Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Timothy Stoker may not actually make it to his own wedding day alive.

He’s not terminally ill or anything, mind you.

But Jon is going to kill him.

Perhaps, in any other situation, burying the lede is not a capital offence. And that is all Timothy—as Jon has already spitefully decided he will henceforth be known—technically did. His only transgression is that after the whole “Sasha proposed, aren’t you delighted, yes, we’ve picked a date, yes, I know what divorce rates are at, yes, you can be polyamorous and married at the same time, shut up, Jon, yes, you have to come, yes, I am asking you to participate, no, I won’t take no for an answer” nonsense, he slipped in, as casually as you like, “and, oh, by the way, I’ve got two others in mind.”

It’s a dare. The issuing of a challenge. Timothy is quite aware that Jon won’t—or, perhaps more accurately, can’t—simply let something like that be. He needs to know and understand the depth and breadth of the social discomfort to which he is about to be subjected. Timothy is likewise aware that Jon knows the best man will, of course, be Danny, which leaves one slot, ostensibly. Sasha doesn’t have any brothers, and Timothy, extroverted though he is, does not have a great many friends he would put in his own wedding party.

Thus does Jon, who is apparently an even greater fool than his as-of-this-moment-ex-best-friend, ask, in all his naivete, “Dear, and sweet, and trusted Timothy, whoever else on this dark and empty earth would you hold close enough to your heart, nay, your soul to make such a humbling and beautiful request?”

And Timothy has the nerve—the unmitigated gall—to smile self-effacingly like the question is at all a surprise before he says, “You’re not gonna like it.”

So now Jon is sitting with a pint in one hand and thoughts of murder in his skull because Timothy, who has surrendered his being-intelligent-enough-to-be-allowed-to-feel-another-sunrise privileges, has elected to invite Jon and his ex-husband to serve as groomsmen at the same wedding, as though that makes sense.

Let alone the fact that Jon hasn’t actually seen Martin in person for over a year—not since a dotty old aunt had accidentally invited Jon to his already-ex-mother-in-law’s funeral—or spoken to him in any way in ten months. Their last conversation—possibly ever, Jon had ruefully thought before tonight—had been an icy and heavily passive-aggressive exchange on Martin’s birthday last year. Jon, miscalculating, as usual, had truly intended upon being polite.

To be entirely fair, though, it isn’t as though Martin hadn’t still had ample reason to be angry.

He had. He still does, in point of fact, and Jon would understand if Martin’s anger managed to sustain him through to the heat-death of the universe.

Therefore, Jon cannot even begin to tell himself that some of his apprehension isn’t due to the fact that he is not convinced Martin won’t kill him on sight.

And that’s fine, conceptually, but if he’s dead, there’ll be nobody to feed and brush Benedick and Beatrice, and hypothetical double felicide is not something Jon needs on his potentially posthumous conscience.

“Have you gone mad?” he asks Tim, at last shaken from a stupor that must have lasted a good few minutes if the comparative emptiness of Tim’s pint is anything to go off. Jon drains his glass in response.

Tim grins and shakes his head.

“Timothy, if you don’t want to speak to me ever again, you could do me the courtesy of just saying so. Getting me murdered out of spite is,” Jon pauses and smirks wryly, “Is overkill, isn’t it?”

Tim reaches across the bar table to take Jon’s glasses from his face. He puts them on, only to lower them to the tip of his nose and glower superciliously over the top.

“Has it crossed your mind, Jonathan, that you are not, in fact, the centre of the universe, and your current predicament of having to tolerate your ex-husband for a few months is a side-effect and not an intended goal of my choice to literally get married?”

Jon's ears grow hot as he snatches his glasses back.

“Months?” he demands peevishly.

The prick pulls a dark-green wedding binder from under his coat and slaps it on the table.

“Wh- uh- T- um. Tim. When- when did this happen, again? When did she- uh, erm, p- propose?”

Tim grins so broadly in response than Jon is worried for a sick moment that he’ll do something sadistic like begin laughing for joy.

Bloody fool.

“Tuesday last week, it was—”

“Please spare me, Timothy.”

“Fine.”

“So, so, nine days ago?”

“Yup!”

