Work Text:
Martin’s not really sure why he does it.
It’s just... he’s already lying about everything else. With a fake Master’s degree, fake employment history, and a fake birthday a whole seven years earlier than when he was actually born, it’s not going to matter that the name he writes on his CV isn’t his legal name.
It is not, strictly speaking, a name he's even really used before. The only person in his life who calls him Martin is, well… himself. He hasn’t even worked up the nerve to broach the idea of a GIC referral to his GP yet, so even his doctor doesn’t know him as Martin.
His mum doesn’t even know, yet. The most he’s had the courage to ask of her is a shortened version of his birth name that sounds marginally more gender-neutral, and even that she hadn’t liked; had wrinkled her nose and frowned when he first told her.
(Someday he’ll have to tell her. He knows that. But it’s not like she ever talks to anyone from his work so for now it’s safe to call himself Martin on his applications and not have to worry about it.)
And. Well. It feels nice, to type ‘Martin K. Blackwood’ and see it there in what he hopes is a professional-looking serif font. (He doesn’t even know what the K stands for, yet. It just feels more grown up to have a middle initial; like if he puts it there, they might not question when he walks in looking like a teenage boy at best.) He sort of likes it, to have this one thing just for him. He’s hiding almost everything else about his life going into this job hunt, but he doesn’t have to hide this.
So he sends off his CV and doesn’t expect much to come of it.
But then… But then three days later he gets a call. It’s the receptionist at the Magnus Institute, asking for ‘Mr. Blackwood,’ telling him the head of the whole bloody place would like him to see him for an interview, and does he have time to come in tomorrow afternoon?
He says yes before he can even think about it.
They’ll figure him out, there’s no way they won’t. They’ll figure out he’s not a highly educated parapsychologist (is that even a real thing you can study? Is that even a real word?) when they do a background check and find out he’s only 19, or they’ll look at him and clock him and whatever old stuffy white guy runs the place decides he doesn’t want to hire some desperate poor trans kid, actually.
But he’s got literally nothing to lose, and the position pays well over minimum wage, so he goes anyway, thinking it’ll be a disaster until he floats out of Elias Bouchard’s office an hour later with a newly signed employment contract for the library and knees shaking like he’s just run a marathon.
It could still wind up being a mistake. Could still wind up blowing up in his face. They could still choose to run a background check on him, could still figure him out.
It doesn’t feel real, but for now, he has this: he has a job that will pay him enough to keep up with his mother’s treatment, enough to keep the heat on and their bellies full and a roof comfortably over their heads. He has a place to go where people will only ever know him as Martin (outside of maybe payroll, he figures, who’ll probably need his legal name so they can sign his checks to the right person); where people will call him Martin or Mr. Blackwood everyday because they’ll just never know to call him anything else.
For once, there is something good on the horizon, and Martin clings to it like a glowing ember nestled in a nook beside his heart.
—
Tim’s the first person he tells in the archives.
Martin is not, historically speaking, very good at making friends. He’s never had that many. A few work friends here or there, people he’s friendly with but never sees outside the job, maybe some people back in school before he dropped out that he’d called ‘friends’ at the time but feel less and less like that the more time and distance he puts between then and now.
But Tim is… Tim is so easy to talk to, in a way people usually aren’t for Martin. He’s fun to be around, and he’s kind, and charming, and Martin feels safe when they’re together.
So—
“I lied on my CV,” Martin blurts, over drinks one warm September night a few months after they start as Archival Assistants, on one of the rare occasions that Sasha isn’t joining them and it’s just him and Tim.
“You—” Tim blinks at him. He sets his fancy IPA down and gives Martin his full attention. “What?”
“I lied,” Martin repeats, slumping back into their booth. “I, I faked the whole thing. I made up all these insane credentials ‘cause I was just. Really desperate, an-and for some reason Elias believed me.”
Tim raises his eyebrows, mouth ticking up cautiously. “For real?”
Martin nods.
Tim grins. He looks proper delighted right now, which. Martin’s not sure if that’s good or bad. “And you’ve been here how long again?”
“Uh.” Martin shrugs, looks down at his pint glass and runs a finger around the rim. “A-about nine years, now.”
“And no one’s figured it out?”
Martin shakes his head. “I mean, sometimes I think Elias suspects? J-just, the way he looks at me, like—”
Tim grimaces. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
Martin nods. “Yeah! But… he’s never said anything, so I guess he never bothered to actually check?”
“Huh.” Tim nods. “So, what? When you say you lied, do you mean—”
“I mean I never even finished my A-levels,” Martin admits, sighing deeply. “Much less any kind of university.”
“Wow. Wow.” Tim laughs, but it doesn’t sound like it’s at Martin’s expense. “That’s… God, that’s impressive.”
“Impressive?”
“Very!” He practically beams. “You’ve managed to hold onto this job for almost a decade. Especially since you were—” Martin watches him do some quick mental math. “What, sixteen? When you started?”
“Nineteen,” Martin corrects. “I-I dropped out when I was seventeen. Did a few years in, like. Food service and stuff, before.”
“Still. You were a teenager acting at having a master’s degree and no one caught on?” He laughs brightly. “That takes some serious chutzpah. Jon went to bloody Oxford and even he’s floundering.”
“Well.” Martin shrugs. “So am I.”
“Not anymore than the rest of us,” Tim tells him, and good god he actually sounds so painfully sincere it makes Martin’s heart clench. “Jon’s just known me and Sasha longer, so you… spook him, I think.”
