it very much.”

“Jon…” Martin replied weakly, shoulders sinking and eyes filled with a terrible swirl of worry, terror, and guilt. It made Jon feel unnecessarily sick. “And you just– came to work the next day like nothing happened? ”

Jon clamped his hands tighter around the mug, an unfamiliar shame rising in his throat as he turned his attention back to the ground in front of him. “I didn’t see… another option, alright? The wings- they healed quickly, anyway, and you saw what my being gone for one day was like. I couldn’t… I couldn’t take another off. There would have been too many complications, too many questions I couldn’t answer. It was enough having to navigate talking to Tim afterward, so- I did what I could. Hid the wings, changed my shift so I could sleep during the day and avoided everyone when possible. And, well– it worked for this long,” Jon finally shrugged, deciding not to review the part where it had come to an end because Jon stopped paying decent enough attention to not let Martin into the room. 

He looked over and saw Martin drew a deep breath, nodding slowly. “...Yeah. Wow, that’s- that’s a lot,” he exhaled, straightening the fabric he was holding. 

Making the decision not to interrupt as they lapsed into silence, Jon only took another sip of tea, Martin’s brow still pinched with thought as he ran the needle through the fabric again. 

Despite feeling like he had just sat there and made a heap of excuses as to why he didn’t tell anybody, it felt… strangely good to get it off his chest, to finally have somebody hear everything he had been forced to keep quiet about for weeks. Something about how even when Martin’s gaze was fixed on the fabric he was sewing up, he was listening, and not in the cold, objective tape recorder way but as if– he cared. 

Jon couldn’t figure out at what point it had started mattering to him that Martin cared.

The revelation was cut short when Martin looked up at him again, biting the inside of his cheek. “Jon, is- is any of it still getting worse?”

“Been trying to figure that out myself,” Jon replied tiredly, rubbing one of his eyes and leaning over to set down the now-empty cup of tea on the floor in front of the couch below him. “Most things haven’t, I don’t think. My eyesight still isn’t… optimal, really, but it hasn’t been declining further. So you don’t need to change any font sizes to a fourteen, if that’s what you want to know,” he added. 

He saw Martin’s cheeks tint with pink, but he nodded quickly, tying a knot in the thread. “O-Okay. Good. And I’m guessing– eating has also been a part of it? Have you sorted any of that out?”

“Yeah, it- it’s what you’d expect. Fruit. Overly sweet things. Just wish I had… figured it out sooner, because, well– it was difficult, for a while. Do you know what it’s like to be staring into a fridge and suddenly thinking that you would prefer to eat a whole flower than anything there? At least now I know that I can, in fact, drink only tea for an entire week and survive. Doesn’t feel very good, I can assure you, but it’s possible,” he huffed with the ghost of a laugh, moving to run a hand through his hair.

“...That’s not funny, Jon,” Martin replied, pressing his lips together. 

“No,” Jon admitted after a moment, letting his hand fall into his lap. “It’s not, really. But I don’t have to do that anymore, I- I’ve figured out what I can eat now and I can- I can fix it,” he explained, trying to keep himself from getting distracted by the way Martin ran a thumb over the seam of the shirt. “Look, it’s a lot, I know, but you don’t need to–” He took a deep breath. “I can do this on my own.”

“Jon– lots of things are possible to do on your own,” Martin replied quietly, hesitating for a moment before he finally held out the sewed-up shirt as gently as ever, offering it to Jon. “But generally, it’s easier when someone’s there to help you.”

“I…” Jon suddenly felt his chest tighten and words fall short, unnaturally aware of his own heartbeat as he slowly reached over to take the shirt. He barely realised he was holding his breath, finding the repaired section, and sure enough every stray thread had been trimmed, the messy edges folded neatly out of sight and hemmed instead with tidy grey stitches. Where Jon had cut up to the neck to keep from having to fold the wings through the fabric, there was a carefully sewed on grey button, and he began to feel heat rise to his face. He- he was embarrassed, obviously, it was humiliating to have one of his own employees doing this for him, and yet there was nobody else in the building to judge him. 

Jon’s throat felt too tight as he straightened the shirt in his lap, the tenseness pressing back any words that had attempted to form. He was instead fighting to make sense of the shake in his fingers, searching for the meaning behind the way a shirt he had owned for years suddenly felt that much softer in his grasp, noticing the sudden awareness of how close Martin was sitting next to him. The smell of honey and hibiscus was still lingering in the air, the distant drumming of the rain on the roof of the archives was still so strangely comforting, and Jon didn’t know why.

He knew of the care in Martin’s expression as the assistant looked away, clearing his throat lightly as he went back to wrapping up the remaining thread, setting down the sewing needle, busying himself in the way that Jon could not. 

Not when it had set in a bit too suddenly that Martin was right. The wings were still a secret he would be forced to keep, but it wasn’t just him anymore, questioning himself more every day over whether he was losing his mind. It wasn’t just him waiting for the clock to strike half past midnight, the time he was sure Martin would be asleep, so he could let the wings unfold over his shoulders and stretch in the dusty office air. 

He had been given an opportunity to reclaim the slightest distance he had been unravelling between himself and the world, even just by one person. 

Jon swallowed and finally found something to say, lips taking too long to catch up with his thoughts as he gently folded the shirt in his lap.

“Er- thank you. Martin.”

“Oh, y-yeah,” Martin stumbled, glancing down at the shirt as if he had just noticed that it was what Jon was talking about. “If you’d like, I can do that for more of them, if- if you bring them tomorrow,” he offered, gaze darting for the small box he had stored his sewing supplies in. “I dread to think what you’ve done to them,” he added, a smile tugging at his lips as he packed away the thread. 

“You don’t have to,” Jon replied, grasping for the last of his composure as he pulled his gaze from the craftwork and reminded himself that this wasn’t anything he needed, not like he needed to figure out how to keep himself from starving again or anything like that. It didn’t matter that some part of him would have immediately blurted out a ‘yes,’ because they were just shirts, and that was absurd.

“It’s okay, I- don’t mind it, really,” Martin stuttered, closing the box of sewing supplies and setting it in his lap. “Besides, it’s nice… to have a distraction down here sometimes. For the nights when it’s, er- hard to sleep.”

Jon was suddenly reminded that it was, in fact, one in the morning when he had let Martin into the room, and a jab of concern he was not prepared to feel pierced his chest. Maybe it was the leftover paranoia of realising that if Martin had trouble sleeping, he should have been waiting longer to take off his coat, but he couldn't place it. 

“So- so tonight–”

“Yeah,” Martin replied, tracing the label on his box of sewing materials absentmindedly. Jon felt his breath catch slightly, folding his hands in his lap over the shirt to keep himself composed. “...Doesn’t really happen that often anymore, it’s gotten… better. It was just tonight that I- couldn’t do it. Did not expect for it to end up like this,” he added with a light laugh, cheeks still flushed as that same painfully gentle smile broke across his face.

“I… er- y-yeah, me neither,” Jon managed. “And I suppose if it would– help you to have something to sew, I could bring the other shirts here. As long as you make sure Tim and Sasha don’t find out, alright? I don’t need anybody else knowing, and you know what they can be like. So, er- just you for now.”

“J-Just me?” Martin glanced up.

“Just you.”

A moment passed, Martin clutching the box of sewing supplies and Jon keeping his hands folded to prevent them from shaking, and then Martin nodded. 

“Okay. But- that means you’ll tell me if anything gets worse, alright?” he asked, determination building in his voice. “No just waiting until you figure something out, n-no starving yourself, or lying about taking a nap when you’re really bleeding out, if I’m the only person you tell, Jon, I want to… I want to help.”

Jon glanced down at the shirt again, knowing that he wasn’t really being given an option– of course, he could brush it off and then make some broader generalisations about what constituted ‘getting worse’ later on, but when Martin looked at him, pyjama sleeves pulled over his hands and soft, kind eyes aglow with the reflection of the light from the lamp, Jon realised that he didn’t want to. He wanted to stop pushing Martin away, to let him sew up the mangled cuts in his shirts, to not have to immediately reach for his coat when he heard the kettle boiling in the breakroom.

He didn’t know why , but he wanted it.

“Okay,” he decided, straightening. “Fine.”

“...Thank you,” Martin breathed, glancing back down into his lap. 

“But, er- speaking of being responsible and all that, it’s two in the morning and I’m- I’m keeping you from sleep,” Jon finally grimaced, remembering that Martin wasn’t actually on a sleep schedule that made being awake at a time like this feel perfectly natural.

“--And I’m keeping you from work,” Martin agreed, getting to his feet and walking over to set the box of sewing supplies on his desk. “Elias has been all irked about something lately anyway, best not to stay here too long.”

“Yeah. And- you’ll be able to get to sleep alright?” Jon asked, standing and stretching the wings again. He caught Martin’s gaze flick over, a kind of awe glinting in them as he watched the wings shift against each other and flutter slightly.

“I- y-yeah. Might take a bit to process all of… all of this , but I’ll be- alright.”

Jon approached the door of the storage room again, still clutching the shirt in hands that had refused to fully stop shaking, and Martin moved back to sit down on the couch again. His head was ducked as Jon turned the door handle, but the warm glow cast across it prevented him from hiding florid cheeks as he busied himself with unfolding the blanket he had pushed aside.

“Night, Martin.”

He looked up.

“Night, Jon.”

“See you in the morning.”

The rain hadn’t stopped when Martin woke up. He could tell right away he hadn’t gotten as much sleep as usual, the grogginess worse than he was used to as he sat up on the couch and blinked around the dimly lit room. Vague memories of what could only have been an extremely weird dream began to settle in, though as humiliating as it was to have had yet another dream about Jon, he had almost grown used to the distant reverb of the comforting, smooth voice in the back of his mind. He wearily got up and dragged himself to the desk, wearily flicking on the desk lamp and cringing away from the bright light as it seared spots across his vision. 

He was just reaching for his phone when he stopped.

Sitting on the desk innocently, label glossy with the light of the desk lamp, was Martin’s box of sewing supplies. They were not there before.

Martin felt his mind short circuit for a moment, standing gormlessly in the dim light and staring at the box as he fought to clear the fog in his mind. Sewing supplies. Unless he had done cross-stitching or something the night before and promptly forgot about it, that meant–

He reached over to pick it up, brow furrowing, before turning around to stare at the couch again, tracing the sink of the cushions where he had fallen asleep, and then his gaze fell on the mug sitting at the foot of it. The mug that nobody else used, that Martin could recall Jon sipping from on the same couch, more vulnerable than Martin had ever seen him and sinking beneath the weight of a set of soft brown wings.

Martin spent a good ten seconds glancing back and forth between the box of sewing supplies and mug, letting the memory filter back in and waiting for it to give him another explanation, but it only served to prove more and more that it had not been a dream. 

Standing in the middle of the storage room helped somewhat, reminded that he was here out of fear of being chased down by a worm-filled hive creature, so the concept wasn’t as absurd, and it seemed like a pretty coherent story to have been something Martin unconsciously made up.

So he slowly set the box of sewing supplies down and walked to the door with the mug, figuring there was only one way to confirm it. 

Not a dream , Martin was able to verify as he stepped into Jon’s office, where the archivist was hunched over his desk as usual, but the light of the desk lamp caught a new joint at his shoulders and a set of patterned wings folded to his back. 

It took him a moment to process it, taking a deep breath and letting himself come to terms with the fact that the previous night had been real, not just Jon’s confession about slowly turning into a moth, but… the rest of it. It felt stupid to be focusing any part of the night more than the wings, but every day Martin read through piles of statements about the supernatural, and it wasn’t every day that he spent time having an actual, real conversation with Jon. 

All of his attempts to encourage the man to take better care of himself usually ended in Jon being dismissive or snapping, and yet they had actually gotten somewhere, and Jon had at least accepted help. Martin’s help.

He was trying to remember how to breathe normally when he heard Jon shift to look up at him expectantly, realising he was just standing in the door of the office with a cup of tea and a blank expression. 

“...Morning, Martin.”

Martin blinked, straightening. “Oh- morning. Sorry, I just- forgot, for a moment there,” he explained hurriedly, stepping forward and passing the cup of tea to Jon. 

“Right,” Jon replied, taking it and setting it on the desk beside him. “As long as you don’t also forget to keep this a complete secret from Tim, Sasha, Rosie, everyone else in the building.”

“Yeah- course,” Martin nodded, still having a hard time keeping his gaze off the wings. He could still remember how soft and papery they had been beneath his fingers, the way they had twitched slightly with his touch as he admired the pattern rippling across them. “Tim asks… a lot of questions about you during work, but I think he’s gotten used to not getting answers by now.”

Martin immediately regretted his words when Jon’s eyes narrowed, setting down the paper he had been holding. “What kinds of questions?”

He swallowed, doing all he could to fight the heat rising to his face as he clutched the ends of his sleeves and searched desperately for a way to explain Tim’s interrogations as to if they had ‘made it official’ yet, or whatever conclusion he had jumped to that day. He knew that Jon was concerned that someone else was picking up on what was, frankly, very suspicious activity, but it made it no easier to keep his hands steady as a messy explanation tumbled from his lips before he had time to properly piece it together. 

“Mostly about- about how you and I are doing, er- if- if you tell me anything when- when he’s not here and, er– that sort of… of thing-”

“Hunting for gossip , then,” Jon finished for him, jaw setting, and relief swept over Martin. “I suppose I should have expected as much from Tim. He used to ask me if I knew anything about other employees frustratingly often when I was here during the day.”

“Yeah,” Martin quickly agreed, jumping for the far better explanation Jon had provided. It wasn’t even a full lie, either, Tim was absolutely searching for something to gossip about with Sasha, it just happened to have to do with whether Martin and Jon had kissed yet. “It’s a bit of a hassle sometimes, but like I said, he- he seems to be used to getting nothing.”

“Alright,” Jon let out a breath, rubbing one of his eyes. “I trust that you’ll keep quiet about this as well, then.” He glanced back down at the desk again, inhaling slightly. “I would also… like to apologise for, er- panicking, earlier. I’ve composed myself since then, I was just… startled, I believe.”

Martin blinked, taking a moment to register that Jon was talking about when Martin first walked in. He then realised that Jon actually looked embarrassed, shuffling the papers on his desk as Martin stared back at him. Martin cleared his throat, trying not to smile as he remembered just how much Jon had looked like a scared cat when the door had first opened. He had been too shocked and focused on making sure Jon wasn’t hyperventilating to find it cute in the moment, but looking back, it had been stupidly endearing. 