“And… and you’re sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Jon’s lip curls. “Well, not to… to sound unenlightened, or, or anything, but… how does this work, hypothetically, with the- the, uh—”

Tim raises an eyebrow. “The poly thing?”

“Mm.”

A hard edge enters his voice. “Well, Jon, I hope next time it’s relevant you realise how far open communication can go in a relationship—now, bear with me, it’s a bit crazy. But let’s say, hypothetically, one can talk to their spouse about their feelings of burnout, stress, and stagnation, before they go snogging a coworker without permission and tank their marriage,” Tim pauses to sip his drink. “Or whatever.”

It stings, but Jon hardly has a rebuttal.

He points at the binder. “And,” he says after an awkward pause, eyeing the cover of the binder where Tim’s already doodled ‘Mr Timothy James’, “Nine days, and you already have… this?”

Tim catches Jon’s left hand in its trajectory towards a paper napkin on the table.

“Jon, I love you, but that’s a dreadfully brave attitude from a divorcé of two years still wearing his wedding band.”

Jon snatches his left hand and cradles it under the table in his right.

“We’ve only been formally divorced for sixteen months, actually, so.”

“Oh, right! Sorry. So… so that makes you the expert on marital timelines?”

“Shut up, Timothy.”

“Only if you say yes.”

Jon blinks tiredly over his now-smudged glasses with a scowl that he hopes is passing for withering, although he’d settle for cross.

“F- Fine. But I reserve the right to complain.”

“If I wanted any hope of avoiding that,” Tim says, gesturing to the bartender nearby for another round, “I wouldn’t have asked you.”

Six and a half years ago, early one bright Saturday, Jonathan Sims and his very new boyfriend got on the train from London to Bournemouth. 

Jon was vibrating nervously the whole way—although, given the duration of the trip, that became exhausting rather quickly—and he fell asleep with his head on Martin’s shoulder as he sat doing a newspaper crossword in blue ballpoint.

He was woken with a gentle shake and reflexively lifted a hand to shield his eyes in the light.

“Oop, take it slow getting up, your neck’ll hurt,” Martin said, using one hand to support Jon’s head as he extricated himself and stood. 

Jon grunted as he got to his feet and they disembarked. The walk wasn’t going to be long.

“You know,” Martin told him as they walked, “It’s kind of funny how it’s so laid back here, and you’re… still like that.”

“Like what?” Jon replied with faux outrage.

Martin raised an eyebrow. “Jon. Come on.”

“Yeah, fair enough.”

They laughed, like a twitterpated couple of twenty-somethings. They laughed unstoppably.

Jon is a fucking idiot.

When they arrived, he detained Martin at the front gate, wordlessly inspecting his expression for a moment.

He smiled back.

“I promise, I’ll be as- as perfectly behaved as I can be, love.”

Jon returned the smile vaguely. “You’re not the one I’m concerned about.”

Martin sighed patiently and kissed him.

The doorbell was this horrid, hollow-sounding brass thing, hanging high above the door with a dusty chain long enough for an adult to reach. The bell was full of cobweb and spider clutter, which may have been the source of no less than one of Jon’s recurring childhood nightmares. Often, in his dreams, he’d be upstairs in his bedroom, and the thing would toll forebodingly, and without looking he’d know the chain was in the fangs of a gigantic spider, or the desiccated, bony hand of a corpse or a zombie.

But his grandmother always heard it in the waking world, which meant it was fit for purpose and therefore did not need to be replaced and really, Jonathan, aren’t you too old to believe in such silliness?

Many things in the house stayed around long after they’d fallen into rust and mild disrepair, provided they worked. Thus was his grandmother’s philosophy. Granted, she had been born in 1943, so she could hardly have been blamed.

The door itself, too, always raised Jon’s hackles with its horror film shriek as it opened.

“Jonathan,” said his grandmother, taking a step out into the open air to press a dry kiss to his cheek.

“Grandmother.”

When she withdrew, he found himself seizing Martin’s hand, for strength, or protection, or—most likely—both.

“This,” he said. “Is—this is Martin. Blackwood. My boyfriend.”

Her eyes narrowed over her spectacles, though Jon could never tell when she gave him that look whether it was to be taken in jest or not.

