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The little bell jingles above Martin as he leaves his favourite café. He’s holding a cup of takeaway tea and a bag with a danish pastry in it, and he can’t decide whether he’s happy or sad or just lonely. Probably all three.
It’s been three months since he opened his eyes and found himself in a distantly familiar bed. One moment he’d been plunging a knife into Jon’s chest, and the next he’d been lying on his back, staring up at the stain on his ceiling that’s vaguely shaped like a sneering face. The ceiling he hasn’t looked at since he and Tim went back to his flat to pick up his things a few days after Jane Prentiss let him go.
It had taken him all of a single morning to ascertain that everything was exactly the way he remembered it, that it was the week before he, Jon, Sasha and Tim started in the archives, and, most crucial and devastating of all, that Jon hadn’t come back with him.
He’d killed Elias immediately, of course. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect: Gertrude had been dead for some time, but nobody new was tethered to the archives. He’d felt a brief pang of pity for the original Elias Bouchard as he’d cut his throat and stabbed viciously into his eye sockets, but after all, the man had been dead for years. It was Jonah Magnus Martin had been killing, and it had been Jonah Magnus’s body he’d bullied a shocked Jurgen Leitner into helping him find in the tunnels so that he could make sure that it was dead, too. Then they’d burned down the Institute. That gas main had come in really handy, as had Gertrude’s stash of explosives.
It won’t stop the Web forever, of course. They’ll eventually find another pawn as foolishly ambitious as Jonah and start the whole progress over again, but it took them hundreds of years to get to the point of an actual apocalypse before, and it’ll probably take at least a couple more hundred to get there again. The world isn’t safe, exactly, but it’s no worse, and Martin doesn’t have any problem settling for that.
And now… well.
It hasn’t been easy. He’s wanted, so many times, to seek out Jon, or Tim and Sasha, but none of them know him, not in this timeline. It wouldn’t be… it wouldn’t be the same. They wouldn’t be his friends. They wouldn’t be the people he’s mourned. They wouldn’t be his boyfriend, the man he walked through the apocalypse with, the one he promised where you go, I go. The one he last saw lying on the floor of the Panopticon, the bright light of life dimming in his eyes. The one he killed.
It's better for this world’s Jon, that he’ll never get to know Martin. It is. It is. Martin just needs to make himself believe it. Maybe the Martin he originally was in 2016 would have. He’d still been so unsure of himself, so afraid that even the people who were nice to him secretly loathed the sight of him, so uncertain that he deserved anything good.
But he’s changed since then. He’s learned a lot about himself, and about other people. And… and Jon loving him, the way Jon had loved him, once he’d admitted it, with complete, unquestioning devotion, it had changed him. He thinks it could go that way again, but even better without all the trauma. Only, it wouldn’t be fair to this Jon, who doesn’t even know him, to put all of that expectation and history on him. Martin’s been firm with himself on that point. But it hurts. God, it hurts. Some days it hurts so badly that Martin doesn’t understand how he’s still alive, how he can still walk and talk and smile his way through the world as though his heart hasn’t cracked open inside him and bled everywhere.
It's getting better, though. He only cries himself to sleep about once a week, now. He’s been making friends at his new job, which was actually quite easy to get now that he has almost ten years’ experience at the Magnus Institute under his belt. He didn’t even have to lie on his CV. His new friends are really nice people. He’s started going to a poetry group at his local library.
He thinks that one day he might actually be happy, despite everything. That one day the pain of losing Jon will fade to a dull ache, almost like an old friend, one he welcomes instead of fearing. Perhaps he’ll be able to remember being loved like that with fondness, a sweet, dear memory, instead of the bleeding, suppurating wound it currently is. He hopes so.
Halfway home, he ducks into an alleyway that cuts four to six minutes off his walk, depending on how much of a hurry he’s in, and ambles down it, sipping at his tea. He’s perfectly capable of making his own, of course, but it’s nice to treat himself sometimes.
A minute later he swings out of the alleyway and turns sharply to the left.
And slams bodily into someone rushing along in the other direction.
