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The flight was awful. The bus from the airport awful too, and somehow the cab from the bus station to the motel even worse. Which wouldn’t have seemed possible, especially to Jon, who was just happy to achieve relative privacy after nearly twenty-four hours in close proximity to other sweaty, travel stressed humans. But not only did the cabbie blare out country radio with wince-inducing, obnoxious adverts - at one point he stopped for gas and pulled a gun from the glove compartment. Tucked it into the back of his jeans like that was as normal as anything. Jon’s body had threatened to seize up, sprint into a field, or possibly shit itself, and his brain had serenely thought Ah well. Guess the jig is up.
All in all, Jon is so relieved walking into his motel room that he barely registers the surroundings before collapsing like a plank of wood, face down, into the stiff sheets.
He wakes, groggy and dry-mouthed to a blaring truck horn. It was dark when he arrived, but seems darker now. Or the lights outside are brighter. Something indicates Night where before it was evening. Still far too hot and swampy though. Jon groans and pats around for his phone and glasses.
Nine thirty PM. Great, Jon scoffs, so he’s managed a solid two hours. Even exhausted as he was - he’s never been able to sleep on transport, barely managed on the flight - he knows getting back to sleep will be a chore. Bloody great American trucks.
Jon debates unpacking, but is saved that headache by the furious timpani rumbling of his stomach. He chuckles with the slightly deranged air of someone who hasn’t had a full, hot meal since leaving for Heathrow a whole day ago, and imagines Martin’s raised eyebrow. Despite his lack of real appetite, he wades through the now seemingly foreign steps of googling a place and putting in an order for a reliable daal.
The first night is a muggy dreamscape. The first day at the Usher Foundation goes by in a haze of productivity without destination. Sweaty outside. Sweeping modern library with glorious AC. Mediocre sandwich. No real leads.
There’s far more people in the library here than there are back in the archives, and people keep looking at Jon, with his red visitor lanyard and his perhaps obviously English aura. That or they really do think he’s a terrorist. The scars probably don’t help in that regard.
Or you’re being paranoid.
‘Yes, yes,’ Jon mutters into his notes.
The second night goes by much the same, except Jon has a bit more of a handle on consciousness to appreciate the truly dreadful state of American television. Flicking through his options creates a blur of canned laughter and screaming adverts warning about danger of death in seemingly innocuous family friendly painkillers.
‘Good Lord,’ Jon twitches, ‘why are they all so loud ?’
The second day is more frustrating than the first. With the novelty of the Foundation’s library and reading rooms entirely worn off, and the AC starting to dry out his eyeballs, Jon even has the thought that he misses the archives.
Jesus. What’s wrong with me? Oh, let’s not open that one up again.
No, he thinks. Not the archives. Just the privacy of his office. The home comforts. A nice cup of tea.
Jon sighs. Well there’s the heart of it. He’s made it as far as Beijing and DC all on his own, but he’s still quite pathetically lonely without the one colleague he can call a friend.
What time is back home, he wonders. What is Martin doing now? Working? Sardined onto a tube? Hovering by the kettle as he does, shoulders rounded, bobbing the tea bag with irrational concentration.
It wouldn’t be weird to text, would it? Jon pulls up their messages. It’s not as if they don’t text. They have been more frequently actually, in the last month or so.
When’s lunch
Arlo’s or canteen?
New david attenborough doc is good!! Have u seen?
I told you about it
Oh haha... well thanks for the recommendation !
Text me when you land in china
Landed
Thx :)
No, it wouldn’t be weird to say something like there’s AC but too many people in DC. Martin would respond something like haha AC DC. or ugh people! How dare they! or make sure you’re eating and drinking enough water and getting enough sleep.
No doubt it would be a two text conversation, but (pathetically) Jon still wants that. Perhaps he even wants to be nagged, just to feel like someone, somewhere is rooting for him.
Is it that pathetic? Or is this just what having a friend is and it’s been a while... Jon feels the tug to reach out like it’s natural. Like if he hadn’t stopped to analyse under the paranoia the travel and the sterile Foundation have him stewing in, he’d just have pulled out his phone and fired something off. Martin’s name is almost at the top of his messages, only under the confirmation codes for his last meal and the gun toting cab driver.
Hmm, now that’s one thing he probably shouldn’t tell Martin about.
In the end, he gets too frustrated with the analysis to do anything, and goes outside to smoke in the heavy, midgey air.
The third night in the motel brings a stewed out and lacklustre weariness that leaves Jon staring heavy-eyed at the TV with his chin squished into his chest. It’s dark enough that the screen is painfully bright, but he can’t be bothered to reach out for the lamp. He’s half out of his clothes but not into pyjamas. Half-eaten takeout wilts beside him and the fan whirs like an old hoover overhead.