“Oh- yeah, I figured. It’s alright, really. I’ll forget about that bit, if you like,” he offered, despite knowing that there was no way he would be able to forget about it, especially now that Jon had gone out of his way to bring it up.

“...Yes. Thank you,” Jon exhaled, relief seeping into his voice. “I’ll be- heading home soon, but as per our agreement, I’ll text you if anything happens and bring a few more of the shirts I’ve… adjusted this evening.”

“Good,” Martin smiled, letting his hands fall back to his sides as his chest fluttered again. “Thanks, Jon.”

“Sleep well, Martin?” 

“Hm?”

Tim took his spot next to Sasha as they sat down at the table Martin was working at, sliding the folder with his name on it across to him and flipping it open.

“Er- yeah, alright,” Martin replied, though there was something off about his voice. And when Tim looked up at him, there were shadows beneath his eyes his glasses did little to conceal. He set aside the urge to tease him about Jon again, as Martin had actually seemed to be doing pretty well as of late. Over time, the worm paranoia had begun to subside as they became less and less frequent visitors, the archives beginning to return to, well, as normal as they could be. Since then, Martin had seemed much more alive when he worked alongside them or brought them tea at the beginning of the day, so he didn’t like the idea that the assistant’s sleep habits were taking a dip again.

Tim glanced over at Sasha. “Sure? You look like something kept you up.”

Martin took a deep breath, shaking his head as he rubbed one of his eyes. “It’s- alright, rain just made it hard to sleep for some reason,” he confessed. “I’ll get more sleep tonight.”

“You better,” Tim replied, nudging Martin’s shoulder. “You’re still going out for drinks with us tomorrow, right? Maybe for the occasion you can work up the courage to ask someone to come out and join us. And then Sasha and I can mysteriously disappear halfway through, leaving you two to talk by total coincidence.”

Tim was remembering just how much he would never get tired of Martin blushing uncontrollably while desperately fighting to keep composed when the door to the main office was shoved open, the movement catching all of their attention. 

A familiar figure was standing in the doorway, his long coat slick with rain and hair soaked as knuckles paled over the bag he was clutching. 

“Jon?”

“Speak of the devil,” Tim smirked, leaning back in his chair as Jon stepped further into the main office. It had been nearly a week since they had seen each other, and even then it had been a result of bumping into each other on the way out of the building– All times that Jon hadn’t looked like he wanted to be there, any conversation brief before Jon hurried out of whatever door was closest. As suspicious as it was, he didn’t ever look worse when Tim saw him, and all reports from Martin confirmed that he wasn’t up to anything too self-destructive, so he had let it be. “What brings you out of your cave? It’s nearly nine, you should be passed out by now, shouldn’t you?”

Jon glared at him, though there wasn’t much heat behind it, considering Jon was soaked ever so slightly shivering from the cold. 

“I forgot my umbrella.”

He heard Sasha stifle a laugh, a very familiar half-cough she did whenever Jon did something stupid and her talent for keeping a straight face was failing her. Tim had almost forgotten what it sounded like, having been given the freedom to talk about Jon shamelessly in the office with no fear of punishment. 

Tim raised an eyebrow, looking over Jon again while biting back his own grin. “And how far home did you get before realising that?”

“That,” Jon replied, walking over to one of the desks where an umbrella rested against one of the table legs, “is none of your business.” He picked it up, pursing his lips as he turned back toward the assistants. “Sasha, I trust you’ll look into that update on the Folger case?”

“Already on it,” Sasha nodded, having composed herself again. 

“Tim, I’ve spoken to Rosie about being sure you’re back in time during the day. I don’t want to hear any more talk about ‘extended lunch breaks.’”

“I assure you, boss, it won’t even be necessary. It’s all made up, complete slander,” Tim replied, folding his arms defiantly and shaking his head.

Jon scoffed, but said no more about it, his gaze instead moving to land on the quietest of the assistants. 

Tim glanced over to see the most astounding look pass between them, something between understanding and a warning that could only have been to keep their mouths shut. Tim wasn’t oblivious like Martin or, alternatively, a certain boss clutching an umbrella in front of them, and that meant he knew that kind of look.

“And Martin, I will… see you this evening.”

Martin nodded quickly, and there was naught but silence suspended in the room, the patter of rain on the roof counting the seconds it took Jon to turn on heel, disappearing back out the door with a flick of his coat. And then Tim got to his feet, hands on the edge of the desk as Martin shrunk further toward his work, hunched over the paper and hiding his face. 

“Martin,” he asked leadingly, caught between disbelief and triumph as Sasha snickered next to him. “What on earth was that all about?”

“Nothing,” Martin mumbled, ducking his head away.

“Martin…”

“It’s nothing .”

“Mm. Sure,” Tim grinned, ruffling Martin’s hair. “People definitely just look at each other like that and say ‘I’ll see you this evening’ over nothing. Sasha, back me up here, that was not nothing.”

Sasha snickered from over her paperwork, poking Martin’s shoulder with the back of her pen. “As much as I would like to say it was probably about something boring, Tim’s got a point.”

“Look,” Martin finally exhaled, sitting up and running a hand down his face. “It was just one conversation.”

Tim sat back down and shifted his chair to sit right next to Martin, resting his chin in his hand. “Oh? So not nothing? Do elaborate.”

Martin took a deep breath, chin tilting up as he picked up his pen again, an attempt at being nonchalant that was quickly failed by the way the light revealed just how pink his cheeks were. “It was just an agreement we made,” he huffed. “We talked about it, just once, and the deal involved me not telling either of you about… something. So I won’t be.”

“What was it?”

Martin glared at him in disbelief and annoyance and Tim lifted his hands defensively. “Hey, worth a shot.”

“What I’m hearing is that Jon did something really, really stupid, more stupid than usual, you found out, and took the opportunity to blackmail him with it,” Sasha hummed, momentarily reaching over to take Martin’s pen and mark something on her own paper.

“What?!” Martin exclaimed, head snapping over to stare at her. “No, no, I’m-” he paused midway through snatching his pen back. “Oh, no. Am I blackmailing him?”

“I’m impressed,” Tim hummed, leaning forward to nod at Sasha. “That is a level of mind game that I would not expect from you, Martin.”

“No, no, I promise I’m not–”

“What do you get out of it? That technically wouldn’t be in the pact not to tell us, right?” Sasha asked, tapping her nails against the desk thoughtfully. Martin was silent, and she looked up, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “Right?”

Martin cleared his throat nervously, and Tim leaned further onto the arm he had resting on the desk. “I- I blackm- asked , I asked Jon to, er, take better care of himself.”

Tim groaned with exasperation, slumping back in his chair. “ Seriously ? You apparently have something humiliating enough held over his head to get anything, anything from Jon Sims and you pick that?”

Martin’s expression tightened, fumbling with the edges of his sweater sleeves helplessly as he spluttered an explanation. “I, I know, it just bothers me more than anything when he just brushes things off! I know it’s- it’s funny when he’s a mess and I love him for the mess he is but I get- I get scared , he said that he drank nothing but tea for a week once and Tim, I-I don’t want anything else from Jon but for him to be happy and safe, alright?” he finally finished, voice ever so slightly trembling in the way it did when Martin rambled. 

Tim sat up, unable to help the smile on his face as Sasha brushed a tear of laughter from her eye and squeezed Martin’s shoulder. 

“He’s joking, Martin, that’s very sweet of you,” Sasha hummed.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, alright?” Tim agreed, folding his arms again. 

He felt his gaze drift back to the door of the main office, dark spots still on the carpet where Jon had tracked rainwater into the room. Aside from being soaked, Tim had to admit that he had looked better, the same reason he had reluctantly held himself from bringing it up with Jon since their initial argument. As much as the distance made Tim suspicious, Jon’s sunken, hollow cheeks had begun to fill in again, bags under his eyes clearing slightly, until he looked quite a bit more healthy– pretty much the closest to human Tim had seen him in a good while. 

“Guess I got to leave you to it, then. Giving up on knowing something that good on Jon is quite the price to pay, but glad you’re doing that for him,” Tim added, nudging Martin as he turned back to his work. “Something we all want from him, even if for you it’s for more, I don't know,” he waved a hand airily, “gay reasons, it’s appreciated all ‘round.”

Sasha broke into a giggle from where she was sitting and Martin went pink again, rubbing his eyes wearily and sighing something about taking a nap later. 

When the door to the main office opened that evening, Martin had to resist the urge to not immediately ask the figure walking over to him what on earth he had been on about that morning. It was so stupid, that he had been doing everything he could before Tim and Sasha showed up to make sure he didn’t even hint that anything had changed between him and Jon, and yet Jon took the opportunity to walk into the archives and look at him like that . Martin had gotten the message, of course, but it had essentially dissolved any chance he had at playing at the ‘nothing happened at all’ story he had been going for.

But he kept his mouth shut as Jon set down his umbrella, shivering from cold as he adjusted his bag on his shoulder. 

“Everyone gone?” he asked breathily, a hand already reaching for the edge of his coat. That was something Martin had noticed, that even that morning, the moment the secret had been dropped, Jon had taken every opportunity he could to keep himself from having to wear something over the wings– the memory from the storage room echoed in his mind, and Martin decided that it was most important that Jon was able to be more… comfortable while it was just them at the archives. Comfortable– it wasn’t a word Martin had dared to use for any of his conversations with Jon, and yet it made his chest swell with some kind of pride that Jon trusted him even that slightest bit more.

Martin nodded, having heard both Tim and Sasha arguing about what cafe had the cutest baristas on their way out, and Jon let out a slight breath of relief, sliding the coat from his shoulders. 

“Good. Nothing… nothing has changed on my end, except that I think my eyesight might be getting better. Not by much, though,” Jon frowned as he folded it over his free arm, Martin still looking up at him from his desk chair. “You didn’t tell Tim or Sasha anything?”

“Well, I did my best, but you didn’t make it too easy when you walked back in,” Martin offered with a nervous laugh, hoping that Jon wouldn’t be too upset. “Why did you have to look at me like that?”

Jon’s brow furrowed with slight confusion. “So… you would remember?”

Martin rubbed both his eyes beneath his glasses, somehow feeling tired again despite his coworkers covering for him while he took a nap during his shift. “Tim and Sasha were right there ,” he mumbled exasperatedly, stunned that Jon had gotten this far while also being so bad at keeping a secret.

“Yes, well, they can’t figure anything out from me just looking at you, can they?” There was a defensive edge to Jon’s voice, but it only made him sound more ridiculous, and as humiliating and difficult it had been to have to come up with a lie on the spot, he couldn’t help hiding a smile beneath his hands. 

“What they can do is pester me about it until they decide on their own conclusion. Right now they think I’m…” he swallowed, letting his hands slip from his face as he let out a defeated breath. “...blackmailing you. Or something. It’ll probably have evolved into a different story by tomorrow morning.”

“...Ah,” Jon replied slowly, shifting his bag again and trying to fit it more neatly where the strap crossed the wings. “Right. I’ll… keep that in mind.” It took him a moment of looking slightly sheepish, lips pursed as he stared at the floor, before he blinked out of his daze and set his bag down on the nearest desk. “I also- I brought some of the shirts, like you asked,” he added hurriedly, rifling through the bag before sliding out a neat stack of three or four familiar button-ups. 

He walked over and set them next to Martin’s folder, as if it were just another assignment he was expecting to have on his desk by the end of the day, but when Martin took them and thanked him, he saw Jon’s gaze flick away before he could meet it. 

“Er- is there a time you want them done by?” Martin asked, almost out of habit. Besides, he worked better when he had deadlines, and he wasn’t always best at being the sole person to hold himself accountable to it. 

Jon exhaled, waving a hand dismissively. “Whenever is… reasonable, I suppose. I don’t have the best point of reference, as I’m not too experienced with sewing.” He nodded at the shirts, some of the tears in the fabric still visible when they were folded. “As you may be able to tell.”

“Alright,” Martin managed, a half-laugh bubbling in his words that he hadn’t expected, caught off-guard by the realisation that Jon was joking with him. “I’ll probably finish sewing the first two by tonight.”

“Good,” Jon replied, straightening and clearing his throat before picking up his bag again and striding off toward his office without another glance. Martin turned back to the work he was just finishing, keeping his hand as steady as he could as he reached over to move the stack of shirts toward him. It was so strange, how after just one day he felt like he had started to get used to something as absurd as his boss growing wings– and yet he already could imagine a pattern to the days, as much of a fantasy as it might have been. Jon walking in, checking that everyone had gone, and shedding his coat to let the wings unfold. 

And yet, Martin thought as he began packing up, he didn’t think he would ever be able to keep his shoulders from ever so slightly relaxing as he heard the comforting sound of Jon’s voice introducing a statement humming from his office.

Chapter Text

The night air was cold against Martin’s cheeks as he stepped out onto the footpath behind the bar, Tim’s laughter ringing from behind him as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. He inhaled the earthy, just-after-rain smell curled with ribbons of cigarette smoke, and waited for Tim and Sasha to join him at his side. To Tim’s disappointment, Jon hadn’t agreed to come with them, but this time, at least Martin understood why. 

His heart did sink when he saw Tim’s face fall as Martin walked out of the archives alone. It stung slightly to admit that it would just be him, but Jon had a good reason, and after hearing the strain in his voice as he described what it had been like hiding from the rest of the assistants, Martin couldn’t be too upset.

“Alright, Martin?” Sasha nudged his arm, clearly having retained the most composure out of the three of them. “We can walk you back to the archives if you’d like.”

Martin hesitated, unsure if it was worth making them both walk the extra few blocks, but he couldn’t really find it in his heart to turn them down. The company sounded like it could be pleasant, and though he hadn’t gotten himself particularly drunk, the walk back would probably be easier with a fully sober companion. 

He had found a nice medium that evening, somewhere between feeling like he was packed in a room full of people having a far better time than him and the blubbering, teary-eyed mess he knew himself to become if he had a few too many drinks. It was just enough to make the chatter filling the room feel a bit less sharp, the harsh lights fuzzier around the edges as he traced patterns in the condensation on his drink.

It was pleasant outside as well, the rain having fully subsided and the dark sky clear above them. It wouldn’t be a chore for Sasha and Tim to walk him home– or more for Sasha to walk him home, with Tim… there too.  

Martin nodded, a smile slipping across his lips as she squeezed his arm. It came easier, he found, between the drinks to take the edge off and having genuinely enjoyed the night with the two of them. “Yeah… if you don’t mind.”

