Archive of Our Own

Jon didn't want to be in the bar in the first place. He would have preferred to go home in between his daytime obligations and his evening obligations, if simply forgoing the evening obligations wasn't an option -- which it technically was, thus making him responsible for the situation, which made it more rather than less annoying. The situation being: he couldn't get home in enough time to make the trip worthwhile, but arriving early left him with an obscene amount of time to kill.

But he made his choice, so he dutifully purchases a pint and settles in at a small table with his laptop, determined to make the sacrifice of his afternoon worth something.

He becomes absorbed enough in his work that he doesn't have a sense of how much time has passed, exactly, before he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. It isn't anything large, or obvious, but nevertheless it manages to break through his focus and send him a message: you need to look over there.

He looks.

A moment later he's on his feet a good four feet away from his chair, eyes locked on the spider crawling boldly across the table. It halts at the edge of his laptop and probes obscenely at it with one long, spindly leg. He shudders.

"Are you all right?"

Jon whips his head around. The man at the next table is watching him with an expression that sets his teeth on edge. He would like to think that the sound he'd made as he'd fled the table had read as surprise, or disgust, but this stranger's condescension makes it abundantly clear that he knew it was alarm.

"I'm fine," Jon says shortly.

The man does not take this for the obvious dismissal it is. "You didn't hurt yourself or anything, did you?"

Outrageous. Jon is a grown man. He does not need this level of coddling. The next table understands this: the four young professionals sat there are responding to his outburst in the most correct and polite way possible, by thoroughly ignoring him.

"No. I was just startled." He turns away, an even more blatant brush-off, and braces himself for getting close enough to the spider to crush it -- only to discover that the spider is nowhere in sight.

Perfect. Great. Good. The spider has gone somewhere that Jon can't see it -- doesn't have to see it. It's crawled off to whatever corner it crawled out of in the first place, like the underside of the table, or underneath one of the pages hanging out from his notebook, or inside of his bag that he'd foolishly left sitting beside his laptop, hanging open in invitation --

"It's gone," he tells himself firmly. At least, that's the idea.

"What's gone?" the man asks.

Jon purses his lips, but ultimately he can't think of anything that would sound any better than the truth. "There was a spider."

"Oh." The man sounds a bit confused, because, of course, why would a spider be worth yelping and running across the room? Jon's face heats up.

"Forget it."

"No, no, let me take a look, I can take it outside." The man picks a coaster up off his table as he stands up. "It'll be happier out there anyway."

"I am profoundly unconcerned with its happiness," Jon snaps.

The man gives him a look, a bit reproachful. Jon belatedly realizes that he has rejected a courteous attempt to pretend that this gesture is being offered for any reason other than to assuage his own discomfort.

He bites his tongue rather than make things worse. It has the effect of tacitly agreeing to further intrusion. The man proceeds to search the table, scanning the surface, bending to check the underside, prodding at the overflowing notebook -- Jon holds back a wince at that last one as his brain unhelpfully serves up an image of a whole swarm of spiders scurrying forth to crawl up his arm.

All of it accomplishes exactly nothing. The stranger steps back, looking stumped.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I don't see it."

"As I said. It's gone." Jon looks at his chair. He's going to go sit back down in it. He's going to sit back down and get back to work and everything will be fine.

"Sorry," the man apologizes again. "Do you -- um. Would you rather sit at my table?" He gestures at the table he had come from, which is currently empty except for a single book.

It is also, now that Jon looks around, the only empty table in the place, which apparently does a brisk business during happy hour. There's a seat open at the bar, but he's loath to squeeze into a spot with no room to spread out and loud conversation on every side. Nor does he need to, when he has a perfectly good table already, where there is no longer a spider to crawl out into his field of view, and even if there were it would be no cause for concern, so he opens his mouth to refuse and instead admits, "yes."

He turns away from the stranger's cheerful "oh -- oh! Okay! Great," and collects his bag from the table. He starts to lift the strap over his head, but can't bring himself to complete the motion until he's checked the bag over. Just to be sure.

He tries to be quick and subtle about it, but by the time he's established that the bag is in fact free of spiders, his self-appointed guardian is already setting his laptop and notebook down on the other table. His immediate impulse is to demand what the man thinks he's doing running off with someone else's computer, but he does realize that 'running off' is putting it rather strongly and this level of ingratitude is excessive. He leans in the other direction instead.

"Thank you for offering to share your table." All right, he doesn't manage to say it with much grace, but he does at least say it.

The man looks surprised. Apparently the opinion he has already formed of Jon does not allow for any displays of basic manners. "Uh -- of course. It's not a problem. I don't need a lot of space."

Jon's attempt to resume his work gets off to a slow start. He's not sure if he's on edge because of the lingering disquiet or if he's simply getting distracted by his table mate. Not that the man is actually doing anything that could reasonably be described as distracting, only making a slight rustle as he turns a page or a quiet thunk when he sets his glass down. Jon is more distracted by waiting for him to be distracting, and he experiences a jolt of annoyance with both of them when he realizes this.

