II.
“Martin, I can’t possibly-“
“Yes, you verypossibly can”
Martin doesn’t even turn around as he stuffs the rest of the soaked newspaper and paper towels into his overflowing binbag, and just about manages to tie it shut without half its contents spilling over the still damp floorboards, “now shut up and lie back down”
He can hear Jon grumble from the other side of the room as he drags himself to his feet, stretches his arms over his head and shoots another critical look at the parquet. Enough of the paint that had spilled onto the floor earlier had dried against the wood to be glaringly obvious as soon as you entered the room but considering he and Jon had been somewhat distracted with worrying about Jon maybe dying, Martin couldn’t really bring himself to care about the stains right now. So, they would have to try to scrape the paint off at some point but honestly? Who cared. Martin had at least managed to wipe the bits that had been still mostly liquid away as best as he could and that would have to do for now.
The entire upper floor still reeks off wall paint, even though Martin had yanked open the windows as soon as he had dared to leave Jon’s side for even a second. The remaining mess would have to wait until tomorrow, especially since Jon seems to already have forgotten that he’s supposed to rest and try to sleep but instead keeps insisting on helping Martin clean up at irregular intervals.
Never mind that most of the mess is the result of Martin’s little stunt with the paint, or that Jon literally can’t move yet without fighting the urge to scream in agony, never mind get up without his legs giving in straight away- all apparently being aspects that don’t particularly matter if you’re Jonathan Sims and only had two traumatic experiences that day. At this point Martin is seriously tempted to go through the drawers Daisy has stocked with all kind of provisions and gear and try to find a pair of spare handcuffs or anything that would keep Jon still on the living room’s sofa for some time.
Instead, Martin turns to face him just in time to see Jon’s mouth open, and he cuts him off before he can say anything; “And no, the mess was not your fault, you’re not responsible to get rid of it, and you don’t have to be sorry about anything”, he picks up the bag and starts towards the landing, “the only thing you have to do right now is try to relax and not put a strain on yourself, okay? Maybe sleep a little?”
An hour ago this had been less of a problem since Jon had been so drained and exhausted that he had not even complained about Martin carrying him over to the little sitting area and carefully laying him down on the soft cushions. He had half-expected Jon to pass out straight away, ruined clothes and ink still dried against his skin forgotten for the moment and he’d sat with him for a little over half an hour, until he’d been more or less confident that Jon was not about to start throwing up again or have some other kind of fit. Only then had he tugged the thin quilts that had been bundled at the foot of the sofa up to Jon’s chin, kissed the top of his head and gotten back to his feet.
He’d much rather tugged Jon in in their actual bed but the look in his eyes when Martin had suggested trying to sleep down the tiny hallway while he cleaned up the worst of the mess in the living room had been enough for Martin to try with the sofa instead. And Jon was just small enough to comfortably curl up on the worn-out thing with plenty of room to spare around him.
“I don’t want to sleep”, Jon tells Martin quietly when he returns from his trip to the bins downstairs, blankets pooling in his lap from when he’d sat up earlier and Martin drops down beside him, tugging the quilt back up. He’s still knackered, skin pale beneath the dark stains and lids heavy over his eyes and Martin his almost impressed by Jon’s stubbornness.
“Why not?”, he asks softly, bending over Jon to brush his hair out of his eyes.
There’s little black left among the grey these days and Jon’s eyebrows and lashes look almost unnaturally dark in comparison.
“Firstly”, Jon leans into the touch like a cat, closing his eyes for a moment when Martin lets his hand stay there, “I feel absolutely disgusting and I can still taste the stuff, the ink, on my tongue”
“Fair point”, Martin concedes, trying to decide whether Jon’s forehead feels warmer than normal or if his own hands are just chilly, “secondly?”
“I’m”, Jon sighs, not meeting Martin’s eyes as he opens his own, “I’m scarred what might happen if I do go to sleep, okay?”
“Jon…”
“I know, it’s stupid but-“
“No, it’s really not”, Martin says softly.
“but”, Jon ignores the interjection and goes on, “I can’t help it, I don’t want to dream about any of this and I don’t want to be out if something tries to get in here”
“How about we get you cleaned up”, Martin suggests after a couple of minutes, twirling an almost entirely grey strand around his finger, “then we both go to bed and I read to you until you doze off- or just close your eyes and try to not to think about anything for some time? I’ll watch the door and windows and wake you if I notice you’re having a nightmare or something else is wrong”
“Martin-“
“For fuck’s sake, Jon”, Martin heaves a deep sigh, but he’s smiling and Jon can see it from his position, “for once in your life, stop worrying and just say yes, if you’d like that”
“I would”, Jon’s voice is so soft, it almost gets lost on its short way from his lips to Marin’s ears, “yes”
“Okay”, Martin exhales around his smile, “good. Would you like to properly shower or just have a quick wash and get the worst of the stuff off?”