“‘Course not,” she hummed, already starting to walk in the direction of the archives. “Tim, are you coming with us or not?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tim slurred, foot catching in a puddle as he caught up with them and found his way to the other side of Sasha, elbow sinking against her shoulder. Martin heard her scoff, sliding it off and opting to just take Tim’s arm instead.

Puddles gleamed beneath the streetlamp lights as they walked back together, Martin’s footsteps slow and letting both Sasha’s quicker ones and Tim’s slight stumbles catch up with his strides. There was a kind of eagerness to be able to return to the archives, something that he didn’t often think about his workplace. But much of him was keen to be able to walk past the light beneath Jon’s office door, hear the hum of his low voice reading a statement if he was lucky. He could get himself a cup of decaf tea if he wasn’t too tired, bring it down to his storage room, and down it before sinking onto his couch and dozing off. 

He was snapped out of his daydream by the sound of Tim slurring something about going in the wrong direction, followed by Sasha re-explaining that they were taking Martin back to the archives first. 

He glanced over and was met with the feeling of Sasha taking his hand to keep him from continuing to drift toward the edge of the footpath. He blinked, murmuring a thanks to her and keeping his focus ahead as they crossed beneath another streetlamp. The lethargy only seemed to be sinking deeper into his bones the more he walked, though he couldn’t say he minded. 

The evening had been fun, as Tim had promised plenty of times beforehand, and while there was an underlying buzz of anxiety every time he reached for his drink– worrying that if he lost too much of his composure he might spill something about the wings– it had mellowed out by now into a distant concern. 

He had let it dissipate almost fully by the time the three reached the front door of the archives, Sasha walking him up the steps practically carrying Tim. He slurred something that Martin was worried for a moment he was too drunk to understand, but she rolled her eyes fondly in a clear demonstration that she had even less of an idea of what he was saying.

She let go of his hand, patting his shoulder as Martin gratefully reached for the door handle. 

“Say hi to Jon for me if you get the chance,” Sasha smiled, a foot holding the door open as Martin stepped inside. “Get some rest.”

“Yeah,” Martin replied, nodding and rubbing one of his eyes. He pulled his bag closer to his chest. “Make sure Tim does too,” he bit back a smile as Sasha shifted her arm to keep Tim from stumbling back down the stairs. 

Sasha nodded and waved him goodbye, Tim stepping back up and giving Martin a lazy two-finger salute and a grin, his other elbow putting most of his weight on Sasha’s shoulder.

“Night, an’ we’ll get ‘im next time. Promise,” Tim nodded, forcing Martin to take a moment to register that he was talking about Jon. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the office, sinking his hands into his pockets and nodding. 

“Yeah. Next time.”

“Alright. See you tomorrow, Martin,” Sasha reached for the door handle, her conversation with Tim growing muffled as the door between them swung shut. 

“Wait… s’not work tomorrow, right?”

“Technically it is, it’s the fourteen now.”

“Wh…?”

“Don’t worry about it. Watch your step.”

Martin considered making Jon a cup of tea for when he dropped in on his way to the storage room, as he didn’t have the excuse of any papers or other work to turn in that evening, but he eventually decided against it. He wasn’t making one for himself, he found himself too tired to, and the realisation had sunk over him that he didn’t really need an excuse for visiting Jon in his office anymore. Jon had agreed to take better care of himself during the wing situation, he might even understand Martin wanting to walk in just to check on him.

Either way, a dizzy happiness bubbled up inside Martin at the thought of it and he pulled his sweater sleeves over his hands as he walked over to the light beneath the office door. He could hear the drone of Jon’s voice from inside, trying not to think too hard about the adorable way he poured emotion into every description he read, no matter how deadpan he acted when the tapes were off. 

Martin felt a bit bad lifting his hand to knock, as he knew Jon didn’t like being interrupted during reading statements and being broken from his daze, but there was only so long Martin wanted to wait, staring there outside. 

When he knocked, Jon didn’t stop talking. Martin leaned closer to the door, as if the fact that Jon’s voice hadn’t even wavered had been a problem with his own hearing. 

“...over at me, pupils shrunken in the harsh white light and flitting about the room in a desperate attempt…”

Martin tried not to think too hard about what he was actually saying, as he didn’t need the slight nausea of hearing a particularly gorey statement on top of his existing lightheadedness, and knocked again, louder and more sure this time. 

It was familiar, the feeling of standing there outside of the office and wondering what the best time to wait between knocks would be, just as it had been back in the weeks before Jon’s schedule shift. Except this time, Martin could hear Jon continuing to read the statement, winding his way through every enunciated word, and he could imagine the glazed look that took hold of Jon’s face when he recorded. Martin had always been worried by that look.

“...emptiness strung up in the air, a fermata suspended above them and was interrupted only by the laboured breaths…”

He knocked again, harder, the haziness beginning to give way to anxiety. He knew Jon was busy, and would hyperfocus sometimes, but couldn’t he hear Martin? He only received more of the statement in response, Jon’s voice not even wavering as he continued reading, and finally, Martin took a deep breath, and opened the door.

The voice and whir of the tape recorder grew clearer as the door swung open, and Jon didn’t react. That was different. Usually he noticed the moment Martin was in the office, but this time, he didn’t.

Taking another step closer to see Jon’s face, Martin braced himself to meet that same glassy look in Jon’s eyes, but– he didn’t.

It was something worse.

The desk lamp was gleaming bright, washing out Jon’s face slightly as Martin took a step closer, his fuzzy-edged brain trying to make out what he was seeing. Jon’s lips moved as normal, reciting every word of the statement, but his eyes– there was something wrong with his eyes.

Martin knew he hadn’t had that much to drink, not enough to get him feeling completely incoherent, and certainly not enough to have him hallucinating, but Jon’s eyes had… changed. 

They were dark, completely, sclera overtaken by a deep brown colour that held steady on the page Jon was clasping in front of him, that was diverting his attention from Martin even being in the room. They sunk like voids into Jon’s face, the sockets looking almost empty in how they refused to lift toward Martin, or even move to trace the lines on the paper Jon was reading from. They caught the light oddly, like they were the wrong texture, and it only made them seem all the more eerie, more monstrous as Jon’s lips continued to move.

“J-Jon?”

“...it slipped beneath the skin, sliding through it as if it wasn’t there, dragging slowly along in a flawless incision and…”

Martin felt his breath pick up, taking a step closer to where Jon was sitting and glancing at the tape recorder that was still running, ignoring Martin’s increasingly panicked inhales just as much as Jon was, continuing to listen. 

“Jon!”

Still nothing. The Archivist only kept speaking, showing no sign of recognition, and Martin was caught with the sudden pang of horror that Jon wasn’t there , not in any way other than literal, and Martin’s calls were only being swallowed by the whir of the tape recorder and the hollows in his face. 

He hurried forward and his foot caught slightly but he regained his balance, hand fumbling for the edge of the desk. He felt uncoordinated, slightly off balance from both panic and the drinks, but he was able to get his gaze to focus on Jon’s face as he approached, caught somewhere between hesitance and desperation. 

So much felt like it should’ve been telling him to get away , how it felt like the eyes saw nothing and far too much all at once, but it was still Jon , and like hell Martin was just going to walk out of the office and leave him to it. 

He took Jon’s shoulder, glancing between the paper and Jon’s deadened, still speaking expression, when he noticed something.

The eyes he was now much closer to were somehow still stranger than he had expected. They weren’t sunken or glassy, they held the shape of a normal eye, but Martin suddenly realised how they looked both dull and yet gleamed strangely, why they seemed textured. 

They were compound eyes. 

It wasn’t just one, no, the new, invasive eyes were instead a dome of minuscule, dark beads that bubbled over the surface of the eye and collected like specks of condensation across Jon’s eye sockets. They were fixed in place, no way to move or even focus on Martin as he called out Jon’s name again, air punched from his lungs in fear. It was all he could do to shudder and choke on his words, trembling hands lifting to clasp Jon’s face–

“...stuffing its mind with cotton, the experiment was complete– but my own remained inconclusive.”

And just as Martin was considering pinching Jon in hopes of being able to snap him out of it, Jon let out a breath. A closing, only slightly tired sigh, and it was familiar. It sounded like him .

“...Statement ends.”

Jon was not a stranger to dissociating. Between years of sleep deprivation, desperation to drown his thoughts in work, the odd moments of distractedness that had arisen more recently, and a blatant inability to do anything about any of them, he had grown used to feeling like he was just a few inches behind his own body. It was strangely familiar, to be feeling like he might slide directly through the floor, whether it was because the floor wasn’t entirely real, or he wasn’t entirely real.

He was, however, yet to experience something as intensely jarring as snapping back to something he could call reality after completely forgetting where he was, grip fully released on whatever he had been doing. He figured if anything, it would have been during one of the statements, as they were so easy to be consumed by, to let himself slip into and let the world around him dissolve for a while. 

What he had not realised, though, was that it had gotten to a point where he could come to his senses to find himself sitting in his office, suddenly reacquainted with the feeling of the statement in his hand, the office chair below him, the bright light from his desk lamp, and– 

–And that of Martin directly in front of him, anxious, wide eyes fixed on his and warm hands wrapped around his face. 

Whatever comments Jon had planned to make about the statement immediately evaporated from his mind, completely short-circuiting as he was struck by the violent mental whiplash of jumping from a particularly gruesome statement to– this. Martin’s eyes were wide with panic, slightly unfocused, and beginning to brim with tears as they stared directly into Jon’s, who felt his heart stumble and skip more beats than it should’ve. 

Martin— Martin was freaked out, as clearly something had happened, and his mind fought to put more pieces together in the moment suspended between them. He was reading a statement, he had zoned out, he had zoned out badly, considering Martin had apparently knocked more than once and then entered the office without Jon even noticing. And as if that wasn’t worrying enough, he was actively trying to snap Jon out of it and– and his hands were around Jon’s face, and he was having trouble breathing. 

“Wh- what, Martin, I-” his words caught and tripped on a tongue that had just been reading a full statement perfectly, some instinct wanting to lean away from Martin’s hold, but the rest of him refused. “What’s- what’s wrong, is-”

“Jon, Jon–” Martin’s chest was heaving and Jon could smell liquor faintly on his breath, fighting to focus enough to put together that Martin had just returned from the outing with Tim and Sasha. “Jon, your eyes, you were- you–”

Jon was about to try to pull away, to back up and tell Martin had just returned to the archives very drunk, as Jon’s eyes were… just fine, in fact, his vision always seemed to stay a bit clearer for a while after he finished a statement– but his plan immediately crumbled when Martin gently brushed a thumb across his cheek, panic still alive in his eyes but relief beginning to seep into his shuddering breaths. 

“They’re… they’re gone–”

Jon was suddenly all too aware of just how hard his heart was pounding, trying to focus on anything other than how Martin’s wide, calloused palms fitted against his sunken cheeks, how warm they were, the brush of sweater sleeves at his chin. He reached up to touch a hand to where Martin had rested his thumb against his cheekbone, doing his very best to form words in response to something he didn’t even understand .

“What, I– are- are you drunk, Martin?” he managed to stutter, and Martin’s attempts to explain slowed, hands gently pulling away but the fear remaining tight across his expression.

“Yes- no. Some, but I- I swear , Jon, something was…” He swallowed, drawing his hands back to clutch the edges of his sleeves. “Something was wrong with your eyes. When- when you were, um, you were reading the statement, you couldn’t see me, and they were… they weren’t the right eyes.”

Jon paused, the words catching in his throat as he tried to process what Martin meant. It was difficult , Martin’s speech still slightly melding into itself, Jon still trying to remember what it was like to be fully conscious again. Not to mention that where Martin’s hands had left his face he could still feel his cheeks burning, overheating and messing with Jon’s head as he tried to form a response. He pressed his eyes shut, taking a slow, deep breath and trying to keep his heartbeat from getting any faster. 

“...They weren’t the right eyes,” he repeated, hoping the words would make more sense on his tongue than in his disoriented mind. “As in, you saw me with someone else’s eyes?” he asked, trying to maintain his patience. And his blood pressure.

“No, they, um- they weren’t… human, I don’t think. They were…”

Martin trailed off shakily, and Jon forced himself to think about what would make the most sense , back to that damn sticky note he had put all his worst case scenarios when his paranoia had peaked, and he let out a shuddering breath.

“...Compound eyes.” He looked up. “That was it, wasn’t it? All one colour, made up of… even more eyes?”

Martin's shoulders sank slightly, and he nodded. “Y-yeah. That was it.” Jon lifted a hand to run through his hair, and he heard Martin let out a slightly shaky breath. “Jon, are- are you okay?”

Jon glanced up, seeing worry still shining in Martin’s soft eyes, as slightly unfocused as they were as he clasped the edge of his sweater sleeve again. “...Yes,” he replied, letting his hand sink back to his desk. “I- had been suspecting something about the statements, but… it doesn’t hurt me, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t even notice it.”

Martin bit the inside of his cheek, worry still taut across his face as he took a tentative step away from Jon. Not one of fear, instead conceding, giving Jon space. The gap suddenly felt colder, and Jon realised with a stab in his chest that Martin had been scared. Martin had walked in, seen Jon completely absent from his own body and describing a detailed account of unethical experimentation, and he hadn’t left . He hadn’t shut the door, or backed away, or made any attempt to put distance between himself and the person with too many eyes. He had been scared, but more for Jon than himself.

Maybe it was because Martin was drunk. Maybe his decision-making wasn’t at its best, and Martin usually would have made the much more reasonable decision of turning and leaving the office and holding the door shut, or even the natural human reaction of freezing in place. He felt like he should have been at least slightly irritated that the assistant had done something so rash, but he couldn’t get the anger to form, impeded instead by confusion. 

“You should go to bed,” he said, straightening and shuffling his papers on his desk. He needed to think, someplace where Martin wasn’t standing in front of him, looking at him with such gentle concern, making him feel so… strange, making his heart run so fast, and his head so jumbled. “I’ll- I’ll see what else I can find out, and try not to be recording a statement when you wake up, in- in case it happens again.”

Martin was hesitant, but he nodded, taking another step back and reaching for the door handle. He missed, but tried again, a flush rising to his cheeks as he glanced back over at Jon. He cleared his throat. 

“Okay. Um– yeah. See you in the morning.”