With the aid of long habit he forces his attention onto his work. He is eventually able to make a modicum of progress before his focus is broken again by the words "Jon, you made it!"

"I did say I would," he tells Georgie, eyes locked on one of the dozen pages that have spread themselves out on the table around him, needing to find the quote he was searching for before he loses his train of thought.

"You didn't say you were bringing someone. Someone I don't know, even. Since when do you know people I don't know?"

"I know many people you don't know," he responds automatically, habit from a conversation they've had before, and then the immediate context returns to him. He jerks his gaze up to where Georgie is extending a friendly hand out to the absolute stranger sitting across from him.

"Hello, I'm Georgie."

"Um," the man says, extremely unhelpfully. "Martin?"

Even Jon can detect the hesitancy in his delivery. It is impossible that Georgie does not pick up on it. But she only smiles. "Jon didn't bother to tell you who all was going to be here, did he?"

"No?"

"Don't worry," Georgie reassures him, "everyone's chill, no one will care if you don't remember names, we're just glad for the support. It means a lot to Melanie to have people here."

Jon, meanwhile, has been trying and failing to find something useful to say. The problem, that he has never had cause to consider before, is that there is simply no good way to say I do not know this person. One should not have to say it. It should never be assumed one does know a person, unless one is sitting with them in companionable silence while several tables go begging for occupants, since it seems the bar around oneself has emptied right out again as unobtrusively as it had filled up.

It's not a terribly productive train of thought, on the whole, so it is not perhaps surprising that it gets derailed as soon as Jon is given something that he does have a response to.

"Melanie absolutely does not care about anything I or anyone associated with me does," he tells Georgie.

"Well, it means a lot to me," Georgie says with a touch of reproach, which might have had more of an impact if Jon were not separately admonishing himself for speaking anything other than the words actually, Georgie, you've got the wrong idea. "Really, thanks. Save me a seat, would you? I'm going to grab a drink."

She departs.

There is a long moment of silence.

The man sitting across from Jon says "Um."

"To be clear." Jon preempts whatever complaint he was about to offer. "You are under no obligation to stay and listen to my friend's belligerent girlfriend's terrible band just so that I can save face."

The man frowns in consideration, as though Jon had not made himself perfectly clear. "Sorry, you want me to leave for my sake?"

"You've already intervened on my behalf once today," Jon concedes reluctantly. "I'm not going to impose on you again."

"Imposition seems like a strong word? All I've had to do is sit here."

"So far," he says. "The music hasn't started yet."

"Right, live music. That thing that people famously hate so much."

Jon scowls at the man -- at Martin -- for being deliberately obtuse, and loses the chance to continue arguing as Georgie returns with her beer.

"All right, Jon, I assume you want me to catch you up on all of the hottest Youtuber gossip before everyone else gets here." Jon makes a noise of disgust that causes Georgie to laugh. "Well, maybe Martin wants to know," she smiles, inviting him into the conversation.

"I'd rather not?" Martin says, with a quick flick of the eyes over to Jon. As though to check his answer, even though Jon had also just answered in the negative. "Then I don't have to pretend not to know anything I shouldn't."

Georgie accepts that statement with a nod, which hardly seems fair. Anything Jon says along those lines is generally construed as antisocial behavior.

"You could tell me more about the band, though," Martin offers. "What sort of music do they play?"

"Loud," Jon says.

"You sound like the oldest man in the world," Georgie tells him. "They're supposed to be loud. It's a punk band."

"It's anger management thinly disguised as percussion."

"So what if it is? Melanie's found a healthy outlet and we're happy for her."

"I can be happy for her at home."

Georgie hms, giving this only brief consideration. "Maybe you could, but you shouldn't. You don't get out enough. Does he?" She directs this last at Martin.

"Yeah, no," Martin agrees. "It feels like tonight is the first time in forever that I've seen Jon."

Jon glares at him, speechless.

Martin shrugs like a man bowing to the inevitable: what else can you do?

A couple of Georgie's friends arrive just then, only vaguely familiar to Jon and recognizable primarily because they squeal loudly and throw themselves at her when they spot her. Georgie returns their greetings with equal enthusiasm. Jon uses the time to stow his papers and laptop in his bag, out of the way of the oncoming horde.

"You remember Jon," Georgie says to the newcomers, resuming her self-appointed mantle as host, and then shoots him a look that he can't decipher. It is probably some sort of plea for him be good company. He tries to project an aura of willingness to behave himself.

It doesn't seem to hit the mark, unless he's imagining the small exhale before she continues. "And this is Jon's friend, Martin."

A second table is moved next to theirs, and a third and a fourth not long after as more of Georgie's friends arrive. Jon ends up pushed to the side of the gathering, which is notable only because this time he has been paired off with another outsider. It's not immediately clear to him whether this is an improvement. He's probably expected to converse with Martin now. On the other hand, Martin is shouldering more than his share of their collective conversational burden with the rest of the table: exchanging platitudes about the weather, inviting someone to expand on a comment they made, answering queries he receives in return. Bland and inoffensive, almost meticulously so.