Jon scrolls mindlessly through a wikipedia article and sighs. He’s tired, it’s 11pm, he could just sleep. But, but, but. His head is glutted with stress and dead ends. There’s no hope of actually sleeping. And if he turns it all off - the telly, his phone, the lights - then he’s just left alone with it. Him and his heavy, stupid brain in a shitty motel room.
Perhaps it’s the self pity that makes him do it. Or perhaps it’s another glance to the clock - what time is it in London? His thumb slides on over to contacts. Then there’s a name across the top of his screen and a red panic button at the bottom. And it’s ringing.
It’s ringing. It’s-
Fuck fuck - it’s probably fucking 5 AM in London what is he - fuck -
Jon chickens out with the gasp of a man emerging from drowning and spams the big red button.
Martin’s name disappears from his phone screen.
Jon groans for a long, dramatic four seconds. He is so pathetic. And now what’s he going to do? He’s got to say something or Martin will wake up in the morning to a missed call and worry himself sick.
Opening their last texts, Jon rushes to type out - sorry accident. Then - sorry, didn’t mean to call - then shakes his head and backspaces. He doesn’t want to say that. It isn’t true and he can just picture Martin’s disappointed eyes. In the nearly midnight of being an ocean away, he really cares about this text being true and unhurtful.
Jon types - the telly selection here is dire.
Then he throws his phone on charge, throws himself into the bathroom, and after a good shake throws himself into bed.
Some time later, how long Jon doesn’t know, because he’s not quite asleep but wondering blearily through imagined scenarios, the phone rings.
The phone is ringing. The far too bright screen is beaming Martin into Jon’s squinted eyes. He nearly drops it.
‘H-hello? Are you alright? D-did something happen?’
But Martin just yawns. ‘What?’ he says, ‘No, I'm jus’ calling you back. Are you alright?’
‘Yes,’ Jon says, dry mouthed. He swallows. ‘Yes, I'm fine. I'm uh. Safe and not kidnapped. Not yet, anyway.’
‘Good,’ Martin says, and maybe it's just the late hour but he’s soft, missing the sarcasm entirely. ‘It's nice to hear you safe and not kidnapped...’
‘How are you?’ Jon asks. He wants so genuinely to know the answer that it shocks him. It feels entirely different to everything else he wants to know at the moment.
Martin yawns again. ‘Tired.’
‘Oh, God, w-what time is it? Four something? I’m sorry, did I wake you?’
‘I got up to pee.’ There’s a pause, then Martin says, ‘Sorry, sleep brain,’ and laughs nervously. Jon joins in. To let him know it’s not weird, and because Martin has a very infectious laugh. ‘So uh... so the telly’s bad?’
Jon’s smile lifts the word into his cheeks: ‘Awful.’
‘And how's your real life American motel?’
‘It's fine.’ Jon rolls back against the pillows and puts his phone on speaker so it can rest on his chest, the mic pointing towards his squashed chin. He looks around at his room. ‘Nothing much to report really.’ Then - looking again at the outdated panelling that looks like imitation teak - ‘The room’s quite retro, I think you'd like it actually.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Very orange.’
He hears Martin smile and make one of his little ‘heh’ sounds of pleased amusement. Then Martin wonders, ‘What's the difference then between a hotel and a motel, did you ever find out? Is it the orange?’
‘It’s sort of like a roadside Travelodge, basically. But my door goes outside onto the car park.’
‘Oh, weird.’
‘So I think it's the roadside element that warrants the M.’
The line doesn’t do any justice to Martin’s chuckling, but chuckle he does, and Jon feels pleased. ‘But what's it stand for then? Not motorway.’
‘They call it a highway.’
‘Then it would be ‘hotel’ still!’
Jon laughs, properly laughs, his stomach jiggling, and his phone slides off him onto the blankets. He’s still laughing as he scrambles to catch it. Still pleased to hear Martin laughing along with him.
Ah , he thinks, bugger.
But he doesn’t think it loudly.
As he returns the phone he hears Martin yawn again. The sound comes through the speaker pressed against his chest.
‘Are you just tired?’ he asks. His voice hasn’t been that soft in, god, ages. ‘Or..? H-how's work?’
‘Fine,’ Martin sighs, then, when Jon huffs at his hypocrisy, he insists, ‘no, honestly. It's... Well. We're all tired and stressed and, you know. I mean. You know. But everyone's there and alive.’
‘Tim? Melanie?’
‘They're in. They're... here and there.’
‘Right...’ Jon frowns. ‘But they are helping you? With the research etcetera?’
Martin’s voice is suspiciously standoffish where it would usually be high and reassuring. ‘I mean... yeah.’ No doubt it’s sleep brain making him honest again. Jon seizes on it.
‘Enough?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You sound tired.’
‘Well I am,’ Martin says. ‘As we've established.’
Jon sighs into the phone. ‘Hmm. Well just... Make sure you're not overworking.’