Martin snorts. “Yeah, right.”
“No, you do,” Tim insists, waving his hands emphatically. “Believe it or not, Jon is not exactly a… a big people-person. He gets… nervous around new people.”
Martin wants to scoff. Jon? Nervous because of him? That seems laughable, but… Tim’s been Jon’s friend for awhile now. A few years, right? He has to know him pretty well. Still, though: “Well, he doesn’t have to be such a dick about it.”
“Maybe not,” Tim relents. He sips at his beer, a considering look passing over his face. “So… You’re definitely not actually thirty-five, huh?”
Martin makes a face, avoiding Tim’s eyes. “Twenty-eight. A-as of last month.”
“So the ice cream trip was your twenty-eighth?”
“Mhmm.”
“Jeez.” Tim shakes his head fondly. “Any other bombshells you want to drop on me?”
Martin opens his mouth, and. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, right? “Ah. I’m, um. I’m trans?”
“Oh.” And, bless him, he actually looks surprised. Which maybe shouldn’t delight Martin so much, but. Four years on hormones and he still gets ‘ma’am’ or ‘miss’ in the shops half the time. The idea that Tim had looked at him and not even thought she for a second is… gratifying. Slowly, Tim’s face smooths out, softening around the edges, and this time when he smiles it’s syrupy-sweet and soft enough to make Martin melt. “Nice. Cool. Thanks for telling me.”
Martin looks down at his hands on the table, feeling himself smiling, too. Aside from his doctors, this is… the first time he’s said it out loud to another person. The first time he’s said it to someone who matters. The first time it has weight to it. Even his mum found out in a letter he wrote to her after she moved into the care home, because he knew he’d get tongue-tied and never admit it if he tried to do it to her face.
“Yep,” Martin says softly, “‘course. And, um. You won’t tell anyone, right?”
“Oh, hey, no. I wouldn’t out you to our coworkers.”
“No, I meant— I mean, thanks, I guess?— But I was talking about— about my CV?”
“Oh, Oh, right! Right.” Tim waves his hand at Martin. “Yeah, yeah, don’t worry. My lips are sealed.”
“I can’t lose my job, Tim,” Martin stresses, fingertips pressing hard on the tabletop that’s half-between them, half in front of them where they sit not-quite across but not-quite next to each other.
“I won’t,” Tim tells him, squeezing his forearm reassuringly. “I swear.”
“Not even Sasha.”
“Not even Sasha.”
“Or Jon.”
“Of course not Jon.”
Martin nods, exhaling slowly. “Thanks.”
Tim smiles again, just for him. He always has a nice smile, but Martin likes them best when they’re like this, a little shaky and crooked. More real. “Of course,” he says, like he really means it.
—
There are a lot of things that really, really suck about living in the basement of your workplace.
Martin could make a list. A long one. Long enough that it wouldn’t fit on one sheet of paper, probably, even in 10pt, single-spaced Times New Roman.
Somewhere, buried close to the top (but probably not breaking top five) is that fact there’s just no good place for him to do his T shots.
So far, Martin hasn’t had to do one. He only does them every two weeks, and he’d been lucky enough to have enough supplies to keep on track while he was besieged in his apartment. His last shot was about three days before Prentiss abandoned her sentry outside his door and he managed to flee to the Institute.
But he can’t put it off forever, and as loath as he is to admit it, this situation is looking less and less temporary as the days drag on. It doesn’t seem like he’s going anywhere anytime soon.
So, late on a Friday night after everyone’s gone home for the evening, Martin bites the bullet and pulls out all the supplies he’ll need for his injection.
His first instinct is to just hole up in document storage and get it over with. It’s safe in there; sealed against threats, guaranteed to be worm-free, with a door that shuts and locks securely. But it’s so dusty and cramped, there must be 50 years worth of unchecked mess. Somehow, it just doesn’t feel like the most hygienic environment to be sticking himself with needles. The bathroom is also shucked aside for similar reasons. It’s one of the cleaner public toilets Martin’s seen in his life, but it’s still a public toilet, and that makes his nose wrinkle.
The main office is too exposed; sitting out there makes him feel like he’s got someone staring down the back of his neck, tracking his every move, and. Well. It’s spooky, okay? He just doesn’t want to do it out there! So sue him, he’s a little creeped out.
He thinks about sneaking into Jon’s office, but dismisses that idea right off the bat. Just… no. No thanks! Not even going to entertain that possibility, actually.
He finally settles on the little break room down the hall, the one no one else in the Institute uses. It’s almost cozy after hours like this: there’s a kitchenette, an old couch in the corner, and a table with a handful of chairs circled around it.
In his boxers and a ratty sleep shirt, Martin sets all his things out on the table, pulling up one of the chairs. It’s March and the archives are poorly insulated and every shadow makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, but the routine is familiar, at least. It’s always awkward, but at least in this Martin knows what he’s doing.
When he’s done, he puts a plaster on his thigh, heaves a sigh, flops back in his chair—
And immediately snaps his head back up when he hears a noise from the door.
There— standing in the threshold like the world’s scrawniest deer in headlights, shirt wrinkled and hair tousled like he’s coming from a night of rough tossing and turning— is goddamn fucking Jonathan Sims. Jonathan Sims who is his boss and mostly hates him and talks like a Tory, seeing Martin in his boxers for the second time in as many weeks, at the doorway of the break room at nearly midnight on a Friday night.