He manages to catch himself, but the other person doesn’t. They give a little shriek, claw uselessly at the stack of books they’ve been carrying, trip on either an uneven paving slab or their own feet, and crash clumsily to the pavement, one hand beneath them.
“Shit!” Martin crouches down beside them. “Are you oka… Jon?”
The person he’s knocked to the ground looks up at him, all messy curls and wide brown eyes. God, Martin’s missed those eyes.
“I… do I know you?” Jon says. He sits up and pushes his hair out of his eyes with one hand. Martin is immediately charmed by how he’s let it grow out, much earlier than he did in their original timeline. Then he lifts his other hand, and Martin’s heart lurches in his chest. There’s a long, nasty looking scrape all across the side of Jon’s hand and up his wrist. It’s seeping blood.
“Um, yeah,” Martin says. This is somehow even worse than the dog thing. He’s hurt Jon. Not as badly as, you know, stabbing him in the heart, but badly enough. He wants to cry. He swallows. “I… my name’s Martin. Um, I used to work at the Magnus Institute, in the library. You were in research, weren’t you?”
“Oh.” Jon blinks up at him. “Yes. I… I’m afraid I don’t remember you, though.”
Martin gives a wobbly little laugh. “No reason you should,” he says. He tries not to think where you go, I go. This Jon looks so young. It wasn’t even that long. Three years, or thereabouts. But his skin is still smooth, just the beginnings of little wrinkles around his eyes, a few grey streaks in his hair. He’s unscarred, unhurt, unafraid. Or… no. Not that. This is still a Jon who’s encountered Mr. Spider, who’s spent years in the Magnus Institute’s research department. He’s still socially awkward and painfully anxious and a lot more skinny than Martin would like, but…
But god, he’s beautiful.
His eyes, which had met Martin’s for a moment, dart away self-consciously, and Martin knows he’s been staring for too long. He tries to pull himself together.
“I… um, that’s a nasty cut,” he says, gesturing at Jon’s hand.
Jon looks down at it. “Oh,” he says. “It’s only a scratch.” He rubs at it, fairly uselessly, and scrunches his nose up.
“I only live a few minutes’ walk from here,” Martin blurts out. “I’ve got plasters and stuff.”
“It’s only a scratch,” Jon says again. “It’ll be fine until I get home.”
“When’s that?” Martin says, and then flushes. He knows Jon well enough to know that he’ll happily leave it until he finally stumbles home at midnight or so, but this Jon has no idea that Martin knows that, and certainly not how. It probably came across really creepy.
But Jon just hunches his shoulders slightly, looking guilty. “I’ve got a lot to do.”
“Mhm,” Martin says. “Look, it won’t take long, but there’s all dirt and stuff in it. Imagine how many problems you’ll have if it gets infected.” Jon looks at him doubtfully, so Martin craftily adds, “It’ll make it really hard to work.”
Jon sighs. “Yes, all right.”
Martin turns his head away while he suppresses a fond, giddy smile, and then turns back to help Jon gather up the little stack of books, which are his usual eclectic mix of assorted fiction and odd, esoteric non-fiction.
“So what are you doing now?” he says as Jon eases himself to his feet and insistently takes his books back. God, he’d forgotten how prickly Jon could be. He should probably find it annoying, but it’s strangely endearing now that it isn’t all pointed angrily at himself. “You manage to find another job?”
“I’m working in a library now,” Jon says. “It’s only four days a week, but I have some savings, so it’s manageable for the time being.”
That’s the inheritance from his parents, Martin knows. One of the many things Jon confided in him at the safehouse. Martin himself has been able to move somewhere slightly nicer than before, now that he’s reduced his contributions to Mum’s care to the minimum possible and has found a decently paid office job. It’s nice not to have to wage a constant battle with mould.
“That sounds good,” he says.
“I… yes, it is,” Jon says. “It’s almost restful, in a way.”
Martin laughs. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I didn’t mind working at the Institue, but there was always a… a bit of a funny feeling to it, wasn’t there?”
