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Basira is settled, for the most part. Melanie is back at her desk, although Martin doesn’t think she’s doing anything that looks remotely like work. He doesn’t know where Tim went, but maybe that’s for the best. Give him space. After everything they’ve just learned, he probably needs it.
And Jon—
Down the hall, Martin hears Jon’s office door squeak open and shut.
He must be back from his— can you call it a meeting? Or was it more like a… hostage negotiation?— with Elias. Back, for however long, from wherever he’d been hiding out since Leitner (Jurgen bloody Leitner!) was killed.
Except. No, not since Leitner was killed, Martin corrects himself. Since Elias killed him.
Fucking hell.
Martin forgets about Basira and Melanie and Tim and gets up from his desk, out into the hall, gives a perfunctory knock before he pushes Jon’s office door open. The hinges have always been creaky and loud, but even with their decrepit groaning, Jon doesn’t even look at him as Martin comes in and shuts the door behind him.
Jon’s head is slumped onto his arms, folded in front of him on his desk. The overhead light is off, the room illuminated burnt honey-orange by just his tiny desk lamp. Martin might think him asleep, but even from here he can read the tension in every line of his body, the stiffness with which he holds himself.
“Jon?”
Jon’s head snaps up, blinking at Martin, eyes gone shock-round. “Martin,” he breathes, “ah. H-hello.”
“Hey.” Martin puts on a smile that he hopes looks sincere. He really is happy Jon’s back, even though the sight of him makes his stomach churn uneasily. “B-been a while, hasn’t it?”
Jon’s brows pinch together, but then he sighs, and, astonishingly, he manages something like a smile back. “I suppose it has.” He goes to prop his chin up in his hands, only to wince, and— yeah. The bandage. He’s hurt. “Been, ah. Been a bit busy.”
But Martin’s not even thinking about small talk anymore. He stopped thinking of anything else the second he saw that flash of weary pain flit across Jon’s face. “Have you had that looked at?”
Jon tilts his head. “Hm?”
“Your hand.” Martin waves his own hand towards Jon. “T-that cut on your neck.”
“Ah.” Jon’s fingers brush lightly over his neck, and he winces again, mouth twisting unpleasantly. “N-no, it’s, er. This is… new.”
“Right.” Martin remembers the look on that detective’s face. How proud she’d looked when she said that one was me, and feels vaguely dizzy. “I don’t suppose you’d let me take you to see a doctor?”
Jon makes a face. “N-no, I don’t— I don’t need that. It, it’s not bad.”
“Not bad?” Martin shakes his head. “Jon, you’ve got a great big cut in the middle of your throat!”
“I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration,” Jon counters. “It’s not that big. And it’s not deep. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Martin echoes numbly. “Jesus, Jon—”
“It isn’t. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Well I’m going to, anyway.”
“Well don’t,” Jon snaps. He glares at Martin, but it’s half-hearted. There’s no heat, just panicked defensiveness, and he looks away a second later. “It doesn’t even hurt.”
Which is a lie, and Martin knows it. He can see the way Jon hurts in the way he holds himself so rigidly, the tension he carries just sitting in his desk chair.
Martin sighs. “Okay. Look. If I can’t take you to a doctor, can I at least help you get patched up?”
“You— you don’t need to do that.”
“I know I don’t need to, Jon. That isn’t the point.”
“Maybe it should be! I-it isn’t your job to…” He shakes his head. “It’s not your job.”
Martin stares at him. Is that what Jon thinks? What he still thinks? After everything that’s happened this last year? He doesn’t expect it to sting so much.
“Right, well.” Jon clears his throat, pushes back his chair and gets to his feet. “If that’s everything—” He crosses around his desk, frowns when Martin stands in his way, blocking his exit. “—I-I should really be— I think I should be going…”
Incredulous, Martin gapes at him. “Going?”
Jon nods stiffly. “Yes.”
“You just got here! Where on earth do you need to go?”
“Back… Back out…” Jon gestures vaguely at the door. “There’s still things I need to— I-I have things to—”
“No.” Martin can’t take it anymore. Somewhere inside him, he feels his last ounce of resolve splinter and snap like a cheap matchstick. “No! Jon, you— You’re not going anywhere! Not like this! You’re covered in dirt and bandages and Daisy cut your neck open, for god’s sake! I-if you won’t let me take you to A-and-E, you can at least stay here long enough for me to put a plaster on your knife wound!”