Oh, god.
Martin is moving this up near the top of his Awful Things list. How much did Jon see? Does he know what he’s even seeing? For some godforsaken reason, the first thing that springs out of Martin’s mouth is: “I— I’m not doing drugs, or anything.”
Jon blinks. If nothing else, surprise seems to unstick the rigid tension in his shoulder. “I know, Martin, I—”
“That’s not what this— This is just—”
“Martin,” Jon cuts in, “I know what this is. It’s fine. You’re fine.”
“Right.” Martin nods numbly. “Right.”
Jon clears his throat, looks down at the carpet, scuffing his toe on the carpet. “Right.”
It’s fine, Martin tells himself. Everything is fine. It’s not like Jon has ever given any indication of being transphobic. He’s never given Martin reason to think it would be a problem. And really, he’s been very accommodating and — dare he say it — kind to Martin since this whole Prentiss thing went down. As hard as it is for Martin to admit when he’s (ugh) wrong, Tim maybe had a point when he said Jon honestly is just nervous.
Martin sighs. “Jon?”
Jon looks back up at him. “Hm?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I— work here?”
“No, I mean—” Martin snorts. “Right now. At midnight.”
“Working.”
Well, okay. Nervous or no, brick walls have got nothing on Jon Sims. “Why are you working at midnight on a Friday?”
Jon frowns. It almost looks like a grimace. No, it’s definitely a grimace, Martin decides. “Lost track of time. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Feeling a bit bold, Martin raises his eyebrows. “I do kind of live here.”
“Yes, well.” Jon sighs deeply. “I’ll be heading out soon. Just came for… to see if there was anything to eat before I left.”
“There’s crisps and biscuits in the cabinet above the fridge,” Martin tells him, secretly hoping Jon doesn’t want any so he can put off going to the store a little longer. “Or I think Tim left his sandwich in there.”
Jon hums. He crosses the room, pulls the refrigerator door open, and pulls out a parchment-wrapped parcel with TIM scrawled on the side in big bold letters, underlined, thrice. Grudgingly, he looks up at Martin. “Don’t tell Tim.”
“Do you want him to blame me?” Martin asks. “I’m the one who’s staying here twenty-four-seven.”
Jon shrugs. “Just tell him it was Sasha. I’m sure he’d believe you.”
Martin opens his mouth, closes it again. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Jon gives him a look. Like, duh, of course. It’s a look Martin’s seen before, but this time it doesn’t feel mean. It almost feels like they’re in on the same joke.
Jon turns his stolen dinner over once or twice in his hands, holds it up to inspect it, apparently deems it good enough. “Well.” He sighs again. Chronically weary, this man. Even when he doesn’t work till midnight. “I should… I’ll, uh. L-leave you to it.”
“Oh.” Yeah, right. It’s nearly midnight. Jon’s got a bed and a weekend and a home waiting for him outside of this place. Martin already thought he was alone here, there’s no reason to be disappointed. “Yeah. ‘Course. Enjoy your sandwich.”
“Mm. I will.” He turns, crosses the break room. Stops, just on the threshold, shoulders hunching. “I, uh…” He doesn’t look at Martin, but the awkward earnestness in his voice is still a sudden shock. “I-I know you, um. Probably didn’t want me to, er. To know, um." He gestures to the table. "So. I-I won’t tell anyone else.”
“Oh. Oh! Um.” Martin looks down at his hands, twists his fingers into the hem of his shirt. “Thanks. Tim and Sasha already know, though.”
“Ah. Well… I-I won’t say anything to, t-to Elias, or anyone, then.”
Martin laughs, startled. He’s pretty sure Elias already knows, too, just based on the fact Martin had walked in here the day of his interview looking like a teenage girl playing dress up in her dad’s old suit and then gone through puberty in what he hopefully still believes were Martin’s early 30’s, but it’s a nice thought, and something about the sincerity of it softens Martin all that much more. “You’d better not.”
And that makes Jon huff, too. “My lips are sealed. Have a good weekend, Martin.”
“Yeah.” Martin nods after him. “You, too, Jon.”
Jon raises his hand in an aborted half-wave, and then he’s gone. Martin listens to his footsteps fading away down the hall. When the lift doors ding shut behind him, he drops his face into his hands, shoulders slumping.
Okay, all things considered, that could’ve gone worse. It’s kind of good, actually. Now everyone down in the archives knows he’s trans. It’s not like he was hiding it, exactly. He’s never really tried to be stealthy about it, but it’s still… relieving. He has a small handful of people who know him a little better, now, and despite everything… That’s still a good feeling.
—
In the aftermath, Martin feels lost.
Tim’s out of work. Jon’s out of work. Sasha looks at him the same way the other girls did when he was still in school. Like he’s a lost puppy she doesn’t quite know what to do with. Like they were never friends at all, without Tim around to make her play nice. He tries to pretend it doesn’t sting, sitting there all day in silence they can’t pretend isn’t painfully awkward.
He finds a new flat, finally leaves the archives. Jon comes back, too soon, and Martin makes him leave. Tim comes back, right on time. Jon keeps trying to come back until his six weeks of sick leave are finally up, and Martin can’t reasonably keep him away any longer, even though he still looks like death warmed over.