The door shut and Jon was left sitting at his desk, hands folded in his lap and listening to the whirring of the tape recorder, as if somewhere in the hum was an answer for what was happening to him. His mind fought to shape whatever it had been Martin had seen, feeling like he was both missing too many clues and also finding himself grateful that there had been someone else to tell him– should nobody have found out, he didn’t know how long he might have gone with ‘something else’s eyes’ and never knowing. It was one of the twisted hypotheticals he had been scared to even consider a possibility, but it strangely… hadn’t been as bad as he had expected. Maybe the inherent terror of becoming another being would hit him later, but it was apparently only when he was reading statements, as the moment Jon had finished the recording he had snapped back to alertness, and he wasn’t even able to feel the eyes.

His vision was clearer, everything he looked at sharper and more refreshed than usual, and they hadn’t hurt him at all. He couldn’t even remember what it had been like, if his vision had changed or he had been able to see anything different while reading– he had been far too out of it, it had been only the pain and fear woven into the words of the statement, a soft breath to close it, and then- Martin had been there. 

He still hadn’t been able to fully shake how… jarring it had been, for lack of a better word, and he found himself lifting a hand to touch the spot on his cheek where Martin’s palm had rested. His expression had been so urgent and yet his grasp was so gentle, something other than fear in his eyes as Jon had blinked back to awareness. 

It was one of the things that had confused and frustrated Jon the most. For as stressed and lost as the whole ordeal had made him feel, almost everything seemed to have a vague enough connection to insects, something he could draw a string back to no matter what was doing. The eyes that had temporarily replaced his own were compound and insectoid, his diet had begun to match that of an insect, he had become fully nocturnal, and he even had a guess that the moments he dissociated without any statements were a result of him becoming distracted by the lamp on his desk. And as humiliating and ridiculous as it all was, it all had a place on his tack-and-string board of what the hell was happening to him, except for Martin. 

It didn’t have anything to do with the gradual transformation at all, and he couldn’t link it if he tried, there was just something about Martin that he couldn’t figure out, and it had rooted itself in Jon’s mind and refused to let go. 

It had been this long and it was still something that he had been unable to even begin to place, and it was getting to a point where he was struggling to ignore it– he wondered why he thought it possible in the first place, as attempting to ignore the issue had not worked a single other time, but it wasn’t as if he could walk up to Martin and ask him to stop confusing Jon so much simply by being there. 

Understanding what he could and leaving everything to hopefully make more sense later was about all he could do. And even if he couldn’t put to words the way he felt when he heard the door to Martin’s room shut, already imagining him unfolding the blanket from the back of the couch, right next to where he kept Jon’s shirts neatly folded, he couldn’t bring himself to dislike it.

That being said, when his phone buzzed against his desk, snapping him back to reality and reminding him that he did, in fact, have to return home to sleep, he found he was still thinking about it. It was difficult not to, when there was a gaping void on his desk where Martin usually set his cup of tea and he found his gaze returning to it over and over, lingering on it when he had nothing else to stare at. He knew full well Martin was likely sleeping in, considering the… state he had been in the night before, and it made more than logical sense to assume it would probably be a while until he was awake enough to actually get up and go to the effort of making Jon tea– that, or he would be deliberately waiting until Jon left to avoid the uncomfortable discussion of what had happened. 

But evidently, all of that reasoning did nothing to stop him from staying in the archives another hour past the time he usually left to return home, with some faint hope that Martin would turn the door handle and walk inside, distantly remembering the first time he had spent the night at the archives with Martin. The quiet passing of the early morning just like this one, the knock on the door and familiar figure stepping inside, lips parted as he watched the teacup to be sure it didn’t spill, wide hands wrapping around the porcelain as he set it down–

Jon blinked, rolling his shoulders back with exhaustion as he pried his gaze away from the same bloody spot on his desk. Another few minutes had passed since he had stopped his alarm, flipping his phone over in favour of collecting the pens scattered across his desk. He wondered if this was going to become its own issue, if he would face the dilemma the same way as he had with the wings, with his post-it note lists and sleepless days and nights. Surely if he approached it the same way, he would eventually get somewhere, no matter how many red-string theories, bullet points, and poor decisions it took. Wouldn’t he?

But it was all so subjective, not something he could format into numbers or set rules, only based on vague questions he didn’t know how to ask nor how to start to answer, just hoping for something to stick and he could finally have his moment in which it all clicked and he had to decide whether or not he was okay with it. 

That moment was not now, he decided, as he got to his feet and let the wings flutter against his shoulders, still able to feel them ringed by the neatly sewn seams of one of the shirts from Martin. He was going to leave the archives, because it was already past the time that he usually did, Martin wouldn’t be there because he had returned late last night, and he was going to go home and continue reading one of the plays he had picked up again, then get some rest before he let himself lose his mind any further. 

It was a simple plan, something Jon could and would stick to. 

He packed up, sliding his coat off his chair again and wrapping it over his shoulders, hand twitching at his side as he fought to keep focus, searching for what else he would have needed. The heap of statements he had given in and recorded that morning to keep himself distracted were neatly stacked in the corner of his desk, with a reminder to himself to label them, and all he had to do was tear his attention away one last time from the empty spot on his desk. He knew he was procrastinating, just pressing on a little bit longer in hopes– or expectation, whatever it was, that he wouldn’t leave the archives alone, but eventually his far more rational side won over. 

He slung his bag over his shoulder and turned off his lamp, the afterimage still gleaming in his mind for a moment as he left the room. He let the door fall shut behind him, slipping from his fingers, and took a deep breath, forcing himself to get a grip on himself. 

It was only when he was just leaving the bullpen that he heard a door open behind him, instinctively wrapping his coat more tightly around himself and turning over his shoulder before processing the only person it really could have been.

Martin was looking a bit more put-together than Jon had expected, still blinking heavily through his glasses and not the most awake Jon had seen him, but he had fitted a thicker jacket over his usual outfit, an umbrella tucked under his arm and carrying a couple of shopping bags. 

He met Jon’s eye, something panicked flickering across his expression before he cleared his throat, voice still hoarse as he began to walk over, shifting the bags he was holding to his other hand. 

“Oh- Jon, you’re still here?” he asked cautiously, the tint of his cheeks in better view as he approached. “I didn’t- realise, you usually-”

“Leave earlier, yes,” Jon finished, exhaling and slipping his hands into his coat pockets as he glanced back down at the ground. The weight of the coat against the wings was as uncomfortable as always, and he shifted against it, maintaining his composure as Martin walked up beside him. Always maintaining his composure, no matter how much it felt like an act. “I got distracted. Where are you headed?”

“Just to the shops,” Martin raised the bags he was carrying as Jon opened the door to let him through. “No work today, and I figured I could use a bit of fresh air, as well. Headache’s, er-” he cleared his throat, “-still bothering me.”

Jon hummed in acknowledgement, going out of his way to pick up on the fact that they were apparently not going to discuss the fact that Jon’s condition had taken another unnerving step towards becoming even more insectile. He was alright with that. He appreciated having Martin there no matter the conversation topic, perhaps even more so when it was about something inconsequential, mundane. It was easier when he wasn’t feeling like he was picking himself apart to feel around for how much of himself was slowly being taken over by a moth. 

It was still the early morning as they left the archives, the streets sheeted in grey and the buildings in the east glowing with the beginnings of a soft white, Jon shivering in his coat as Martin opened the umbrella and stepped out the door. They had agreed upon leaving the archives together, as they were headed in the same direction and Jon had forgotten an umbrella again, having spent the previous evening preoccupied and distracted as usual.

Martin didn’t say anything as they began to walk, apparently still hesitant to discuss what had happened with the eyes, the fact that Jon’s theory that the shift was going to plateau at some point turned out to be mostly wistful thinking. That was fine, though, he at least had a good amount of information about it to pore over it, because even if there was more torment to come, he could build himself predictions, figure out what would be next, and maybe even how to stop it. And if not stop it, find a way to keep the damage to his body and his dignity to a minimum.

He let out an unsteady breath, hoping to expel the tangledness of his thoughts with it, and felt Martin’s gaze dart over to him. Jon started, suddenly all too aware of the slight air of nervousness the frame beside him carried, the slight shake of the fingers around the umbrella handle beside them, and Jon realised that he really hadn’t been a particularly good conversation partner. He was still just caught up in his own thoughts, cursed with inaction as he continued to lament his lack of information instead of actually doing anything about it. 

“You… said you were going shopping?” he asked, nodding to the bags Martin had clasped in his other hand, and Martin glanced over, still looking slightly weary as he blinked.

“Oh! Y-yes, we’re low on food in the breakroom, I’ve been meaning to buy more, just been a bit- bit distracted,” he stuttered, gaze finding its way to the footpath beneath them.

Jon hummed, frowning at the ground as something else that didn’t make sense settled into place in his mind. From everything he had spoken to Martin about over the weeks, he didn’t particularly like spending all of his nights in the archive storage room, occasionally making comments on or apologies about how much dust was on the folders, or the lights didn’t always work, or how distracting the sound of the aircon unit was. It could have been something Martin simply apologised for excessively, but if he had noticed it, it didn’t make sense that he seemed… oddly keen to stay there. 

It had been weeks, there had been nothing more from Jane Prentiss, and it had been days since anybody last saw a worm carcass, and yet Martin hadn’t even brought up the idea of returning to his own flat again. 

“I was wondering about that, actually,” Jon said, a strand of hair falling in front of his face. “From what we know, Jane Prentiss no longer poses a threat to the archive. I mean, the Vittery incident was- quite a while ago, now, and there’s been nothing else of note, save for… well, these,” Jon exhaled, adjusting the neck of his coat, “And through the research I’ve done, they don’t seem related, or at least presenting any immediate danger.”

Martin was looking away when he nodded, his other hand fiddling with one of the strings of his hoodie. “I- yes, I suppose that’s true,” he replied, and his voice sounded weaker than it had a moment ago.

“Yes, well, I was wondering why you haven’t moved out of the archives yet. If the building has been cleared, it’d be safe to assume that your flat would be too, wouldn’t it?” 

Martin was quiet for a moment, the rain continuing to drip off the edges of the umbrella he held above them and filling the silence, before he swallowed, nudging his glasses up his face. 

“I… I don’t know. I suppose for the first weeks after things had died down, I- I was still a bit nervous about returning home, and then, well– I think I wanted to be sure the- the moth thing wasn’t hurting you, that you wouldn't just end up becoming a monster all alone in the archives,” he offered with a weak laugh. 

“But it isn’t hurting me, not now, at least.”

“Y-yeah.”

“And you’re still staying there.”

“...Yeah. I suppose you’re right.”

They lapsed into silence for the rest of the walk to the tube, and Jon didn’t mind. It at least gave him the space to think further on it, brow furrowed at the ground as he tried to fit it into everything else he was trying to figure out, what realisation he had lost in how strangely grateful he was to have company in the archives. 

He finally snapped back to reality when Martin slowed to a stop, and he realised they were parting ways, Martin having walked him all the way to the entrance to the underground in the time he had spent thinking. He cleared his throat again, deciding he could probably use a bit more sleep before trying to find a perfectly clear answer that fixed everything. 

“Well. Thank you for taking me here, then,” Jon said, as if it were an unfortunate end to some riveting, lively conversation. “I will see you this evening?”

“Oh- yes, of course,” Martin replied, as soft-spoken as ever, and Jon felt himself hesitate again. There was something in him that didn’t want to leave quite yet, remaining sheltered beneath the umbrella with Martin at his side as the morning crept in. But that didn’t make sense, for he had nothing else to say, no more questions to ask that Martin would have an answer to, and therefore no reason to stay any longer. 

And so he didn’t, the figure still visible out of the corner of his eye as he ducked out from beneath the umbrella and made his way down the steps. 

Jon was pacing again that afternoon.

It was far past when he had meant to fall asleep, the sun beaming happily through the curtains over his window, glinting on the polished metal of the streetlamp outside. The rain from that morning had cleared up, light breaking through the haze of clouds and flooding the dampened streets, and he was tracing his usual loop of the carpet as if it would help him get anywhere. 

There were statements on his desk in case he needed them, but he couldn’t help feeling a slight wash of cold over him at the notion of actually picking one up. After every connection he had been able to draw back to them, the clench of his chest whenever he remembered what he evidently turned into when the comforting lull took over, it unsettled him. Part of him would have been more than happy to lose himself between the lines, because it wasn’t hurting him, he always felt more than fine afterwards– but every time his mind pulled with the urge to record one it was violently sliced through with the same memory of Martin’s panicked eyes so much closer to him than Jon was used to, or the wounded expression he had given when Jon admitted to the wings hurting him when they first arrived. 

No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t make sense of it. It was only Martin. There had to be some explanation or meaning behind it that he could grab onto and fit into the network of theory into his mind, there always was , even if he had trouble finding it. 

But out of all the supernatural entities looming in the files, clawing at him from the inside, twisting and buzzing on his tongue with each statement, Martin was just a person. He was just that, just someone who happened to have seen the worst of Jon’s decline, just someone Jon had ended up spending more time with than he thought he would, and he was someone who Jon...

…

...Jon gently set down his pen. 

It took him a couple of moments to be able to do anything but stare down at his empty post-it note, the realisation sitting so innocently in the middle of his mind, before he drew in a slow, deep breath. He sank forward, resting his head in his hands and shutting his eyes. 

His brain took the opportunity to replay every day Martin had walked into his office, every agonisingly gentle smile, every warm brush of his hands against Jon's as he passed him a cup of tea. 

The comforting presence of someone beside him holding an umbrella for him, standing beneath it together as the rain traced the edges in glittering beads. 

The trace of fingers carefully finding the patterns of the wings on his back, the taste of hibiscus and sound of rustling fabric as Martin folded another seam of Jon’s shirt.

The night Martin had first seen the wings, how patient he had been, how soft he had looked in sleep-rumpled pyjamas as he threaded the needle. 

The night, not too long ago, when Jon had snapped back from his statement to see Martin in front of him, with wide, warm hands resting against his cheeks, their lips less than a foot apart and Jon still wondering why on earth his heart might have been racing and words all dying on his tongue.

Jon was hopelessly in love. 

Chapter Text

Martin’s throat was tight as he sat in the middle of the breakroom, listening to the sound of the kettle boiling. He found himself tracing the tea rings left on the table, able to imagine the grin on Tim’s face as he slammed his mug of tea down with just a bit too much enthusiasm, gasping in disbelief over whatever piece of gossip Sasha had slipped him, leaning back smugly in her chair. He could remember the day after he had learned of Jon’s wings, trying to have a normal, non insect-related conversation with Tim, but his hand had shaken to the point where some of his tea had spilled over the edge of his cup.

Tim and Sasha weren’t there that day. Nobody was. 