Jon looks a bit startled, standing in front of him and staring like he’s never seen him before. And… then it’s like all of his strings sever at once.
His shoulders sag — not a loose slump of relaxing tension, but more like the ragged bitterness of pure defeat, slumping dejectedly forward without the willpower to keep himself upright. Martin barely has time to register what’s going on before Jon’s falling into his chest, collapsing against him like a dying star or a boneless puppet.
Except he’s not boneless at all. This close Martin can tell he’s so tense his whole body is shaking, even as he hides his face in the soft cotton of Martin’s sweatshirt, the fingers of his bandaged hand curling inward where it rests gingerly on Martin’s shoulder, the other twisting into the fabric of Martin’s jumper.
Martin’s breath catches. It dawns on him that maybe shouting at a scared, injured man wasn’t, exactly, his kindest moment. “Oh, oh I didn’t mean to—”
But Jon shakes his head, jerky and emphatic enough to cut Martin off without even a word, the grip on his jumper going white-knuckled tight as he clings desperately. Martin exhales slowly and deeply, shock fading to make way for something more familiar. He knows what to do with this: even though this is ostensibly a situation so off-the-rails it hardly feels like real life, he knows what comes next.
Gently, like he’s handling a wounded fawn, he brings his arms up, wraps them tentatively around Jon’s shaking shoulders. He doesn’t know what kind of nightmares, exactly, Jon’s seen this week. Doesn’t know what kind of secret hurts Jon is hiding. He just knows it can’t be nice, given he walked in here looking like the soul survivor in a zombie movie, so Martin won’t make it worse by treating his body indelicately.
For as long as Martin has known him, Jon has been, for the most part, a very contained man. He’s petty and a little bit of a prick and he shouts a lot when he’s scared, but he still carries himself like he’s trying to stay detached and dignified. He needs people to believe he knows what he’s doing.
And even though it’s been ages since Martin’s actually believed that façade, he’s still nice enough to look the other way and pretend not to notice when Jon sniffles and hiccups against him, shoulders shaking in a more pronounced way.
Martin sighs softly into Jon’s hair, runs his hand up and down his spine. When Jon just presses further into him, nosing into the neckline of his sweater, Martin tightens his hold. Not a bruising grip, but a secure one: he’s got him, he’s not going to let go, and he needs to be sure Jon knows it, too.
If he could, Martin would hold him like this forever, tuck him safely away from all the things that seem so, so intent on hurting him.
They stay like that for a long time.
Too long for any kind of deniability. Not that there was much of that to begin with, but. It’s hard to pretend things are normal between them when Jon spends entire minutes curled miserably into Martin’s chest.
When Jon finally pulls back, he goes almost reluctantly, swaying on his feet like even his own weight is too much to bear. He digs his fingers into his eyes, sighing wetly, Martin pretends to think it’s for a headache or something, not to wipe away the evidence of tears.
“Sorry,” Jon rasps, “I— that. That was… very unprofessional.”
“Jon.” Martin reaches out, puts his hands on Jon’s shoulders. “We’re literally incapable of quitting. At least two of our coworkers are actual hostages. Our boss framed you for murder. I don’t think professionalism is much of a concern anymore.”
To his surprise, that actually startles a surprised huff of laughter out of Jon. “I suppose you make a point there.”
Martin smiles, but it feels a little sad. “I’m just glad you’re back… for now, I guess.”
He doesn’t say I’m glad you’re okay, because Jon doesn’t look like he’s anywhere even nearing the vicinity of okay right now. But he’s glad Jon is here, alive and solid in front of him.
Jon just hums, looking down at the floor.
“So can I take a look at your, uh. Can I take a look at you now?”
Jon sighs, and this time when his shoulders slump it does look more like an easing of tension. “… Yes. Yes, okay.”
“Okay.” Martin squeezes his shoulders briefly before he pulls his hands back. “Stay here, and I’ll go get the first aid kit.”