"Oh, admin, I won't bore everyone," he deflects a question about himself with such ease that Jon can't tell if it was intentional. He turns it back around on the asker. "Did I hear someone say you've got a podcast?"

The man does not need any further invitation to launch into an explanation of his show. Jon belatedly recognizes it as one about which he has said less than complimentary things. Maybe enough time has passed that he's forgotten.

The podcaster catches his eye. "What about you, Jon? Are you still writing about...worms, was it?"

Ah, so, not forgotten then, if that poorly hidden derision is any indication. "No," Jon says, "I finished that project. I'm writing another memoir."

There's a woman that Jon doesn't think he's met before hanging off the podcaster's arm, listing as though she is already well on her way to drunk. She squints at Jon. "How many memoirs have you written?"

"Five."

She wrinkles her nose. "Aren't you like...forty? How have you written five books about yourself?"

Jon gapes, struck speechless with indignation at both of these accusations. Through either luck or an unnerving ability to listen in on everything around her, Georgie chooses that moment to rejoin their corner of the conversation.

"Oh, no, Jon's a ghostwriter," she explains. "He writes things people can't be bothered to write for themselves."

The drunk woman only squints at him, still unimpressed. "Wouldn't you rather get credit for what you write?"

"No," he answers with great finality.

She does at least drop it, though not without a shrug to the rest of the table at Jon's being unreasonable. He prefers that to the argument he has already heard many times: that he ought to write under his own name, and didn't he know he was debasing himself, and what even was the point of writing if he didn't get any fame out of it.

Martin asks, "You're ghostwriting someone else's memoir?"

And here is the other conversation people always want to have with Jon that Jon does not want to have with them. He's going to ask who, and Jon will say that he can't tell him, and Martin will push, and Jon will tell him that it wouldn't be anyone he'd ever heard of anyway, and Martin will insist on being giving a hint, and Jon will share a single anonymized fact, and Martin will be disappointed that he does in fact not have any idea who this person is exactly as Jon promised he wouldn't -- he has had this conversation enough times to know that there is no good way for it to go.

"Yes."

Martin fidgets with his drink, like he has picked up on the curtness of that word and is deciding whether to continue. He does not think better of it. "People really hire ghostwriters for that?" he asks. "Isn't the whole point of a memoir getting to tell your own story?"

Jon scoffs. "The point is to indulge their vanity in a way that obliges others to act impressed rather than annoyed. It isn't about telling their story, it's success porn."

Martin chokes on his beer. "Sorry, did you say porn?"

"It's an idealized, curated portrayal that prioritizes creating a specific emotional release over communicating facts. What else would you call it?"

"Not...porn?" Martin's face has gone quite red. "That makes it sound kind of, um." He stops, apparently unable to find the right word to use to correct Jon about his own work.

"I don't see the point in deluding myself about what I write."

"Which is...what, exactly," Martin asks.

Jon snorts at the wholly unnecessary note of trepidation in that question. "For the memoirs? Mostly self-important executives touting their supposed work ethic to people who think it might rub off on them if they buy a copy."

"Oh. When you put it like that it kind of sounds like self-help."

Will the slander not cease! "I do not write self-help," Jon hisses.

Martin only looks bemused at his offense. "Is it really that much worse than porn?"

"Definitively."

"I don't know, people like it." There's a strange kind of smile on his face, like he'd tried to smother it and only twisted it around instead. "If you wrote self-help you could be on talk shows."

"No, because I'd still be a ghost, and thank goodness. Self-help," Jon mutters in disgust.

Martin grins outright at that, entirely too amused with himself, but he does let that conversational thread drop. "So how do you get to know someone well enough to tell their life story?"

"They tell me, they just do a bad job of it."

"Aren't they the experts?"

"No." Martin's face remains skeptical, only humoring him. "Knowing the facts and knowing how to convey them, which details are important, what the larger story is, those are unrelated."

"I thought it wasn't about the storytelling?" Martin uses his own words against him, which is really just uncalled for.

"There's still basic craft to take into consideration." He decides to illustrate the point. "If I were writing about you, I'd have to determine first, what image do you want people to have of you after they're read it?"

"None?" His voice is suddenly pitched up an octave. "I don't want people to read a book about me?"

Jon waves this off. "We'll say it's a biography in a hundred years from now when you're dead."

"I don't...know that talking about my being dead makes me feel better?"

"Obviously you're not really dead. It's fine."

"Oh, never mind then," Martin says. "It's fine."

Jon does pause for a moment, at that, but ultimately he can't figure out what the emotion is that Martin is expressing, so he disregards it. "That's part of it," he decides.

"What, my acceptance of my own mortality?"

"Modesty," Jon corrects him. "You don't want people to celebrate you, which is itself something one could celebrate."

"Right, okay, except if I'm so modest, how would you even go about finding anything about me?"

"There is a truly unsettling amount of information available about everyone," Jon says. "I don't only regurgitate what a subject tells me. I'd still have other sources if you were reluctant to talk."

"Or if I was dead. Don't forget you killed me off."

"Would you rather be dead or exposed to public scrutiny?"

