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"Come on, it's all right," Martin coos, soft and soothing, even though he's been kneeling in the cold dirt for five minutes now and he's definitely going to be late to his interview. But the bird that's gotten itself tangled in a mess of overgrown rosebush and discarded nylon ribbon is still thrashing, bleeding a little from where the thorns have dug into its wing, and he's committed now, isn't he? From the looks of it the poor thing's been there for hours, and no one else had bothered to help it yet.
He's too soft, that's his problem. He can't stand to see something suffer when there's a chance he could do something about it, no matter how much it costs him to do it. Like the office job he really, really needs, because if he has to spend another Christmas season at a cash register he is going to snap and stab someone in the throat with a corkscrew.
Martin buries that thought to keep the annoyance out of his voice while he continues to soothe the wounded bird, its struggles finally waning with exhaustion. It's a leggy thing, some kind of aquatic bird. A heron, maybe? It seems small for a heron, but Martin doesn't actually know anything about birds. He's hoping that soft and gentle will be enough to keep it from turning that viciously sharp beak on him.
The bird stills at last, watching him with those fathomless black eyes, and Martin strokes gently down the ruffled feathers on its back. It's trembling under his fingertips, soft and warm and panicked, but it doesn't start fighting again. "You're all right," Martin says softly, laying his palm more firmly on its back. "There you go."
It doesn't fight him as he carefully unwinds the ribbon – stray gift wrapping, maybe, or the string of a helium balloon; either way Martin thinks evil thoughts about litterers – and tries to pull apart the rose branches without doing either of them any more damage. He scratches his fingers up pretty badly, but finally he's gotten the ribbon entirely out of the way and cleared a gap in the bushes large enough for the bird to climb out through.
Which it doesn't. It sits there, trembling, watching him, even when he moves a few inches away, and then a few feet. "Please tell me you're not too hurt to fly off," Martin breathes. If he runs for it he can probably catch the next train, which won't leave him more than five minutes late. Five minutes late and muddy and bleeding isn't the ideal first impression, but it's better than not showing up at all. But it hadn't seemed really hurt, just trapped and frightened, and anyway he's more than reached the limits of his first aid skills. He stands awkwardly on the sidewalk, ignored by other passers-by, and dusts off the knees of his trousers. They're probably unsalvageable.
A passing bus catches Martin's attention for a second, and when he turns back, the bird is gone. He breathes a sigh of relief. And as he double-times it to the station, he hopes it has a safe place to recover its strength.
Martin isn't late enough that he misses the interview, though he is flustered and disheveled enough that it probably doesn't matter. But he's got an afternoon shift right after that, which at least keeps him from worrying himself to pieces about it, and by the time he makes it home he's ready to put the entire stressful day behind him, so of course there's a weirdo pacing outside his flat.
The guy looks like he's dressed himself out of a discards bin – not dirty or even ragged, just incredibly odd and uncoordinated. He's got dark hair streaked with grey, which makes it impossible to tell how old he really is; he's pacing briskly but he has one arm tucked into his side like it's hurting him. He's probably homeless, probably off his meds; Martin sighs inwardly and wishes, not for the first time, that he had it in him to be rude to someone who doesn't mean him any harm.
Before he can say anything, though, the man catches sight of him and stops pacing, his shoulders slumping in relief. "Oh, good, there you are," he says in a rich, dark voice that sends shivers down Martin's spine, and not the kind he should be feeling at being recognized by a strange man who apparently knows where he lives. "I was afraid I'd gotten the wrong place."
"Do I know you?" Martin squeaks out, then forcibly drags his voice back under control. "Look, it's been a long day –"
The strange man huffs a silent laugh, running his good hand through his hair. "Yes, it has. I – well, you don't know me, I suppose, but we met this morning." Martin gives him a blank look, and he loses a little of his frantic energy, cowed by Martin's disbelief. "You, um." He holds out his other arm, the one he's been nursing. "You helped me." Under the rolled-up cuff of his shirtsleeve, the arm is bruised and tender-looking, the skin marked in several places with fresh scabs, and in the palm of his open hand is a tangled mess of nylon ribbon.
"Oh," Martin says intelligently.
"You helped me," the man says earnestly, his voice softer now and plaintive. "So now I have to help you. That's how it works."
