Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time Jon sees Freckles he’s a disruption. 

See, Jon likes routine. There’s some insidious voice in the back of his head that insists if he just follows the imaginary lines laid out for him it will make him a more competent and therefore worthwhile human being with a more admirable life. And there is little in this world Jonathan Sims wants more than to appear competent. There’s also the fact that routine instills in him a comfort- a certainty that nothing can go wrong.

As part of harnessing this aforementioned competence, but mostly just because he likes to, Jon stops by the library after work occasionally, picks out a book, and spends the rest of his evening in his reading nook by the window.

It’s not HIS reading nook. It may as well be at this point seeing as he has never encountered another living soul anywhere near it, but it doesn’t technically belong to him. It’s a small loveseat sat next to the large window in the corner of the political nonfiction section. There’s a pair of obnoxious curtains from the 70s that filter afternoon light very nicely through them and imbue Jon with the nostalgia of the flat he grew up in. Political nonfiction, as one can imagine, is not the most riveting genre to the general populous. Jon is included in that assessment, though it’s not like he’d never pick a book of the sort up and read it. Jon is willing to read just about anything save for contemporary romance and poetry.

What this fact does is ensure that his particular reading nook is empty every time he comes by it, which he has a few times a week for the past three years since beginning his work at the museum. His job is utterly fine. It drones on a bit, as do most jobs, but it’s fine. It’s something a person like him can certainly get behind.

And so, every day after leaving the museum, Jon assesses whether or not it’s a ‘go home and work some more’ day or a more adventurous day where he can enter the library, find a book that looks halfway interesting, and knock out the first half of it in his reading nook with the warm setting sunlight illuminating the old pages. Sometimes he’ll even check out a book and finish the second half of it the days afterwards if he was particularly captivated.

This time around, though, Jon doesn’t have a book he wants to finish, and so he grabs a new title he miraculously doesn’t recognize from the classics section and makes his way over to the reading nook with the intention of finishing it in one fell swoop.

There is a man sitting in his chair, reading a leather bound book without a care in the world.

He’s large. Could’ve been intimidating if it weren’t for the… everything else. What Jon notices about him first, though, are his freckles. Thick and round and spattered all over his cheeks in a myriad of shades and sizes, like he’s one of those postmodernist paintings.

It’s incredible just how little one can think of a person at first, Jon will muse later, looking back at this interaction. As it stands, though, nothing about the man aside from his most prominent feature particularly stands out. It’s not a positive or negative observation about his appearance. It’s simply neutral. Jon feels nothing but slight annoyance at him for having stolen his loveseat on this innocuous afternoon. He almost wants to say something extremely ridiculous like excuse me, sir, this is my reading nook. If you could kindly leave? Like he had called dibs on the area or something. This earns him an internal scoff. It’s not his reading nook. Freckles can do whatever he wants.

But this does throw a wrench in his whole operation.

Jon’s eyes travel towards the large panelled window. There’s a ledge under it. It’s wide enough that one could sit on it, traditionally or horizontally. Freckles hasn’t noticed him yet.

Jon lets out a quiet huff. The ledge would be marginally less comfortable than the loveseat, and he doesn’t particularly want to read in companionable silence with this stranger, but… well. What other choices does he have? Go home and read his book? That would require checking it out, and Jon is not in the habit of checking out books if he isn’t sure that he even likes them. Before he can reach a conclusion to this internal debate, however, Freckles must notice him out of the corner of the eye because his head snaps up at once.

“Oh!” He exclaims at a library appropriate volume. His voice is higher than Jon would’ve expected for someone of his stature. “Oh, sorry, did you, um, want this seat?”

“No, that’s alright,” Jon says. He is not telling the truth. “It’s public. I bear no claim to it.”

Freckles is close to thumbing his book closed. His eyebrows grow ever closer to each other on his forehead. “I suppose, b-but you’ve just been… staring at me? So… I get the feeling you bear more claim than I do, at any rate.”

“You can have the chair,” Jon says with finality. “I… will sit on the ledge.”

“Oh. Alright.”

Jon makes good on his claim and stalks on over to the ledge. He doesn’t end up sitting horizontally with his feet on the other end of it- he just sits like anyone would in a normal chair and grimaces. Ah. Yes, he was right. It is… marginally less comfortable than the seat. The edge of it is digging into his already bony thighs.

Freckles watches him do this with something resembling guilt etched into his features, but he apparently acquiesces as he thumbs open his book and begins reading again. The air is thick with the same resigned discomfort one experiences on a public bus when you’re forced into a stranger’s personal space. There is an understanding between them, a common interest, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are two strangers who are intruding a bit on each other’s quiet time.

Jon cannot focus on his goddamn book. It’s driving him a bit insane, actually, so he resolves to just… put it down and sort out his thoughts first.

He’s a bit behind Freckles, which gives him the advantage of being able to stare without being caught. Freckles would have to turn his head fully to look at Jon while Jon can just move his eyes. And it doesn’t seem like Freckles is up for the risk because he’s hunched over his book like it has him fully enraptured. Jon isn’t sure that’s the case. He’s been on the same page for a very long time now.

As a product of simple curiosity, Jon peeks slightly down at the barely visible cover of the book Freckles is reading. It’s large and grey with no visible title, but Jon can just make out on the spine a reflective seal that indicates rarity or quality. This shocks him enough that, before he can stop himself, he’s opened his mouth.

“Is-“ is where he begins, but he shuts it almost immediately because he doesn’t actually want to start a conversation. Freckles has looked up from his book expectantly, however, and is now making eye contact with Jon. He has successfully committed himself to the bit. Cursing the situation, Jon continues. “Is that a first edition, perchance?”

“Oh!” Freckles perks up, shoulders dropping some previously unnoticeable tension. “Um, yeah, it is, actually. Collector’s edition Romantic works. Y’know, Keats, Wordsworth, that kind of stuff.”

“I see. Did you… get that here?”

“No, I actually brought it from home.” Freckles gives a nervous laugh. “I-I like reading here more because of the atmosphere, you know? It just- it helps me focus.”

“Quite.”

The air is thick with broken tension. Conversation is now expected and implied. Jon, of course, has never been one to care about these things and so keeps his mouth stubbornly shut. To his chagrin, Freckles doesn’t seem to get the memo. “Are… are you a fan?”

“I tried poetry out in secondary school. Didn’t particularly understand it. Never picked it back up,” he says truthfully, not looking up from his book that he is not reading.

Sheepishly, Freckles says “poetry is really the only thing I read.”

A terrifying thought. Before he can stop himself, Jon has grunted in obvious distaste.

That familiar hunch in Freckles’ shoulders returns as he seems to accept that the conversation has reached a dead end. Not only that, but they both actually FAILED the social interaction. Quite badly. 

To compensate, Jon goes, “I apologise for staring at you earlier.”

“Oh, no, you’re fine, I-“

“No, it’s just- I usually read here. I mean, I never see anyone here, and I come by a few times a week. So I was rather surprised to see you.”

There’s a crestfallen draw to his reading companion’s eyebrows now. “Oh, I’m sorry! I mean, if I had known I was taking your seat-“

Jon interrupts him with a scoff. “It’s hardly my seat.”

“Well, I know I’d be pretty miffed if I were you. Or, well, not miffed, just… yeah. I’d want my chair back.” Freckles stands, brushing invisible lint off of his trousers. “Sorry.”

Jon blinks at him, feeling only selfish enough to stew in it but not enough to actually make any plan of action to rectify this. He notices with startling clarity that Freckles is… flagrantly taller than him. Much taller, in fact. “Erm. Don’t rush out on my account.”

Freckles just looks at him, lips slightly parted in confusion.

“All I mean is, I’d feel… bad… kicking you out.”

“Oh.” The smile returns to his lips and his cheeks lift with it. They’re quite big, his cheeks, and his eyes are tight with mirth. “D-Don’t worry about it, I was just about to leave anyway.”

“Were you?” Jon makes no secret of his scepticism at this claim.

“I’ve been here a while, trust me. I was just getting to the end of my book and everything.”

“Well… if you’re sure.”

“I am. Uh, don’t worry. Really.” Freckles backs away slowly, retreats into the walls of the library with a small wave. He opens his mouth with confidence, like he’s about to say something more extensive, but he eventually just settles on an awkward but kind “um, bye.”

“Yes,” Jon says faintly, watching his silhouette disappear behind the shelves, clutching his book tightly to his chest.

Well.