"You don't need to sound so judgmental," Martin sulks. "You've literally chosen to be a ghost."

Jon grins at the sense of gaining a point. "It would make my job harder if you don't maintain a public image," he concedes magnanimously. "I don't suppose you keep a journal?"

"No," Martin says, thoroughly unconvincing.

"You know, lies are very revealing."

"I'm not lying." He makes a clear attempt this time to sound resolute.

Jon considers for a moment. "For the purposes of this discussion, 'journaling' also includes writing poetry."

Martin sputters. "I -- what -- how."

Jon pointedly taps the poetry collection sitting between them on the table with its well-worn cover and its several dog-eared pages.

Martin slides the book closer to himself and flips it upside down. "All right, you don't need to gloat."

Jon disagrees, but he does limit himself to doing so wordlessly. He has it on good authority that his smug expression is infuriating enough on its own.

"Fine," Martin says. "So, the shy little poet who was unknown in his own time gets discovered a hundred years later, that's the book you'd write?"

Jon considers. It's a story, certainly, but the dismissive way that Martin says it rules it out. "No, that's not the story you would want told, is it?"

"Oh, do I get a say in it?" he asks with an air of fatalism.

Jon drums his fingers as he considers what he knows about Martin -- which isn't much, and not only because of the length of time he's known him, but the modesty, the deflecting inquiries. Martin, to his admittedly limited experience, does not make things about Martin. "No," he says again, with greater confidence. "Something more along the lines of a hagiography."

"Sorry, you think I want to be known as a saint?"

"I think you want to be known as someone who was concerned with helping other people."

Martin stares.

After a moment, he manages the words, "Why would you..." before he trails off.

Jon raises his eyebrows and casts his gaze about the room, where, oh, a sixth table has been grafted onto the social gathering that Martin was conscripted into.

Martin looks around too, at the tables that have filled back up to the point that it is standing room only. "Right, only a martyr would want to be here," he says, still unnerved more than anything.

"It's one interpretation of events that's available." A bit grudgingly, Jon adds, "and no one else came over to check on me."

Martin grimaces. "You would've rather I didn't, though."

"That's beside the point."

"Whether or not you wanted help does actually affect whether or not I was helpful."

"We're not litigating your actual impact, we're talking about your self-image."

"I think we're talking about your projection of my self-image," Martin says.

"Am I wrong?"

"...I just think you can't say it like you know when you're only guessing."

Jon gets the sense once more that there's something he's supposed to be picking up on. He stops and reconsiders the conversation and, oh, hm. Damn. The way that he is acting is not the way that a person treats a stranger who is doing them a favor. He's fairly certain that any impartial observer would in fact rule that his behavior is appalling.

"Ah. No. I suppose I don't." He shifts in his seat, then seizes on the empty glass in front of him as an excuse. "I'm going to the bar, do you want anything?" he asks, and manages not to flee before receiving an answer.

The bartender is remarkably adept at avoiding eye contact. It is several minutes before Jon returns with his drink. He thinks vaguely of giving Martin some space, but the crowd is against him: there isn't another open spot available. And Georgie has drifted back over to that end of the table, which does give it a monopoly on people that he doesn't actively want to avoid.

When he gets closer it becomes apparent that Georgie is not simply near Martin but talking specifically to him. For some reason, she's telling him about the gender bent Shakespeare they'd staged in uni.

"...but there was a disagreement," she's saying. "Some of us wanted to spend time with our friends and have fun, and some of us said, no, it's absolutely imperative that we do good theater." Georgie raises her eyebrows at Jon.

"They wouldn't have been mutually exclusive goals if everyone had just committed to learning their lines on time."

Georgie turns to Martin, wordlessly appealing to him for a tie breaker.

"If you're having to stress about messing it up then it does seem like it'd be less fun?" Martin offers diplomatically.

"Oh, sure, take his side," Georgie says, mock stern. At least Jon assumes. She can't really be annoyed at someone halfheartedly agreeing with him on an issue that's a decade past relevancy.

Someone at the other end of the table gasps "ooh!" and the lights over the bar dim.

Georgie makes her own noise of excitement and knocks on the table next to Jon in excitement. "The show's starting!" She heads off to be closer to the stage, waving at Jon as she departs, "we'll talk more later, yeah?"

There's a stage in the back of the bar, waist-high and worn-down, which had been set up with sound equipment and Melanie's drum kit at some point without Jon's noticing. There can't have been a sound check. He's almost positive he would have noticed that.

The band emerges from a backroom and a cheer goes up from the crowd, Georgie's voice easily distinguishable despite her now being half the room away. The bass player and guitarist climb the rickety steps up to the stage, carrying their instruments. Melanie instead clambers up over the side of the stage, which, Jon supposes, does circumvent the issue of the stairs' lack of handrail without requiring anything drastic like asking one of her sighted band mates to lend her a hand for one moment. She does then let the bass player help her to her kit, so perhaps she was just indulging in dramatics for their own sake.