Martin doesn’t know why he feels like there’s a small black hole somewhere inside of him. They all survived. He’s safe now. This wasn’t even his tragedy. Not really, not with Tim and Jon coming back in like hole-punched ghosts, gaunt and pallid and haggard, dark circles under their eyes and shiny new scar tissue peppering their skin like stars, miniature galaxies of hurt painted on their faces, their necks, their hands, dipping down and disappearing into their clothing were Martin knows more are hiding.
Sometimes Martin can’t even bear looking at the two, lone circles etched into the back of his hand without feeling nauseous and dizzy. He doesn’t know how they manage, and he doesn’t know what to do.
He’s never really known what to do, but now, the feeling of helplessness is so utterly, profoundly all-encompassing it smothers him. It keeps him up at night, in his new bed in his crappy new flat with all the boxes he’s not bothered to fully unpack.
Martin lost… most of his things in the Prentiss attack, anyway. After everything, when he’d been let back into the office, almost everything he’d brought down there with him was covered in CO2 and worm corpses, and, well. No amount of washing would ever be able to scrub that memory from Martin’s mind, so in the end he threw everything that had been touched by Jane’s hoard out. He would’ve burned them if he could, but he doesn’t think he’s the type to get that kind of cathartic expression.
He doesn’t get to rage and burn things and scream until his throat hurts.
A dumpster a few blocks from the Institute is the best he gets. It works fine: they’re gone from his life either way, even if he still panics when he feels an unexpected touch, anything brushing against skin.
Among the lost: his favorite jumper, the first scarf he ever knitted (a gift for his mum he never worked up the nerve to give her), his work satchel (not a great loss, he’s had it since he started at the Institute 10 years ago), and his binder. He doesn’t even bind that often, anymore, just makes do with a sports bra most days, but... it still stings.
There are more important things to deal with, though: like trying to get Tim to stop freezing him out. Trying to get Jon out of his office and out of his head, even if it’s just for tea or a sandwich. Trying to strike up some kind of conversation with Sasha to see if he can coax out any remnants of the person who used to laugh herself to tears at the pub with him and Tim on Friday nights.
Martin doesn’t think it’s working, but giving up isn’t an option, so.
So he keeps going, because that’s the only thing he knows how to do.
—
In retrospect, this is definitely something Martin is going to find funny some day.
It’s past 11:00 at night, but when Jon’s name flashes across Martin’s phone, he still scrambles to answer. “Jon?”
“Martin,” Jon’s voice, soft and scratchy, just as sweet even coming through a low-quality WhatsApp call. “Er. Hello.”
“Hi.” Martin can’t help it; he’s smiling, relief bubbling up warm in his chest and washing over him, loosening tension from all over his body. “Where are you right now?”
“Just landed. Outside O’Hare Airport, ah… Should be getting a taxi soon, probably.”
Martin hums. He sits down on his couch, tucks his feet up under him, holding his phone gently to his ear like he wishes he could hold Jon right now. “Was the flight okay?”
“It was… Preferable to being kidnapped by the circus, but… Only by a hair.”
It shouldn’t be funny, but if it isn’t funny then it’s just sad, and neither of them have the liberty of being sad about it yet, so he laughs. It’s nice to hear Jon’s voice, anyway. Even if it sounds like he’s been spending all his time since Martin last saw him chewing gravel and glass. “And are you feeling okay? You sound…”
Jon grumbles unenthusiastically. “Admittedly, I-I might be a bit under the weather. Missed a couple of T shots, what with the whole, uh. B-being on the run, a-and kidnapped, and all the, uh… T-the travel must be catching up with me.”
And for a split second, Martin’s brain grinds to a complete halt.
Did he mishear? No, the transcontinental connection may be spotty, but that came in loud and clear. Which means… Well, it means a lot of things, but first and foremost that 1.) Martin’s a bigger idiot than he thought, and 2.) it seems they have a lot more in common than he ever bargained for.
He’s not sure if Jon choosing to share this with him now is just a slip; an admission made without thinking when he obviously has a lot on his mind, or… Or if it means he’s finally started putting more trust in Martin, an olive branch held out across the ocean that separates them.
Or maybe he just assumed Martin already knew?
Either way, Martin is glad he knows, now.
As the surprise clears, a fresh wave of fondness bubbles up in its place, warm and absolute, and Martin finds himself grinning against his phone. He clears his throat. “You should get some rest. Have you eaten? Are you on the way to the hotel now?”
Jon makes a vague noise. “Soon. Just after I check in on a few things.”
“Jon.”
“This isn’t a vacation, Martin! I’m here for work.”
“And you’re not feeling well. It’s not like you can get fired for taking a few days to recuperate.”
“No, but the world may literally end, so...”
“Well it’s not ending tonight.”
Jon sighs into his ear. It shouldn’t be endearing, but it absolutely is. “Martin.”
“Jon.”
“I’ll be at the hotel as soon as I can be,” Jon tells him briskly, although any authority is undermined by the way his voice cracks around the ‘can.’ “That’s the best I can do.”
Martin feels the familiar urge to drag Jon to the nearest horizontal surface so he can get some sleep. Unfortunately, with several thousand miles and an entire ocean between them, there’s little he can actually do about it. Instead he just sighs. “So what’s it like in America?”
“So far? Loud and crowded,” Jon answers flatly, “but I’ve not seen more than the airport yet.”
“Right, right.” Martin nods. “Of course. Well, keep me updated. I’ve only ever left the country once or twice to see my grandparents in Poland. And I might’ve been to Wales on a school trip when I was like… nine, but—” He cuts himself off. “A-anyway. Tell me if you see anything cool.”