He sits down on his loveseat- a blessed relief, if you ask him- and sends a subliminal thanks to Freckles for his generosity. Jon contemplates the fact that he will probably never see the man again following this chance encounter. For only a second. He doesn’t get much further than that. 

—

Jon’s day has been going terribly thus far.

He was sent out of the museum for field work. Normally it’d be fine- welcome, even, seeing as it can be a relief from the soul crushing monotony of staying in the same place for eight hours a day, but that all depends on what specifically he is asked to do. This particular job involved talking to some… well, say, unsavoury clients who had single-handedly ruined his entire mood. He hadn’t had breakfast or coffee that morning on account of him waking up late, so he was doubly not in the mood for wealthy people shenanigans. Furthermore, the power in the office had gone out almost immediately after he got back before he could back up his files, wiping about thousands of words of the new report he was working on filing. A few thousand words is just enough lost work to piss him off minutely.

So, yes. Not a great day. Normally a subpar day would constitute going home and letting the privacy of his own living area carry him away (while still working, of course), but he needs to visit the library for actual practical research purposes for the aforementioned report he lost. If there’s one thing he hates most in the world it’s being behind on his work.

The cherry on top of this already wonderful day is that Freckles is in his reading nook. Again. Hunched over without a care in the world.

The hand at his side that Jon is using to carry the book he does not want to read clenches slightly, and he goes, “hello.” It makes Freckles startle and look up.

“Oh! Hello! You again!”

“Yes.” Jon doesn’t move. He can’t do much else now but narrow his eyes and hope the message is conveyed properly.

“Did you… want to sit?”

“Well.” Jon is once again struck with the moral dilemma at hand that he cannot force this man out of this public reading nook because he FEELS like he has a right to it. This fact is communicated through a frankly very poorly strung together sentence- “uhm. Yes. But you don’t have to get up.”

Freckles blinks, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Oh. Alright.” After another moment of silence spent contemplating his next move, he pats the space next to him with what looks like a forced casualness and then immediately grimaces.

Ah, yes. That is… what Jon’s sentence implied, isn’t it? And besides, loveseats are made to sit two people just snugly enough that their thighs aren’t touching. What’s the worst that could happen, Jon thinks, trying not to shit his bricks at the prospect of sitting on HIS loveseat with someone else.

He sits down regardless and makes himself comfortable. True to expectations, the two are not touching and Freckles is not doing anything untoward with the newly shared space besides maybe making it awkward with his stiff tension. Jon lets out a deep breath and opens his book in tandem with Freckles.

It’s deeply boring. Jon tries to concentrate on the research aspect of it, but his brain is trying out this miraculous thing where he reads every word and knows what it means but cannot string it together with every other word in the sentence to form a coherent piece of information that he can absorb. After trying and failing to comprehend one sentence for the twelfth time, he lets out an audible huff of annoyance and hopes that his seat neighbour (who is not helping with his focus) doesn’t pick up on it. Of course, the universe has never been on his side, so why would it begin to be now?

“Are… you okay?” Freckles asks, sounding more sincere and less obligatory than the situation warrants.

“Not particularly,” Jon says, not looking up.

It is quiet for another second. “The Cold War, huh?”

With transparency, Jon says, “not my preferred choice, but I can manage.” 

“I can imagine. Why are you reading about the Cold War if it’s not your… preferred choice of reading?”

Jon finally looks up at this and is met with kind eyes and pale cheeks. There is a coil of hair out of place on Freckles’ forehead and he’s backlit by the setting sun in the window. Normally he wouldn’t engage himself, as it is, but his brain isn’t cooperating with the whole reading thing as of now. “Work related. I, ah, work in a museum. We’re based on the past century.”

“Oh!” Freckles perks up largely. “That’s- really cool! I actually considered working in a museum for a while, but, well, you know.”

Jon blinks. “Thank you. Um. I don’t actually know.”

He smiles and apparently elects not to elaborate on what Jon doesn’t know. “Right, right. Well- why is it not your preferred choice if you work there?” 

“I’m in charge of the very small pre-twentieth century sector. Well- I’m not in charge, but- but it’s the field I’m in.”

“I’m more of a twentieth century guy myself.”

“I can tell.” Jon pointedly glances at his outfit, not entirely lacking in an intentional wry humor. Freckles chuckles sheepishly. Success. “It’s not that I’m entirely uninterested in the twentieth century, it’s just that I’d rather do literally anything else history related.”

“Well,” Freckles adjusts the huge glasses on his nose as he breaks eye contact. “I-I mean. Museum’s a good place to start, right?”

Jon nods, not sure where to go from here. He finds himself wondering what Freckles does for a living and oh, wow, would you look at that? A conversation topic. “What’s… what do you do?”

“Oh. I, um.” His face has turned sheepish now, interestingly enough. “I kind of… work here?”

Jon blinks. “...Now?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“And you’re… sitting here. Reading.”

“I’m supposed to be restocking those shelves over there. Everything history related,” Freckles confesses with a quirk of his shoulder. “Uhm. Figured I’d take a break.”

“Apt.” Jon blinks, recalibrates. “Wait, sorry. You figured you’d take a break? You’re not supposed to be here right now?”

“Well!” Freckles suddenly appears very interested in the floor, shoulders hiking up to his pink ears in abject embarrassment. “I-I have an hour to get it done and I’m usually finished with it in about half an hour, so… I have to get back to work soon.”

Jon ignores the frankly impressive reality of this fact for a much more reasonable query- “why not just finish early?”

Freckles looks at him like he’s just grown another head. “I did. That’s why I’m here?”

“No, I mean tell your boss you finished early. You’d be considered a model employee.”

“W-well, because then she’d give me more work. Resulting in a whole ‘work more and be paid less’ situation.”

“You could ask for a raise.”

“She’s… not the type to be giving out raises.”

Ah, well. That’s fair enough, Jon supposes. “I see.” He turns back to his book, suddenly lost in the thought that he wouldn’t think twice about reporting his diligence to his employer and receiving nothing but more work and a pat on the shoulder for it. That’s… disheartening. “Wait, if she’s not the type to be giving out raises, shouldn’t she also be the type to give out… firings? What if someone catches you here?”

Freckles waves him off. “Oh, nobody ever comes back here, I’ve noticed. She doesn’t care what I’m doing.”

“Right.” Jon can’t stop the quirk of his lips. How… silly of him. Even if he’s noticed the same thing.

They marinate in the stew of the discussion for approximately thirty seconds before Freckles says, “so how was your day?”

Honestly, he’s been dying to complain of it, so- “awful. There were these… remarkably pretentious pair of clients I had to wring a business deal out of.”

“Ah.” Freckles winces with sympathy. “Service industry, I-I know how that is. Lots of them in the museum business?”

“Predictably enough, yes. They were trying to play me like sleazy car salesmen regardless of the fact that I was the one with any practical knowledge of their artifacts’ worths.”

“They were trying to scam you… out of something you were an expert on?” The corner of his mouth rises. Jon feels flustered, suddenly.

“W-Well, I’d hardly call myself an expert.”

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short, I’m sure you’ve got some sort of fancy degree.”

He does, but he’s not sure if it would be taken as bragging or not to mention his Oxford education. People have gotten pissy with him for bringing it up before. “It’s expected for any formal trade deal, anyway. My real problem was with their sink.” This isn’t even a lie. “Do you have any idea how impractical fancy sinks are?”

He shares a few more “rich client” anecdotes- a topic both of them can thoroughly relate to, luckily- before he realizes they haven’t discussed Freckles nearly as much as they’ve discussed Jon and his work. To rectify this, he asks how Freckle’s day was after a strange segue. 

Freckles says, “uneventful,” and smiles that placid smile before saying unceremoniously that he should be getting back to work.

Jon watches him go with a vague sense of… something. He almost looks forward to seeing him again- which is essentially guaranteed given his position there.

—

The next day, when Jon joins Freckles on the loveseat, he pulls a coffee cup nestled between him and the armrest out of hiding and offers it up to Jon. Jon takes it, bewildered and amused.

“Oh? What’s this?”

“Visited the coffee shop down the street during my lunch break and got you a tea,” Freckles says all in one breath, visibly nervous with all the fidgeting and such. He keeps picking at nonexistent lint on the sleeve of his jumper, and his eyes keep flickering between Jon and his lap. “I, uh, wasn’t sure what kind you’d like, so I just got a plain English breakfast.”