Jon gives him a little sideways look. “Yes, precisely. I don’t know what it was. It’s not as though I believed in any of it, but…”
Martin opens his mouth to nip that little lie in the bud, and then closes it again. If knowing exactly how to manipulate Jon to come back to his flat to get his wound taken care of is creepy, knowing about Mr. Spider would probably be downright terrifying. Even Jon would notice that was odd.
Instead, he says, “Sure,” with just a touch of scepticism, to let Jon know that he’s not completely buying it.
They walk in silence for a couple of minutes and then, as though suddenly remembering how conversations are supposed to go, Jon says, “And, ah, what about you? Have you been able to find something?”
“Yeah, I’m working in an office now,” Martin says. “Admin stuff, mostly. It’s pretty boring, but I don’t mind that.”
He more than doesn’t mind it, he actively enjoys the gentle tedium. Knowing exactly what to expect, what to do, who’ll be there, what problems will probably arise and how to deal with them, it’s wonderful. Martin was never cut out for the adventuring lifestyle, even if he does have a murder and an arson under his belt even in this timeline. Two murders, he supposes, depending on how you look at it.
“That sounds dreadful,” Jon says. Martin laughs, and Jon’s shoulders tense immediately. “I, ah, I’m sorry. That was… I didn’t mean… I’m told I’m far too blunt.”
“Nah, it’s fine, I don’t mind,” Martin says easily. “Lots of people hate a boring job, I’m just weird and kind of like it.”
“Fair enough.” Jon glances up at him and gives him a tiny half smile, and Martin’s heart sings. God, he needs to be careful or he’ll be falling in love with Jon all over again. He’s only just started getting over him. Sort of.
“How’s the library?” he says quickly, to stop himself from doing something truly awful like asking Jon out on a date or just grabbing him and kissing his adorable face all over. Nope. Nope. Shut up, Martin.
“Quite enjoyable. I’m, ah, not entirely used to dealing with the public so much, but I… I think I’m improving.”
Martin feels his eyebrows jump. Honestly, when Jon had said “library”, he’d immediately assumed something posh and exclusive with a terrifyingly rarefied atmosphere only disturbed by the occasional patron wafting through on a quest for some sort of obscure, arcane knowledge. But this sounds like Jon is working in a normal, everyday sort of library that anybody can go into. He’s actually quite impressed, not only that Jon chose to do that in the first place, but that it sounds like he’s really trying to make a decent go of it. Amazing what being in a workplace that’s not filled with accounts of people’s worst traumas or run by the servant of an eldritch fear god can do for a person, he supposes.
“That’s great,” he says. “Oh, go left here, that’s my building.”
Once they’re in his flat, he directs Jon to make himself comfortable on the sofa and makes for the bathroom to grab his first aid kit and wet a clean washcloth. Jon, whose version of “comfortable” seems, predictably, to consist of perching on the very edge of the sofa with his hands folded in his lap and his back very straight, as though he thinks Martin might shout at him for touching his sofa cushions, raises an eyebrow when he sees the size of Martin’s first aid kit.
Martin gives a slightly embarrassed chuckle. “Never hurts to be prepared, right?” he says.
“Right,” Jon says, so dryly that back in his first 2015 Martin would have shrivelled up in mortification like a dead leaf, assuming that Jon despised him for his choice of first aid kit. Now he just smiles, knowing perfectly well that Jon is mostly trying to cover up how awkward he’s feeling, sitting in a complete stranger’s flat and accidentally implying that he thinks their first aid kit is too large.
“All right,” he says, sitting on the sofa beside Jon and lifting up his wetted washcloth. “Let’s have a look at you.”
There’s a startled little silence as it dawns on them both that Martin has held out his free hand for Jon’s injured one, quite obviously expecting him to let Martin do the first aiding. Martin feels his face flood with colour.
Jon says, “Ah, I…” and then, apparently not knowing what else to say, he obediently places his hand in Martin’s. Martin’s internal body temperature soars to Desolation domain levels.