Martin scrubs his hands over his face; he's so tired that this almost seems reasonable. It would make sense, he supposes, that when his life turns into a fairy tale it's one of the real ones, full of blood and heartbreak. Not that he's heartbroken over this beautiful dark-eyed bird man pleading to be allowed to help him, but Martin knows himself, and it's really not going to take long.
"Come inside," he says finally, "I'll make some tea."
They stay up that first night talking in circles; Martin would very much like a sensible explanation but the stranger doesn't seem to have one available, and anyway Martin does have to admit that one probably doesn't exist. The first point of contention is a name. Martin threatens to call him "bird man" or "Hawkeye" or "Birds Rights Activist" and he shrugs at each suggestion, clearly and entirely unconcerned. Finally they settle on "Jon," which is almost certainly not his real name, if he even has one, but it seems to suit him and Martin is relieved to be able to at least pretend that the person he's talking to is, well, a person, and not –
A shapeshifter? A faerie? A prince under a curse? Jon doesn't have any explanations, just shrugs at Martin's more specific questions and repeats, "That's how it works." Direct questions seem to make him uncomfortable, so Martin gives up trying to draw answers out of him around two in the morning and makes up a bed on the couch. The startled, grateful look Jon gives him tugs at Martin's chest, and he hopes desperately it's because Jon didn't expect to be asked to stay at all, not that he expected – well, that Martin's been less than successful at hiding the way he can't stop staring at Jon's long, elegant fingers, the streaks of grey in his hair, his collarbone exposed by a shirt that's just slightly too big for him.
Jon isn't even human, Martin reminds himself firmly. Which might be good, how much luck have you had with humans? a treacherous voice answers from the back of his mind, and he buries his face in his pillow and pretends that this was all just a strange, unsettling dream.
Except that Jon is still there when he wakes up in the morning, frowning at the teakettle in a way that suggests he might be able to get it to make tea on its own if he glares at it for long enough. And he's there when Martin comes home from work, tired and irritated and feeling oddly disconnected from his life. There's reality, where he works at meaningless, menial jobs to pay for his mother's care and his tiny, too-expensive flat; and then, apparently, there's this, where a beautiful probably-not-human man owes him a life debt or something, and has apparently made him dinner.
"That smells amazing," he says as soon as he comes through the door, and Jon flashes a smile at him, proud and nervous, from where he's poking at something on the stove.
"I hoped you wouldn't mind," Jon says as Martin sticks his face over the pan to breathe in the smell of curry and sweet jasmine rice.
"I don't mind, but I definitely didn't have groceries – you know what, I don't want to know," he says, to Jon's apparent relief. "You didn't have to, though."
Jon shrugs. "I told you," he says awkwardly. "I have to help you now, this is how it –"
"How it works, yeah." Martin sighs. "I mean, sure, I helped you out of a tight spot, but – how long does this helping me out in return go on for, anyway?" Jon just looks at him with those wide, dark eyes, and Martin gives in. "How it works. I mean, nothing else in my life makes sense, why should this have to?" he mutters, and he almost misses the way Jon looks away, chewing his lip thoughtfully.
Jon doesn't exactly ask to say, and Martin doesn't exactly invite him to. Martin just keeps coming home and finding Jon making curry, or soup, or once, amazingly, bread. ("It didn't rise right," Jon grumbles, though Martin can't find anything wrong with it.) The dishes are always clean and the floors are always swept, and there are never any loud parties or half-naked strangers in the mornings. For having a roommate it's downright acceptable, even if he is still both stupidly attractive and entirely uninterested in Martin's rare, terrible attempts at flirtation. And for a while, things are good. Weird, but good.
So of course it can't last. It all comes at once, as things do: the fees for his mum's care have their annual hike, and the rent goes up, and they're cutting his hours at the shop and he still hasn't managed to land an office job. He spends an hour one evening trying to make the numbers work out, and it's – well, it's beyond cutting it close.
"What's wrong?" Jon asks softly, but Martin still jumps, catching his fingers in his hair where he'd had them dug in with frustration. He shakes them out and does his best to laugh it off, but his best isn't very good right now.
"Nothing," he says, "nothing, it's just – well, everything." He gestures at the stack of bills and scribbled notes scattered across the table.