Jon sniffs the tea inconspicuously. It is, indeed, English breakfast. He almost feels terrible about breaking the news to Freckles that he’s not the biggest English breakfast tea fan, but then he realises he doesn’t have to if he just changes the subject. He takes a sip anyway. “How did you even know I’d be coming in today?” His library schedule is pretty erratic.

Freckles huffs out a quiet chuckle, cheeks turning ruddy red in uneven splotches. “I, uh, didn’t.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Chanced it.”

Jon can’t help snorting out a deeply undignified laugh at this phrase. “You chanced it? What would you have done with the tea if I wasn’t here?”

“Uh, throw it out?” Freckles says, only now seeming to realise the ridiculousness of this sentiment. “Take it home and heat it up later?”

Jon, remarkably, does not become solely confused or indignant in spite of the more straightforward half of his mind informing him that this is an utterly idiotic course of action on Freckles’ part. Or maybe it was BECAUSE of the fact that it was idiotic that Jon is so amused. He wouldn’t have thought so without the kind gesture being directed towards him, but there’s something almost endearing about the amount of blind goodwill in the action. His lunch break must’ve been hours ago. Strangely enough, the tea is still hot. Maybe there’s a microwave in the break room? Do libraries have break rooms? He should probably know by now. It’s not like he isn’t familiar with libraries.

Still not quite able to shake off the awkward cadence of his voice, he says, “well. Thank you. That’s… very kind of you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Freckles mutters with a sheepish smile on his face. He thumbs his book open on his lap, seemingly content to end the exchange there. Jon is not.

“Have you… always worked here?” He asks, prompting Freckles’ head to snap back up as he takes a slow seat next to him. “It’s just that, I’ve been conducting regular visits for three years and I haven’t seen you here before.”

“Oh, uh, no, actually. I just started working here a few weeks ago. I just found and started stealing your reading nook recently, though.”

“First of all,” Jon says, happy to have this irrational sentiment echoed back at him from his own half formed thoughts, “you haven’t been stealing it. You have just as much a right to it as I do.”

“Right,” Freckles says smugly, making it quite obvious that Jon’s insistence isn’t as convincing as it should be.

“Second of all, where did you work before here?”

“Research,” Freckles responds too quickly. “Um, in.. psychology. But, y’know, I thought it was time for a change of pace. Kind of weird to leave your research job for minimum wage restocking bookshelves.”

Jon’s eyebrow instinctively raises at this. “I suppose it is.”

The easy body language Freckles had shared with him at the beginning of their conversation is gone now, replaced with all too stiff posture and a sense of animalistic fear. Jon figures that this means there’s some other, deeper layer to the conversation that he is missing severely, but can’t even begin to guess what it is and so just begins reading his book in companionable silence, suffering through small sips of his rapidly cooling tea at random intervals.

“…Chai,” he says without thinking a few minutes later.

“What?”

“I prefer chai. To English breakfast. Just… for future reference.”

“Oh.” Freckles smiles at him. “Thank you for telling me,” he says, like Jon had trusted him with a secret or something. It embarrasses him for reasons he can’t even begin to describe.

“Just- you don’t have to buy any more tea for me, this was already more than enough, I just…” he doesn’t know how to finish his sentence.

Freckles nods slightly and says, “got it,” even though there’s no way he possibly could have.

He leaves with an amicable goodbye to restock more bookshelves a few minutes later. Jon tries to catch a glimpse of him as he leaves in later hours for some indiscernible reason that he does not feel like exploring further, but to no avail.

—-

“My grandmother had all of these recipes she would try and pass down to me, but I have been so remarkably uninterested in cooking my entire life that I didn’t commit any of it to memory.” This is actually a real point of contention in Jon’s head. He feels more guilt about not carrying on the legacy of his family’s cuisine than he does about anything else related to them. Or his nan, really.

Freckles sucks in air through his teeth. “Oh, you’ve got to be doing better than me. You know I’ve never made a sauce that didn’t come from a jar?”

“Good Lord. You’re right, that’s… awful.”

“Yeah, well, I would’ve LIKED to figure out how to cook better, but I was always tired enough by the time I came home from work that I couldn’t bring myself to not take the easiest option.”

“It seems to me we both have regrets about the culinary trajectories of our lives.”

“Okay, but I can actually make a mean pierogi. From scratch.”

Jon smiles. That checks out, somehow. “Can you?”

Freckles sputters, cheeks going ever so slightly pink. “Okay, well- a decent pierogi. Subpar, even.”

“I don’t believe you. About them being subpar, I mean.”

“It’s the one thing my mum taught me before she sort of-“ he makes a weird gesture here. Something with his hand that communicates falling away or trailing off. Jon, impossibly, understands. “And I always thought it was good. But… I dunno. Maybe every other pierogi in the world is better than mine. It’s not like I’ve had many to compare them to.”

“Oh, I’m sure your pierogi is incredibly ‘mean’.” This emerges less sarcastic than Jon would’ve ideally liked it to.

Freckles grins at him. “And I’m sure you’ve retained at least something from your grandmother.” 

Jon is shaking his head before the sentence is even out of his mouth. “No, no no no. The only thing I will concede on are the linzer tarts.”

“Linzer tarts?”

“Oh, they’re very good. And quite simple. Only a few ingredients.”

“You’ll have to have me try them sometime.” Freckles wiggles his eyebrows at him ever so slightly, like this is entirely a joke of a proposition. Jon finds himself wanting to regardless. 

—-

“Okay, but take Dickinson for example- she’s one of the most renowned poets of all time and isn’t even remotely flowery with her wordplay! You can’t just say flowery like it’s an adjective that describes every poet. Her entire thing is that-“

“She does not get to the point. That is where my problem lies. It is a genre encompassing issue. The entire point of poetry is that you dance around whatever you’re trying to say!”

Freckles turns his nose up at him and opens his book indignantly. Any real anger over this topic has long since evaporated, but they both still derive copious amounts of joy from reviving the argument.

“I WAS going to get you a lemon tart to go with your tea,” Freckles says, staring intently down at his book, “but you’re being stubborn enough about this that I can’t in good conscience.”

“Lemon wouldn’t even go well with chai.” Jon is bluffing. He certainly wouldn’t complain.

“You’re bluffing.”

“Well, I suppose you’ll have to buy me a lemon tart and find out.”

“What happened to your cool, suave, ‘I really don’t need any more’ attitude?”

This is done in a frankly terrible impression of Jon’s voice. He scoffs. “I do not sound like that.”

Freckles winces with exaggeration. “Ooh, buddy.”

—-

Jon has started coming into the library almost daily where it was only around thrice a week before. He and Freckles first lock eyes for the thirtieth time, and his chai is held out for him along with an easy smile.

Despite Jon’s numerous protests, Freckles insists on bringing him chai every day, which has revealed a new facet of his personality: his stubbornness. Jon doesn’t think he’s ever met anyone quite as stubbornly kind as Freckles. He’s left the library multiple times having made something to the effect of a pinky promise to get more sleep after admitting to a frankly appalling habit of four hours a night. (Jon recalls the interaction; Freckles’ mouth had been wide open and incredulous, expression drawn into a show of such utter discontent that Jon couldn’t NOT think it was funny.) Well, Jon doesn’t think it’s all that appalling, but if he told that to Freckles he’d never hear the end of it.

Jon says “thanks” for the tea as he grabs it and sits down before taking a long sip. The whole action exudes exhaustion.

“Mhm.”

A moment after he swallows, Jon mutters, “You won’t believe the day I’ve had.”

“What, did Carlisle forget to restock the printer again?”

“No. Well, yes, but that’s not the main thing.”

Freckles’ eyebrows rise on his forehead. “Wow. Worse than Carlisle not restocking the printer…”

“I’d actually appreciate it if you refrained from making any further comments.” He would not appreciate it.

“Sorry,” Freckles says, clearly not sorry. “It’s just- I’ve never seen anyone get so mad about the failure to restock a printer.”

“If you had to wait in that line, you’d be mad about it too.”

“I’m sure. But, uh, what’s this about a different sort of terrible day?”

Jon begins describing the antics of the new intern- Mark, or something- at length. Incompetence, lack of diligence, an inexplicable draw to the corner of any given room at all hours of the day… the works. Freckles nods along in all the right places before speaking at the end of Jon’s rant.

“Don’t think anyone trained the guy.”

“What?”

“I-I mean, well. It’s just… I recognize a lot of those behaviours. Happened whenever no one would volunteer to train a new hire in my old retail jobs.” Then, quietly and without any obvious intonation, “I was usually the new hire, actually.”