And if this is going to be his last interaction with Jon, he surely can’t be blamed for lingering a little over the cleaning and dressing of the scrape. In his defence, it is quite a nasty one, and there are little bits of grit lodged into the wound from when Jon hit the pavement. It’s always best to be thorough about these things. You never know what could happen.
So he carefully, gently, runs the washcloth over Jon’s hand, wiping away what’s left of the dust of the pavement and then, folding it to find a clean bit, dabs the little beads and streaks of blood away.
“There we go,” he says, a bit inanely. “It’s not too bad. I’ll just cover it with a plaster.”
“I don’t think it needs…” Jon says, but his words trail off, and he doesn’t pull his hand away. When Martin glances at his face, he sees that Jon is watching the ministrations with wide eyes. “All right,” he says.
Martin has to let go with one hand to rifle through his perhaps needlessly large collection of plasters and dressings, but he keeps Jon’s hand in his other one, and, as he brings out a decently sized self-adhesive dressing, can’t help letting his fingers curl around Jon’s bony wrist, and Jon… Jon moves, swaying towards Martin as though drawn there like a magnet.
“Almost done,” Martin says. His voice comes out thin and small, almost a whisper, really, and he feels himself flush again. It’s lucky that Jon is notoriously oblivious to other people’s feelings, because Martin’s sure that his must be written all over his face in enormous flashing neon letters.
He peels the paper off the dressing and positions it carefully over Jon’s scrape, then smooths each side down carefully. Probably a few too many times, but Jon doesn’t object, doesn’t take his hand back. Martin forces himself to sit up a little straighter.
“There we go,” he says, trying for a cheerful smile.
Jon smiles back. It’s a small thing, slightly tremulous at the edges, as though he isn’t quite sure he’s allowed this. Martin remembers how touch-starved he’d realised Jon was when they finally got to the safehouse. He’d delighted in touching him as much as possible, watching him unfurl under the attention like a rare hothouse bloom. God, he isn’t over Jon at all. He loves him, he loves him, he loves him.
He swallows. This isn’t… Jon isn’t for him. Not this Jon. Not this him.
Martin lifts Jon’s hand and puts it down carefully in Jon’s lap. He gets to his feet. His heart is thundering, a stampede of feelings trampling across his brain until he doesn’t know what’s up and what’s down.
So he says what he always says in situations where he doesn’t know what else to do.
“Shall I make some tea?”
“Oh, that… yes, that sounds nice. If… if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Not at all!” Martin says, and retreats the three yards from his sofa to the little corner of his flat that he calls a kitchen because it has a fridge and a microwave in it. Technically it does have an electric hob, too, but that hasn’t worked since he moved in here. The main thing is that this is an excellent excuse to turn his face away from Jon for a few minutes in the hope that it will go back to more or less its normal colour before the tea is ready.
Honestly, what did he offer Jon tea for anyway? This is stupid. He can’t be with Jon, it wouldn’t be fair on either of them. Well, it wouldn’t be fair on Jon. Martin, quite honestly, will take any Jon he can get. He already likes this Jon so much, the one who, instead of being plunged into a morass of stress and fear, has been lifted out of the Institute and seems to have found himself in a kind, nurturing setting instead. Even after just three months, he’s lighter and happier than Martin has ever known him. He wants to get to know him better.
He makes the tea with more clatter than usual, trying to scatter the thoughts out of his head, but it’s no good. Even determinedly not looking in Jon’s direction, he can still see him, sitting there on his sofa, a bit stiff and awkward, but not unhappy. And that little smile. Christ.
Jon smiles again when he brings the tea over, small and polite, but Martin knows him well enough to see that he means it.
“Thank you,” Jon says.
“You’re welcome,” Martin replies, which for some reason makes him want to curl up with embarrassment again even though it’s a perfectly normal thing to say.
But, somehow, it gets better. They drink their tea, and Jon tells him it’s good and Martin blushes and falls over his words and then Jon asks him about one of the books on his shelf, and then they’re talking. And it’s easy, they fall into a rhythm. Jon starts telling him about book printing in the sixteenth century, which is something he’s never told Martin about before, and Martin sits and listens and asks questions. Jon’s hands flutter patterns in the air and his whole face lights up as he leans forward to emphasise a point, his fingers resting ever so briefly on Martin’s jumpered arm and then spiralling up again as he starts another fascinating tangent.