“I’m not exactly here to go sight-seeing,” Jon hedges, but Martin swears he hears a smile in his voice.
Still smiling himself, Martin stifling a yawn into his hand. “Still.”
There’s a moment of silence over the line. Then Jon asks, “Are you tired?”
Martin shrugs. Remembers Jon can’t see him. “I’m fine.”
“What time is it back in London?”
Martin tries not to feel too much like a chastened child. Wasn’t he just chewing out Jon for not getting his rest? He sighs, drags a hand down his face. “… About half-eleven.”
“Half— good lord, Martin!”
“What? You called me, don’t forget that!”
“Yes, well. I…” Jon sucks in a disparaging breath. “I might have forgotten to consider the time difference. I’ll let you go now.”
“It’s okay,” Martin tells him. His desire to keep talking wars with his desire for Jon to get going as quick as he can so he can get to his bed as soon as possible. “It… It’s good to hear from you.”
Jon hums. Maybe he’s just deluding himself, but he thinks it sounds fond. “Get some rest, Martin. I’ll check in again, later.”
“You’d better. Otherwise I’ll think you’ve been kidnapped again.”
Jon sighs. “Knock on wood.”
“Yep.” Martin just might, after they hang up, an uneasy knot forming somewhere in his stomach. “Text me when you get back to the hotel, okay?”
“Alright. I will.”
“Good.”
“Goodnight, Martin.”
“Good— well. Good afternoon, I guess,” Martin returns. “Talk soon.”
“Mm. Talk soon,” Jon agrees. “Goodbye.”
“Bye,” Martin says, softly.
He pulls the phone from his ear, but doesn’t hit end. Waits for Jon to do it instead. It takes (Martin counts) six seconds before he does. When Jon’s name finally vanishes off his home screen, he drops his phone into his lap, head thumping backwards against the sofa.
Still, Jon texts him again later, just as he’s settling into bed, that he’s made it to his hotel in one piece. And then, when Martin wakes up the next morning, it’s to two more messages.
The first is an image: an actual bloody selfie, Jon standing in front of the Bean, squinting against the sun with his brow furrowed and wearing one of those tacky airport shirts that reads I ♥︎ CHICAGO. He looks like hell, but just the fucking sight of him makes Martin’s heart turn to jelly.
Below that, a second text, which reads: good enough?
Before he’s even gotten out of bed to brush his teeth, Martin sends back that’s perfect :), and cannot even put into words how much he means it.
—
It’s been overcast in Devon all weekend.
Martin almost wishes it would rain; at least if the sky opened up, it might feel like some kind of catharsis. A washing away, a cleansing downpour, a raging storm when all Martin can manage is this awful, all-consuming numbness.
Sitting in his hotel room, Martin hasn’t even changed out of his suit from the funeral yet. He can’t tell how long it’s been since he got back; with that damned overcast sky it could be 10:00 in the morning or 7:00 at night for all he knows. His stiff button down shirt constricts his arms, digs into his stomach under his second-hand dress pants. His binder—
Oh, hell. Wait.
Okay, that’s the first thought to snap him back to reality all day, to finally pull him back into his body. He put on his binder before he left for the funeral home this morning, and he’s still not taken it off. Probably not great.
No wonder he feels so constricted.
Carefully, Martin strands from the end of the cheap hotel bed. All his joints creak in protest, hot pain shooting through his knees and back aching sharply against the bitter chill that’s settled over him. How long was he sat there? An hour? Two? Three? God. He keeps doing that; losing time. More and more since Jon— since the Unknowing, and now with almost alarming rate since he started working for Peter Lukas, things just slip away from him. Distantly, he knows it’s probably not good, but what’s he going to do about it?
With a grimace, he strips off his uncomfortable funeral clothes and shoves them to the bottom of his bag. They’ll wrinkle, but what does it matter? There are no more funerals. He’s already been to Tim’s, now his mum’s. There’s always Jon, he supposes, but he’s been mourning Jon every day since he didn’t come home from Yarmouth. He doesn’t need a funeral for that. Martin’s got no one left to lose.
He thinks about a shower, but gives it up as a bad job. He doesn’t have the energy for it, doesn’t think he could stay standing for long enough to get himself clean. He’ll shower on Monday before he leaves. Hopefully. Or maybe when he gets back to his flat that night.
He stops in the tiny hotel en suite to brush his teeth, makes uncomfortable eye contact with his reflection in the mirror over the sink.
If you ever do want to know exactly what your father looked like, Elias’s voice unwinds and plays back in his mind, all you have to do is look in a mirror.
Martin shuts his eyes, digs his teeth into the inside of his cheek until he tastes copper.
In a way, he’s glad for the chilly numbness of the Lonely. He still can’t work out how he feels when he looks at himself, now. Doesn’t know how it makes him feel to have this connection to someone who had taken so much from Martin just by being absent.
And that’s not even touching on how he feels about his mum. How his mum feels (felt, he corrects. Felt, past tense) about him. How the things that have brought him joy over the years — his facial hair growing in, the way his shoulders have squared off, even the way his hairline has started to thin in the corners of his forehead — must’ve been the things that made it harder and harder for her to look at him.
He stands, and breathes, and eventually the now-familiar chill settles inside his chest. He lets it sit until he can’t even feel the cold anymore, and only then does he open his eyes again.