“I”, Jon casts his eyes down for a moment and swallows drily, “I don’t think I can stand that long yet”
Even sitting up earlier had sent his vision swimming and Jon had not even tried getting to his legs, even before Martin had told him off.
“I’ll be right back then, okay? I’ll leave all the doors open and you can call any time if something’s wrong”
A little colour has already returned to Jon’s cheeks and now they flush in the faintest shade of pink, but he doesn’t roll his eyes or retort anything glib, which Martin takes as a good sign.
By the time Martin returns with two towels, several washcloths and a big plastic bowl, filled halfway with warm water, halfway with towering white foam, Jon has taken off his ruined shirt and dropped it next to the couch, the dry fabric bundled around the ink stains.
“Do you want me to, or-“, Martin trails off and for a moment, the same, painfully awkward archival assistant that had barely managed to string together a full sentence when he’d first met the new archivist shines through and if Jon weren’t ninety percent sure, he would only end up knocking the bowl Martin his still holding to the floor, he would pull him down into his arms and kiss Martin until neither of them could remember a time before this tiny cottage in the middle of Scottish nowhere.
But things being the way they are, he only smiles weakly up at Martin and nods his head yes; “please”
“You should probably lay back down, here”, Martin spreads the towel over the sofa’s armrest Jon had been resting his head against, and eases Jon’s upper body downwards as soon as his hands are free again, “’m afraid this is going to take a while”
He reaches out one hand to touch Jon’s face, but Jon turns his face and just about manages to catch Martin’s hand in his own.
“What is it?”
“I”, Jon shrugs weakly, “I just realized how gross this”, he makes a vague gesture towards himself, his face and neck, “actually is, and you really don’t have to-“
“Jon, I literally had a worm-monster stalk my home and we all worked with those things spreading around the institute for months before they attacked the archive, buried in our skin and tried to eat us alive”, Martin says very slowly, as if he’s trying to explain to a toddler, why exactly he can’t touch his hand the stovetop when it’s turned on and glowing red, “I did follow up on cases that involved people being eaten, cursed, turned into or stalked by monsters, chopped up or cursed to slowly fall apart and went through more autopsy reports and photos than anyone ever should – do you really think a bit of ink is going to be too much for me?”
“Considering where that ink came from”, Jon sighs, clearly aware that he had lost this argument before it had even begun, “…it might”
Martin tsks and carefully untangles his hand from Jon’s to brush the tips of his fingers against Jon’s left cheek, wrinkling his forehead when they come away clean, “we should have probably done that before it had dried”
“Maybe”, Jon keeps his eyes fixed on Martin’s hand when he dips the corner of one of the washcloths into the foamy water and starts dabbing it against Jon’s jawline but he doesn’t pull away or make a sound.
Instead, he tilts his head slightly to the side to give Martin better access and Martin hums in acknowledgement. The water turns light blue when Martin returns the cloth to it a couple of seconds later and wrings it out in one hand. The area he had started with, looks just the same when he returns to it with another corner of the cloth.
“Is this okay?”, he asks Jon when he presses the cloth down a little harder, moving it a bit more insistently against the dried ink, “it’s just that it’s really dried against your skin”
“It’s fine”, Jon closes his eyes, trying to hold still as Martin continues to carefully scrub his jaw, “at least we know now, that the institute wasn’t cheap with the pens they had the subjects use”
Martin snorts; “About the only thing they were not cheap with if you ask me”
“What, you weren’t happy with your computer from the late nineties?”
“I think, I had to fill out seven applications, when I requested a new one, after I couldn’t risk turning it off anymore because every time I started it up again, it took like a dozen tries until it worked again, if I managed to turn it on at all.”
“So you were the reason, we got shouted at for wasting electricity”, Jon opens his eyes, just in time to see Martin blush, “I knewit but Sasha said that I couldn’t-“, he stops, turning his head so he can avoid meeting Martin’s gaze.
“That you couldn’t what? Fire me on the grounds that I was killing the planet?”, Martin grins, gently tilting Jon’s back into its former position, “Jon?”, he asks a little more soberly when he doesn’t receive an answer.
“That I couldn’t blame anything bad that happened or went wrong on you- I’m sorry. I know I was being an ass for most of the time we worked together”
“But you’re not anymore”
Martin shrugs, as he drops his cloth, which is dark blue at this point, into the bowl, tilts his own head and critically takes stock of his progress up until now. The left side of Jon’s face still has ink clinging to it, but in a few patches, the stains are almost completely gone. Instead, the water in the bowl is now dark blue and Martin decides, that it probably would do more good to just get new water.
“I’ll be right back”
When he returns and sits down next to Jon again, the former archivist is squirming in his seat, lips pale with how tightly he is pressing them together.
“What? Did you think, I didn’t remember the first couple of months we worked together and how much you hated me back then?”
“I didn’t hate you”, Jon whispers, eyes still downcast.
“Fine, you thought I was annoying and incompetent then”
Jon doesn’t answer, his mouth feels uncomfortably dry.