It was one of the days Jon had apparently actually taken off from work like he was supposed to, as had everyone else, and granted, Martin wasn’t exactly doing any work while he was there. It was just that returning to his flat wasn’t an option, he didn’t feel like going outside, and sitting down in his storage room with his dim desk lamp and sewing supplies had been… suffocating. At least in the breakroom the fluorescent lights worked somewhat better, it smelled more of pot noodles and tea than it did of dust, and he could pretend a bit more easily that he wasn’t on his own. 

He had left the shirt he had been hemming down there with his sewing supplies, folded neatly on an otherwise messy and blanket-swamped couch, where he had been lying for most of the morning. Part of him had hoped that it would be a nice way to make the rest of the day easier. He had figured that maybe if he left the storage room at midday he'd be closer to being able to go to sleep again after he got up, finding enough to occupy himself with, but it didn’t work all that well.

It felt more like locking himself in a small, poorly lit room with his own thoughts, each one of his breaths drawing in recycled air that only made the walls feel more suffocating and dust floating above him feel thicker. Once he had left, feeling nauseous as he changed into something other than an old t-shirt and pyjama bottoms, he found it was easier to breathe in the breakroom– but not by much.

Something was fermenting in the back of Martin’s mind. He could feel it seeping out into the space around it even when Martin wasn’t focused on it directly, sour and acrid with a realisation he didn’t want to make. 

It had been a day since he had last spoken with Jon, their last meeting being their parting at the train station. Jon had kept that pensive frown carved across his face, his voice low in that new tone Martin hadn’t heard before the wings, the one that was so confusing for Martin and his poor, hopelessly mushy heart. 

The same heart that kept loving Jon even after he had made it plenty clear that he did not care for Martin in the slightest, the same one that fluttered at the way Jon said his name, even if it was spat, or integral to some insult Tim would later be sure to tell Martin he didn’t deserve. 

It was what kept him there at the archives, even after Prentiss had long stopped looming over them. 

Jon had brought it up. Of course he had brought it up, he was right to, Martin was being unreasonable by staying. Nobody needed to hide from their own home when there was nothing to fear there, to stay in the dusty archives when they didn’t need to. He had no reason to stay, and yet he had chosen to linger, ghostlike, around Jon when he hadn’t ever asked for it.

…You’re still staying there.

It hadn’t been so much a statement as it had been a question. 

Why are you still here?

And it hadn’t been so much a question as it had been an explanation.

I don’t want you here anymore.

It was the ‘anymore’ that was difficult. No, all of it was difficult, because Martin had so irretrievably fallen for somebody who did not want him back, but it was the ‘anymore’ that was particularly painful, that stung just a bit more harshly in his chest. Because for a time there, before Jon had evidently come to his senses, he had seemed like he… hadn’t minded having Martin there. 

Martin had done his best to read what Jon was feeling, but when it wasn’t the scathing, direct anger and bitterness coating his words as they spilled from the tape recorders, then it wasn’t easy to read. Christ. Martin was in love with somebody who he couldn’t understand when he wasn’t being cruel and prickly. 

But even if he didn’t understand it, the few weeks of comfortable early mornings and brief check-ins at night before Martin went to bed were so… nice . It made his chest flutter to think about, and he found his hand curling weakly at his chest as he sat there in the breakroom. As if pressing his hand over his heart hard enough would suffocate the drumming of it at the mere thought of something that… soft. Even if Martin was just pretending. Even if Jon was just confused and tired and cursed, not actually trying to be nice to Martin, some part of him was melting with each reminder of the feeling of Jon’s fingers brushing his as Martin passed him one of the shirts he had finished sewing.

Jon would always find the hem, frowning down at it, and then run his thumb along the seam. Then something in his face would relax slightly and he would fold it over his arm, give some formal, curt word of thanks, and Martin would have to fight the urge to tell him that seeing him just that much less worn was more than enough. So, so much more than enough.

Why are you still here?

But it wasn’t like that. Martin’s head had been filled with a rose-tinted haze, his thoughts syrupy and self-deluding from his own miserable, romantic hopefulness. Now that had cleared, and while it made him feel so, so hollow, it was the truth. 

And the truth brought the hardened kind of cold that precipitated a slip, a rush of overdue regret, landing back down with asphalt grooves in his shoulders– leaving no other course of action but to lay there, unseeing to the sky, waiting for the motivation to pull himself back up.

Was it possible to grieve for something that was never alive, hopelessly miss something that never happened? Was he cursed to drown in his own anemoia, left to either lose himself entirely to pretty delusions, erasing all reality from his mind, or crudely carve out his own ridiculous, stupidly romantic heart?

Something bad was happening to Jon, he knew that. Jon was worried about it in the way he would stress over things all on his own, shut himself in his office and coil himself into his numbers and lists and documents until he was drained. Then the next day he would come back in and start all over again, prodding at the issue from every angle he could find until it bruised.

Martin had always been wounded by that. It was difficult, being so incautiously in love with somebody who so frequently forgot about the concept of self-preservation. But now, he couldn’t even bring himself to wallow in a decent helping of self-pity. He couldn’t feel sorry for himself for being a burden on Jon, for having to watch someone else suffer through an awful situation. Maybe he had helped, some, with the shirts and the tea and the covering for him with Tim and Sasha, but Jon still had every right to tell him to go.

Why now? Some small part of him was asking. Why not before I let myself believe that it was okay to care about you?

But those weren’t his questions to ask. They might have been nice for Martin to know, but he wasn’t entitled to them in any way. He was, after all, still just one of Jon’s assistants who knew one more thing about him, and the answers might have just torn the fissure along Martin’s heart open wider. 

Maybe Jon knew how easily Martin grew attached to people and had wanted to use that to get what he wanted. Maybe he had realised that Martin took more than he gave, and now that he had gotten what he needed he could get Martin out of his face.

It was just that Jon wasn’t like that. Martin was every kind of biased, of course, but Jon would have worked himself to death before manipulating other people to get what he wanted. It was always him who suffered in order to get something done, always his sleep schedule, eating habits, stress levels, that took a beating. It was both indescribably vain and hopelessly selfless, and it made Martin’s heart ache . 

It just made more sense, then, that maybe Jon had almost warmed up to Martin, been so distressed and traumatised by the wings that he latched onto the closest person, effectively stockholm-syndromed into caring about Martin. Now he had been able to realise that, and was shocked and offended, crawling with disgust at himself for going that long without tearing Martin down. It was far more plausible that Jon wasn’t playing any games, he just had remembered why he hated Martin so much after a brief lapse of memory. 

…That didn’t make it hurt any less.

He heard the ding of the kettle somewhere past his ugly knot of thoughts, blinking harshly into the fluorescent light and beginning to get to his feet. He found his palms resting against the edge of the table, weight against them to steady himself, then he stood up fully, letting out a shaky breath.

He would never be able to stop being in love with Jon. He had tried his damn hardest from when he first realised, citing the fact that they were boss and employee, they did not know each other very well at all, Jon had only ever shown contempt around him, etc, etc. Tack on an entire notes app list of reasons he should snap out of it, and Martin still hadn’t been able to get over the crush. Martin did not consider himself stubborn, but by god , his obsession with people who hated him sure was. 

There was another option, though, that would involve Jon getting what he wanted, would hopefully cure Martin of some of the worst of his feelings, and would involve as little awkward interaction as possible.

It was simple enough. It would be painful, yes, but Martin was willing to bear it to make Jon happier. He was sure that he, too, would be happier once he was able to let this go a bit more, some of his hurt cushioned by the comforting weight of some much-needed distance.

Martin made his decision.

It was another two days before Jon saw Martin again. Jon had planned to spend his weekend still at the archives, focusing on not the feeling of exhaustion but that of productivity, but after some deliberation, he had decided that it was for the better that he didn’t go out of his way to run into Martin yet. It wasn’t as if he could do much to humiliate himself any more, but unfortunately, processing the mere concept of having feelings was still taking up most of the space on his mental agenda. 

After considering only working in the dead of the night, door shut and doing his very best not to wake Martin, he decided it was too much of a risk– he didn’t know if he would lose track of time, or zone out during one of the statements, and Martin’s offhanded mention of occasional insomnia began playing on loop whenever he considered it. 

To avoid all of this, he simply stayed home, working through the statements he had stockpiled there and trying not to think too hard about what they did to him. He instead focused on the fact that he was learning something, making progress towards organising the archives, and how it was all easier to think about than his feelings for Martin. 

He was relatively sure that most people, when in love, did not immediately distance themselves as much as possible. But he was not most people, he was Jonathan Sims, he was cursed, and could do what he liked, he decided upon it anyway. 

The frustrating thing was, while thinking about how he felt about Martin made him only feel… confused, a bit distressed, and honestly quite frustrated, skipping the bit that involved his own emotions made it… far easier. Just thinking about Martin– his ridiculous insistence upon being unendingly kind and gentle with someone as prickly as Jon, the absurd way even his softest smile made a room feel brighter— was easier. 

He could almost pretend he was gaining something from it– he was preparing himself to confront his own feelings, letting himself understand more about what kind of person Martin was from a new perspective, and that would allow him to make a more educated decision between ignoring his feelings until they petered out and died, or finding a way to quash them entirely.

But that wasn’t true. No, it couldn’t have been true, because nothing was allowed to be easy, ever, for someone like Jon. All the plans he had begun constructing were only being dismantled with every moment he thought about Martin, fingertips pressed against shut eyes beneath his glasses. He had still gotten nowhere even after a good five minutes of recalling how Martin’s painfully soft features had sunken with concern when he realised how poor a job Jon had done taking care of himself, or the little, muffled laughs Jon used to be able to hear from the breakroom, when Tim or Sasha said something he felt bad for laughing at, and hid his face in his hands, smothering the grin on his face. 

Jon couldn't say he didn’t miss the days like that. It was lonely, really, distancing himself that much from Tim and Sasha, still a decent amount from Martin, and he was sure the isolation wasn’t making it any easier on his very brittle mental state. 

Still. He didn’t miss the… rest of it. He didn’t miss the exhaustion that weighed him down every waking moment, tugging him to rest his head on his desk, set down that file, take a break he knew he didn’t need, and the sharp spike of anger piercing his chest whenever the one person he could take it out on knocked twice on the door. 

He didn’t miss the hollow satisfaction he got from tearing Martin down, the empty-calorie remarks bitter on his tongue and cold in the bottom of his stomach. Thinking back on it, he had been awful, always finding something demeaning to tuck into follow-ups whenever Martin wasn’t there for Jon to say it to his face. He had sat there and watched the smile on Martin’s face wane with anxiety, doing its best not to falter or collapse into hurt as Jon went after everything he could find.

Now, it wasn’t like that. Martin no longer spoke to him like they had only met that morning, indecisive and apologetic and stumbling over his own words– No, there was a kind of comfort in their greeting each other every evening, Jon trying to at least seem grateful. Not to mention the reassurance in every time Martin reported that Tim and Sasha still knew nothing of the wings, like he knew how relieving it was for Jon to hear. Martin’s smiles had at some point started to come easier whenever he brought Jon tea, and if he hadn’t been so exhausted all the time, Jon even sometimes considered smiling back. 

God, what Martin would look like if Jon ever smiled back. He’d probably be so puzzled and cautious at first, not realising just how much Jon had been thinking about him, and then process that Jon was smiling just because he was grateful, and then his face would flush over the spray of freckles on his cheeks, and Christ, this was a disaster.

Jon groaned in frustration out to his empty flat, opening his eyes and nudging his glasses back up his face. This was terrible and awful and an unnecessary distraction from the work he had to do, and it was making him into a wreck. He hadn’t felt this way about anybody since uni, and that wasn’t about to change now. 

Jon had gone from practising to keep his mouth shut if he didn’t have anything nice to say directly to keeping his mouth shut because he had too much nice to say. He couldn’t say what was on his mind because his mind was stuck on Martin’s voice and hair and laugh and eyes– and feeling things was distracting, unhelpful and overall, very unprofessional. 

He was safest right now when there was only the still air and his couple of dying houseplants to witness his lament, and the more time he had to untangle himself from his own emotions, the better. The concept of having feelings was… tolerable, it was just when they affected him so much that they got under his skin. If he could control all of them and prevent them from hijacking his brain and vocal chords whenever they found it appropriate, that would be fine. 

So he made plans to give himself more time to mull it over, deciding that he would drop into the archive at a time when Martin would be asleep. That way, he could grab enough work to keep him occupied– a couple more statements, even, to practise not feeling horribly twisted inside whenever he thought of Martin’s mortified expression upon seeing what happened when he read them. He couldn’t jeopardise his work for this.

If a massive set of moth wings tearing themselves out of his back had only minorly inconvenienced his work schedule, something as simple as an unexpected partiality towards Martin was not about to do any more damage.

Jon decided to drop into the archives in the early morning, around four, before Martin would be awake– Martin also wasn’t scheduled to work that day, so it was safest to assume he was going to be sleeping in. That way, Jon would be able to drop in without being noticed, gather what he needed from his desk, and leave again without any risk of running into Martin by mistake. 

It was cool and dark inside, with none of the lights on, but he found it easy enough to navigate between the desks, wrapping his coat around himself and keeping his head low. He only needed to pick up the files for the statements he had finished recording at his flat, then leave the work he had designated to his assistants labelled and set out on their desks. No issue, no interaction required, and he could stall just for a little bit longer. 

He didn’t turn on his light in his office, only opening the drawer and sifting through it as quietly as he could. He found everything he needed easily enough, setting it out on his desk to bring back with him, except for one follow-up report he had assigned Sasha. It had been returned to storage a few weeks ago, the case seemingly closed, but Jon had a hunch it was connected to a statement he had recently finished recording.

Chewing on the inside of his cheek as he stared over the heap of papers on his desk, Jon thought over his options. The file wasn’t in the room Martin was staying in, of course, but they were along the same hall, and he greatly risked waking him up if he decided to go get it. It would defeat the entire purpose of showing up at an odd time, not turning on any lights, being as quiet as possible, as well as everything he had done to avoid Martin the past few days.

On the other hand, though, he was being absolutely ridiculous. The whole point of this was to not let how he felt about Martin impede upon his work, and leaving behind what could be a critical piece of information directly contradicted that. 

He allowed himself to lament it for a moment, lips pressed together and indulging in a good few heavy seconds of deliberation, and then he decided to be rational. He would go get the file, if only for the sanity of his future self, slumped over his desk in exasperation and regret, having missed his chance to get it without suspicion. 

So, shedding his coat for the sake of his own comfort and setting it over the back of his chair, he steeled his nerves and turned to make his way down to storage. 