“Oh,” Jon says, unable to tell if he’d offended his… friend. Friend? They’re definitely friends. “Sorry.”

“No, no,” Freckles says, placing his own lavender tea down on the ledge behind them. “You’re well within your rights to complain.” Then, with a self-deprecating laugh, “I would know.”

With this newfound knowledge about Freckles, Jon views the whole Mark situation in a new light and begins to remember the awkward intervals between his actions where he would stand in the corner of the room, reaching out minutely to anyone who looked like they needed help and pulling back with a distinctly lost expression on his face. Freckles is right, actually. They probably took him in straight out of school and just expected him to know what to do. Jon, miraculously, actually feels bad about his complaining now.

“You’re actually quite right about that,” Jon says a moment later, distinctly remorseful. “I… didn’t realise.”

“Hey, that’s okay, nobody really… ‘realises’ these things,” Freckles says with a kind cadence, attempting to placate JON for some reason even though he isn’t the one who was technically insulted.

“No, it’s-“ Jon angles his body to face a bewildered looking Freckles. “I’m just- I’m sorry regardless.”

Freckles huffs out a small breath. “Well. Let’s just say you can be annoyed about the things Mark did without actually holding it against him.”

“I actually feel rather sympathetic towards him now,” Jon says with disbelief. Really, just a minute ago he was praying for the downfall of the man’s career.

“He’ll survive,” Freckles says quietly, eyes lost somewhere on the horizon.

“…How was your day?” 

“Oh, you know.” Freckles waves a hand that was previously on his book. “Same as ever. Felt scared of my boss. Cleaned some schmootz out of the microwave.” So they did have a break room. “…Tried to talk to one of the teenage girls that volunteer here about the book she was reading and she looked at me like I had three heads. So, uh, that ruined my whole day a bit.”

Jon breathes a short laugh at the mental image. He almost feels bad, before Freckle’s answering smile clues him in that the dry humor was intentional. He doesn’t know how anyone could look at Freckles like he has three heads.

“How embarrassing for you.”

Freckles groans, slumping back in his seat. “God, I know. She’s probably not even gonna show up anymore. I think I scared her off.”

“Don’t worry. I bet she’s agonizing over it just as much as you are.”

“Yeah, because alternatively, I wanted that to be the outcome. This is what happens when I reach out to people.”

It’s said sarcastically and he obviously doesn’t mean it- or if he does, it’s not a sentence that’s meant to be unpacked- but for some god forsaken reason, Jon says, “I’m still here, aren’t I?”, and it comes out sincere enough that he almost swivels his head around to find the mouth it emerged from. Because it certainly wasn’t his.

There is quiet for a moment, where Freckle’s head turns toward him and he just looks. Then, relievingly, he smiles. Then he says, “I’d hardly call whatever I did reaching out.”

Jon sputters for a moment, now aware of the fact that he’s been looking blankly into the middle distance for too long to be considered natural. “I-I mean, you were the one who started the tea trend! Which I’m still intending to pay you back for, by the way.”

“Only because you stared at me in contempt hard enough to prompt it! And also, no you’re not.”

“Oh, shut up.” He opens his book, feeling extremely flustered for some reason. Freckles obliges with a grin that makes him look younger. Unburdened. Freckles is always so kind, but there’s something in his face that seems to weigh him down.

Jon realizes from nowhere, as he sneaks another glance at this smile, that seeing it is the highlight of his day.

—-

A problem arises with this newfound companionship. 

Jon is sipping happily on his chai, engaged heavily in an uncharacteristically friendly discussion with Freckles about their respective favorite authors (he’s reluctantly stopped being SUCH a pessimist about poetry that they begin a faux argument every time the subject is brought up), when abruptly while he’s watching the other man’s mouth move in its endearing, punched out way, like he’s a sputtering engine, he realizes something.

He doesn’t know Freckles’ name.

And based on the fact that he’s never heard it out of the other’s mouth, Freckles doesn’t know his name either. 

Normally this would be fine if not a vaguely strange facet of their relationship- after all, they only saw each other for a brief half hour long period each day- but a new fact is making itself known to Jon the more and more he gets to know Freckles. 

He might genuinely be Jon’s closest friend.

And he doesn’t know his name.

He has other… friends, sure. Tim, his exhibit and desk neighbour, Sasha, the scarily smart woman he chats with in the break room sometimes… but they only speak a few words to each other a day. Tim gets as far as a tease or two before easing off. Whenever he’s invited out for drinks with them and the rest of their coworkers, he doesn't actually engage in the conversation besides speaking on all technicalities. It’s a lonely existence, sure, but it’s just enough social interaction a day to keep him from going insane, so Jon’s successfully convinced himself he’s fine with it. Hell, he hasn’t talked to any of his uni friends in years.

Meanwhile, however, Jon’s shared information about his childhood, passions and aspirations, and mundane complaints with Freckles daily for the past month and a half or so. Reporting your day back to someone everyday for months will make you feel intrinsically close to them no matter how you spin the situation. And Freckles is even particularly good at sliding into his comfort zone with a kind word or smile and putting Jon at ease like it’s nothing. It’s an enviable trait. On some level, Jon’s wished all his life that he could be a less stifling presence, but he just doesn’t seem to know how to press that magic button. He’s not wired that way. 

This insecurity dredges up a new problem: he might value Freckles WAY more than Freckles values him. Hell, for all he knows he could be considered the scrawny library weirdo that won’t stop intruding on the man’s personal quiet time.

…Okay, well, that might be pushing it. Freckles DOES buy him tea every single day. And only take his break when Jon arrives. And resolutely always sit in his reading nook with the intention to speak with him. And smile and laugh a lot when talking to him.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, Freckles must be blowing a LOT of money on Jon’s daily teas. After some quick mental calculations, Jon deduces that he must’ve wasted close to fifty pounds on Jon’s tea for this month alone.

That’s… a terrible financial decision. And one that could’ve only been made if Freckles held some fondness for him, Jon thinks, blush quickly rising to his cheeks as he stews in the now comforting silence between them that apparently arose at some point during his epiphany. Freckles doesn’t seem to notice, enraptured in his book as always. 

It seems even worse now that Jon has been calling his closest friend ‘Freckles’ in his head for the entire time he’s known him based only on his most prominent physical trait. It’s not like he can ask now, they’ve been having fully fledged conversations with each other every day for weeks and weeks! The window of opportunity has closed! 

If Jon were a greater man, maybe he would suck it up and just ask and laugh with Freckles about the relatability of the situation. As he is now, however, he takes his phone out and pulls up Tim’s contact, because Tim is the least socially inept person Jon knows.

Tim, he writes, could I ask for your advice?

Glad you contacted me what’s up is Tim’s almost immediate reply.

I’ve been talking to this guy at the library for a long time now but haven’t had the foresight to ask his name, and the window of opportunity has passed.

Waitwaitwait does he know YOUR name???

I don’t believe so.

Ok then you can just ask him and he won’t have the right to judge you for it

Who knows it might even be a bonding moment!

Right. Thank you.

Good luck Jon let me know how it goes tomorrow lol

Jon frowns at the words. He’s not sure what he was expecting Tim to say. You could always try extrapolating his bank details and work your way backwards from there. Or, worse, you could always try asking him for his number and let him put in his contact information. Eugh. Gross. No! Jonathan Sims doesn’t ask for numbers. Especially from people he doesn’t even know the names of. What is he, a college student?

He’s still staring at the screen, lost in thought.

“What’re you doing?”

Jon nearly yelps but stifles it just in time to make a deeply undignified and library appropriate noise instead.

“Nothing,” he says, fumbling to shut off his phone and pocket it. “I-Is that, uh, the same book you had yesterday?”

“I’m afraid it is. I’ve been trying to read it faster, but, uh, these big old thick ones take a lot out of me.” He looks back down at his book with something between confusion and despair. “Oh, I- lost my page.”

The sincere despondent whisper he says it in, comically disproportionate to the inconvenience at hand, is hopelessly endearing to Jon. This endearment is too undercut with anxiety to inspire his usual lightheartedness, however. He rubs circles into the page of his book with his thumb as he fights the familiar urge to chew on his nails. Just ask him, huh. Just ask Freckles what his name is. Logically it would have no repercussions on their relationship seeing as it never came up, but-

Jon gives a noncommittal hum instead. “Last night I tried a Thai restaurant that opened down the road. Something beginning with T?”

Freckles’ eyes light up. “Ooh, what’d you have?”