“Honestly, Jonathan, you say that as though I’ve gone dotty. I was expecting you, you know.”

She turned to Martin and extended a hand as though expecting it to be kissed. To Jon’s near-endless confusion and surprise, he did it.

His courtly manner, however, was perhaps somewhat undermined, when immediately after he gave a characteristically cheery “hi!”

Grandmother had seemingly not been at all put off by it.

“Isn’t he sweet, Jonathan?”

Jon nodded, fairly preening with pride. Sweet, and kind, and about a thousand other adjectives.

“How you managed to charm that lovely Georgina and this delightful young man I will never know.”

“Grandmother.”

“Do you disagree, Jonathan?”

Jon gritted his teeth. “Not exactly, but—”

“Now, dear,” Grandmother said, still holding Martin’s hand and patting it with her own. “You can call me Mrs Sims, if that suits you, but I feel quite ancient enough without the reminder, so Peg is fine. Less syllables.”

Martin laughed incredulously. “Okay! I’ll, uh, take my pick, I guess.”

“Well,” she said, “Come in. I’ll make tea, and Jonathan can make himself useful and show you where to put your things.”

When she was out of earshot and they’d started up the stairs, Martin said, “I thought you said she was scary?”

“You haven’t seen her when you leave a mug upstairs,” Jon replied, cringing.

“Why- why don’t you call her, like, Gran or something?”

Jon looked over the bannister as they reached the top. “I did, but when I was, ah, 17, or thereabouts, I had a bit of a rebellious phase.”

Martin blinked at him, a wrinkle of confusion forming in the middle of his forehead. “So you started calling her Grandmother to… rebel?”

Jon looked down with a self-deprecating smile. “It felt more effective at the time.”

“You are very weird.”

Jon gave a long-suffering sigh—which was impressive, given it had only been six weeks. “You’re the one that likes me.”

Towards sunset, after a day spent poring over photo albums (“He got his mother’s hair, Martin, and he used to shriek when I’d brush it—do you remember, Jonathan?”), and after Martin ably charmed his way into the position of Grandmother’s favourite person—at least, in the house and still with both their original hips—they escaped to walk on the beach.

Jon was decidedly not a romantic, but the butterflies battering themselves against the insides of his ribs every time Martin met his eyes and beamed had started changing his mind.

He’d started growing his hair out a couple of months before—something all their friends kept patting themselves on the backs for, encouraging him into doing it by plying him with compliments being an unprecedented success.

The truth was, he’d had a cold on the day of his last appointment with his hairdresser, and before he’d managed to rebook, Martin had asked him on a date.

He wasn’t about to chop off such a good omen.

It was still short enough that it could generally be styled to fairly-obediently stay combed back and out of his face, but the ocean breeze on that day had not gotten the memo, and was whipping his newly-long hair into his mouth and nose, so he placed his glasses on top of his head to constrain the now heavily-knotted mess. It worked remarkably well, and even had the benefit of making it easier for Martin to kiss him unannounced.

Jon was not exactly graceful at the best of times; he’d very nearly ended up face down on the stage at his university graduation ceremony, but generally he ended each day with no grievous injury.

As it happened, the same could not be hoped for today. His glasses were off, and apparently so were all bets.

Said glasses seemed to shift on top of his head, and while he focused on grabbing them before they fell, he forgot entirely the complex task of placing his foot on the sand.

Thus he found himself prone, mouth, nose, and eyes full of sand and grit.

He was not gracious about it.

He spat and cursed and complained the entire way to A&E. Going in was perhaps an overreaction, but Jon had forgotten to charge his bloody phone again, Martin didn’t know the way back to Grandmother’s house unassisted, and between them they didn’t have the first aid knowledge to unwrap a sticky plaster without supervision.

So Martin had very helpfully hailed a cab with one hand, tightly gripping Jon’s in the other to ensure he didn’t blindly walk into oncoming traffic. The whole way he grumbled while his eyes streamed, and a very unimpressed-sounding triage nurse had deposited them in an exam room.

The imminent promise of assistance had not stopped his grumbling. 

“Okay,” Martin said eventually, drawing out both syllables in thought. “Want a distraction?”

Jon made a sound he hoped sounded affirmative.