When he opened the door to the hall that housed both Martin’s storage room and the file he needed, he stopped in his tracks. 

One of the doors was open. Amber light was spilling out into the hall, over the carpet, and from behind it he could hear someone moving— It was shuffling, the sound of rustling papers and fabric. Jon’s breath hitched. 

Martin’s awake. 

His heart was beating faster against his ribs and he couldn’t slow it, the little composure he had built up in his office dissolving all too quickly. Had his heart always done this? Was it worse now that he was aware what was going on, or had his own denial been strong enough to completely ignore the very concerning physiological reaction for weeks?

He realised he had been taking measured, tentative steps toward the door, breaths cool in his throat as he silently, slowly drifted toward it. What the hell was he doing , trying to get closer to the door? He knew that Martin was awake, and probably reorganising his poetry notebooks or something like that, and that was Jon’s cue to leave, give up and go home.

So leave .

Jon took another step, fully aware that his own damn curiosity and complete lack of impulse control would be the death of him. 

Why was Martin awake? It wasn’t exactly a reasonable hour for someone diurnal, and even if Martin was having trouble sleeping, Jon figured it more likely that he would be up in the break room making tea. It was strange, and Jon couldn’t keep himself from drawing closer, a silent footstep landing in the fan of light outside the door. 

When he peered inside, breathing not quite as steady as he would have liked, he found that he had been right– it was just Martin, awake at a strange hour and wandering around the storage room. 

There was something about seeing him again, after having avoided him for that long, even though it had been only a couple of days. After speaking to each other several times a day for months, it felt unnatural to keep such a distance, left only with the mental image of Martin that had not left his mind. But seeing him here, again, brow slightly furrowed and lips parted as he hunched over something on the arm of the couch, dim light catching in soft eyes and stray wisps of hair, Jon suddenly felt his heart flutter.

He was prettier in person. 

Jon immediately repressed the thought as hard as he could, wrenching his mind away from anything to do with his recent realisation. Letting himself look through the door in the first place had been a terrible idea, and allowing his thoughts to drift in that direction would never make the situation easier. He was here to figure out why Martin was awake, get the file, and leave . 

He dragged his attention back to what Martin was doing, watching him rifle around in the first aid kit resting on the arm of the couch, and his heart stumbled at the idea of Martin being injured– but upon closer inspection, his wide hands were steady, expression set, no damage in sight. Instead, he was pressing something into one of the sections of the box before closing it, snapping it shut and setting it aside.

The same applied to the blanket that had been draped over the couch, as Martin walked over and pulled it off the cushions– he was folding it neatly and returning it to the corner of the couch, despite the fact that he really should have been asleep.

He didn’t look like he was reorganising anything– it almost looked like he was packing up. 

Jon didn’t have time to fully process it before he saw Martin’s shoulders draw in slightly, tensing– and then he froze. Like he could feel Jon’s eyes on him. A moment passed, silent, before he slowly turned his head over his shoulder. Despite seeming like he already knew there was someone watching him, Martin still jumped, startling, when he met Jon’s gaze. 

“Christ-”

Jon realised, a moment too late, that he was hovering at the entrance to the storage room, standing stock still in the darkness and staring through the doorway. And that was… not the most disarming thing to do. He was briefly aware of what his own silhouette might have looked like to Martin, a wing-swamped figure with dark eyes and awful posture, having silently drawn towards the dim light of storage.

Right. Be less threatening.

He straightened, blinking heavily and stepping closer to the doorway in an attempt to look a bit less cryptid-like.

“...My apologies. Did I scare you?”

Martin blinked, mouth half-open and breaths slightly uneven before he nodded, hands finding the edges of his sleeves to grasp. 

“I– Yes. A bit. S-sorry, I thought you weren’t… going to be here today.”

Jon exhaled, reaching for his coat to draw defensively around himself, only to remember he had left it in his office. He opted for folding his arms over his chest, trying not to frown too visibly. Why was Martin packing up?

“Well, yes, but I just needed to pick something up,” he replied, voice hoarse. “I’ve been working from my place these past few days.”

Something flickered over Martin’s face, gone before Jon could register it, and his gaze found the cardboard box on the desk again. “Oh- I see. I figured.”

Jon hummed noncommittally, watching as Martin turned his attention back to the room. Wide hands slid a set of wired earbuds off the bookshelf and wound them up, setting them on top of the folded blanket over the couch. There was something unnatural about it, and Jon didn’t know if it was only to him or not. The tenseness hadn’t left Martin’s frame, and his expression still hadn’t found one place to settle, but that could have been because Jon was still watching him. 

Jon drifted over to the cardboard box, peering inside to see the sewing supplies Martin used to keep in his desk, two notebooks that Jon could only assume were full of poetry, and a tape recorder. 

“Martin?”

Martin glanced back from the bookshelf, a pair of scissors in hand. There was still something that wasn’t right about his expression, somewhere between uncomfortable and worried– almost wounded when he looked at Jon, but he couldn't think of anything he had done to prompt it. Besides being there when Martin hadn’t expected him to be.

“Yes?”

“What… what are you doing?”

Martin swallowed. “Packing up. I, um. I figured it was about time I headed home,” he said, with the tone of someone who had let the exact same words stir in their mind for hours. “Wouldn’t want to outstay my welcome,” he added with the shape of a laugh, but it was soft and deadened and his eyes conveyed no mirth. It was something much different to Martin’s usual slight, painfully endearing awkwardness, it felt… wrong.

Jon felt his throat tighten, his worst suspicions confirmed. Martin was leaving . He was going to go home, and after that he would only be at the archives when he had to, when he was working. Like Tim and Sasha did, like normal people did. He was going to leave Jon here to manage this curse, this hanging fear of growing less and less human by the day, on his own.

“...Right,” Jon breathed, the knot in his chest nearing painful. “Er- yes.”

Martin looked away from him slowly, getting back to work, and Jon swallowed. 

That was what he wanted. That was what had been keeping from his work these past few days, his worst distraction, and if Martin wasn’t there, Jon would be able to focus. He would have one less problem tangling his mind, and he would be happy for the same reasons he had been frustrated when he remembered he would be staying overnight in the archives with Martin. Nothing had to have changed since then. It was best if nothing had changed, because he could handle this on his own.

And again, something cold dripped down his spine at the idea of having to do this alone . Left to his own thoughts and all his decisions his own, without even having anyone to witness his descent. It was one thing to spiral, another thing to have nobody know. Martin would still know about the wings, but rarely see them again, rarely see Jon again, and whether Jon finally got a grip on himself or drove himself off the deep end, Martin would never know.

Something about the simplicity of Martin just cleaning up, packing away all of his things at an hour he had expected Jon to be at home made Jon’s chest ache. If he hadn’t decided to come in to pick up more work, Martin would have just left, without any semblance of a goodbye, an explanation of where he was going. Jon would have arrived and found the archives truly, completely empty and everything in Martin’s room neatly stored away, a normal storage unit once again. 

It felt like a betrayal. But it wasn’t one, it was Martin being reasonable, like Jon used to berate him about, making the appropriate decision. It was ridiculous for Jon to be hurt by it, but he was, lost for words as he continued to silently watch Martin prepare to leave him there.

Christ . At least his fear of slipping up and saying something in front of Martin had proved irrational, as he could not think of a single word to get across what he was feeling– apparently he was cursed to be victim to both impulse and inaction.  

“Oh, right-” Martin broke the silence for him, thankfully, blinking as he slid something else from off the shelves. “I, er- I have a shirt for you.”

He walked over to where Jon was standing by the desk, pausing for a moment to glance down at the shirt in his hands. He cleared his throat lightly, gaze flicking somewhere off to the side. “It’s the last one.”

There was something about his voice that was off, so much of it casual, painfully natural, but there was some quiet inflection, a lilt that made the wrongness of it all infinitely worse. 

“Oh- right. Thank you,” Jon replied, voice feeling far away as he found the hem, tracing the seam. The fabric was soft in his hands.

He fell quiet again, just staring down at the hem of his shirt and thinking of the five or six hanging up in his closet at home. There had been a comfort to putting them on, fitting neatly around the joint at his wing, comfortable enough that Jon would completely forget that they had been modified. And when he did remember, it was just another kind of comforting– mind drifting back to that evening he had sat at Martin’s side, watching him carefully thread the needle and slide it effortlessly through the fabric– easy but cautious, steady but gentle. 

He didn’t want Martin to leave.

It wasn’t as if they would become strangers, but their meetings would be sparse, and they would be meetings as coworkers, not… well. Jon would never call them friends, but he wanted to keep that odd, tentative in-between of Martin keeping him company, bringing him tea, telling Jon to get more sleep. And Jon letting it happen, setting aside his papers for a moment to take the mug from Martin, at times even listening to his advice. Martin was always right, it would make him feel better, it would be worth it to get some rest, to stay hydrated, to take a break. 

He had stopped snapping at Martin. He let himself stay late every now and then to catch Tim and Sasha showing up to at least greet them. It had made a frankly terrifying situation that much easier– Jon felt like he was a better person because of Martin, even fractionally, and thinking about it made him nearly choke on his own breath. 

“Martin?” 

“Hm?”

“Why…do you have to leave?”

Martin glanced over his shoulder, expression blank as he met Jon’s eye. He suddenly felt pinned in place, searched for information, and wondered how often he had made someone else feel the same. Martin didn’t say anything.

Jon cleared his throat, shifting his weight and folding his arms more tightly. “I- I mean, I was just thinking that, well- why… I supposed what I meant was- why should you move out?”

Martin blinked, expression still conveying complete failure to understand him, but Jon dreaded to think what it would mean if he did seem to understand where Jon was coming from. “Why shouldn’t I?” he asked, lowering the file he was holding.

“I– well, I-”

Real concern suddenly took hold of his frame, worry flickering across his face as he took a tentative step toward Jon. “Is it still dangerous, did- did you get news about something? I just figured, you told m- and, and it’s been weeks, months , no sign of Prentiss, so I assumed-”

“No, it’s- not that,” Jon cut in, feeling the wings on his back still fluttering slightly with the spike in his heart rate. It was frustrating– because just because his heart was pounding to the point where he was mentally adding arrhythmia to his list of conditions he should probably check for, didn’t mean he had to outwardly show it. 

Then Martin blinked, and he didn’t seem to be able to look at Jon at all, staring back down at where he had been sifting through a file in his hands. “Oh–” his brow furrowed slightly. “O-okay, good, I want to make sure it’ll be… safe.”

Jon nodded, biting down on the inside of his cheek. “Yes- yes, it should be.”

Martin would be safe. He could return with Tim or Sasha, hopefully, someone who could get in contact with Jon or at least alert someone if there was still a threat there. Logically, there wouldn’t be. Jon was a logical person, who should have been focusing on other, real problems that were not based purely on Martin’s departure bothering him. 

He didn’t have a good reason for it, other than it might be more difficult to work out what was happening to him. And that he would miss Martin’s tea. And that he didn’t want to be alone, to feel ripped even further from humanity and lose his mind in a building that was dark and cold and truly, totally empty. And that the realisation was still burning in his mind, the reason everything about Martin had been so confusing, the reason it hurt so much to see the storage room packed up.

He looked up and Martin had gathered together the scissors from the bookshelf, his headphones, a couple other smaller objects and papers he had collected over the months, and walked back over to the desk. He was right beside Jon now, rummaging through the cardboard box and staring down into it with a finality that was painful to see on his face. 

Martin’s hand moved to the edge of the box and Jon felt his heart twisting into itself, that aching betrayal still clamped tight in his chest– and then Jon’s hand had moved, reaching, and before he could process it, his fingers were resting on top of Martin’s, heart pounding against his ribs.

“Martin.”

Martin had frozen in place, and when Jon glanced up to meet his eye, barely able to breathe steadily, he saw just how shocked he looked. His eyes were wide, shimmering in the low light, and bright pink had flushed across his cheeks, painted over a spray of freckles. 

It took everything in Jon’s power not to choke on his own words. Some exasperated, horrified part of his mind quietly asked what on earth he was doing, but he couldn’t move his hand from over Martin’s. 

“I… I don’t want you to leave,” he croaked.

There was a pause, and neither of them moved.

“...I know that, Jon,” Martin said softly, and his brow had pinched again with that quiet, hurt confusion. His hand didn’t move either, as easy as it would have been to draw it away. “I just want to know why.”

Jon nodded sharply, because he understood that, of course Martin would want the reason Jon wanted him to stay, it was a perfectly sensible thing to ask.

“I know. It- it, um-”

Martin’s voice was quiet, cracked. “Isn’t that okay?”

“Yes, Martin, of course it is, and I- it’s-”

But he didn’t know how to answer it. 

“I- I just-”

The panic had curled into frustration, pulsing inside his chest, he just needed to say it, but he had promised himself he would handle this in any other way, but Martin wanted to know, and he couldn’t back out now, but for all he was grasping for words he could scrape up nothing useful. His hand was clasped into a fist at his side with speechless agitation, fighting for something, anything to say that wasn’t surrender. 

He couldn’t just stop and agree that Martin should leave without telling him anything, even though being alone in the archives from then on was what… what he wanted. What he was supposed to want. It was so he wouldn’t get distracted, mess anything up, ruin the last of his dignity, let his emotions get in the way of his work. It would be better, so much better, if he just dealt with the wings and his work alone, without anyone else, and just trusted himself to make smart, rational decisions. 

He would survive without Martin. Wouldn’t he?

Martin, both his anchor to sanity and half the reason he was losing his mind. Martin, whose expression was getting more and more lost and worried, and Jon needed to do something to convey what he was feeling because he could barely breathe through his choked grasps at an explanation, sifting through so many wrong ways to confess as his heart kept pounding and he could feel his face burning–

“...Jon?”

Jon kissed him.

It was brief, fueled entirely by impulse, desperation, and adrenaline, and Jon was certain that it couldn’t have lasted any more than two seconds. But it was two seconds that seemed to stretch out, drawn and pulled by the feeling of Martin’s lips against his, Jon’s palm against Martin’s cheek, their hands still over each other. Something was being crushed out of Jon’s chest with the feeling of finally surrendering to a compulsion that had been tearing at him, breathless and lightheaded as he pressed his eyes shut.

Then, the two seconds were over. 

Then, he was stepping back, eyes open again, and awareness had fully returned to him, breaking and crashing over him like a wave.

And with that, sharp, horrified regret dug directly into his chest, a searing hot knife of it twisting straight into his heart as he realised what he had done– and, more importantly, what he had forgotten to do first.