“Oh, just some roti with curry. I wasn’t very hungry.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever had roti. Which is weird, because I’ve been out for Thai so many times.”

“You and everyone else. Erm, that is, it was very good. And cheap. Or at least the roti was. If you ever need somewhere for dinner.” With me, he doesn’t say. Because he doesn’t want to. Because that’d be crazy. But he’d probably get Freckles’ number if they actually wanted to make plans. And his name, while he was at it. Should he?

“…But you don’t remember the name of the restaurant.”

Jon scoffs, waves off Freckles in the face of his grin. “I was… Distracted by the food.”

“Distracted by the food.”

“Mhm.”

“Right.” After one of his token exasperated smiles, Freckles stands up with his arms above his head. He stretches with exaggeration and lets out a tiny involuntary noise as he does so. Jon commits the sound to memory like it’s gospel.

He turns and faces Jon, almost comically upset looking. “Gotta get back to my shift.”

“O-oh, right. Parting is such sweet sorrow, and all.”

“You’ll be fine,” Freckles says softly, in that abrupt and sincere way of his that makes Jon’s heart do wheelies. “Probably.” He then retreats back into the shelves, calls a “see you tomorrow, Jon,” over his shoulder. 

Jon freezes. Looks up, mid sip, at the space where Freckles once was.

Shit.

—-

“So how’d it go?”

Jon is yanked from his spiralling thoughts at the sound of Tim’s voice from the desk adjacent to his. He looks up from his computer. “What?” 

Tim is grinning a Cheshire grin, probably ecstatic about the fact that literally anything is going on with Jon that he can actually ask about. “Asking the guy his name. How’d it go?”

“Oh, uhm.” Jon doesn’t know how to end that sentence. Turns out he does know my name somehow and I just don’t reciprocate the basic courtesy. He’s been trying and failing all day to gauge where Freckles learned his name to no avail. Had he mentioned it at some point? The first time they met? Did they both say their names and he simply didn’t remember? The problem, now that Jon knows it’s one sided on his end, has graduated from the urgency of a leaky faucet to an active house fire. “It went well. Yes.”

“Sooooo? Who’s the lucky guy?”

Jon blinks. “It’s, uhh. Uhhh.”

It has been said in many a scripture that while Jon could be considered “smart” in the loosest terms- he’s decent at memorizing factual information, and has a curiosity about him, and is quite meticulous- he even went to Oxford- he doesn’t have the widest breadth of improvisational skills. Which is ironic, because he was in an improv group in uni. But he’s taking that secret to the grave. Him and Georgie. Georgie better take that secret to the grave. He doesn’t know who she’d tell, but still.

Anyway, he watches in paralyzed terror from outside his body as he forgets every single name he’s ever learned in one high pressure instant, and stares in frozen agony at Tim for a good three seconds.

A single eyebrow raises on Tim’s forehead. “…Did you get his name, Jon?”

“Yes.” He sees Mark rush past them in the background. “Antony.”

“…Antony.”

“Yes.”

“His name is Antony.”

“Right.”

Tim nods very slowly, making it abundantly clear he knows that this is false information. Or at least that something weird is going on here.

“What?” Jon snaps all of a sudden. He doesn’t even know where that came from.

“Woah, man, okay. Antony it is. Let me know if anything else goes on between you two!”

Tim swivels back around in his chair, alarmed and amused, and that’s that. 

Jon had a dream last night where he said “I’m sorry, what’s your name again?” to Freckles in their usual loveseat and his bottom lip trembled and he garbled out some dream-thing Jon can’t remember with shiny eyes and turned away, saying something along the lines of I thought we were becoming friends but he doesn’t even know my name because his head is so far up his own ass he can see the light from his throat, and Jon privately agrees with this assessment. 

It’s dire. He’s having dreams about it now, for god’s sake. 

He’s going to do something about this.

—-

Jon returns to the library that afternoon on a mission. He has a plan. It’s so obvious, he’s not sure how he didn’t think of it sooner.

Freckles is in their usual spot, still reading, when Jon strides up to him with such an inordinate amount of energy that his eyes widen in surprise and a bit of amusement when he hears the unusual cadence of footfall and looks up.

“Woah. Finally get upwards of five hours of sleep?”

“Are you able to get me into the break room?”

He blinks. “Sorry, what?”

“Are you allowed to-“ he sputters a bit and looks off to the side, suddenly lucid about the ridiculousness of the request. Why did he think this was a good idea? “Could you bring me into the break room?” 

The phrasing “bring me” embarrasses him for some reason. Like Freckles is his escort. Or his bodyguard. Or his date to the prom. Like he’d be leading him in by the hand, or the small of his back. Eugh. Weird.

“Um. Prob- probably not? Sort of, uh, against the rules.”

Oh.

Jon stands there, cheeks burning. “Right.”

Unfortunately, this is amusing to Freckles, whose mouth has been lifting in a smile the longer this has gone on. “Sorry, why did you need to get into the break room?”

Well, at least he’s prepared for this. “Oh, I-I just-“ he fumbles a bit with his pockets and procures a small yellow notepad, holding it up triumphantly. “I needed to borrow a pen. I-It’s for work, some research I need to get done.”

He’s expecting this to get Freckles off his back entirely, but all he receives is a skeptical furrow of the eyebrows and an undercurrent of that same fond amusement. “You know you could’ve just gone up to the front desk?”

“Well- I wanted to see the break room.” That’s all he’s got.

“Okaaay...”

Freckles is looking at him like he’s crazy, but at least he isn’t pressing anymore. Success.

Jon takes his seat next to him and opens his book, not even remotely focused on the words. So plan A was a bust. He could’ve predicted that. Maybe he’d assumed libraries were more lenient or the break room was public or something- he doesn’t know, been in a sort of fugue state for the past 24 hours, nothing makes sense anymore. He was gonna see if there were names posted anywhere.

What IS good news is that that was only the first half baked idea Jon had. There are many yet to come. Maybe he could get Freckles to go to a fancy restaurant for the two of them- or they could go for the aforementioned Thai- and he could give his name for the reservation. No. No, dinner is too familiar for someone whose name he doesn’t know.

“You don’t still need that pen?” Freckles says next to him with an almost smug cadence. The bastard.

“N-no, it’s fine, I think I probably have an extra.” Great. Now he has to pretend to be writing down notes on- he looks at the book he grabbed at random- Recounting the History of Timothy Dexter, for the rest of Freckles’ break. 

—-

“Excuse me,” Jon almost whispers, striding up to the young woman restocking books mid aisle. She turns with a friendly customer service smile that is probably as genuine as it can be under the circumstances.

“Yes, how can I help you?”

“I-I was wondering if you knew the name of your one coworker, big, curly hair, glasses, freckles?”

She blinks, a bit surprised. Probably not the sort of question she gets asked most often. Jon then realizes that this could be construed as him stalking poor Freckles or asking after his personal information, so he’s quick to clarify, “just his first name. Just to confirm something.”

This seems to work, but she slumps with an apologetic cadence.  “Ah, right, right. I know who you’re talking about. I don’t actually know his name, I’m sorry. I haven’t spoken to him much.”

Well. That’s disappointing.

Jon asks another library worker- a shorter guy with an unfortunate haircut. He asks the janitor, and the front desk lady.

It’s all some variation of “I don’t know, I haven’t spoken to him.” Jon’s response is then some variation of, “thank you anyway. Please don’t tell him I asked you.” And then they would get suspicious, and he would have to explain the entire embarrassing ordeal until they looked like they were about to burst out laughing in the quiet space. So. He’d rather not repeat that interaction any more than strictly necessary. 

Jon would ideally like to find his boss, because she’s REQUIRED to know his name, good lord, why does nobody know this mystery man’s name- but she’s never anywhere he can see. And it’s not like he’d be able to identify her on sight anyway.

When Freckles asks why he’s late the first or second time, he says he’s being held up at work lately. He seems to believe Jon. But who can ever really know with the stubbornly elusive, unknowable Freckles?

—-

Freckles gets up and strides casually away with an enigmatic smile after Jon says something stupid. He said he had to “get something” and left him with an emphatic “wait here”. Like Jon was gonna do anything else.

While he’s gone, Jon considers what he should do next.

When he’s back, Jon has pulled out his phone and is presenting it with triumph.

“I’ve decided,” he announces with little fanfare, “that I’m going to begin learning Hindi on this language app.”

Freckles stops in his tracks, new book in hand. “Oh?” There’s that quirk in his lip again. His cheeks are so large. Like two little apples in his face. And they follow the movement of his mouth and eyes so dutifully.