The bass player surprises Jon only because he's never seen Daisy Tonner holding a musical instrument. In all other other aspects she appears exactly the same as in every other encounter he's ever had with her, unchanged by time or place or circumstance, like a cartoon character or a recurring nightmare. She had entered the periphery of his life through some connection to Melanie's last band, and when they broke up he'd assumed she was exiting it as unceremoniously. Apparently she has only solidified her position as someone he will now run into, which is somewhat disquieting. She is, to put it mildly, intimidating.

He doesn't recognize the final member of the band. The guitarist looks as though she'd started off dressed for a pagan celebration of the solstice and then gotten the note grunge and taken it too literally. The effect is less rock and roll and more Gran's least favorite member of the gardening society, but she seems comfortable enough with her instrument as she hooks it up to the sound equipment.

The band finishes their last minute preparations, fine tuning and plugging in and infinitesimally adjusting the placement of various pieces of the drum kit with a scowl as though they had been yards rather than millimeters off. They settle, and a moment of still anticipation falls over the bar.

Someone in the crowd whoops. Without looking up from her bass Daisy calls back "shut up."

"Hello," the guitarist greets them, with a warmth that stands in stark contrast to Daisy's antagonism. "We are Ultraterrestrial!"

Jon would like to not have cause to already be familiar with that term, but the paranormal community is fairly reliable business for him. It is remarkable how good at writing most ghost hunters aren't.

Melanie starts off with a crash before the guitarist can continue with introductions, and the show is begun. Daisy proves to be a competent player, and the bass parts of most of the songs are not complicated enough to call for more than competency. Melanie, as ever, keeps excellent time but makes no concession to the fact that there are other performers on the stage. At times Jon cannot hear the guitarist's vocals; from what he can hear, this is not much of a loss.

His opinions do not seem to be shared, if the applause of the band's friends and acquaintances is any indication. During a break between songs, Martin leans over to say, in a low voice like he doesn't want to be overheard, "you're way too hard on them, they're really good!"

Jon shrugs. "In fairness, I haven't heard them play before."

"Sorry, fairness?" Martin asks. "You just assumed they'd be terrible, how is that 'fair'?"

"It was a reasonable assumption. Melanie's last three bands were all awful."

"And you didn't think maybe that was why she wasn't in them anymore?"

"Oh, no. If you take her word for it, the other bands all fell apart through spite and malice."

"I get the feeling you don't take Melanie's word for it."

"I find it possible that she overestimates other people's vindictiveness and underestimates how flaky musicians are."

"Oh, I see, you're being 'fair' again, aren't you." Martin's sarcasm is a good deal sharper than Jon would have expected of him, honestly. He does not let that distract him from proving his point.

"Her first band broke up over drama in a polycule which none of the members of the band were actually in."

"Does sound like there might have been some spite involved, then."

"The last band broke up because the guitarist repatriated to New Zealand. It strains credulity to interpret that as a personal attack against Melanie."

Martin gives him a very odd look. "Maybe my credulity wants to be strained a bit."

Jon frowns at him. "Don't tell me that you believe in ultraterrestrials," he starts, but the band chooses that moment to resume.

Unfortunately and somewhat unbelievably, they seem to have used their strongest material in the first half of the show. Jon allows his attention to wander periodically over as far as his companion, attempting to gauge whether he's tiring of the music. Martin is at least projecting enjoyment, but Jon can't tell how genuine it is. Probably very, based on the information that Jon has gathered thus far about his discernment. Of course, it would be for the best if he was having a good time, but he finds the idea unsatisfying anyway. Martin should demand more of the people around him.

But he isn't going to do so today. When the show ends, Martin grins at Jon in apparent sincerity. "That was great!"

"You're easy to please," Jon accuses him.

"I'm not really." His face seems to dim, but a moment later it's passed, probably nothing in the first place. "I just don't feel the need to nitpick a free show."

"Something being offered for free does not put it beyond the realm of critique."

"I think it does, actually. You're not planning to criticize them to their faces, are you?"

"I will if I'm asked," Jon says. Martin looks genuinely horrified. "Melanie wouldn't believe me if I had nothing negative to say."

"I guess she does know you." He does not sound wholly convinced, but he appears marginally less worried.

By this point the band has come down off stage to meet their audience. The guitarist is scooped up by a trio presenting her with a bouquet of some non-flowering plant. Georgie has attached herself to Melanie and is towing her through the crowd, collecting congratulations while Daisy follows a few steps behind looking bored.

Georgie greets them by name for Melanie's sake. "Jon's here, and he brought a friend, Martin."

Martin offers a tentative "hello!"

"I would have thought Jon would bring homework," Melanie says.

"Looks like he did both," Daisy says, lifting up the flap of Jon's bag to peer at the papers and laptop inside. As she drops it again a moment later, Jon decides against starting an argument with her about privacy.

Melanie snorts. "Oh, very classy, Jon."

"I can't judge," Martin defends him, "I brought a book."

"Ugh," Melanie wrinkles her nose. "Save me from hipsters."

A few more of the audience wander over to congratulate Melanie and Daisy. One of them punches Daisy's arm and says "Not bad." She swears but leaves with them a moment later.

And then Melanie asks, pointedly, "So what did you think of the show, Jon?"