He felt his eyes blow wide, stumbling back and curling the hand that had been on top of Martin’s hand back to his chest. The hand that he had set against Martin’s cheek pressed at the base of his throat in horror, against the uneven, gasping breaths fighting to escape his lungs. 

“...Shit– oh, god, Martin, I didn’t- I didn’t mean to do that,” he rasped, trying to untangle a proper apology from his lips, but they were still buzzing with the taste of Martin’s, and his mind was an absolute wreck. “I’m- I am- so sorry, good god, that was absolutely not– not o-okay in the slightest, I’m so sorry–”

When he had blinked away enough shock to actually be able to process Martin’s face again, he was standing there completely still, not having moved a centimetre from where Jon had recoiled away from him. 

The only thing that had changed was that Martin’s finger had drifted up to touch his own lips, as if trying to remind himself what they had just felt, expression wiped completely blank with shock. 

“...But you–” Martin’s voice was cracked and weak, lips silently searching for the shape of his next word and failing. And god , Jon was staring at his lips again, and Martin looked so caught off guard, and he shouldn’t have been caught off guard, because Jon had meant to not even think about any of this at all, he wasn’t supposed to be in the same building with Martin in the first place.

“Martin, I really am, I should- I’ll leave if you–”

“But you hate me,” Martin finished softly, hand still raised to just beside his mouth, gaze having found somewhere on the wall over Jon’s shoulder. 

Jon suddenly felt nauseous. 

…Of course. Of course Martin was surprised, Jon was distant at best and a right prick at worst. He had been actively avoiding Martin for three days and even now that he had moved far past insulting Martin in statements, that didn’t mean Martin knew that.

“No,” Jon cut in breathlessly, the knot in his chest tightening. “No, no, no, Martin, I’m just stupid . I’ve been stupid. That- what I did there was stupid, I’m sorry, I should have- have asked, Christ, I’m so-”

“I don’t, um-” Martin took a step back, but it didn’t look like one of disgust, more just like he was trying to retain his balance as he swayed slightly in the desk lamp light. “I just- I still don’t understand, understand… why?” 

He shook his head minutely, like trying to clear cobwebs in his head before his gaze found Jon’s again. 

“I don’t understand, Jon,” he repeated weakly, a sentiment so painfully genuine that Jon swore he felt something in his heart crack open. It sounded too much like a question.

“Because you’re wonderful,” Jon blurted, all his usual filters swamped by how loud his damn heart was beating, to the point where he wouldn’t have doubted if Martin could hear it from where he was standing. “I- I- I could never get it across, and you deserve better than someone who can’t get it across, but I haven’t forgotten how much you- you care . I convinced you that I hated you, I was that bad, and you stayed and- and brought me tea every day like I mattered to you, you called me so many times when I was out from the wings bleeding because you were worried, didn’t you? And ever since then, turning up early to bring me tea before I leave, checking in without a reason to, fixing my shirts, changing the bloody font size so I can read it better! Martin, I can’t hate someone like that! That- that’s kind, that’s good , and I-” his hand had found its way to grip at his hair again, fighting to be able to put something so ineffable into words. “I can’t just let you leave without telling you that.”

He looked back up to meet Martin’s eye, the words stringing up in the air between them, too late to be taken back or filtered of Jon’s overwhelmed stumbles. He could only watch, throat too tight to breathe properly through and the aftertaste of the words still buzzing on his tongue. He realised how much he had wanted to tell Martin all of that, how much it had been building and knotting and tangling inside of him, even before he had figured out what it meant. 

Martin had moved the fingers at his lips to instead press his palm over his mouth, eyes crinkling gently at the corners as Jon waited, heart pounding, for Martin’s response. He looked caught somewhere between shock and disbelief, that same raw bafflement woven somewhere into his expression. No… no sign yet that he was at all relieved, or believed him, and Jon’s gut churned again. But then Martin slowly lowered his hand, voice hoarse when he spoke.

“...And you aren't lying?”

Jon resisted the urge to reach forward and take Martin’s hand again, wanting to grip it between both of his and promise that he wasn’t making anything up, that even before he had known what he was feeling, Martin had been important to him, and Jon wasn’t going to lie about that. 

Jon stilled his hand and shook his head as surely as he could in response, pressing his eyes shut for a moment.

“I am not lying. I am being honest, and I’m telling you that I have every reason to- to feel this way about you. And while you have every right not to- well, reciprocate those feelings, I figured it was important to let you know.”

He looked back up and Martin’s hand loosely fell back down to his side, eyes so soft and tentative as his brow twitched, and he glanced away. “I- I, right. You- right. Okay,” he continued, expression flickering through emotions like a very rushed powerpoint presentation. It eventually stilled on that same untelling confusion and disbelief, and he blinked, stunned, before speaking.

“Er- so, if you- does that mean…?” His hand lifted to gingerly touch his own chest, head quirking slightly with uncertainty. His voice was wavering slightly, fighting to keep steady. “Does that mean I would be al- Could I… kiss you?”

Jon stared at him. That had not been the reaction he had expected, Martin’s expression still impossible to read, but it was an easier thing to respond to than the blatant, outright rejection that had been clinging to the back of Jon’s mind, agonisingly painful even as a possibility.

“I- yes,” Jon replied after a moment, trying to fit the hypothetical together in his mind. “If you were to feel the same way, of course, and- and I certainly wouldn’t mind, and then you would have a situation in which both of–”

Jon stopped talking.

The words were stolen from his lips as Martin lifted his hand, fit it over Jon’s cheek, and kissed him. It was better than the first time, smoother and easier, like Martin knew exactly what he was doing. The bright flash of shock quickly gave way as Jon realised how good it felt, firm and sweet as Martin’s soft palm tilted his head just the slightest bit more to fit their lips together more neatly. His hand was cool against Jon’s burning cheeks, and his lips were so soft, so easy for Jon to kiss back. 

Even with Jon caught mid-sentence, the two of them standing in the centre of an archive storage room, Martin had made it feel like the most natural thing in the world, gently taking the rest of what Jon had planned to say right from his lips. It wasn’t intense, he had just… stepped forward, hand finding Jon’s chin to guide his lips to Martin’s, and it was perfect. 

His heart ached when he felt Martin’s lips begin to draw away from his, but let it happen, eyes fluttering open into the dim light of the room. Martin’s fingers were lingering on his cheek, touch light and careful, and his voice was barely above a gentle rasp when he spoke again. 

“Was that…?” A soft frown sunk across his expression, gaze roaming Jon’s face. “Was that okay?”

Unable to breathe for a myriad of reasons, Jon’s inhale hitched, taking another couple of seconds floating in his own light-headed disbelief and relief before replying.

“I– yes.” He nodded as emphatically as he could with how faint he felt, barely trusting himself to stay standing. “Yes, that was- that was more than okay,” he breathed, trying to blink away the spots dancing in his vision. “Can we… do that again?”

Martin was quiet, stunned for a moment, before a surprised smile spilled across his face, all traces of the hurt confusion from before melting away. “Y-yeah, of course, um-”

He lifted the hand that wasn’t by Jon’s cheek to take the side of his glasses, pushing them up his face to keep them out of the way and brushing back soft locks of blonde hair. It was simple, casual, and the most agonisingly endearing thing Jon had ever seen.

Jon stared at Martin, with his glasses sitting atop fluffy hair, and the bright pink blooming across his cheeks, and his soft brown eyes, and briefly wondered what he had done to get here. What he had done right to be standing here in the cutout of a daydream, breathless and face definitely some shade of scarlet. He only had to stand up slightly to meet Martin in another kiss, and then he wasn’t wondering about anything other than how Martin was that perfect .

He lifted his hand to rest on Martin’s shoulder, warmth seeping through his shirt and into Jon’s palm, and felt Martin’s head tilt to fit their lips closer, deepening the kiss. Jon curled his fingers further into the fabric of Martin’s shirt, grounding himself there and unable to think of anything other than how he was kissing Martin.  

Martin, who Jon had been trying so hard to keep from even thinking about him for days, and here, with Martin’s free hand moving to gently secure against his side, he could not on his life remember why.

It felt all too soon that Martin drew away, and Jon reluctantly did the same, opening his eyes if only to be able to see Martin’s face again. Martin’s hand slid from his waist, but the other remained gingerly wrapped around Jon’s cheek. It wasn’t unlike the night the compound eyes had appeared, Martin’s hands wide and soft and calloused— except this time it was softer, easier, and Martin’s expression wasn’t one of panic. His eyes didn’t fully focus without his glasses, but it only made him look more starstruck, overwhelmingly fond as he brushed a thumb over Jon’s cheekbone.

They stood there for a long, quiet moment, only the sound of soft breathing filling the room. Neither of them had any reason to break the silence, do anything other than stay standing right near each other, warm and comfortable and serene. Finally, Martin’s hand slowly left Jon’s cheek and he blinked, slow and dazed, taking a tentative step back. 

“Wow.” Martin rubbed both of his eyes with the heels of his palms, voice hoarse and faint. “Wow, I- Okay. Okay, I think I need a moment to, uh– process, s-sorry, I-”

“Yes, that’s- that’s more than alright, me too, I think,” Jon cut in clumsily, still recovering from the feeling of being that close to Martin for no reason other than both of them wanted to be. He felt as overwhelmed as Martin felt, clearing his throat and rubbing the side of his nose. 

“Yeah,” Martin exhaled, his hand finding the edge of the desk to lean against slightly, as if he was having trouble standing. Jon didn’t blame him. 

Martin stared across the room, glasses still in his hair and eyes wide and stunned, as Jon pressed his lips together and tried not to think too hard about what was going through Martin’s head. Martin would tell him when he was ready for Jon to know, they would talk about this, figure out what was the best thing to do from there.

“Can I make you tea?” Martin suddenly asked, straightening from where he was leaning against the desk and setting his glasses back over his face again. His voice was almost strained, approaching some kind of desperate as his words grew more hurried. He reached forward, hand wrapping around Jon’s, and it was warm and endearing and made sense . “I just- Just so we can go to the break room, and- and I can focus a bit more, and- we can talk over tea. I just, um-”

Martin’s gaze dropped to find his hand in Jon’s, as if he hadn’t realised what he’d done– but before he could draw it away, Jon squeezed it tightly, moving their fingers to lace together.

“Yes. I’d like that.”

Martin felt much more in his element up in the break room, the sharpness of his thoughts muffled by the sound of the boiling kettle and the familiar tear of opening a tea bag. It was easier to focus like this, start to wrap his head around what in god’s name had just happened. 

If he couldn’t feel Jon’s absentminded stare following him between the kettle and the cupboards, he would have been constantly checking over his shoulder, desperate for reassurance that it hadn’t been a very complicated mirage. 

It was absolutely surreal, and if he thought about it too hard he felt dizzy and breathless all over again, smiling stupidly and blushing helplessly down at the two cups of tea in front of him. Thank god he was so practised at making those two exact cups of tea, otherwise he would have been horribly distracted and messed something up. 

He ran a hand through his hair absentmindedly, trying to avoid thinking about the slight tremor in Jon’s voice when he asked if they could kiss again, the feeling of his hands curling into the fabric of Martin’s shirt, the brush of wings against his knuckles when Martin set his hand on Jon’s waist, kissing him until he could barely breathe.

Granted, he could barely breathe now, the hiss of the kettle doing quite a bit of work in covering that as he fought to keep his hand steady enough to pour out the cups of tea without spilling it. Already, he could smell how fragrant Jon’s hibiscus tea was when he set the kettle down, and even after just a couple of days of being apart, he realised he had missed it. 

He tapped his fingers against the counter as the tea steeped, mind crowded with the shock of pretty much every moment past when he had first seen Jon standing in the hallway. He had been startled, of course, as odd, lanky figures with gleaming eyes watching him from the darkness weren’t all that normal, but he had gotten past it pretty quickly. In fact, there was something almost… endearing about the wing-draped frame, once he learned that it was only Jon, wandering around the archives at night and looking for more work to bring home.

It was strange, of course, but there was something about the way he had sheepishly stepped into the light, shifting from an odd and harmlessly creepy shape in the doorway back into the prickly, slightly awkward Jon who assigned Martin paperwork and always forgot his umbrella. It was adorable.

God, he was a mess. He was still in his pyjamas, glasses fogged up from tea steam, and was recoiling from the violent whiplash of the morning– from packing up to get out of Jon’s way to passionately kissing him three times in the storage room. His heart was going far faster than it should have been at this hour, but he was plenty used to that– bringing Jon tea early in the morning had gotten him accustomed to it. 

This time, though, he actually had to process something, instead of just looking at Jon longingly across his desk, and that was that Jon had kissed him. Jon had kissed him, then again, then again, and then held his hand, and it had all been a bit clumsy and hopeless and Martin loved it.

He had to muffle a squeak as he let the realisation crash over him yet again like a breaking wave, overwhelming and sudden and threatening to drown him in his own excitement because Jon– well, Jon felt some way about him that wasn’t thinly veiled loathing. Not only that, it was whatever feeling drove someone to stumble and go quiet and choke on their words for a solid ten minutes before impulsively kissing him. 

It was silly and absurd and made absolutely no sense, the entire interaction copy and pasted from one of Martin’s endless daydreams about Jon and his unfairly handsome face, his voice like molasses, the way his gorgeous, spotted wings occasionally fluttered against his back, catching the light. He was yet to ask Jon to elaborate on how or why or since when he had feelings for Martin, because that was absurd, and he hadn’t gotten around to sorting out Jon’s explanation as to why he had kissed him. 

There was so much he just didn’t understand, but he didn’t have an issue with it in the slightest. There was an additional layer of giddiness of being completely, utterly stunned as to how he had ended up with his lips locked against those of someone as pretty and wonderful as Jon. 

Even the most negativity the most cynical part of his brain could muster was that there was the possibility that he was dreaming, and in a few minutes he would be woken up by his alarm, buzzing at him to get up and start packing away his things.

He felt almost triumphant over it, still biting down hard on his lip to keep from smiling as he spooned honey into Jon’s tea and a couple of sugars into his own. He was well aware that there were lots of things they needed to discuss, all the things that couldn’t be expressed or explained by just passionately kissing each other again, but he let himself ride the high just a little bit longer. 

He let himself scrap all the fears he had held onto about moving out of the archives, feeling lighter by the second as he let go of an entire future he had been thinking about, quietly dreading, because it would be without seeing Jon every day. He didn’t know what direction it would go instead, but he knew that they would both be able to talk about it while taking into account that they liked each other. 