He wonders if his parents were ever happy, before. How old was his dad, when he left? 35? Maybe 40, 45? Not that much older than Martin is now, surely. Did he have Martin’s smile lines? Did he have crow’s feet? Martin always thought he had his mum’s eyes, but brown’s a common color, so he guesses his dad could’ve had them, too.
He wonders if his dad ever got those deep bags under his eyes. If his brows looked like that when they pinched together. If his hair went gray at all like the funny white patches Martin’s noticed popping up in his bangs since he got involved with the Lonely. Did he look this empty, ever? Was he sad like this after he left Martin and mum, or was it just a relief to finally be free of the burden of having to give a damn about another person?
Martin’s got no one, now. Does he feel relieved about it? He didn’t, at first. He’d spent days at a time at Jon’s bedside, begging him to come back, pleading with him not to leave Martin alone.
Martin doesn’t… He doesn’t feel much of anything, anymore. Empty, vacant, gray. An overcast sky with no rain to spill. That, at least, is a relief. He doesn’t have the capacity to live with all this new grief on top of all of the old ones.
He flicks off the bathroom light and crawls into the bed, feeling distant enough that the rough fabric of the hotel’s cheap quilt seems almost like a comforting blanket of cold fog. He’s tired down to his bones, but sleep hovers out of his reach.
He flicks lazily through channels on the TV just for some kind of background noise, wondering when the last time he ate anything was. He thinks about ordering Deliveroo, cringes when he thinks of the price, before remembering he’s got access to Peter’s credit card information, now.
While he waits for the delivery driver to bring him his kebab, Martin watches the sky out the window again. It stays gray. The clouds don’t budge, don’t open up and pour, don’t clear for whatever sun may or may not lurk behind them.
Somewhere back in London, Martin thinks, Jon’s heart monitor is still flat, still a steady green line.
Behind Martin’s ribs, fog sticks to his bones, takes up every inch of space and then hollows him out inch by inch for more room.
So distantly he’s not sure if he’s actually feeling it or if it just seems like the right thing to think, Martin wishes he could make himself feel anything about that but resigned.
—
The safehouse, blessedly, comes equipped with a shower and functioning hot water heater.
Small mercies, in the grand scheme of things, but after the last 48 hours, it feels like a miracle to Martin’s salt-raw skin and aching bones.
He steps out of the bathroom wearing just his boxers and feeling about 10 years younger. His old clothes, currently bunched up in his arms, are stiff and grimy after the flight from London, and he’d sooner toss himself back into the Lonely before he put them back on his body. With no real hamper, Martin just dumps the whole mess in a heap near his side of the bed, to be dealt with later.
When he turns away, he sees Jon, coming in through the bedroom door. He starts— still so unused to being around people that it startles him when he remembers he’s not alone— but relaxes again fast enough when he remembers it’s just Jon.
It’s Jon. Here. In Scotland. With Martin.
He smiles. “Hi.”
Jon blinks. His eyes, wondering and soft, snap up to meet Martin’s. “Hi. How was your shower?”
Martin crosses the room so he’s standing in front of Jon, unabashed to be mostly naked in front of the man he loves. He touches Jon’s cheek, first with the pad of his index finger— testing the waters, waiting for him to dissolve away into mist— and then with his palm laying flat on his cheekbone when he stays solid and real under his touch. Jon sighs into it, his own hand coming to rest on Martin’s shoulder, thumb on his clavicle.
Feeling sane and properly clear-headed for the first time since Jon dragged him out of the fog, Martin dips down, and Jon eagerly meets him in the middle.
“It was good, thanks,” Martin murmurs against Jon’s mouth when they pull apart. “Feel more like myself, now.”
Jon’s hand slides from Martin’s shoulder down to his chest as he falls back from tiptoes onto the flats of his feet. His breath comes out in a gentle, extended sigh, close enough Martin can almost feel it on his skin. “I-I’m glad to hear it.” With a delicacy Martin can scarcely believe anyone is granting him, he swipes his thumb just under the long, sloping scar that curves its way across Martin’s chest. Martin’s nerves around his scars are still finicky at best, but he can feel enough to send goosebumps spilling up his arms. “When did this happen?”
“Um…” Right. Words. Martin gives his brain a good jostle to get it to cooperate. “About nine months ago? E-early January.”
Jon’s eyes flick up at his, then back down. “After you’d already made your deal with Peter Lukas?”
Martin looks down at the carpet, an embarrassed flush crawling up his neck. He only gives a quick, sheepish nod.
“Who… Who looked after you? When you were recovering?”
“Oh, well. I-I managed,” Martin tells him. “Moved everything I needed down low enough to reach. Put all my prescriptions into one of those little pill box things so I could get at them. Did a lot of… meal prepping the week before.”
Just based on the tiny, wounded sound that he makes, Martin can’t bear to look at Jon’s face right now. “So… you were alone?”
Martin huffs. “That was kind of the point, Jon.”
“Yes, but… Y-you need— I mean. You should have someone to look after you. When I had my top surgery I would’ve been— Well. I was a, a complete baby about it.” He laughs weakly. “I made Georgie do... j-just about everything for me.”
Martin shrugs, and Jon’s hand falls away from his chest with the motion. Immediately, he can’t help missing the warmth. “Who would I have even asked? Melanie? Basira? Peter? You were still— still in your coma.”
“I... Alright, yes. I suppose that’s a fair point. I just...”