“We could, mm, play… I don’t know, I Spy?”

To this day, in quiet moments, Jon will puzzle over just what in the hell Martin must have been thinking with that suggestion.

“Okay,” Jon said, waiting for the realisation to come.

Martin touched his shoulder, rubbing at it with a thumb. “D’you want to go first?”

Jon would have rolled his eyes had it not been for the stabbing, scraping pain such an action would cause.

“Right,” he said, turning his head arbitrarily as though searching for an object. “Mm. Oh! I know. I spy, with my out-of-commission eyes, literally nothing…?”

The gasp gave him a very clear picture of the look of horrified realisation on Martin’s face as he gripped Jon’s shoulders.

“Why on earth did I think—”

Jon laughed, though the contortion of his face meant it hurt. “Look—pun not at all intended—I’ll forgive you this once. Since I like you.”

Martin knocked his forehead lightly against his. “I like you, too,” he murmured.

It’s Danny that calls Jon a couple of weeks later. He almost ignores it, half-convinced the number is spoofed and it’s a spam call. It isn’t as though Danny took Martin’s side in the divorce, but Jon generally only sees him at the Stoker family Christmas he’s been dragged along to the last couple of years.

At the last moment, he remembers Tim’s news and accepts the call with a sigh.

“Hello, Danny,” Jon says, already lifting his glasses to rub at his clenched eyes. It’s past five and he should already have left for home.

“Jon!” Danny’s voice is tinny through the phone, and it pokes at his already forming headache. “So you’ve heard the great news, of course?”

Jon slowly removes his glasses and lowers his head to his desk. “Yes,” he says. “Wonderful.”

“So we’re all getting a pint on Friday.”

“Y- we?”

“Yeah!”

“All… four of us?”

“Yeah!”

One day Jon will be found with his airways swollen shut, and the particular Stoker brand of border-collie-enthusiasm may be determined as his cause of death. He's utterly allergic to it.

“Uh- er. Well, Danny, that sounds lovely, and everything, but—”

“Tim already told me to tell you that if you say no he’ll send Sasha in to convince you instead.”

Jon adores Sasha. She and Tim are his oldest friends. And in fact, she’s more or less responsible for every member of what Jon somewhat-generously refers to as his social circle, seeing as technically, she even introduced Jon to Georgie. If she even counts as a friend anymore.

But that is rather the issue. She was seated in the front row at the wedding of which Jon now cannot bear to think unless he’s already several fingers of liquor deep and drowning in photo albums and self-loathing.

Which, in turn, means she has a direct line to several deep-rooted guilt complexes of his, a fact of which he’s quite confident both she and Tim are aware. 

“I see,” Jon mumbles, speech muffled due to his face being sandwiched between his chipboard desk and his phone. “What time, then?”

“It’ll be six thirty, but, um, there’s a group chat, I’ll add you.”

A group chat which Martin is no doubt already in.

Marvellous.

“Are you really that scared of Sasha?” Danny is asking.

“Are you not?”

A moment passes. 

“See you Friday, Jon!”

“See you.”

To be clear and explicit, at no point was Jon in love with Oliver. In fact, it was hardly—technically—a crush.

But it qualified, nevertheless.

He hadn’t had any intention of acting upon it. 

Jon and Martin had had a rough few months—little things had piled up. Debts from Martin’s mother’s care, and Martin had started a new job with a different schedule, so they’d been seeing less of one another, and in his exhaustion Martin had been prone to picking petty arguments. Jon wasn’t proud of it, but there was a spiteful little part of him that had been fixating on the one common thread—when their arguments got particularly ugly, Martin always accused Jon of not loving him, of regretting their relationship.

In fact, nothing could have been farther from the truth, but when Martin got an idea in his head, he could be… pertinacious. 

And Jon didn’t blame Martin for it. His mother had been getting sicker, and her mind had started going, and as long as Jon had known him, he’d always stressed about money in some way or another. His stress was perfectly understandable.

But, even as Jon accepted Martin’s feelings, he resented him for them.

And then Oliver Banks’ entry into his life occurred at exactly the wrong moment.

The job had been mindless copy-editing, so any changes were of interest to everyone. By the end of Oliver’s first day on the job, Jon already knew he existed. And by the end of his second, Oliver had already struck up a conversation.