Jon sits down carefully across from him. Martin's had to buy another chair; he never used to have guests before. "That...seems to contradict itself," Jon says.
"Hah." Martin breathes out carefully. "It's – no, it's fine, I'll make it work. Mrs Kowalczyk has cut me a break on the rent before, she'll – it'll be fine."
Jon frowns at him, but he doesn't argue, launching instead into a convoluted question about some documentary he was watching on telly while Martin was at work. Jon doesn't actually want Martin to answer these questions, he'd figured out after a while; he doesn't like being reminded that he doesn't know things about the world, sometimes things so simple that Martin can't help but be baffled even though he tries his best not to let it show. But Jon had decided somehow that asking a question was an appropriate form of casual communication, so he keeps on doing it, even when the question itself is so complex it answers itself before he finishes. Tonight it's something about politics, which Martin will cheerfully admit to knowing nothing about, so he doesn't feel bad zoning out and just letting Jon's soothing voice wash over him for a while.
When he wakes up the next morning, Martin is halfway through making tea before he realizes what's wrong. He's not used to making his own tea any more; Jon's always up before he is. He peers over into the living room, where a corner of it has been sectioned off with makeshift curtains to give Jon at least the semblance of privacy. Martin drums his fingers on the counter as he considers. It's not that Jon doesn't deserve a lie-in for once; of course he does. But what if he's sick, or –
What if he's gone? Martin's brain suggests unhelpfully.
"Jon?" Martin calls out softly, still not sure if he wants to wake him if he's sleeping. "Is everything all right?" His hand brushes the curtain, though he doesn't quite take hold. "J–"
"Don't come in," Jon snaps, harsher than Martin's ever heard him before. "It's fine, just – don't." He sounds a little strained, too, like he had when they first met. When he'd been hurt.
"Are you sure?" Martin tries, though he knows he won't get the answer he wants.
Jon's answer is firm. "Absolutely." There's no other sound from behind the curtain, not even when Martin finishes breakfast and calls out a hesitant, "Bye then," on his way out the door.
He doesn't see Jon for three entire days. Every morning he checks in before he leaves; every morning he gets nothing more than a rude dismissal. It's...concerning, certainly, but more than that it's lonely. He misses Jon, misses his rambling not-questions and fluttering wrists and the quiet way he'll drop a cup of tea by Martin's elbow just when he's thinking of making one for himself. And, all right, he's not fond of the dishes. It's like he's living alone again, except for the silent, curtained shadow of the living room, reminding him that he's not really.
On the morning of the fourth day Jon is sitting at the kitchen table with a slice of toast and a cup of tea like nothing has changed, and there's a carpet draped over the back of the sofa. Martin thinks he can be forgiven for being distracted by that first, because it's stunning, waves of deep blue threaded through with pale streaks that almost shimmer in the morning light. It looks like a meteor shower, or the barest hint of cresting waves, or snow through old glass. It looks like something that belongs – well, to Jon's world, not to Martin's.
"Where did you get this?" Martin breathes.
Jon comes up beside him, cradling his tea mug in his palms and looking at the carpet with much less awe. "I – well. I, um. Made it." When Martin looks at him in shock, Jon actually blushes a little bit. "I do have some skills, you know."
Martin shakes his head helplessly. "That's really not what I – god, Jon, it's stunning, but I don't think it really suits the atmosphere of the place, you know?" He gives a pathetic little laugh at his pathetic little joke.
"Well, it's – no, I suppose not," Jon says with a frown. "I wasn't. I thought you could sell it," he explains. "To help with, with everything. I know I'm not pulling my weight as far as rent and things, I didn't realize." He cuts himself off so sharply Martin can hear the clack of his teeth and gestures loosely at the carpet, as if it isn't the most gorgeous thing Martin's ever seen short of Jon himself. "This should help."
"I couldn't," Martin protests, "all that work, it must be –" but Jon cuts him off firmly.
"It's what I made it for. Please," he says, softer, "let me help."
And hell, he has to know that Martin doesn't stand a chance against that.
It takes him all day, sneaking searches on his phone in whenever he has a spare moment, to find a consignment shop that's nice enough to pay something close to what the thing is worth but not fancy enough that they'll toss Martin out for coming in in jeans and an old hoodie. He drags Jon along when he goes, proof against any accusations of theft or fraud, but the owner is happy to believe it's handmade and apparently Jon's shyness with strangers that he covers with a downright irritating haughtiness comes off as an artistic temperament, and he and Martin sign the papers without a hitch.