“Well, I didn’t really know what I was doing at first”, Martin continues in an easy, matter of fact tone of voice and Jon feels the weight of his bad conscience settle on his shoulders like a soaked, woollen cloak, “and I was ludicrously awkward around you”
“And I, according to Melanie, was an arrogant prick”
“Maybe”, a spare drip rolls down Jon’s neck and makes it all the way down to his navel before it runs out, “to tell you the truth, I mostly remember constantly feeling guilty about my CV and that I was wasting your time, which was why you were so…”
“bitchy?”, Jon is still talking to the paint stains on his trousers rather than Martin directly.
“I’d have said on edge, but sure”, he hears the smile in Martin’s voice but somehow that makes it even worse, so Jon just swallows drily, “but honestly, I was already so smitten with you, you could have probably poured the tea I made you over my head and I wouldn’t have blamed you”
“O god, Martin I-“
“Jon, that was two years ago, we both changed since then. A lot, I would say”, Martin stops mopping at the last fleck still remaining on Jon’s left cheek, and instead bends further over him to brush his lips against Jon’s brow, “and if it makes you feel better; now I would definitely tell you off, if you pulled something like that again”
His breath washes against Jon’s forehead and tousles his hair the tiniest bit. Jon’s eyes soften and his lips part by a hair.
“In person, or would I get a strongly worded letter?”
“I think, I’d safe the postage and rather just tell you to get lost”
“I’d kind of really like to see that”
“You keep going like this and you might”
Martin is still quietly laughing, when he picks up another cloth and starts scrubbing at Jon’s chin and neck.
“I’m aware you can’t stand hearing it anymore, but I’m still sorry I was like that”
“You know what they say; nothing like some monsters and the looming threat of the apocalypse to change a man. But really, Jon, it’s alright. I like the current you just fine”, he kisses Jon’s temple this time, hands only stilling for a moment, “and who knows, one day you might wake up and suddenly like poetry and I’ll completely loose my mind over you”
“I like the current you as well”, Jon echoes lamely, but his mouth doesn’t feel like a lifeless dessert anymore and he manages to look up and into Martin’s eyes.
“Good”, Martin says, so casually he might as well trade his roundish glasses in for a pair that has pink, heart-shaped lenses instead, “cool”
“Yes”
Jon grins around the yawn that is forcing his lips apart the next moment. His teeth still have a slightly blue-grey sheen to them Martin notices while he waits for Jon to hold still again, so he can continue without sluicing soap-water into Jon’s mouth.
“I’m halfway done now, I think”, Martin informs him the next time he returns from the bathroom with fresh water, “I’m just afraid, your face’s going to be a little sore afterwards”
“Dry skin works wonders if some creepy clown-doll tries to take off your skin and use it to bring about the end of the world”
“…I might still pick you up some lotion or something next time I’m going to the shops”
“Thank you”
Martin hums quietly in return and they sit in silence for some time, until Martin goes to change the water for the last time and has to wait for Jon to finish yawning again before he can go on.
“Tired?”
“I’m not used to this whole being-open-about-your-emotions thing”, Jon barely manages to fight of the next yawn but if Martin’s face is anything to go by, his efforts aren’t really doing anything, “more draining that I would have thought”
“Perhaps the whole getting possessed, almost ending the world, and oh, yeah, the getting bodily rejected from your spooky eldritch-horror-monster-boss business is playing into that as well”
“Perhaps”
Martin rolls his eyes but lowers his hands, scans Jon’s face and neck one last time for any remainders of ink and finally sets both bowl and cloth down on the tiny coffee table next to the couch. Instead he carefully dabs a clean towel against the rather tender and warm skin he has successfully uncovered beneath the dried ink.
“Good thing that we’re done here then”
“Thanks and-”
“You’re officially not allowed to apologize anymore today and have only one thank you left”
“Or what?”
Martin purses his lips for a moment, squinting down at Jon, who is weakly grinning beneath heavy eyelids, “or I change all your passwords into meaningless rows of numbers you won’t be able to remember, even if I tell them to you”
“You would need my current passwords in order to do that”, Jon feels like he should point out but notices his mistake the moment, the corner of Martin’s mouth twitches.
“Your current password; You use the same one for everything – which you really shouldn’t do because-“
“Because you would not hesitate to take advantage of that fact?”
“Because it’s unsafe, you dinosaur”
“I’m-“ the same age as you, if not according to my CV.
“I’m listening”
“…how long have you known?”
“That you’re not almost forty? The moment I first saw you, like everyone else?”
“Did everyone know – I mean except Eli-Jonah?”
“Well, I guess everyone who had seen your details and then you in person. No offence, but almost ten years is the amount of time you wouldn’t want to lie about because it’s too obvious. You also filled in the ‘wrong’ year for date of birth in your paperwork last year and I noticed before I sent it off”
Jon sighs as he closes his eyes for a moment.
“I guess, it’s not like Jonah would have said anything, is it?”
“I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. My west is spotless and clean”
“I see”, Jon squints up at Martin but yawns again midway through and Martin laughs softly.