When it becomes clear he’s not going to finish his sentence, Martin finally looks back up at him. His brows are pinched, and his eyes, big and brown and vulnerable and sad, are focused somewhere over Martin’s shoulder. Heart sticking, feeling bold, Martin picks his hand back up and puts it back on his own chest, so Jon’s thumb rests just a hair’s width from the inch-long vertical scar connecting his nipple to the bigger incisions that meet just over his sternum.
“Just what?” Martin asks quietly.
Jon sways closer, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. “I just wish I could’ve been there for you.”
And now it’s Martin’s turn for his breath to catch, a sudden sting welling up behind his eyes. “Well,” he says, because if he doesn’t he’ll cry and if he cries he’s not sure when he’ll stop. “If I decide to get any other body parts lopped off, you’ll be the first person I call. Okay?”
Jon laughs, soft and a little wet. His other hand, hanging at his side, finds Martin’s and curls around his fingers, squeezing and holding on. “Yes, please see that you do.”
And that’s about all Martin can take. He pulls Jon in, wraps his arms around his shoulders, tucks his face in close to his’s neck. Jon sighs again, a great, shuddering exhale, his whole body slumping against Martin’s as he squeezes him back, hands hot and flat on the bare skin of Martin’s back.
When the hug ends, and Jon pulls back, his hands stay resting on Martin’s sides, right above his love handles. “Ah. T-they did a great job, by the way. O-on your chest. You, uh.” He clears his throat, and this time when he averts his eyes, there is a distinct, dark flush on his cheeks. “You look very good.”
Martin feels warm all the way down to his atoms. “Thanks. I, uh. I think so too.”
Jon smiles, such a lovely, delicate thing. With a hand cupping Martin’s cheek, he pulls him back down, and Martin stops thinking about much else.
—
Every day spent in the safehouse, Martin feels the numbness inside of him thawing.
Which is not to say it’s all bliss and kissing (although there’s plenty of that, don’t get him wrong). He thaws like the cracking of the ice over a vast and frigid body of water; sometimes harsh, and dangerous, and cold, even if it’s making way for something to grow. That’s about as far as Martin’s gotten with that particular metaphor (his poetic instincts are still rusty after a year of disuse), but.
Point being: It’s uncomfortable. Sometimes it hurts.
Today, it’s his hair giving him issues.
It’s at that… weird, annoying in-between length. That stage where it’s obvious Martin’s gone a long time without a proper haircut. It’s stopped being a style and started being something that just sort of happened to him when he wasn’t paying attention.
He’s a little jealous; Jon pulled this look off so much better in those fraught, dangerous months leading up to the Unknowing. On him it’d always looked artful and charmingly messy, something Martin had always longed to card his fingers through. On Martin it just makes him look like a scraggly teenager, like he’s going through his messy, greasy, awkward mid-20s puberty all over again.
And normally, that might stop at just being an annoyance, but. It’s… it’s a remnant. Of his time with the Lonely, when he was so depressed that just the idea of cutting it made him feel exhausted. What did it matter, what he looked like? It’s not like anyone was looking at him. (Until they were; or, namely, until he was, finding Martin no matter how hard he tried to stay hidden and begging him to come back to him.)
Remembering how to be a person is probably the hardest thing Martin’s ever done in his life. Excising everything that tied him to humanity was a lot easier than trying to piece his personhood back together from tattered scraps.
But he’s doing it.
Jon is here, with him, trying to be human. So Martin will try, too.
Which is how he ends up staring himself down in the mirror at 10:00 at night, shirtless, towel wrapped around his shoulders and an old pair of clippers he found in the back of Daisy’s cupboards in hand. This is what Trying looks like, for him: cutting away the last six months, hacking them off with scissors and then going at the whole mess with the razor.
Daisy has the one guard length, so it’ll have to do, but Martin doesn’t even care. He just wants to look in the mirror and see himself again. Hell, he’d even settle for seeing a person, instead of just the half-there thing left over when Peter and the Lonely and all his dull, endless, overcast-sky grief were done with him.
After, he uses the towel from his shoulders to clean up the counter and the floor, then he gets in the shower to clean the itchy discarded fuzz off his neck and shoulders. He lets the water run for a long time, well after the last of the mess has swirled away down the drain.
When he comes back out into the living room in clean pajamas, the first thing he does is walk over to Jon on the lumpy couch and do what he can only think of as the human version of a cat batting the book out of your hand to get your attention.
Jon looks up at him, fond at first and then startled. “Your hair!”
“My hair,” Martin agrees, blushing.
Jon pushes up onto his knees, leans towards Martin. “Okay, well, come here.”
So Martin does. He lets Jon pull him close, puts his hand on Martin’s jaw so he can turn his head this way and that, inspecting his new look. He hums gently, and then.
And then he runs his hand over Martin’s head, feeling the bristly peach fuzz. He makes a pleased little noise in the back of his throat as his hand keeps going, up the sides, over the top, down the back to his neck, and Martin. Martin is not ashamed to admit he melts, just a little bit, wobbly arms snaking around his middle, practically attaching himself to Jon’s front.
“Ah!” Jon huffs gently, right by his ear. “Alright, then.”
“Do you—” Martin stops to clear his throat where his voice has gone watery and thin. “Like it?”
He feels Jon press a kiss to his hairline. “Of course I do. I love it.”
Martin’s cheeks heat, but this time it feels pleasant. A steady, prideful warmth that makes him feel good, satisfied.