“Yes,” Jon says abruptly.

“You’ve been weird lately.” He hands him the new book regardless of this supposed weirdness. “Also, got this for you. That thing you mentioned just… reminded me of it.”

Jon is torn between sputtering indignantly and sputtering with flattery. He decides to bypass the kind gesture entirely with indignance, but takes the book and gently sets it down on his lap after glancing at the cover. His thanks kind of bleeds into his tone as he smiles through his defense. “I am not! Can’t a man decide, sporadically, that he’s going to learn another language? For the sake of expanding his own horizons?”

“Okay, Jon.”

The sound of Jon’s name spoken fondly in his mouth sort of punches the air out of him. For multiple reasons, the most prominent of which being immense guilt. Oblivious to the pain this single syllable has caused, Freckles sits back down next to him and rests his hand on his cheek. “Hindi, huh?”

“My- my mother was fluent. Or so I was told.”

This isn’t even a lie. He wouldn’t go so far as to lie about his mother, anyway. Freckles nods thoughtfully. They only know vaguely about each other’s parental situations because they haven’t gotten into the meat of it, but there’s an understanding between them that makes mentioning certain things easier.

Jon is tapping away, creating an entire account for the bit, careful to angle his phone away from Freckles so he can’t see. Here comes the important part of his plan.

“That’s actually really cool,” Freckles interrupts him out of nowhere. Jon fumbles entirely with the keyboard.

“I-I wouldn’t say that, I’m sure I won’t even be able to commit.”

“No, I think you can!” Freckles sits up, a fire ignited in his eyes. “Listen, anyone who’s gone to Oxford has enough academic motivation to practice for, like, ten minutes a day. This is a cakewalk for you!”

“I really just meant it as more of a casual thing-“

“You should fully go for it. You’d do great. Really.”

There’s that awkward sincerity that makes Jon want to keel over and die. Especially in this scenario, where he’s straight up just lying to Freckles’ round, enthusiastic face.

“Well,” he manages after a moment of direct eye contact with the most blinding force on the planet, “then you should join me.” 

Freckles blinks, almost with exaggeration. “Should I?”

“Y-yes. It doesn’t have to be Hindi, just- there’s a friend system on the app and you get benefits, and it’s easier to stay motivated with someone else, and they’ve got all these little challenges. And whatnot.”

It’s a bit unnecessarily convoluted, but essentially, you have to use Google to make an account and it defaults the first part of your email as your username. Most people’s emails at least give some clue about their name. Ergo, Freckles makes an account with him, they become friends, voila. Hint. Besides that, the vast majority of users just keep their real name as their display name. 

Freckles smiles. “That’s… actually a good idea, come to think of it.”

“Oh. Really?” Jon was not expecting this to actually work.

“Yeah. Sure. Why not, right? And it’s not like it’s gonna hurt if I don’t use it.”

Jon nods with probably a bit more enthusiasm than is in character for him as Freckles takes out his phone and begins dutifully installing the app. He doesn’t peek at his screen as he creates his account because he has some restraint for God’s sake, but he does almost vibrate with excitement as he finally says, “alright, what’s your username?” At Freckles’ triumphant announcement that he’s done. 

Freckles seems to almost wilt at the question. His mouth presses into a thin line.

“…Keatswordsworth87.”

Jon looks at him. Looks back down at his phone. Looks at him.

“That’s… your personal email.”

“Um, well. I made it a while ago,” he says sheepishly, sinking a bit. His eyes dart around the place like this is something Jon is going to ridicule him for.

Jon, too fatalistic at this point to really be upset, just sighs. “Of course you did,” he says, and to his chagrin, it comes out with an unmistakable fond amusement. Freckles giggles. 

Luckily, Jon can still cling the hope that he kept his display name as his actual name.

He makes his way to Freckle’s page. It’s a cow emoji.

He ends up actually committing to the streak because Freckles keeps asking him about it and the prospect of telling him he gave up after, like, a day, is too sad to even consider. 

Freckles learns Mandarin parallel to him. They end up having wonderful conversation fodder for the foreseeable future as a result.

—

One day, far, far into this whole debacle- further than he can justify to himself- Jon asks a new woman who’s sweeping the floor mechanically near the children’s area. She looks to be somewhere in Freckle’s age demographic. And he hasn’t seen her around before, so maybe she’s new and Freckles has introduced himself to her recently? 

He’s just spitballing here, he’s mostly lost all hope related to Freckle’s coworkers. How come none of them are friends with him? Are they blind?

Regardless, he’s desperate enough that he begins his usual script as he walks up to her.

“Excuse me,” he says, watching her startle at being interrupted from her task, “do you happen to know the first name of one of your coworkers? Big, glasses, curly hair, freckles?”

She actually perks up, a stark contrast from how every other person he’s asked has deflated. Probably because she was expecting him to ask where something is when she doesn’t even know yet. “Oh! Yeah, I know him. Um, I’m new here, but he introduced himself to me. Starts with an M, I think?”

Jon almost jolts. “An M?”

“Yeah. M… something. Probably a vowel after that. Sorry, that’s all I’ve got.” She smiles sheepishly. Jon, however, hangs onto her every word like he’s a starving man in the sahara and she’s a cut of premium wagyu beef and a glass of ice cold water.

He looks around, like this is a setup. “...Are you sure? One hundred percent?”

She looks around too, like this also may be a setup for her. “...Yeah? Mostly?”

“Okay. Okay, thank you so much, that’s very helpful. Yes.” It’s not actually THAT helpful, but Jon has been so starved of information that any progress imbues him enough joy that he may as well have accomplished his goal. He’s so happy, in fact, that he almost forgets to say his usual “uh, don’t tell him I asked you.” But he does remember.

She tilts her head and that familiar look of suspicion comes across her features. “Why?”

“Uhm. I-I’ve been…” he sighs, resigned to his usual spiel. “I’ve been talking to him every day for… many weeks now, and I consider him a friend by this point, but I may have neglected to learn his name? And now I can’t ask. Because it’s too late. You can ask him if you want, just- don’t tell him about the name thing.”

Yeah, there goes her face. Now she’s looking at him with a grotesque combination of amusement and deep pity. “I see. I won’t tell him you asked, don’t worry.”

Jon normally wouldn’t be inclined to believe these people, but nobody has blabbed so far. That or they have and Freckles is just really good at pretending nothing has changed. The thought strikes deep fear into Jon’s heart, because for all he knows about Freckles, it seems entirely in character. But it’s not like there’s much he can do about it if that’s the case.

“Thank you. Again. Really.” He feels so grateful to this girl that he almost feels the demented urge to bow before he strides away.

M. M, huh? New favorite letter of the alphabet. He didn’t have one before, so this one sort of takes the cake by default. M. It suits Freckles for all Jon knows about him. 

Unfortunately, the name ‘Freckles’ has sort of locked itself into Jon’s head, so it’s not like he’s about to give him a new nickname in actual accordance with his real one.

What to do with this information? Making a list of likely candidates seems like a good start, even if Jon isn’t sure what he’d do with it. It’s not like he can try them all out with Freckles and see if he responds to any of them. Or can he? No, no, stupid idea.

Luckily, research is a field Jon excels in. And so, at work the next day, he gets started. On his own time. Obviously.

—

Jon returns to the loveseat with a list on his trusty notepad. Well, he doesn’t return to the loveseat. He returns to the convenient corridor behind the loveseat that you can’t really see from the loveseat unless you swivel your head a hundred and twenty degrees to the left, but that you can easily stalk any loveseat occupants from. So that’s what Jon does. Well, no, he isn’t stalking Freckles, he’s just staring intently at him without his knowledge as he reads.

He has a nice silhouette, Jon thinks, before he gets down to business. The top contenders are Michael, Matthew, Mark, Marcus, Mitchell, Martin, Maurice, and Max. 

Jon looks up at Freckles. Down at his notepad. Up at Freckles.

…This isn’t doing anything.

Dammit, he can’t figure out which one it is by just looking at him. What was he thinking? All of the names besides maybe Mitchell and Maurice are in a six way tie for whichever one he’s most confident in. Actually, he wouldn’t like it to be Mark, because that would remind him of Intern Mark from work. So it’s a top five now. But that’s not even objective, so it doesn’t count. The elimination of Mitchell and Maurice aren’t objective either! Actual fact and logic has zero bearing in this area of consideration!

So this was supremely unhelpful. He keeps bobbing his head up and down like a parrot, though, because he is still extremely desperate.