It took quite a few deep breaths to steady himself enough to pick up the two cups of tea, trying not to let either of them spill over as he turned and began to walk them towards the table. As practised as he was, he nearly failed to keep his hand steady when he caught Jon’s eye for a fraction of a moment, before quickly diverting his attention back to the mugs in his hands. 

Jon was sitting there with his hands folded beneath the table, hair tied back and looking up at Martin with an expression like he was trying very hard to keep himself from saying something, following all of Martin’s movements as he approached the table. He was so much more tentative, careful when he was out of his element like this, sinking slightly into the weight of his wings, and Martin’s heart could barely take it. 

“I’m sorry for kissing you without asking first,” Jon blurted as soon as Martin set the tea down in front of him, hands clenching in his lap. “I wasn’t thinking straight, and it won’t happen again.”

Martin blinked as he set down his own mug across from Jon, watching as Jon’s gaze flicked from Martin’s face down into his tea, cheeks darkening slightly. There was something painfully earnest in Jon’s voice, like he had decided it was the most important thing to get cleared up first. Martin sat down in his own seat, hands wrapping around his mug, and nodded slowly.

He really hadn’t been all too bothered by it, even if it was sudden and clumsy and not at all what he had been expecting, but Martin was well aware that it was about the principle of it more than anything. He figured, all the same, that yes, that was a good thing to establish straightaway.

“That’s alright. I accept your apology,” he replied softly, feeling warmth seep into his palms from his mug of tea. “I, er- just didn’t realise. At all,” Martin added, unable to keep a laugh from bubbling up with his words, half nervous and half incredibly giddy. He could feel his cheeks burning.

“Took me a bloody long time as well,” Jon said quietly, glancing aside with dry humour playing on his lips. He was smiling , and it was subtle and awkward and looked so odd but unfairly adorable on Jon’s face, and Christ, Martin was going to die.

“Yeah?” Martin asked, trying to keep his voice level. It didn’t work all that well, but he ignored it, pushing through. “How long?”

Jon shifted, the fluff at the joint of his wings visible over his shoulder for a moment. “I, er- I sort of came to terms with it on… Friday. The day after I last- last saw you.”

Martin paused. “Day?”

“Yes, day, I– was up doing work and- and thinking about… I- work, and- and, well. You.” Jon was staring directly down into his cup of tea like it was the most interesting thing in the world, a strand of hair falling in front of his face. “And then it- it made sense a bit too quickly, I had some trouble, er- keeping it together, so I– I just tried not to run into you until I knew what I was doing. That was why I- wasn’t in until tonight. And was creeping around in the dark at five in the morning.”

Every word out of Jon’s mouth was only making Martin’s heart melt further, mug lifted to his lips to hopefully hide most of his smile– but he could feel his eyes crinkling with fondness at the edges at… everything . The sheepishness in every one of Jon’s words, the reflection of the glimmering surface of the tea in his eyes, the fact that he had been thinking about Martin– Martin! –when he was supposed to be asleep, hadn’t known how to react, and then impulsively kissed him only three days afterwards. It was so ridiculous, and endearing, and Jon that Martin couldn’t even think about suppressing his smile.

“Oh, Jon .” The words left his lips before he could help it, hopelessly adoring and still nowhere near enough to convey how happy it made him to hear.

Jon looked up, his expression some mixture of cautious and quizzical. Like he wanted to make a snide remark but wasn’t sure, and Martin swore if he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling any harder he was going to taste blood. 

“S-Sorry, I just- that’s- cute,” he stammered out, wrapping his hands tighter around his mug of tea. “It really is.”

“Oh-” Jon replied, more breath than word. He cleared his throat. “I- I see.”

“I- I mean, not the staying up bit, that isn’t healthy, but- you know.” 

Martin forced himself to stop talking before he blurted out that it was cute because it was Jon, since just because there was– something between them that was not what Martin had expected, that was not his cue to spill every hopelessly adoring thought about him.

“...Right,” Jon said quietly. “Though I will also apologise for avoiding you. Considering it did not at all help me and instead led you to think I hated you enough to want you to move out of the archives.” His brow furrowed slightly, hands curling around the mug of tea in his hands. “Though I’m sure there is… more I have done that convinced you of that.”

“Yeah.” Martin swallowed, glancing away and trying to get it through his head that Jon was apologising for… for hurting him, and even if he was dying to tell Jon that it didn’t matter, that he didn’t care now and would do anything for– for this, he knew that wasn’t a good idea. Enough of his rationality had survived to recognise that they were going to have to talk about that, past Martin willingly and instantly forgiving Jon for all of it. 

“I don’t have an excuse for it, really,” Jon continued. “Some of the time, I know I’ve been– confused, stressed, said things that were- not what I meant. But- but before that, with the follow ups, when you first arrived here–” He paused to take a sip of his tea, still not meeting Martin’s eye. “That was just me being a prick.” 

He made a slightly bitter face, but Martin doubted that it had anything to do with the cup of tea. He lapsed into a thoughtful quiet for a moment, gaze fixed on a spot on the table. Martin had half a mind to cut in and say that he understood , because he knew how hard things were when he was confused and stressed, that he was willing to forgive Jon for it. But he pressed back the urge, because he could tell that to Jon any day, under any circumstance, while Jon looked like he was thinking very hard about something he would not say at any other time.

“Sorry,” he finally exhaled, brow furrowing as he sat up straighter in his seat, wings shifting on his shoulders. He still didn’t look any more confident, just a bit stiffer, but he looked like he was trying . “I’m not very good at this.”

“No, it- that’s okay,” Martin reassured him hurriedly, trying to ignore the sound of his own heartbeat. Jon was apologising for not being able to apologise properly, expression set and shoulders drawn in as he stared down into the tea Martin had made for him, because he liked Martin. “I- I won’t pretend that I’ve never been, um- hurt by that, but recently you’ve been… a lot better. Scarily better. I wasn’t planning to leave because you had- had insulted me, or something, I just assumed you still wanted me to leave and had just gotten damn good at hiding it. Or- or that I had, um- tricked you? Into caring about me, in some way, but I know now that’s… not the case.” 

Jon scoffed, flustered awkwardness dissolving for a moment as he reached for his tea again. “What, tricked me into liking you by being friendly and patient and understanding all the time? That’s just called being likeable,” he huffed, lifting his mug to his lips.

Martin immediately realised that Jon was poorly concealing a slight flush across his cheeks with his as he processed what he had said, and Martin was doing the same. 

“Y-yeah, well, looking back it wasn’t the most rational to assume, but that sort of thing rarely is,” he added with a shaky laugh. 

Jon nodded, gaze solidifying with what looked like understanding, so suddenly sincere that it caught Martin a bit off guard. There was something else there, too, even stranger on Jon’s face, and Martin realised there was a chance it was fondness. 

Martin really hoped it was fondness. Whatever it was, it was enough to urge Martin to scrape together a bit more courage, all his usual pieces that made up his coherence scattered and strewn apart. He was just drowning in the overwhelming feeling of being presented with a situation he had dreamed about over and over, mapped out in his mind to the smallest detail, and now, he had forgotten all of it. It wasn’t even a bad feeling. It couldn’t have been, not when Jon’s face was flushed slightly as he sat across from him, slender hands wrapped around a cup of tea Martin had made for him. 

He cleared his throat, managing a steadying breath and forcing himself to meet Jon’s eye. It was nerve-wracking and his heart rate was no less controlled, but it was important. “I- I’m really glad I was wrong about it, Jon.”

Something bloomed in Jon’s eyes, stunned and pleased and flustered as he half-opened his mouth to reply, then stopped and stuttered.

“I- yes,” he replied clumsily, breaths not fitting right around his words and staring at Martin like he didn’t know what to do with compliments. It was hopelessly charming, and Martin almost felt bad for being so endeared by his slight floundering for words. “Me- Me too.”

“I mean, I’m surprised you never noticed. What with me… always being here without all that good a reason, and even- before the wings, with Tim being the way he is…?” 

Jon stared at him, and a moment after the mention of Tim his face sank with the unmistakable expression of someone realising that they had been very, very dense. Martin muffled a laugh into his palm as Jon pressed a hand over his face, doing a very poor job of covering the fact that he was still blushing. 

“Oh my god, Tim. That- that’s what he meant.”

Martin smothered another laugh that had bubbled up without his permission, his own curiosity getting the better of him as he bit back his smile as hard as he could. “By what?”

“Just– everything,” Jon replied, hand slipping to rest against his chin and revealing the embarrassed exasperation on his face. “He’s told me ‘I think he really likes you’ on more than one occasion and I just assumed he meant it- it in- you know!” Jon spluttered, gesturing at Martin. “In the way you just– put up with people who act like they don’t care about you, just because you’re- like that.”

Without giving Martin enough time to fully process what that meant, if it had been a compliment or not, Jon spoke up again, gaze searching Martin’s face thoughtfully.

“I think that’s why I, er- had trouble telling you. I just assumed you were nice to me in the way you’re nice to everyone– I mean, I’m not around much to see you talking with Tim and Sasha anymore, but you’re- you’re good to people.” Jon cleared his throat again, glancing away. “I thought you cared about me because I, um– I had a habit of making it difficult, being hard to care about, not because you… you know. Cared. But that’s something I was happy I was wrong about too.”

“Oh–” Martin squeaked, feeling his heart melting further in his chest. He was still amazed that he had managed to get this far into the conversation without tearing up or shutting down with shock or something , and it all still felt surreal– like he was watching himself talk with Jon, because he couldn’t be the one Jon was very nearly smiling at, the reason he looked such a flustered wreck. But he was, he was someone Jon had wanted to kiss, someone who Jon had apologised to, then called friendly and patient and likeable. Martin didn’t know how to deal with it, so he didn’t, he just did his best to hand it off to a more slow-working, analytical part of his mind and charging ahead before he figured what the hell was going on.

It had gotten him this far, but his breath still caught in his throat when he looked back up, taking in the slight, yet incredibly foreign vulnerability on Jon’s face.

“Jon?”

“Yeah?”

“What are- what do we do ?”  

Jon blinked, looking dumbfounded, and Martin felt his nails picking at each other beneath the table. 

“I mean– I’m really, really, happy, but what do we… do with this? You- you aren’t awake during the day, our work hours don’t overlap, and I really have been sleeping in the archives for far too long. I know I want to see you as much as- as I can, but how would… this work?”

The words stung on his tongue to say, feeling like he was trying to push Jon away, when he really wasn’t. He was trying not to– it was just that his own inner doubt was clawing at him, trying to figure out a next step, as entertaining as it might have been to relegate this as ‘that one really weird morning both Jon and Martin were sleep deprived and kissed each other in the storage room, but nothing ever came of it.’

That wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t think that was what Jon wanted, either, but neither of them had apparently ever planned for things to get this far. 

“I don’t know- I don’t know, but I, um- I’d like to try,” Jon replied after a moment of deliberation, looking only slightly like the words ‘I don’t know’ were physically wounding to him. “I know that I’m not asleep the whole day, even when I get more than enough sleep, and that it was easy enough to shift my hours last time, and I know that I want to be- be with you if you want the same–”

“I do,” Martin cut in, and Jon’s expression softened.

“Then- then I know that we want to be together, and I think it’s worth giving it a shot. You can move back into your flat but we can still– still meet with each other, can’t we? And if it doesn’t work out, if anything - be it work, something about the wings, finding time together, whatever– if we decide it isn’t what we want, you stick to your regular hours and don’t have to run into me again.”

The idea was painful to think about, but Martin knew it had to be said, nodding in understanding and trying to take in what Jon was offering. He liked the idea of being able to at least move back into his homey flat, as much as he had been content sleeping in the archives, but not losing Jon. Being closer to Jon, not just out of intentionally lingering before he went to sleep to at least be able to talk to him, no, Jon was proposing something more– as well as giving him a safe way out if it didn’t feel right. It made Martin feel faint all over again, and he was breathless by the time he had found a reply.

“Alright. I want– to try that, too. I think it really could work,” he said softly. 

“Good. I’m- good.” Jon traced the rim of his mug again, before folding his hands in his lap.  “And- and, maybe, for scheduling things, I could call you later this evening? I know it’s- it’s important, but it’s an odd time for me right now, and I think I need some rest. It’ll be easier to sort out then,” he added, words slightly rushed. 

“Oh!” Martin blinked, trying not to let himself overthink the concept of Jon calling him to talk to him, to ask when they could meet up. “Yeah, of- of course, I almost forgot that it being six in the morning doesn’t mean the same thing to you. Right- a call, this evening.” He looked up to see that same hopefulness across Jon’s face, and smiled. “I’ll look forward to it.”

Jon nodded steadily, and Martin caught another subtle quirk of his lips, and somehow the fact that it was so brief, just ghosting across his expression, made Martin feel that much more glad that he had caught. It had been for him , because Jon liked him, and wanted to be together, and it was too much for him to handle. 

As if completely oblivious to the effect he was having on Martin, just how strong of a grip he had around Martin’s poor, romantic heart, Jon got to his feet, folding his arms.

 “Good. I, er- I really should go get my coat from my office before Tim and Sasha arrive, I didn’t realise how long we’d been here.”

“Oh, yes, of course, go do that, I, er-” Martin swallowed back the lump in his throat. “I could walk you down to the station if you’d like, though I would certainly underst-”

“Yes,” Jon cut him off, voice raspy. “I would really like that.”

Martin let a smile bloom across his face again, not even bothering to try to bite it back. He was allowed to look at Jon stupidly fondly, he didn’t have to hide it, and he was going to take advantage of that privilege. 

“Okay.  I’ll– I’ll clean up here then meet you on the front steps.”

“Right.”

When Jon broke eye contact, he seemed to remember how to move a bit more naturally, turning on heel with a slight flutter of his wings. It was easy to imagine he was just Jon, who was cold and didn’t think much of Martin, staring straight ahead and walking away.

Or it would have been, if he didn’t catch the slight, casual shift of Jon’s hand, subtly moving to pinch the skin on his opposite arm as he left the room.

Martin loved him.

He turned around to face the break room counter again and clamped a hand over his mouth to keep from reacting unprofessionally, namely preventing himself from making any undignified squeaks of excitement. It took a good ten seconds and some deep breaths to console himself, but finally he collected himself enough to start actually cleaning up the room. 

He could talk about it more when he was walking with Jon, and could think about it more while he finished packing up– maybe having something to think about would make him more productive. Martin really, really doubted it, with the state he was in, but that was fine. He couldn’t bring himself to care.