There's a small sigh from Martin, and Jon glances over to find that he's looking up at the ceiling, away from what is about to transpire. Georgie, too, has an expression of resignation fixed upon her face.

Jon says, "I think that you played very well tonight, Melanie." Which is after all true enough.

There's a pause, before Melanie rather reluctantly says, "thank you," as though it pains her to. Another pause follows; it's not like Jon has a ready response to being thanked by Melanie King.

"So!" Georgie cheerfully seizes control of the moment before it can turn. "Some of us are heading out for a late night bite, as soon as we can agree on the place. Do you want to get in on the debate?"

Jon raises an eyebrow at her in silent inquiry: do you really think I am going to say yes? "No, I think it's time that I was heading out."

Georgie shrugs, and he can practically hear the unspoken I had to ask that accompanies it. "Martin?" she asks.

"Oh," he replies, caught off-guard. "No, it's -- it's a bit late for me? But thank you. And Melanie, the show was great, really, you were all wonderful," so now Melanie is subjected to his painful earnestness, which Jon finds tremendously satisfying.

While she accepts these congratulations with ill grace, Jon takes the opportunity to make his goodbyes to Georgie.

"I'm really glad you made it tonight," she tells him. It seems that he is not permitted to escape the moment unscathed by sincerity, either.

"Yes, yes." Jon sighs. "I don't try to disappoint you, you know."

She smiles. "I know." She raises an arm minutely, a suggestion rather than a demand, and he indulges her with a hug.

So Martin ends up leaving the bar at the same time that Jon does, and they quickly establish that they are headed in the same direction, walking down a few city blocks before cutting through a park. It's less well lit than the street but faster, and not unpleasant at night, surrounded by the smell of damp earth and vegetation from the trees growing along the path.

Jon's phone pings. "Hang on, that'll be Georgie." He comes to a stop and digs out his phone. He'd set an exception to his Do Not Disturb for her in case he'd had any trouble getting to the venue, and he hadn't gotten around to reverting it yet.

"Does she need something?" Martin asks the same question Jon is wondering. He can't imagine what she'd need to tell him five minutes after saying goodbye, unless he's left something at the bar.

But the message isn't anything urgent at all: I meant it Jon! Let's talk! Soon! The exclamation points strike him as somehow sinister.

"Only to pester me," he mutters.

"Oh," Martin says, and then, "do you need something?"

"No." It comes out too short. Jon exhales sharply and finds he does not feel any better for having done so. "No," he tries again.

"Okay." Martin stretches the word out further than two syllables should really allow for. "Is that a double negative for emphasis, or is that a double negative that cancels out to a yes?"

Jon glares, uncertain how much derision to infer from that. Martin's face is unhelpfully sincere.

"She wouldn't normally text me something this ambiguous unless she was annoyed with me," he says, daring Martin to mock him. Martin goes sort of dreadfully sympathetic instead. Jon shoves his phone back into his pocket and starts off walking again, Martin falling into step alongside him. "So now I've got to face the possibility she's annoyed with me, and I have no idea why."

"Oh."

He almost dismisses that as filler, a simple acknowledgement that something was said to which Martin has no other response.

...The tone isn't quite right for it, is the thing. Jon finds himself growing suspicious.

"Did she say something to you?" he demands.

"No!" Martin answers too quickly. "No, not exactly."

"Not exactly?"

"Not at all, no. It's just -- no, nothing."

The stretch of path they're currently on is not the most even; he ought to be watching where he's going. Jon instead locks his eyes on his companion.

Martin steadfastly looks ahead, but his shoulders creep up around his ears like he can still sense the scrutiny.

"I lost count of how many negatives that was." Jon's voice, when he finally speaks, is as scathing as he can make it. "The cumulative effect is not persuasive."

"She didn't say anything to me, really," Martin insists. "I just got a feeling? Maybe? But I can't tell how much of that was, you know." He waves a hand in an unenlightening gesture.

"I don't," Jon says. "Elaborate."

"Social anxiety." Martin shrugs, a poor imitation of indifference. "Just, sometimes it's hard to tell, am I overthinking this, or is she actually wondering what the hell I think I'm doing here?"

"It's a public place. You had every right to be there." These are facts. There is no reason for Martin to have felt bad. Therefore it is unreasonable for Jon to feel guilty.

"I know! I know that. I am overthinking it, probably. Just, I think she expected some kind of explanation? But I didn't have one, and you didn't introduce me to her. And then you kept not introducing me to anyone else either, so she had to introduce me to people, and she didn't know who I was."

"Neither did I."

"Right, okay, but she didn't know that," which is really unnecessarily fair of him. "So from her point of view, I was just there, and you were just unhelpful. I don't know if she was annoyed, exactly, she was still nice to me, but. It was maybe a little weird?"

Jon is not entirely satisfied with this explanation, but he can at least follow the logic, and he no longer believes Martin is hiding something that he ought to know.

"Well," he declares, forcing a degree of finality. "That's her fault for looking to me for social cues."