Freckles is staring directly at him on one of his rotations. His expression gives away nothing but slight yet absolute confusion.

Jon almost startles and drops his notepad. Almost. He does flinch with his entire body and begin moving towards him way too quickly to be natural, though. Which basically does the same amount of damage to his morale because that reaction was entirely incriminating.

“Hello, yes, just- checking something!”

“Jon, why were you staring at me and taking notes from behind a bookshelf?”

Jon looks down at his pen and notepad like he’s shocked and appalled to find what he’s holding. “O-Oh, this? Um, no reason.”

“You can’t just say ‘no reason’ to these weird things you do, you know,” Freckles says matter of factly. He’s right, of course, but he definitely shouldn’t be. “Maybe I’ll let it slide the first time, but this has been going on for an entire week.”

Jon blinks, confused for some reason. “It has?”

“Yeah!” Freckles emphasizes just how much it’s been with an indignant gesture. Luckily, there’s still an undercurrent on amusement riding under his exasperation, so he’s not entirely mad at Jon, but the feeling being directed at him still makes him feel bad. “You’ve been all jumpy. And asking weird things. And coming in late. And skulking around!”

“I-I’m sorry. I’ll, um, tell you tomorrow. What it is.” He will?

“You will?”

“Yes. I swear. I-I just need time to, um, gather my thoughts.” Okay, well, apparently this is happening.

Wait, no it’s not. He doesn’t have to end this and just suck it up and ask Freckles which of the top eight most popular English male baby names that start with M from 1987 is actually his. He can just lie about what’s bothering him. But should he? Is it time he just face the music?

Freckles blinks, like he was expecting Jon to keep deflecting. A smile rises on his face. Strangely enough, it’s a sort of smug ‘cat’s got the cream’ smile that doesn’t match his next words at all. “I-I mean, you don’t have to if it’s personal.”

“No, I will, you’re… quite obligated to know at this point.” He sits down slowly next to Freckles on the loveseat. Dejected. 

This is probably the most humiliating turn of events that’s ever happened to him. He will actually have to break it to Freckles that he doesn’t know his name, won’t he? He doesn’t deserve that. He deserves to know what an awful friend he’s made.

Freckles seems to pick up on Jon’s shift in mood from panicked to just plain sad, and the smug quality of his expression and body language evaporates almost immediately. Now he just looks concerned. “Hey, I’m serious. You don’t have to tell me. Or-” he pauses, looks down at his lap and breaks eye contact with Jon. He looks back up with a more determined furrow in his brow. “Whatever you tell me, it’ll be alright. Okay? Promise. It won’t change my opinion of you.”

Jon almost wants to dive into his arms and go, “you promise?” in return so he can be reassured and shushed, but he is not five years old and so just nods awkwardly. Given the household he grew up in, actually, five year old him probably wouldn’t even have been allowed to do that. “Thank you.”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe his opinion of him won’t change. God knows Freckles already thinks of Jon as a pathetic, silly man, because for some reason he tends to say very stupid things around him. It reminds him of how he acted around Georgie for a time, back when he was just an absolute buffoon around her because he had less of a filter than usual. Or. Too much filter?

Freckles smiles at him and bumps his shoulder lovingly.

Wait.

Oh.

Oh, hell.

This is the worst. This is the worst possible situation, of all time. Point blank period.

—

Jon has had a lot of time allotted to him to consider what he should do about this whole ‘breaking the news’ ordeal. An entire 24 hours, in fact. He hasn’t gotten very far. He’s at least figured out that he should probably tell the truth because lying to Freckles further would actually stuff him full of so much guilt that he would pop, and this whole figuring out his name scheme is making him go gray with stress. Well, he was going gray early before this whole ordeal, but it certainly isn’t helping. Better to get it out of the way, he reasons. He’ll know Freckle’s name and they can laugh about it together and everything will be fine.

…Is what he would say, if Jon was even remotely in the business of being an optimist. 

He knows Freckles isn’t the most secure and confident person in the entire world. Mostly because Freckles has said it to him in not so many words. Finding out that one of his friends hasn’t known his name this entire time because he just simply forgot (Jon’s most likely theory)? Jon is sure he’d be nice about it and laugh it off, but he doesn’t want Freckles to feel like he doesn’t care about him. He does. He really does, he doesn’t know why he forgot. Maybe he didn’t care enough in the beginning and now that he does it’s too late. There’s no excuse for that, is there?

Jon stalks into the library that day like a man to the gallows. This is it. He’s ruined everything. Freckles is waiting there for him like the executioner.

Not really, actually. He’s reading his book as per usual and doesn’t seem to particularly care when Jon arrives besides his usual wave.

With the amount of time he’s had to think about this, you’d think he would have come up with something by now. Or if he hasn’t he probably should’ve just said something on impulse. But no. Jon is nothing if not a coward.

“Hello,” he says as casually as he possibly can, sitting down with his book but not opening it. They’ve started sitting close enough that their arms touch when one of them turns the page.

“Hi yourself,” Freckles says back, probably having sensed his fear. Because his voice is unreasonably soft. Like he’s trying not to scare him off. Jon wants to scoff at him, but terrifyingly enough, he might genuinely need the reassurance right now.

“Sooo… what’s up? Or have you decided you can’t tell me?”

He’d been hoping that Freckles forgot and just wouldn’t bring it up, but of course he isn’t that lucky. And would you look at that? He’s given an easy out too.

Oh, and does Jon want to take it. Every self preserving cell in his body is screaming at him to do so. But he can’t live like this anymore.

“I don’t know your name,” he says faintly.

Freckles stares. Opens his mouth. Closes it.

He’s not even gonna do himself the courtesy of saying something like I at least know it probably starts with M! because that might actually be even worse. He watches, in abject horror and agony, as Freckles stares blankly at him for his entire tirade. “I have no idea what it is. I’ve been too afraid to ask this entire time. I-I think we might’ve told each other when we first met and I just forgot, because you know my name, b-but I swear it’s not because I didn’t care or just- mentally threw it out or something- I think you might even be my closest friend-“

Freckles’ eyebrows draw up on his face ever so slightly.

“-but for some reason I just neglected to learn your name and I don’t know why. I-I mean, that’s why I’ve been acting so weird, I’ve been trying to- figure it out with miniscule evidence. I’ve been asking all your coworkers a-and I’ve been trying to get you to sign up for things in front of me and I’ve been trying to find it on information posted around the library, but I have awful luck, apparently, because it’s nowhere, and I’m out of options, and I’m sorry I’ve been- freaking you out, but I didn’t want to-“

“I know.”

Jon blinks. “What?”

“I know you don’t know my name.” He says this with something akin to shame.

Jon looks around, like the answer to this situation will make itself known to him if he searches hard enough for it behind the bookshelves. “You… know.”

Freckles nods once. Sheepishly.

“This entire time?”

“Give or take.”

“And you let me go on that spiel.”

“Well- see-“ Freckles looks off to the side, his cheeks burning a bright red under his titular freckles. Jon doesn’t think he’s ever seen him this embarrassed. It’s almost compensation. Almost. “That’s why I let you, I didn’t- I didn’t know how to break it to you.”

“I actually think,” Jon says slowly, still probably in shock, “it is marginally less difficult to tell someone you know they don’t know your name than it is to tell someone that you don’t know their name.”

“I-I just maybe thought it was kind of… a little… funny?”

Jon is going to kill him. “You didn’t tell me. Because my distress was funny.”

He holds up his hands in defense, looking like a rabbit before a predator. “Well, it’s not like I deliberately kept the information away from you! Uh, mostly.”

“I’m sorry, how did you even find out?” This is what he’s most confused about.

“Your text conversation. That one time.”

Jon wracks his brain frantically. “My what?” 

“With your friend, Tim! I-I looked at you and you were typing on your phone and I read the texts- you’ve really got to be less obvious when you’re on that thing, by the way. You were holding it out like two feet in front of you!”

The text conversation. Where Jon detailed his entire problem to Tim. And Freckles was reading it the entire time.

His cheeks absolutely burn. What the hell do you even say in this kind of situation?

Freckle’s eyebrows draw up in genuine distress the longer he sits there watching Jon spontaneously combust in real time.