Yes, yes, he hears the hypocrisy. Hears it in the huffing from Martin an ocean away. ‘Jon, the world’s ending.’
‘Yes,’ Jon finds himself saying with a brush of the hand - what a place his life has come to - ‘but as your boss I really must insist-’
Martin laughs at him. Yawns, then laughs at him! Jon’s lip drops in affront, frown already forming, but then Martin says, with something unpredictable and loose in it: ‘You're not my boss at four AM, Jon.’
It sticks for a moment in Jon’s chest. The weight of the phone over the centre of his ribcage. He clears his throat. ‘Just. Ask them to help you. Make me the bad guy if you have to.’
A moment’s pause then, then Martin says slowly, ‘Okay... Thanks...’
‘Good. Alright then.’
There’s a pause. Clearly a pause of... something. Both men’s tired brains interrogating this odd, semi-professional, late night role reversal.
Then Martin asks: ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Wh- yes actually!’
‘Really?’
Jon scoffs. ‘I don't need the condescension, thank you.’ Jon is smiling.
‘Wellllll historically...’
‘It's nearly midnight, Martin, I had lunch and dinner, is that not enough for you?’
‘Did you?’ Martin smiles, ‘That's good.’
‘Hmph,’ says Jon, despite knowing exactly what Martin’s smile looks like.
‘ Is it good?’ Martin muses, ‘or... I'd think very bad... The food, I mean.’
‘Mmm a mixed bag.’ Jon rolls over onto his side. Tucking one hand under his cheek, he lets the phone rest in front of him, half under the opposite pillow. ‘I had an Indian yesterday,’ he sighs, ‘or what they call an Indian here.’
Martin grimaces with sympathy. ‘That bad?’
‘My grandmother was turning in her grave.’
‘Aw’
‘But the breakfast is good actually. I tried the biscuits - the not-biscuit-biscuits, you know. The scone type things.’
‘Oh really? With the white sauce they're calling gravy.
‘Yes.’
Martin puts on an exaggerated southern drawl. ‘ Biscuits and gravy .’
‘Yes,’ Jon smiles. ‘It's rather good actually.’
‘No, c’mon... really!?’
‘Really.’
He realises with some weight that if he hadn’t called Martin tonight, he wouldn't have told anyone about that culinary adventure. The story would have died with him when the apocalypse came. He feels content. Warm under the stuttering fan.
‘I think you'd like it if you tried it,’ Jon murmurs. He lets his drooping eyes close, his breathing settle with the speaker crackle of Martin opposite him.
Martin’s voice is quiet too, content too, Jon thinks. It reaches him softly in the darkness. Like a presence in a dream. Like a sleepover.
‘I guess I'll have to fly out.’
‘Guess you will.’
Two breaths in, two breaths out.
‘No good tea though,’ Jon smiles.
Martin gasps. ‘I wonder how much I could get through security...’ his cheeky grin, clear and blue with nightlight in Jon’s imagination, is broken by a yawn scrunched into a pillow.
‘I suppose I should let you go,’ Jon sighs. He doesn’t want to. He wants to fall asleep listening and murmuring until his mouth goes slack and he snores into Martin’s phone.
‘I'm alright.’
Another smile as Jon parrots: ‘Sleep hygiene, I think they call it.’
‘Ugh I shouldn't have taught you that,’ Martin mutters. ‘Alright, fine. Night.’
‘Goodnight, Martin.’
There's a few long seconds of English room tone, of breathing, the rustle of bedding, before Martin hangs up. In a moment all the rich presence of him fades, and Jon is left in what sounds comparatively like silence.
But he doesn’t feel lonely or pathetic. He feels peaceful. He manages a good few hours of shut eye.
Martin barely makes it into the office for nine. He’s not the best with timekeeping, always forgetting something on his way out of the house, but this morning there’d been a line down and so he was even more sardined than usual on the hot, hot underground. He’d had to sweat and struggle his way off early to walk it. Too claustrophobic.
Oh well, he thinks as he staggers in, not like they’re going to fire him.
The archives are, as usual these days, thick with a stodgy, toxic malaise. Martin remedies this, as usual always, with a sigh and a trip to the kitchen.
It’s as he’s bobbing his tea bag that it happens. His phone chimes. Weird enough, since he isn’t the most popular bloke around, and he only has notifications on for a couple of contacts anyway.
He reaches for it. The lock screen reveals who it is that’s deigned to message him and his stomach flips, his thumb fumbling on to unlock the phone. About fifty percent of the adrenaline is his stupid crush, but the other half is pure fear, because why would Jon be texting him so late, or so early, or whatever it is in DC if he’s okay, if nothing’s happened?
The text reads: It’s 4 am here .
Martin stares at it. ‘What the fuck?’ he asks the empty kitchen. Then he groans and tips his forehead into a cupboard door. ‘What the fuck does that mean, Jon?’
He’s going to be thinking about this all day.