It's an hour later when Martin realises with a jolt of shock that he’s late calling Mum. She only takes about one in eight of his calls, but even after everything, knowing how she feels about him, how little she cares about him or wants to talk to him, it feels oddly impossible to think of not calling her.
Jon jumps up the moment he mentions it, looking mortified and muttering about having overstayed his welcome and how Martin should have told him to shut up when he started going on about Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.
“No, no, no,” Martin says, following him as he scuttles towards the door. “That was really interesting!”
Jon scowls. “No it wasn’t. I know how I get. God knows people have told me enou…”
“Jon, no,” Martin says, catching him by the arm and swinging him round so that he can look him in the face. “I was interested, okay? I really liked hearing all that stuff, and… and listening to you talking about it, watching you, I… you looked so happy. I really liked that. Thank you for taking the time to tell me about it.”
Jon blinks up at him with huge eyes. “Oh,” he says. “I… all right. That’s… that’s…”
“I’ve had a lovely afternoon with you,” Martin tells him gently.
“Oh,” Jon says again, swallowing visibly. “I, ah, would… would you, maybe like to… to do this again? Sometime? With… with me?”
This is the time for Martin to step back, let Jon down as kindly as possible and vanish entirely from his life. But the look on Jon’s face is soft and open. It’s hopeful.
“Yeah,” Martin says. “Yeah, that would… I’d love that, actually.”
Jon beams, and it feels like Martin’s whole flat has been bathed in a golden glow. They arrange to meet after they both finish work on Tuesday and put their numbers into each other’s phones, and Jon gathers up his books and then, too soon, he’s at the door.
“I’ll… I’ll see you soon, then,” he says, turning to smile at Martin one last time.
“Really soon,” Martin says, still lit up with that golden glow from Jon’s smile. “I’m looking forward to it.” He leans down and presses a kiss to Jon’s temple, just as he’s done a hundred, two hundred, times before.
And then he realises what he’s done and freezes, an inch from Jon’s face.
Jon, too, has frozen.
There’s a very extravagant silence.
“Ah?” Jon squeaks at last, his hand going to the place on his temple where Martin kissed him.
“Oh my god,” Martin says, feeling a little faint. “I’m… I am so sorry. I don’t… I mean, I didn’t mean to… I just…”
“No, it’s… it’s fine,” Jon says quickly. “I just, ah, wasn’t expecting…”
“God, no, of course. I’m so sorry, I…” Martin runs his hands through his hair. Christ, he’s ruined this already. What was he thinking, letting himself believe he could spend time with Jon without it being weird? He’s such an idiot. “Look,” he says. “I… I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have agreed to a date.” Shit. “Not that… not that it’d be a date, necessarily, I just…”
“Oh,” Jon says, his face falling. “I thought it was a date.”
“You did?”
“Well, yes, I…” Jon’s eyebrows scrunch up together anxiously. “Martin, I don’t understand. If you don’t… if you don’t want to see me again, or… or if you don’t it to be a date, that’s all right, but I… I don’t understand what just happened.”
Martin stands there and looks at him. He could apologise. He could say he’s not long out of a serious relationship, that he’d thought he was ready for something new, but he’s not. He could say that the last hour and a bit with Jon has been more wonderful than he can possibly describe, but he thinks it’s best if they don’t see each other again. He could walk out of Jon’s life, and Jon would never know what they were to each other, what they could be. Martin would get over it eventually. He’s almost sure.
Or he could tell the truth.
He steps around Jon and closes his front door.
“Come and sit down again,” he says. “I’ll make us some more tea, and then I’ve got some things to tell you. A lot of things.”
Jon hesitates. “Don’t you need to call your mother?”
Martin shakes his head and takes Jon’s hand, pulling him gently back to the sofa.
“No,” he says. “This is more important.”