Martin hms in a noncommittal way. Exactly the kind of sound one makes at the end of a conversation, punctuation more than communication. And yet -- Jon can't shake the feeling that Martin is waiting for him to say something else. It would bother him less if he didn't have the feeling that he is also waiting for himself to say something -- not that he has the least idea what that something is.

He pulls his phone out again. Maybe on second viewing he'll have more success interpreting any subtext in Georgie's message. It is, at least, something to think about besides Martin's apparent social anxiety.

Another message pops up on screen, this one from an unknown number: I hear you're the president of our new fan club

Jon has Melanie's number saved to contacts. He harbors an irrational hope that this is the guitarist.

He replies to the text You have been misinformed.

No
I've decided you are
If you're not at our next show I'll hunt you down and drag you there

Daisy it is, then. The idea of her literally hunting him down is disturbingly plausible. The idea that this is only meant as a joke is somehow less plausible but equally disturbing.

He's focused on crafting a response that minimizes his obligation to attend upcoming performances without compromising his personal safety, and wondering if Melanie gave Daisy his phone number as some kind of revenge for him not insulting the show, or if it wasn't Georgie working with either vindictive or well-meaning motives, when he hears:

"Jon," and then again, "Jon!" and then a moment later a hand wraps around his arm and yanks him backwards.

He stumbles over his own feet, dropping his phone and only not falling to the ground with it because of Martin's hold on him -- which does not stop him from wrenching his shoulder, or making an undignified noise of distress.

"What the hell was that for?" he snaps, whirling on Martin as soon as his footing is secure enough to allow it.

"Sorry!" Martin drops his arm and steps back, raising his hands in a placating gesture that's infuriatingly over the top. As though Jon is a feral animal to be soothed. "Sorry, I'm sorry, you -- you were. Um. Going the wrong way? It's, it's faster to turn here."

Jon keeps glaring at him, as alarm fades and irritation grows at the flimsiness of that pretense. He glares down the path across the park that is no different from the route they are already on. He turns to glare back in the direction that Martin does not want him to walk.

It's only now that he's looking for it that he can see it, the thin silken threads catching what light has made it through the trees growing around the pathway. Deceptively lovely, nearly picturesque in how perfectly it fits in the crook of a branch, and there, in the center of the intricate expanse of the web, hangs a spider nearly the length of Jon's thumb.

He doesn't realize that he's stumbling back until he crashes into Martin -- which almost costs him his footing, again, except Martin's hands land on his shoulders to steady him.

"Sorry," Martin says, recoiling away from him. He steps back, and Jon has to steel himself to not immediately retreat again as far as space allows and crash into him a second time. "I'm really sorry."

"That's -- " Jon breathes in. Ahead of him, right at face height, the spider is suspended motionless, a perfect predatory stillness. Which does not matter because Jon is not its prey, Jon is in no danger, Jon is a human who could crush it with ease. A human who was in the middle of saying something. Wasn't he? "That's -- fine."

"No, it's not," Martin says glumly. "I shouldn't have grabbed you."

"Of the two outcomes, I prefer this one." Jon does not manage to sound like he means it.

"I should've just said something," Martin continues. "I just, I didn't think you'd actually listen? Or not in time. Listening to instructions doesn't seem like a very...you trait."

That does somewhat undercut the progress Jon has thus far managed on regaining his composure. "Oh, well if I wasn't convinced of the sincerity of your apology before, I am now."

"Okay, that was shitty. Sorry."

"Stop apologizing," he snaps, "it's bordering on groveling at this point."

Martin opens his mouth around a word that is most definitely sorry and then shuts it again without a sound.

Jon stoops to collect his phone -- mercifully undamaged -- and then draws himself up. He does not need to alter his route because of one arachnid. He pushes ahead in the same direction he'd been walking all along, he just...gives the web a wide berth as he passes. He might technically step off the path, but muddy shoes can be cleaned again.

He hears Martin take a few shuffling steps and then stop again, like he isn't sure if his company is still welcome. Jon finds himself annoyed by the indecisiveness of it, except he's also thinking about social anxiety again, and he can still feel two spots of steady pressure on his shoulders.

"Are you coming?" he asks, curt.

"Oh. Yes?"

Jon doesn't slow down, or turn to watch, only listens as Martin catches up again. He does so without having to step off the path, and Jon gets annoyed about that as well. It isn't only his own unreasonable fear that's upsetting him, or even that he was seen to be scared. It makes it worse that Martin can be so unbothered. If Martin had fallen prey to the face level spider web ambush, he'd have shrugged it off -- or no, but only because he would have been upset on behalf of the spider. If he'd been the one accosted in the bar, he wouldn't even have twitched, he would have happily sat at the table even knowing the whole time that it was there --

"Oh, you're joking," Jon declares.

"Sorry?" Martin asks, startled. As though he gets to act surprised.

"In the bar. When you offered me your table. You meant for us to switch places."

"Well...yeah," he admits.

Jon stops. Martin follows suit, looking bewildered.

"Why didn't you say so?"

"I thought I did? And then, I don't know, it felt less awkward to just go along with it than to correct you."

"But it would have made more sense that way."