Jon just nods, so Martin flashes him an awkward thumbs up and goes. Outside the office, the hall is quiet. Through the half-ajar door into the assistant’s office, Martin can hear Melanie and Basira chatting about something, but he doesn’t stop to try and make sense of their soft voices. He doesn’t want to draw their attention right now; there’s a little ball of fierce protectiveness smoldering in his chest like hot lead, and the last thing he wants is for anyone to go near Jon when he’s vulnerable like this.
So he pads quietly but quickly down the hall, slips into the break room without making a sound. (He perfected the art of moving silently through a space when he still lived with his mum. He’s quite good at being invisible, sometimes.)
The archives have always had a surprisingly well-stocked first aid kit — although… the more Martin learns about Gertrude and the Institute as a whole, the more he thinks it actually makes a lot of sense. Still, it’s heavy as he hoists it down from the cabinet above the fridge in the break room and sets it on the counter. While he’s here, he also sets the kettle on. Jon seems like he needs something to calm his nerves right now, and all Martin can really offer is tea.
He fixes a cup of lavender chamomile with a heaping spoonful of honey, and fills a bowl with water from the tap. He stuffs the first aid kit under his arm with a handful of clean hand towels, carefully maneuvers back to Jon’s office with water in his left hand and tea clung haphazardly to three fingers so he still has a hand free to let himself back in.
Jon is sat, hunched over his desk, face buried in his good hand with the other stretched out on the wood in front of him, eyes peeking out over his fingers and following Martin inside. He looks small. He looks tired.
“Made you some tea,” Martin says softly, setting the mug down in front of Jon, who shifts his gaze to stare at the mug like it’s the first time he’s ever seen one before. “Not poisoned. I promise.”
Jon frowns, almost petulant. “I know.” Still, he wraps his good hand around the mug, slips two fingers from the other into the handle and pulls it close.
While he sips his tea, Martin clears away a stack of papers and tapes and sets out the water, towels, and the first aid kit, coming round Jon’s desk, taking a seat on the corner of it so he can get a good look at Jon. He rummages through the kit and pulls out what he needs. He’s not… an expert, but he’s worked enough food service jobs to know basic first aid. You see a lot of cuts and burns in the kitchen when everyone is underpaid, overworked, and exhausted enough to drop.
Gently, Martin taps two fingers on Jon’s wrist. “Can I see?”
Jon pauses. Slowly, he sighs, sets his tea back down, and nods. Martin carefully pulls Jon’s bandaged hand into his, turns it over this way and that, hissing sympathetically. The bandages on his palm are dirty and stained red-brown with drying blood.
“What… What happened here?”
“A burn,” is all Jon says, shrugging.
Martin hums. “Ouch.”
“It’s fine,” Jon says passively. “It’s… not as bad as it could’ve been. Only second degree.”
“Only second degree.”
“It could be worse,” Jon emphasizes defensively.
“Still.” Martin looks up at him, trying not to let the cavern of wounded sorrow living inside his chest show. “I doubt it’s fun to deal with.”
Jon’s voice is shrinking, going on the defensive. “It’ll heal.”
Martin frowns, searching Jon’s face. “But it’s going to hurt until it does,” he offers, gently, “and you should still take care of it.”
Jon looks away. He swallows, muscles in his jaw twitching stiffly, but doesn’t say anything.
“Right.” Martin pulls the first aid kit towards him. “D’you mind if I change these bandages now?”
“Go ahead.”
Martin uncovers his wounds as gently as he can. It looks somehow better and worse than he was expecting: Jon’s palm is covered in shiny red blisters, licking up onto his fingers like flames eating up the side of a house. Some of them have burst and been rubbed raw, dried blood keeping the bandage clinging to them until Martin wets it with the water he brought.
He looks up at Jon, but his face is nearly impassive. Only the faint crease between his brows gives him away.
“I’m sorry if this hurts,” Martin tells him, “It’ll be over as fast as I can.”
“It’s fine,” Jon grinds out. “I-I understand.”
Martin’s still sorry, but he gets back to it. He doesn’t want to draw this out, even with comforts and apologies. He carefully peels off the old bandage, tosses it in the bin by Jon’s desk. “Okay, I’m going to wash it now.”