They end up sideways on the sofa, Jon leant back against the arm with Martin sprawled between his legs, head on his chest while Jon keeps playing with his hair with one hand, running the other up and down Martin’s back. It’s this type of thing that makes Martin realize just how devoid his life was of touch before Jon dragged him out of the Lonely. It almost burns, but at the same time he never wants him to stop.
“So, may I ask— Why the sudden change?” Jon murmurs softly.
Martin shrugs lazily. The whole truth is too much, or at least too much for now. Maybe later when he’s less raw and drunk on contact, he’ll explain, but for now he hasn’t got it in him. “It was bothering me,” is all he says. It’s even true. “Getting in my eyes and tickling my neck, a-and such. Y-you know.”
Jon hums. “Yes, I know what you mean.”
“Just wanted to… y’know. Get rid of it all.”
“Of course. Makes sense.”
“I shaved it once before, when I first came out,” Martin tells him. “I, uh. Got frustrated. Wanted it short, like, that second.”
Jon runs his hand over the fuzz at the nape of Martin’s neck. “I did, as well. Er, well. I asked Georgie to do it for me, actually. I was too afraid of… getting it wrong, somehow.”
“You always have been,” Martin observes, brows pinching just so slightly together.
“Always have been…?”
“Scared you’re getting it wrong.”
“Oh.” Jon exhales slowly, his fingers stilling. “Yes. I… I suppose I have.”
Martin’s hands tighten where they’re gripping around Jon’s back. He swallows, and he turns to hide his face in Jon’s chest, listening to his heartbeat in his ear.
He feels Jon’s shaky inhale, the way his hands tense. “Martin?”
Martin sniffs, breath hitching. “I think— I-I got— I got so much wrong.”
And now it’s time for Jon’s grip to tighten, arm’s coming up to circle his shoulders and clinging on tight. “Oh, Martin. I…” He exhales against Martin’s ear, lips right at his temple. He doesn’t try to argue, which Martin appreciates; probably wouldn’t believe him if he did. “I. I can’t think of many things I haven’t completely fucked up these last few years.”
Martin doesn’t think Jon would believe him if he tried to protest, either. That’s the thing about trying to be human. It comes with all these feelings that will rip you open if you give them the chance.
“I know— I know we’ve… I know we’ve made our mistakes,” Jon whispers, “but… I-I’m just glad you’re here. I— god, Martin. I’ve missed you.”
Martin squeezes his eyes shut. He can feel the warmth radiating out of Jon’s body into his own, the firm grip of his antsy fingers, the way his chest rises and falls under Martin’s cheek. Remembering how Jon’s hand felt between his own, cold and limp without blood flow to keep it body-warm, he bites his lower lip for the duration of two, three, four breaths until he thinks he can speak again.
Still, when he does find his voice, it sounds like he’s been swallowing rocks from the driveway. “I missed you, too. So much.”
And it’s not enough. It doesn’t fit all the things Martin wishes he knew how to say. All the wonderful things Jon has been saying to him these past two weeks, things Martin thought would sound cheesy or too much to be said in real life until he heard them come out of Jon’s mouth. Like how he’s told Martin how much he loves him, how happy he is to just be around him, how pretty he thinks Martin is. How he’s shown him, with his tactile hands, his sweet kisses, his aching vulnerability just how badly he wants to be around Martin.
And Martin, for all people look at him and see some naïve hopeless romantic, childish and guileless, for all his poeticisms, the fact that he’s known he loves Jon for years now, is not good at actually finding the words to say any of it back. Not good at putting his mouth where his proverbial money is, as it were.
But he is Trying. They are both Trying.
So Martin swallows around the gummy wad of tears lodged in his throat. He doesn’t look up at Jon, stays coiled against him, taking every ounce of bravery he can pilfer from their closeness. “I love you, Jon.”
Tangled up together and held so near, Martin can feel the way his heart rate picks up, and then he squeezes Martin, somehow, closer. “I love you, too,” he murmurs into Martin’s newly shorn hair, a smile in his voice. “Thank you for telling me.”
And isn’t that just… the most Jon response. Even though his eyes are still wet, he smiles, too. “Thanks for… being here to hear it.”
Jon hums softly, fingers running up his neck and back into the soft prickles of his hair, sending a fresh wave of goosebumps parading down Martin’s skin. Down from his hair, those fingers find purchase on Martin’s jaw, and he tilts his head up so he can lean into a soft, pliant kiss. The fire crackles in the hearth, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the gentle heat of Jon’s lips on his. Martin sighs into his mouth as they part, slumped against Jon like he’s the only thing keeping him solid.
“Are you tired?” Jon asks in a soft mumble. “We can go up to bed, if you’d like.”
“In a bit,” Martin answers. “It’s nice here like this.”
“That it is,” Jon agrees indulgently. “Just don’t fall asleep yet. It’ll be hell on both our backs.”
“I won’t,” Martin promises. “Just a minute.”
And he means it. He can feel sleepiness dawning on him distantly, the faint pull of exhaustion too deep for sleep to even fix, but mostly he’s just content. Jon’s skin meets his and it doesn’t burn; his head feels light, like he shed layers of Lonely instead of just hair.
Around them, night closes in, dark and unknown and possibly filled with fog and eyes and teeth and monsters, but. This is the most he’s felt like a person in a long time, and he thinks they both deserve to have a few moments to bask in it.