Chapter Text
Jon stands in the back room of the Archives, staring blankly at the cot tucked into the corner.
It's been a little over a week since the Unknowing. Ten days since four of them left for Great Yarmouth—and only two of them came back. Ten days since Tim—
Jon closes his eyes.
If Martin had his way, Jon wouldn't have come back to work for at least two more weeks. But as much as Jon hates this place, he knows that if he had sat alone in his flat any longer he would have gone mad. He'd tried to walk a bit, to get out—but public places and crowds left him so jumpy he could hardly catch his breath, and even just walking from his flat to the Tube station, he found himself checking the street constantly, watching the cars, pausing at corners to make sure no one was about to come round them.
At least in the Institute, he knows where the monsters are. More or less.
He's one of them, after all.
He'd managed to make it downstairs and through the main room of the Archives without meeting anyone, for which he is grateful. He wouldn't have known what to say.
What is there to say?
When he got to his office, he had stood and stared at the desk for several minutes before sitting down. It was still scattered with papers and maps and notes, all exactly where he'd left them. A tape recorder sat contentedly in one corner, and next to it was a small stack of tapes: all their statements from before they left. Jon could barely stand to look at them.
He should work, he thought. Do something other than stare at two-week old detritus. He had pulled out the recorder and tried to begin a statement, to describe what had happened. But after he pressed record he just stared at the gently turning pins for several seconds, unable to think of any words. Eventually he just turned it off.
Finally, for lack of anything else to do, he had gotten up and made his way to the back room. He’d had a vague thought of making some tea or getting a drink—some sort of concrete, tangible, but ultimately insignificant action.
But now he's standing here staring at the cot that he and Tim slept on when they first got back from being taken by the Circus, voices and memories echoing through his head with awful clarity.
“Bad dreams?”
“Would you believe I’d thought they’d gone away?”
“D’you want to talk about them?”
Jon balls his fists tight at his sides, his fingernails digging deep indents into his palms.
“I had no idea that human vertebrae could make that much noise.”
“Wait until you hear me crack my knuckles.”
His throat is on fire and his whole chest is shaking with the effort of holding everything he’s feeling inside, but he can’t, he doesn’t want to—
"Some things...some things you just can't be protected from."
"I'm here, I've got you, we're safe now."
“You all right, boss?”
All he wants, all he needs, is Tim's grounding presence, warm and comforting and solid. He hadn't realized till now how much he has come to rely on it, how he had taken it for granted, almost, that Tim would be there in moments like this.
And now he's not, and Jon doesn't know how to hold himself together without him.
"Give me this, Jon. Let me do this."
He is briefly, incandescently angry at Tim for leaving, for doing exactly what Jon had desperately tried to keep him from doing—leaving Jon to stand here alone on the other side, wondering why it hadn't been him.
“I know you’re going to blame yourself for this, but it’s not your fault. Whatever you think, it’s not your fault.”
Whose is it, then, if not his? He's the one who was supposed to keep it together during the Unknowing, but he hadn't; he'd been lost, and he'd given the detonator to Nikola, and because of that—
“Jon?”
Martin’s voice comes from the doorway and Jon sucks in a sharp, shuddering breath, and looks at the ceiling, blinking fast. He’s glad he has his back to the door so he has a moment to compose himself. He doesn’t turn when he speaks, addressing the ceiling instead.
“Martin. I didn't hear you come in.”
“Sorry. Are you…” Martin trails off. “Nevermind. Stupid question.”
Jon takes another breath before turning, arranging his face into what he hopes is a neutral expression.
“I'm fine, Martin, I just…”
He waves vaguely towards the tea station, as though maybe the earl grey and darjeeling can give a more reasonable end to his sentence than he can.
Martin looks at him with such worry and compassion that Jon's chest hurts all the more and he almost breaks right there.
He will not cry in front of Martin. He won’t.
