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Martin did not know why he was entertaining this.
It's not like Jon would actually praise him or something. Not for this.
Martin sighed. Christ it would be nice, though.
He pushed open the old attic door, torch trembling in his paint-flecked hands.
He shined the beam into the darkened room, holding his breath. He let it out slowly when no weird ghost came out at him and tried to hype himself up a bit, moving the dim light slowly along the floor.
“O-okay, Martin. Come on. Just…look around a bit. And also never ever tell Gerry about this because he would 100% call you a little bi– aah whatthefuckisthat!” Martin did not squeal, whatever Gerry said, and in fact made a very tough, manly sound of absolute terror at the louder-than-it-should-be skittering sound in the far corner that was blocked off by boxes.
He stood there, frozen for a moment, his head just poking up through the hatch into the attic and one hand holding a not-so-steady beam of light.
He stayed there in silence, convinced (and hoping) that he'd imagined whatever he'd heard until he saw the small, curious head of a dark bird poke past the boxes.
“Oh thank God. Just a– just a bird. Jesus.” Martin was breathing hard, he felt the tension in his chest leak out.
He smiled, “Well. I guess I should– ah, yeah. Hmm. Bit…snug.” He made his way further into the small room, holding his old phone aloft. He took a few pictures of the room before crawling forward slightly, much to the distress of the bird, who squawked indignantly.
“I know, I'm sorry but Jon might actually kill me if I don’t– hey! That's my– get off! Bastard…” he shook off the pecking of his sleeve and hurriedly reached around the boxes with his phone, quickly snapping a photo before backing away down the ladder.
He shook out his hair and his jacket, grimacing at the dust cloud that came off. “Ugh. Next time, Tim's going into the creepy ghost-attic.”
He straightened his jacket, made sure that his notebook and phone were in place, and left the way he'd come in– through the back window.
○●○●○●○●○
“Martin!”
Martin dropped the pen he had been flipping around idly with a muttered ‘shit’ and looked up, blushing fiercely. Jon was standing over him, looking as impeccable (and gorgeous) as always. He swallowed, “Ahh…y-yes Jon?”
Jon looked down at him, one brow raised, “...Hmm. Good job on the Stanton house report, for once. Please try to have that same thoroughness in the future. Though…I think you may have, ah, smudged the lens on one of the photos. Be more careful, next time.”
“Uh-huh, y-yeah, um. S-sure, Jon.” Martin smiled, much too brightly for the situation. He could feel the bright heat in his cheeks and fought the urge to hide them behind his hands.
Jon tapped his finger on the wood of Martin’s desk before nodding and walking off towards the breakroom.
Martin felt his body deflate, but the smile stayed. “I think that’s the first time he complemented one of my reports! Ha! Oh, wait, shit, which photo…? Oh.” Martin scrolled through his phone and paused on the photo that Jon must have been talking about. He hadn’t noticed it on his phone when he was sending them to his computer to print, but if he zoomed in, he could see a sort of…weird, dark blob-ish thing off in the corner above an old book. He hadn’t really noticed it because the bird was the main focus of the photo, but not that he was looking it was obvious.
He frowned, looking at it closer. He saw what he thought might have been a face…but obviously that must have been a coincidence. He’d already decided that the weird noises must have been the birds.
But…well, Gerry would have probably looked at it again…
No. He wasn’t going to risk ruining his first perfect report.
Besides, it was most likely just the bird.
Probably.
…Maybe.