“I-If it helps, I didn’t know your name either until I read that he called you Jon. We just… forgot to introduce ourselves. And jumped straight into tea.” He smiles a weak smile. It slowly morphs into one that communicates a wide breadth of shame Jon feels like he can’t even begin to fathom. “I-I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I just thought… it wasn’t that big a deal, because we could just laugh about it later. I-I didn’t think…”

The longer he sits there ruminating on Freckles and the hunted look in his eyes, the harder he finds it to feel angry at him. Actually, come to think of it, he hasn’t felt angry at him, just… okay, maybe he’s felt a little angry at him, but it’s been replaced by a different emotion.

“I just-“ Jon can only really make sad, aborted attempts to communicate his feelings, so this isn’t working out. He looks down, adjusts his glasses. Tries to work his expression into something normal. “I’m just embarrassed, is all.”

“Oh, Jon,” Freckles says softly. Then, to Jon’s absolute- something- he isn’t sure what’s going on in his head, because all activity is sort of wiped out- Freckles puts his hand gently onto his and gives it a small comforting squeeze. “It’s not your fault. Obviously it’s not your fault. If anything it’s my fault for being a dickhead and making you feel stupid- I would’ve been in your same shoes! I just happened to be looking at the right place at the right time!”

Jon is still kind of distracted by the hand holding. By the time he’s looked up from his knee where they’re resting, Freckles has pulled away like he’s been burned.

“Um. Anyway.” He shakes it off, cheeks still red, and Jon realizes it really is fine. “Seriously. This is all my fault. I-I just didn’t think-“

“You can make it up to me,” Jon hears himself say. Freckles turns his head toward him at Mach speed. “By- by telling me your name.”

Freckles stares at him. Blessedly, that familiar quirk appears on his lips. “Alright. I know I technically owe you, but… I’ll do you one better if you strike a deal with me.”

Oh, God. This can’t be anything good. 

“What’s been your placeholder name for me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on, Jon, I said I’d do you one better!”

“What’s the… one better that you will do me? I sincerely doubt it’ll be worth it.” He’s not sure he believes this, because he’s just about ready to tell him anything and suffer the consequence of being giggled at. He’s starting to realize that it’s actually not much of a consequence at all.

Freckles crosses his arms slightly, an affronted expression appearing on his face. “I can’t tell you. That’d spoil the surprise.”

Jon sighs, resigned. “If I tell you, you tell me what your placeholder name was.”

Freckles winces largely. “Eugh. Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

“Christ. Oh, God, fine, alright.”

“You’re that curious?” Jon can’t stop the smile from appearing on his face like an unwanted visitor. Yeah, he’s not mad about this.

Freckles groans and places his head in his hands. “The reason I asked in the first place was because my name for you was really embarrassing.”

“Oh, now I’m definitely going to share mine.”

“You’re a menace.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Okay, okay, but you go first.”

Jon hesitates. Only slightly. He is ashamed enough to have to be looking away to say it out loud, it appears. With a defeated slump in his shoulders, he relents. He really wants to know what the surprise is.

“…Freckles.”

It sounds so ridiculous coming from his mouth. Jon chances a peek at- well. The aforementioned Freckles.

His lips are pressed tightly together like he’s trying to hold back laughter, but his eyes are so filled to the absolute brim with affection that it nearly bowls Jon over with its enormity. It’s like he’s being swaddled in a warm blanket by a facial expression. His ears are bright pink.

“That’s, um. That’s cute.” Unconsciously, he reaches at his face and rubs slightly at his freckles. Like he’ll be able to feel evidence of them.

Jon’s first instinct is to say something awful and horrible that exposes him, like well why do you suppose that is, but he only gets as far as the “well-“ and a vague indignant gesture towards Freckles that he can only hope communicates his meaning without being… obvious.

A grin rises on his face the longer he stares at Jon’s fumbling. “Freckles. Christ. Okay, well-“

“I recall,” Jon hisses, “a promise to share your name for me.”

“…It’s really bad.”

“I can guarantee you I’ve been called worse.” This isn’t even a lie. Someone unironically called him a binoclard once, and he’s never gotten over it. And he doubts Freckles has called him anything mean. In fact, he’d even go so far as to say it’s probably something extremely nice that he has no reason to be embarrassed about. Unlike Freckles, which is the stupidest-

“Cheekbones.”

“What?”

“My name for you was Cheekbones.” The words are muffled behind his hands, which are now inexplicably back over his face.

They stew in this silence for approximately four seconds.

“Because of my-“

“Because of your cheekbones, yeah.”

Jon now takes his turn to unconsciously reach out and touch his cheekbones. They’re… prominent, yes, but he didn’t think- 

“It’s because I like them!” He clarifies wildly, having emerged from his sanctum of embarrassment. Though he doesn’t seem any less mortified to be saying this. He looks at Jon with horror and agony in his eyes as he goes on, like he’s being possessed and made to say these things by some evil third party. “Not in a bad way! Obviously. They’re nice cheekbones, which is why- it was your name. For many weeks. Until the texts.”

The longer Jon sits there searching for a reaction, the harder an indisputable fact occurs to him: he’s flattered. Pleased. So much so that he’s beginning to exude arrogance.

Jon feels a strange, wobbly smile emerge on his face as he goes on. He now can say with one hundred percent certainty that he’s acquainted with whatever force motivated Freckles to keep quiet about the name debacle, because it’s an absolute delight to watch him squirm. “Well. Thank you very much.”

“Yeah,” Freckles squeaks out.

Jon smiles at him for another second to really hammer the point home before he says, “I seem to recall you promising me a surprise. And your name, of course.” He doesn’t know where this confidence is coming from. He’s operating mostly on adrenaline at this point. This day- nay, this AFTERNOON- has already been insane enough.

Freckles nods quickly, cheeks still blazing. “Right, right, yeah. Umm.” He stares at Jon as if he’s seen a ghost.

Jon raises a pointed eyebrow.

“…Sorry, I’m just, um. Gathering momentum? I guess?”

His heart speeds up in his chest. He can only think of one thing Freckles would need to be gathering momentum for. “Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“Well.” Jon scoots ever-closer to him on the already cramped loveseat. And when he says “take your time,” it emerges so transparently affectionate that he almost feels the urge to dive into a hole somewhere. Key word: almost. Because Freckles is certainly feeling something similar. 

Jon may be oblivious, but he’s not blind.

Freckles smiles- and takes out his phone. Jon is almost confused before he says, “how do you feel about Thai?”

Bastard. He knows how Jon feels about Thai. “You know how I feel about Thai.”

“Right. Awesome.” He taps the phone one more time and puts it up to his ear as it rings. Luckily, the person on the other end picks up immediately. It could’ve gotten really awkward if they just sat there staring at each other while the call was pending.

“Hi, what are your available times tonight?” Freckles says into the receiver with an absolutely inhuman amount of nervous energy.

The answer garbles through the speakers.

“Great. Um. Table for two at 8:00. Put it under Martin. Thanks.”

He hangs up. Looks back at Jon expectantly. Or like he’s being haunted by himself and his soul is being sucked out of his body, which is a feeling Jon can relate to lately. Unfortunately, this is a lot to process on short notice, so Jon is just staring at him with parted lips.

“Martin.”

He- Martin- good lord, that’s going to take some getting used to- nods. “Martin. Uh, nice to meet you, heh.”

“Nice to meet you too,” he says truthfully. “And… yes. To dinner.”

“Oh, Christ, good, because I have never done something that presumptuous before in my entire life and your initial reaction was freaking me out.”

Jon is too busy being on cloud nine to feel bad about this.

“I-I mean- sorry, I probably should’ve asked first before setting- that was a horrible idea. And could’ve gone very wrong.”

Ridiculous man. “It was a horrible idea. What if I had plans tonight and you had to call them back and cancel? That would’ve been awful.”

Martin snickers, still with a nervous cadence for some reason. Oh, Jon will show him he never needs to be nervous again in his presence. “Jon. Come on, we both know you never have any plans.”

“Can I kiss you?”

The effects the words have on Martin are instantaneous. “Um. Yeah. Uh, puh-lease, heh. Christ. Ignore me.”

Dutifully, Jon cuts him off. Martin’s mouth is just as enticing to touch as it is to watch, as it turns out.

Jon can still feel the instinct to call him Freckles jump sporadically in the back of his head, but Martin hums happily against his lips, and the distinction is officially made. They pull back with a smek that makes Jon’s heart do a little backflip. 

Martin stares at him with an expression that makes him look psychotic, says “cool”, and immediately cringes with every muscle in his face.

In the face of this display, Jon decides that this version of Freckles Jon can reach out and touch- this is Martin. 

Martin Whatever-his-last-name-is. He’ll probably find out at some point.