Jon nods, doesn’t say anything. Martin silently wets a washcloth and gingerly starts wiping the dirt from around Jon’s hand, between his fingers where the burn doesn’t reach, even doing his best to clear it from beneath his fingernails. He isn’t sure he wants to know where all the soil came from; maybe the same thing that rubbed Jon’s palms raw and angry.
Instead of dwelling on all the horrible potentialities, Martin quietly dabs away dried blood and spreads antibiotic cream over his palm, grimaces in sympathy with Jon’s sharp, pained inhale. “Sorry, sorry,” he mumbles, “that’s it, we’re done. Just need to re-wrap it now.”
He takes out a non-adhesive bandage pad and cuts it to a size that’ll fit on Jon’s palm, wraps fresh gauze around Jon’s hand, up each of his fingers, as careful as he can be. He tapes down the gauze at Jon’s wrist, thumb gently brushing away small creases in the fabric, rubbing a delicate half-circle over his pulse point. Jon’s breath shudders, a shiver going through him, and Martin jerks back, startled.
He looks up at Jon, tries to search his face for any pain. “Did I hurt you?”
Faintly, Jon shakes his head. “No. No, you didn’t.”
“Good.” Martin smiles shakily, relaxing again. “I’m gonna do your neck now, okay?”
“Yes,” Jon’s voice quiets, wavers but doesn’t crack, “okay.”
There’s a moment of hesitation. Jon meets Martin’s eyes, then looks away again just as quickly, clearing his throat awkwardly.
“S-should I, uh. Should I stand? Or…”
“No, no.” Martin shakes his head. He clasps his hands in his lap, then unclasps them because that’s probably a weird thing to do. “Stay there, just… hm. Maybe scooch in a bit?”
Jon does, pulling his chair up close to the desk, and Martin turns where he’s sat so he’s facing him head on.
“Here, um, can you…” Hesitantly, Martin taps his thumb and index finger on Jon’s jaw, tilts his chin ever-so-slightly upwards, and Jon lets him, warm and dutifully pliable.
Martin… Martin’s not sure he’s been this close to him.
But he has a job to do, so.
No distractions.
… Even if those distractions have wide brown eyes and messy stubble that just makes his sharp jawline even more cutting.
“Perfect.” Martin smiles mechanically. “Just stay like that, if you can?”
Jon exhales slowly. “Alright.”
Martin wets another hand towel, sets his fingers gingerly on one side of Jon’s neck and dabs at the dirt around the wound, gently cleans dried blood from his skin. Martin bites his bottom lip, a rough spike of anger bubbling up somewhere behind his ribs. He doesn’t know how anyone can look at Jon and feel so proud to have hurt him like this.
He can’t imagine ever wanting to treat Jon anything but gently.
“I-I’m sorry I shouted,” Martin murmurs while he works. “E-earlier.”
“It’s fine, Martin.”
Martin frowns. “I just… I just worry. I-I didn’t mean to u-upset you.”
“You didn’t,” Jon says tiredly, letting out a long, slow sigh through his nose. “It’s just been a… a very long day.”
“Yeah. Really seems like it has,” Martin says softly, avoiding Jon’s eyes. Setting the washcloth aside, he takes an antiseptic wipe out of the first aid kit. “This might sting.”
“I’ll survive,” Jon says, even though Martin sees his fingers curl in his lap.
“I’ll be as gentle as I can,” Martin promises.
He drags the antiseptic wipe across the length of the cut, going slow enough to be tender but quick enough that the sting doesn’t linger. His eyes are closed when Martin looks up at him, so he makes one, and then two more quick passes, and then he drops his hands and leans out of Jon’s space.
“Okay. Done.”
Jon’s eyes blink slowly open. “Ah.”
“I’m just going to cover it up now.”
Jon just nods. “Right.”
Martin rifles through the first aid kit again. The cut is too long for a plaster, so he opts for a couple of butterfly bandages to hold it shut and gauze to keep it safe.
“Here.” He holds the gauze up to Jon’s neck, touch lighter than a hummingbird. “Will you hold this for me while I get it started?”
“Oh, er. Y-yes. Of course.”
He reaches up, and when he’s fumbling to take hold of the gauze, his fingers bump into Martin’s, hands knocking together. Martin has had a lot of practice pretending Jon doesn’t make his heart flutter, but he can still feel his cheeks heating.