Jon is deeply uncomfortable signing anything, but the shop owner did insist. He flexes his fingers uncomfortably all the way home and shakes out his wrist when he thinks Martin isn't looking, but he insists everything is fine, as he always does. Martin files it away as one more unusual thing, one more clue that might offer some insight into what exactly Jon is, should he ever care to pursue it. That used to seem important, Martin remembers, but it doesn't really now, not compared to how badly he wants to take Jon's hand in his own and hold on tight every time it twitches.
The check, when it comes, is large enough that Martin is uncomfortable just carrying it around until the mobile deposit goes through and he can safely shred the thing. Jon grumbles a little about the percentages on consignment – he's been reading up on economics in the past week, getting more use out of Martin's library card than it's ever seen before – but Martin can't find anything to complain about. It covers the month's shortfall easily and leaves a bit of a cushion to continue on with, enough that Martin's comfortable buying a celebratory bottle of wine instead.
He's definitely not disappointed when Jon declines to share it with him, claiming to have no head for alcohol. He's definitely not trying to get his – his flatmate? His friend? He's not trying to get Jon drunk, that would be irresponsible, Martin just thinks he could stand to relax a little more. He does, at least, smile fondly at Martin when he lies down in the middle of the floor at about three-quarters of the way through the bottle, balancing his mug (he doesn't have any wineglasses, they seem like a waste) on his belly.
"Thank you," Martin says to Jon for probably the hundredth time. "Thank you, really, honestly, that's possibly the nicest thing anyone's done for me in ages." He's going to start getting teary if he isn't careful, but at the same time it's terribly important for Jon to know just how important he is.
"It was nothing," Jon mutters into his own mug, this one of tea. "I should have thought of it sooner."
"It really wasn't nothing," Martin insists, though he can tell Jon isn't really listening. "It really, really wasn't."
It's several months later, when the bank balance isn't quite as dire as it was before though it's certainly dipping back into worrying territory again, when Martin wakes to find the curtain pulled tight again across Jon's corner of the living room. He gets the same curt dismissal when he calls Jon's name, but at least this time it isn't a surprise or a terrible looming mystery. Martin finds himself walking to work thinking of Jon's graceful hands working at – he's not sure, a loom probably? The logistics of it escape him, honestly, he has no idea what Jon must be doing in there.
Martin wonders idly about it for the next couple of days, in all that free time he has now that Jon's disappeared. There are half a hundred ways to make carpets, apparently, and Martin's memory of the first one is dazzled by color and pattern; he never paid any attention to the construction. It's odd that it's so silent, certainly, but then Jon is odd in so many ways, and he does value his privacy. Witness the way he so adamantly insists that Martin leave him alone during this process, without even a hint of his usual kindness.
When the fourth day comes and goes without Jon's reappearance, the itch of curiosity really sets in. When Martin comes home on the fifth day, late after being conscripted into an unexpected and off-the-clock cleanup detail, he finds himself looking at the closed curtain as if he could see through it if he stares hard enough.
Surely, he reasons, there's nothing really wrong with looking. There's every chance that Jon is asleep by now, even, so it's hardly even an invasion of privacy. He just – he wants to know. What Jon is working on, how he's doing it. How close it is to done. If Jon's all right – presumably he's been coming out to eat when Martin isn't home, but he can't be sure of that.
Martin is well aware these are all rationalizations, but they don't stop him from pausing by the curtain on his way off to bed. He hooks his fingers into the rough cotton of a cheap bedsheet and holds it there for a moment. Still a chance to look away, he tells himself, and he doesn't.
Jon is not asleep. He's bent over a wide wooden frame, the shape and color of it indistinct in the dark, but apparently he can see it fine. His hands are as graceful as Martin had imagined, moving swiftly between the frame and several loose piles of material close to hand. He's wearing a little frown of concentration that Martin badly wants to smooth away with his fingers, so focused on his work that he hasn't noticed Martin peering through the gap in the curtain. He really, really ought to leave, he tells himself. Now, before he's noticed.