Jon finds a spot on the floor and stares at it very hard. It’s a dark, irregular circle, rather like chewing gum on the sidewalk after it’s been walked on by weeks’ worth of people, and did someone spit chewing gum onto the floor of the Archives? Jon will have it out for whoever did it—Melanie maybe, it seems the sort of spiteful thing she’d do—
“Jon,” Martin says. “Do you...do you want a hug?”
Something inside Jon gives a sharp tug, sudden and painful.
“I—it's fine if you don't, obviously, I don't want to—but if you want, if it would help, I—oh.”
Before Martin even finishes speaking Jon steps forward and blindly reaches out to him. Martin staggers a little as Jon collides with him and his arms hover for a moment, unsure, before he lowers them gently over Jon’s shoulders.
Martin's hugs are different from Tim's. He's softer, less angular, and he's not as tall, so his chin doesn't rest on top of Jon's head the way Tim's does.
Did.
But he wraps his arms tight around Jon, encompassing him completely, and it's the most safe and secure Jon has felt in days. He presses his face into Martin's chest and finally lets everything that he has been pushing down for the last ten days come out.
Martin makes a sound of deep concern and holds him tighter, his own face pressed into Jon’s shoulder.
And they just stay like that, for a long time.
When Jon finally steps back, he's mortified to see the large damp patch that he’s left on Martin’s shirt. Martin doesn’t seem to notice.
“I'm sorry,” Jon says. “I didn’t mean to...that was very unprofessional. Having your boss cry all over you.”
Martin gives him a strange look.
“Jon, you know you're not just—you know you're more than my boss at this point, right? No-not, I don’t mean—” Martin makes a face as he tries to get his words in order. “What I mean is...this isn't exactly a normal workplace. We're closer than that, now. Friends, I hope. Maybe even family."
Jon starts a bit at that—not because it’s bad, or even that he disagrees, but just—he’d never have thought to say it out loud.
But Martin seems to think he’s said something wrong, and he stammers, “Not that—I just—” A sharp sigh. “ I just mean—If you ever need...support, or someone to talk to. I'm here.”
Jon looks at Martin then, really looks at him. He has such a kind face, although now his brows are furrowed a little in apprehension, afraid that he’s said the wrong thing, gone too far. The way Jon’s talked to him in the past, he’s not really surprised. So now he looks him dead in the eye, so when he says this, Martin knows he means it.
“Thank you, Martin.”
Martin turns red at the sincerity in Jon’s voice, and Jon quickly looks away, pulling out a handkerchief to scrub at his face.
“Tim would hate this. Crying over him like this. Blubbering, he'd call it."
Martin smiles a little.“Yeah, he'd be really embarrassed, wouldn't he? Probably make some stupid joke about high water bills from leaving the hosepipe running or something.”
Jon chokes out a laugh. Then his gaze drifts back to the cot, and he thinks of the feeling of waking up warm for the first time in a month, Tim’s shoulder pressed against his. He thinks of long hot afternoons arguing over the rules of the road in America, Tim reciting the lines along with his favorite films during movie nights, the look of mock horror on his face when Martin had spit lager all over him at the pub.
“I miss him,” he says. The words don’t feel adequate.
“I know,” Martin says. “Me too.”
They are silent for a moment, contemplating their ghosts. Somehow, with Martin, it doesn't feel uncomfortable at all, this silence.
Finally, Jon takes a breath. As much as he would not mind staying here, sharing this comfortable, comforting silence with Martin, he really shouldn’t. Even—or especially—after averting the apocalypse, there is always work to do.
“I should get back,” he says.
“Okay," Martin says softly.
He steps aside so Jon can move past him to the door, but just as Jon reaches the threshold he speaks again.
“I meant what I said, Jon. I’m here, whatever you need.”
Jon turns. Martin is looking at him with that same compassion as before, mixed with a touch of nervousness and not a little determination.
Jon wonders how he never noticed, before, just how wonderful Martin is.
He really hasn’t been paying attention.
“I…” What can he say, other than another thank you? “Same to you, Martin.”
Martin smiles, and nods, and turns towards the kettle to start making some tea.
And Jon goes back to his office, to record his statement.