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It was turning out to be a stay on the couch and mope around kind of day. Not that most days were any sort of flurry of activity, but this was a particularly lazy day.
The cottage was perpetually cold and didn’t seem to have any sort of heating, which meant they were cuddled up on the beat up sofa with about four blankets piled up around and over them. Even though Martin had covered all the windows and doors, there seemed to be some sort of cold draft still coming in from somewhere. It was infuriating. He tucked the blanket tighter around their bodies.
“I'll give you my cold,” Jon mumbled, even as he burrowed his head further into Martin's jumper, snuggling in and clutching at with a tight enough hold that Martin wondered whether the entire thing would just come apart.
Martin was almost starting to feel a little overwarm, but trying to pry Jon off of him or remove any of the blankets would be like taking away a kitten’s food bottle midway. You just didn’t do that. Especially as Jon was still shivering.
“Probably, yeah,” he said, tilting his head back a little and breathing in deeply.
“Should sleep in separate rooms tonight,” Jon sniffed, hard. Martin winced at the way Jon's voice came out nasally and congested.
“You don't sound too good, sweetheart,” Martin said, rubbing a hand soothingly along Jon's back, “Are you sure you don't want me to make you a nice cup of tea? Might help with the—”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. You’re warm enough.”
“How will you sleep in a separate room tonight, then?” Martin asked, unable to keep the amusement from colouring his voice.
Jon finally pulled back a little, frowning at him, eyes rimmed as red as his nose, hair ruffled and falling into his face in tangled clumps. “I shouldn't give you my cold,” he said, with all the severity of reading out a Statement.
Or tried to, at least. The blocked nose kind of undercut it a bit.
Martin just tugged him back down, and Jon came with a cut off ‘mff'. “Don't care,” he said cheerfully, taking a few strands of Jon's hair and untangling them slowly.
“You hate colds,” Jon said, voice muffled.
“I don’t think there’s anyone who likes colds.”
“The world’s a large place.”
“Sure it is,” Martin said, teasing out another lock of hair. He wondered whether Jon would let him get up to perhaps fetch a hair brush; craving the way Jon practically melted like a cat being scritched when Martin combed his hands through his hair. “You should sleep with your hair braided. Might prevent it from getting so badly tangled.”
“I used to.”
“Why did you stop?”
“Just stopped caring,” Jon said, shrugging a bit before going still over Martin. Martin blew out a small breath, feeling something soft squirm in his gut as he kept on with the methodical untangling.
“I could braid it for you,” he said. Paused, “Unless you want to cut it off instead? You used to keep it shorter when we first started in the Archives.”
“No, I like it long.” Jon squeezed Martin a bit, sniffing hard again, “You’ll braid it for me?”
“I’ll braid it for you,” Martin said, carding his fingers through the newly untangled section of hair. He’d need the comb to brush out the finer tangles, but the major clumps were gone. There had also been a not insignificant amount of hair that fell out, which was a bit concerning but not immediately so. Jon had pretty thick hair, so perhaps this amount of fall was expected.
“I think your cold would really appreciate a cup of tea, darling,” Martin said softly, a helpless smile crawling over his face as Jon made a little, affronted noise. “You’ll enjoy it, I promise.”
Jon mumbled something incoherent into his jumper.
“What was that?”
“I enjoy you more,” Jon said, only marginally more intelligible, and oh, Martin was really starting to get overheated. He had the absurd urge to fan himself like some Victorian maiden. He didn't, but only just. He kept his lips tightly pursed for a few moments, biting down his cheeks lest he burst out with something unbearably sappy and end up embarrassing both of them.
“Jon,” he said anyway, voice a bit strangled.
Jon lifted his head up, turned to the side, and sneezed. One of those extremely loud sneezes that startled Martin so badly he almost threw Jon off the couch.
“Sorry,” Jon mumbled, blindly reaching out a hand towards the rickety coffee table for the box of tissues. Martin, heart still racing, grabbed it for him.
“That’s a really, really nasty cold,” Martin remarked, once Jon had reacquainted his face back with Martin’s chest.
“That’s why I should stay away from you.”
“You’re adorable,” Martin said, burying his face in Jon’s hair as something swelled within his ribs with such rapidity he couldn’t quite breathe with it. “So, so, adorable.”
“No,” Jon said, very quiet and drawn out, “ Noo. I’m not. This is disgusting. Having a cold is disgusting and horrid.”
The thing about Jon’s fancy accent was that it didn’t even sound all that posh when spoken through a congested nose. Martin chuckled a bit, grimacing when he got a mouthful of hair for it, and said, squeezing Jon a bit, “Extremely, extremely adorable.”
“ Martin, ” Jon said, except he said it in his usual way, made worse with the cold, and it came out more like Mahtin.
Martin had to bite his lip pretty hard to keep from doing something ridiculous. Like bursting into tears or squealing like a whistling kettle.
“It’s okay,” he said, voice only a little bit shaky, “We can agree to disagree. Just know that you’re wrong.”
“I know more than you,” Jon said petulantly.
“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” Martin grinned when Jon’s shoulders came up at the endearment, “Whatever you say.”
.
The next morning when Martin woke up feeling like there was a melon lodged up his sinuses, he couldn't bring himself to regret it. Not when he could feel Jon, his leg thrown over Martin's hip, clinging hard, small, wheezing snores escaping him every few breaths and mouth hanging the smallest bit open.
Martin sniffed, and clung back harder.