Then Jon reaches out and finds one of his piles empty. His frown turns into a grimace, and he carefully rolls up the other sleeve of his shirt. He reaches into it and tugs firmly, and his hand comes back full of something Martin can't quite identify, because it doesn't make sense, until suddenly it does. Jon drops a handful of white feathers onto the floor beside him, some of their ends still tipped with blood.
Martin gasps, and the frame clatters to the floor as Jon leaps to his feet, faster than he ought to be able to. "Who's there," he says, and then he catches sight of Martin, fingers clutched in the curtain, frozen in place. Jon's face does something complicated that makes Martin's heart ache, and he looks like he's about to swear, or maybe cry, or maybe both.
"I'm sorry," Martin blurts out, "I know I shouldn't have, I just –" But there's a flutter of movement, again much too fast for anyone to move, and Jon is gone.
It's a heart-stopping few minutes before Martin notices the open window and works out what must have happened. Presuming that Jon can't actually disappear into thin air, which, for all Martin knows, he does all the time. But if that's the case he can't do anything about it, which is clearly unacceptable, so he chooses instead to head out into the cold evening.
There's only one place Martin can think to go, so he's relieved to find out he guessed right. Jon is sitting hunched with his arms wrapped around himself on a bench overlooking the pond in the same park where they'd first – well, met. Martin wonders if this is home, when Jon isn't sleeping on Martin's couch, and something in his chest twists in sympathy and guilt.
Jon doesn't flinch as Martin sits down next to him. He hasn't in a long time, and somehow this is the first time Martin has noticed. He feels guilty for that, too, but it doesn't stop him leaning slightly into Jon's side, feeling the trembling in his limbs slow the longer they stay in contact.
"I'm sorry," Martin says at last. "That was wrong of me."
Jon makes a strangled noise, tucking his chin into his chest. "I didn't want you to know," he says miserably. "I know it's – grotesque, and –"
"Is that what you think I thought?" Martin interrupts, too astonished to let him finish. "Jon, it's not – I'm not going to say that was my favorite I've ever seen, but grotesque was certainly not at the top of my mind." Jon stays hunched in on himself, beginning to pull away. "You're incredible," Martin says softly, for once not trying to keep the affection out of his voice.
That gets Jon to look up at him at last. He looks like he's trying to puzzle something out, and not having an easy time of it. "I had to do something," he says at last. "And there isn't much I can do, so." He shrugs.
Martin's mouth twists in a mockery of a smile. "That's how it works, right. I remember." No good deed goes unpunished, his mum used to say; really, though, hasn't he been punished enough?
"It's not that," Jon says, and it's Martin's turn to stare at him like he can pry out answers by force of will alone. "You're right, the...debt, I suppose, was made up a long time ago. But I didn't." He chews his lip, but he's not trying to hide, at least. "You didn't need me for anything," he says at last. "I had to be worth keeping."
It feels like all the air has been knocked out of his lungs. "Worth – Jon, you don't have to rip out pieces of yourself to pay my rent, that's –"
"I have to do something," he says stubbornly, and Martin can't help but laugh. Jon pulls away from him, putting a scant few inches between them, and Martin grabs his hands impulsively to keep him from going any farther. Jon looks down at them with that little frown of concentration he gets when he doesn't understand something, but he doesn't try to pull away.
"Jon," he says, and he doesn't know what he's going to say before it comes out of his mouth, but for once he can't stop himself, and he doesn't want to, either. "You're worth keeping around. I missed you so much, even though I knew you were right there. I want." His throat closes up on him; he wants too many things and he still doesn't know how to say them.
Jon is still frowning at their hands, though he's turned his so that he's holding on to Martin in return. Martin is pretty sure his heart is going to beat right out of his chest if he doesn't say something soon, and even so he can feel the pulse racing in Jon's thin wrists. "You can't love someone without making sacrifices," Jon says at last, but it sounds like something learned by rote rather than something he's certain of.
But he did say – "So don't keep all of them to yourself," Martin says. Jon looks back at him at last, wary and hopeful, and Martin can't keep the smile off his face. Hell with it, he thinks, and he raises Jon's hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to the cold knuckles. Jon shudders and leans forward, and it presses them together again, his body warm and yielding against Martin's side. "Come home," Martin says, and Jon's breath stutters. "Come home with me."
And he does.