Jon liked him. He was perceptive, and he had a quiet intelligence about him, and he asked excellent questions.

Jon would be either deluding himself or lying if he said he didn’t find Oliver’s singularly intense focus on him intoxicating. It was hard to ignore.

And in the ugliest, most deeply hidden parts of him, Jon never wanted to ignore it.

He became very good, very quickly, at justifying things to himself.

Selfish fucking fool.

When he thinks back on it, it’s as though he’s lying, battered and broken, at the bottom of a cliff, watching his former self peek over the edge of the precipice above while wondering aloud “how bad can it possibly be?”

He supposed, though, at the time, there couldn’t be any harm in spending an hour, or sometimes two, on a weeknight sitting in the office or a bar, just talking with a colleague.

It didn’t occur to him to investigate why the thought of ever bringing Oliver to the flat was so absurd on its face, because he was quite pointedly not considering how Martin would have felt.

It’s quite impossible now, in the aftermath of the natural consequences of his actions, to deny it. Such a concept felt uncomfortable because Martin would, rather reasonably, have been furiously jealous, and Jon would have been leaving his marriage dead in the water.

He did not heed the warning afforded him by simple logic. Why?

It has become evident over time that many of life’s mysteries can be explained in the same sentiment: “Because you’re fucking stupid, Jonathan Sims”.

The day he threw away the best thing that had ever—has ever—happened to him was muggy. By the time the lift dinged on his floor, his shirt was sticking to his back, and tendrils of his hair had come loose from his bun, making the air itself feel yet closer and more oppressive.

As he walked to his cubicle, Oliver passed him, and gave him a conspiratorial smile. Jon’s heart skipped a beat, and the rhythm didn’t really recover all day. 

He told himself it was a coincidence he stayed late that day.

It wasn’t.

It was a few minutes past six when Oliver nonchalantly leaned an arm over the chest-height divider between Jon’s cube and the one next to it.

“You eaten?” he said.

Jon had stretched his arms above his head as he looked up from his monitor.

“Um, no, but I should probably be getting home.”

Oliver smiled and lifted his other hand to reveal a plastic bag filled with a couple of takeaway containers and two pairs of disposable chopsticks. “No point in going home hangry.”

Jon made a small, surprised sound, and his ears grew hot. “Oh, um, thank you.”

Oliver deposited the bag on his desk and wheeled over the chair from the next cubicle so he could sit. When he did, his leg brushed Jon’s, and Jon didn’t flinch or pull back.

Transgression number one.

“What’s the weirdest dream you’ve ever had?” he asked.

Jon blinked. “L- um, literally?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Should- shall I go first?”

Jon, still too mystified or flustered for a full sentence, nodded.

“Well, I used to—I say used to. It’s been a while, but I guess there’s… no certainty, is there, with dreams? I had dreams all the time about, um… people… dying. Oof, that sounds bad, doesn’t it?”

Jon smiled and nodded again as Oliver handed him a pair of chopsticks, lingering where their fingers touched.

Transgression number two.

“They felt like premonitions,” he said, pausing to crack the lid on a container of steamed vegetarian dumplings and smoothly pick one up with his chopsticks. “But I never really had the guts to go and see if they were… real, you know? Because they’d be… see, I would see these thick, black veins snaking down the streets and around the people who’d died, and… and I was petrified of seeing them in real life.”

“Christ,” Jon said, taking one with much less grace.

“Yeah. It’s… it’s okay. I spoke to a psychologist about it, because I thought… I thought it might have had to do with how my dad died.”

“Oh. Er… h—” Jon looked at him. “Am I supposed to ask?”

Oliver chuckled. “You can ask.”

He did.

Transgression number three.

“It’s… I was, like, seven, I think, and… I was there. My psychologist thought I had OCD, probably, because of it.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Oliver paused to eat.

“Alright,” he said, after a quiet, pleasant moment. “I’ve bared my soul. Your turn.”

Jon sighed. “I… used to dream that I’d… transformed into something you’d see in a Cronenberg film. This… this amalgam of- of eyes and surveillance cameras.”

“Spooky.”

He laughed, and luxuriated in how easily it came. “Yes. Quite.”