Martin takes a breath and unspools the gauze, wrapping it around the back of Jon’s neck, carefully brushing his hair out of the way so it won’t get caught. He doesn’t want to wrap too tight— it’s Jon’s neck, for god’s sake, and fuck, this could’ve been so much worse, he could’ve— but still keep it secure, until he gets back round to where he started.
“You can— I’ve got it—”
“Ah. Right.”
Jon pulls his hand away so Martin can loop the gauze around again. When Martin decides it’s probably covered enough, he grabs the scissors and brings them up to cut off the gauze, and then—
With a sudden jerk, Jon flinches back, breath catching.
Martin startles, too. He looks at Jon’s stricken face, follows his eye line down at the blade in his hands, the metal glinting angrily back up at him in the light, and his eyes go very wide.
“Oh, god. Shit, I—” He pulls his hands away like he’s the one who’s been burned. “I’m— I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking—”
Jon looks up at him, his cheeks staining very dark. “Uh, i-it’s, it’s fine, s-sorry—”
“No, no, Jon, please. I—” Martin takes a breath, bites the inside of his cheek. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for. I should’ve— I really wasn’t thinking.” He shows Jon his hands, moves deliberately. “Jon, I’m going to cut the gauze now, okay?”
Jon looks down like a scolded child, ashamed and a little bit sad. “Yes, that’s okay.”
Martin goes slower this time. With a warning, Jon doesn’t seem too alarmed to have something sharp near his neck, but Martin still sets the scissors aside as fast as possible. He tacks down the loose end with gauze tape, sets everything back on the desk, hands finally empty.
“All done,” he says gently, giving Jon his best attempt at a smile.
Jon quietly raises his hand up to touch the bandage wrapped around his neck, running a finger along it until he must hit the part that hurts and drops his hand with a pinched frown.
Martin scrunches his nose up. “M-maybe don’t, uh. Don’t poke at your knife wounds?”
Jon’s eyes slip back to him, and then, miraculously, they soften, his face smoothing out as he actually huffs out a quiet laugh, lips ticking upwards. “Sound advice, thank you, Martin.”
This time, when Martin smiles, it’s real. “Always happy to help.”
Jon’s smile falls, but not… not in a sad way? Martin sees something genuine and honey-sweet spark in his dark, lamp-lit eyes, and thinks they might be talking about more than just a joke, now. “I… I appreciate it. Really.”
“I really am glad to help,” Martin tells him, his own voice going soft around the edges. “I just…” What can he even say? That he just wants Jon to be okay? That he’s been so worried it keeps him up at night, tossing and turning as icy fear grips him so tight it feels like his ribcage is constricting inside his chest? “A-anything I can do.”
Jon hums half-heartedly. Maybe neither of them really know how to say what they really want to.
So instead Martin says, “Do you actually need to leave again?”
“Oh, I…” Jon blinks. “W-well, I-I should. Hm. I still have things I need to… I-I have a lot to, to figure out.”
Martin frowns. “Can you at least stay till you’ve finished your tea?”
Jon opens his mouth. He flounders for a second, shuts his mouth again, and finally nods slowly, a hint of that small smile flitting back onto his face, and he pulls his mug back toward him. “That… Yes, I can do that.”
“Perfect.” Martin pushes himself up off his corner of the desk, starts to collect everything and put it back into the first aid kit.
“Oh. Um. A-are you—” He looks down into his mug. Martin watches one of his fingers run a slow, gentle path up and down the ceramic. “Y-you’re going?”
“I.. I was going to get out of your hair?”
“I… Y-you can, er.” Jon shakes his head. “You can stay. I-if you’d like, that is. You don’t… have to.”
Martin would very much like. “Okay, yeah. I’ll stay.”
So instead he pulls up the other chair that Jon keeps in here for live statements, scoots it around the side of the desk so it feels less like some kind of business transaction and more like… just two people spending time together. Because they want to. Because they haven’t seen each other in awhile, and it’s nice to catch up and talk.
As much as he may want to, Martin can’t keep Jon safe forever. But he can keep him company after a hard day, can be someone Jon can lean on, and… and maybe they can pretend that that really is enough, for now.