"I mean." He shrugs. "Yeah. Which is why I was confused that you didn't want to do it."

There is apparently no better explanation forthcoming. Jon despises an unsatisfying explanation.

"So you just let me barge in on you and monopolize your entire evening rather than say something?"

"You're acting like it was a big deal," Martin says, "It wasn't. I have news for you, you're not a pain to spend time with."

"It's not as though you could tell that just by looking at me," Jon argues.

"No, just -- " Martin abruptly and unexpectedly clams up. "Never mind."

"What?"

Martin starts walking again, quicker than before, but Jon is a fast walker and it isn't hard to keep up. "Nothing!"

"No, what were you going to say?"

"It was nothing, all right? Forget it."

"I'm never going to be able to forget now," Jon says. "You might as well tell me, whatever it is can't be as bad as not knowing."

"It's not anything bad!"

"Which is why you're quite literally running away."

He sighs. Jon wonders if he's reassessing his opinion about Jon's company not being a hardship. He's feeling sort of obscurely proud of that when Martin says, "It's just that I liked how you looked, all right?"

Jon blinks, thrown. He is generally satisfied with his own appearance, but that is a far cry from attractive enough to excuse bad behavior.

While he processes this further evidence of Martin's faulty decision-making, Martin frantically attempts to backpedal. "That -- that came out wrong, God, I'm not -- that's not -- I wasn't staring at you all night or anything, honestly, it was just sort of -- and when you told me to sit with you, I thought maybe there was a chance you meant something by it? But then you ignored me for a solid hour and that cleared that right up," he finishes, a note of self-deprecation creeping into his voice.

Jon's brain whirs as it reorients itself around the idea that, in some sense, he had asked for Martin's company and Martin had granted it.

Viewed through that lens, he can't help but think -- if the night had been a date, it would have been a nice one.

"Wait," he says. "I haven't decided if I meant anything by it."

Martin frowns. Jon is beginning to suspect that expression means I want to understand you but you aren't making that easy. "Sorry, you're still deciding what you meant by something you did hours ago?"

"I'm reopening the matter for consideration."

Martin's expression shifts to something more along the lines of oh, I did understand you correctly, it's just that what you said is very strange. "So you're just now thinking about it for the first time."

"I only just became aware I did it at all," Jon says, a touch defensive. "Pardon me for not realizing I should be on the lookout for romantic prospects after publicly humiliating myself. Has anyone ever told you that you have terrible judgment?"

"Not while they're in the middle of maybe asking me out," Martin replies. "Am I getting negged right now? Or have you landed on you weren't hitting on me?"

Stop. Reorient. Yes, he's being appalling again.

"Neither?" he admits.

There's a moment's heavy silence, and then Martin laughs, a small sound that he tries to stifle behind a hand without much success. "Sorry," he says, clearly biting back more laughter. "Sorry, I'm not laughing at you, it's just..."

"This is ridiculous," Jon agrees.

Martin nods.

"I," Jon says, "have made a mess of things, clearly, but I'm not sure what I should have done instead."

"No, I'm the one that made it weird," Martin says. "I should've just made up some excuse to leave after Georgie arrived."

"I'm glad you didn't," Jon tells him. "I had a much better evening than I'd anticipated."

Martin's cheeks go pink. "What, even with all the spiders?"

"Yes."

He blushes harder at this and looks down at the ground, an oddly charming overreaction. "I, um. I had a nice night, too." He's biting his lip as though trying to keep his timid half-smile from spreading, for no earthly reason that Jon can see. Martin has a rather nice smile.

...Hm. Jon...has been paying a good deal of attention to Martin's face, over the course of the evening, hasn't he. That would have been a useful thing to have realized at any point of the night whatsoever.

But he didn't, and now is better than never, which was very nearly the case. It doesn't bear thinking about.

"Martin," he starts. I shouted at you and put you in an uncomfortable situation and I'm fairly certain I horribly insulted you several times over, but since for some reason that hasn't chased you off, do you want to go through all of this again -- It's a horrendous proposal. Not that he didn't earn the criticism, but it will only serve to make him feel defensive and make them both more keenly aware of the awkwardness of the situation. He'd like to give Martin something nicer than that.

"I enjoyed spending time with you tonight, and I'd like to see you again." Well, it isn't poetic, but it is straightforward. "Do you want -- "

"Yes," Martin blurts out, and whatever color had left his face comes rushing back. "Oh my god, I can't believe I interrupted you, ignore me."

"No," Jon says, "no, I don't think I will. Rather the opposite." He takes a step forward, and Martin's gaze -- which had shot right back to the ground -- cautiously climbs back up. "Can I take you out on a date sometime?"

There is the slightest pause before Martin answers. "Yes. Obviously," he adds, with a tone that is not quite amusement. "I -- I would really like that."

"Thank you," Jon says. "In that case, can I also escort you to your train? We can make plans on the way."

"Aren't we already walking to the train together?" Martin asks.

"Well, all right, the action hasn't changed but the intent has. If you allow it."

"Oh. Well, okay, then, yes," and there is that very nice smile again, no longer hiding.