“Was it a nightmare?”

Jon had already taken another bite. “Hm?”

“The dream,” Oliver explained. “Was it unpleasant? Were you scared?”

He considered this. Unlike his childhood terrors, this dream had always felt… powerful. Otherworldly. But he was not frightened. He was the thing that was feared.

“No. I… I rather liked it. It was strange.”

Oliver boldly met his eyes without smiling for a few silent moments. Jon felt seen, and known, and it sent his stomach roiling, but he didn’t dislike the sensation. On the contrary, he returned Oliver’s gaze, and felt the corners of his mouth curl upwards.

Transgression number four. 

“So do you want to feel omniscient?”

He scoffed. “It isn’t that, exactly, it’s… I can’t stand… not knowing things. I- I have to know.”

“You have to know,” Oliver repeated with an incredulous smile.

He’s never been able to convince himself that he was unaware what was about to happen. He knew. He watched as though from above as it happened and he did nothing to arrest the course of events he saw laid out before him with crystal clarity. For the briefest moment, he didn’t care.

And it was in that moment that Oliver leaned in and kissed him.

Transgression number five.

The kiss was gentle, at first. At some point, though, Oliver’s teeth had grazed Jon’s lower lip, and it was then that he committed transgression number six, which was the incontrovertible proof that Martin could never—should never—will never—forgive him. He took Oliver’s face in his hands and held him there.

He vaguely registered the rattle of his chopsticks as they fell from his hand and hit the metal armrest of his desk chair on their way to the floor.

Eternity passed before his lone brain cell awoke from its slumber and he finally withdrew.

Oliver was no longer smiling, but the focus in his gaze hadn’t waned. His dark eyes were clear.

“I had to know too,” he said, his voice sounding very far away. Jon stood and reached across his desk for his phone, pulling the jacket he hadn’t worn all day from the back of his chair, and backed out of the cubicle, pausing when the divider was safely between them.

“Thanks- uh, thank you. For the food.”

A long moment passed.

“I’m- I’m sorry, Oliver,” Jon said quietly, watching Oliver deflate as he sat at the desk. He didn’t wait for a response before he turned and made for the lift.

The moment he was inside and the doors slid shut, a simple, two-beat rhythm had begun pounding behind his eyes. It was like a compulsive prayer. Like a mantra.

Like the escalating heartbeat of a man being frog-marched from his cell to his execution chamber.

Martin. Martin. Martin.

Jon’s bloody late, of course. 

Since he moved jobs, shortly before the divorce and all the rest, he’s never quite regained the kind of easy proficiency he’d had in the previous one where he could count on slipping out at exactly five every evening. At the end of each week, there’s always just enough extra slack to pick up that he’s an hour late getting out.

So it’s a few minutes past six by the time he’s shrugging on his coat and power-walking towards the lift.

His train is a few minutes late, because of course it is, so it’s twenty to seven when he gets to his station and starts the jog to the pub. He’s in such a rush, in fact, that he doesn’t immediately recognise the person he runs bodily into a few feet from the door.

It’s his smell he recognises first. It’s the slightly sweet tang of his hair product and a subtle, clean scent like fresh linen. Tears are already pricking at his eyes before the realisation materialises.

“Oh!” he breathes. “Oh. H- um. H- Hi.”

Martin’s already glaring at him through a new pair of glasses with gleaming gold rims, his deep brown eyes cold with revulsion. His hair is shorter, styled precisely, but with two ringlets hanging loose on his forehead. He’s dressed sharply, too, and his clothes look tailored.

“You look great. You- ah. I, I mean, it’s, it’s… it’s wonderful to see you.”

Jon watches him inhale slowly.

“Hm. Let’s not do this.”

Martin’s words hit his sternum with almost physical force. “D- erm. D- Do what?”

Another measured breath. Jon can almost hear him counting to ten like he’d learned in his first-ever psychology appointment shortly before they split up, and he feels an intense pride despite himself. He got rid of his useless husband, and now he knows how to protect himself. Good.

“I’m here for Tim,” he says icily. “I am not here for you.”

“N- right.”

Without another word, Martin turns and goes inside. Jon removes his glasses to thoroughly rub his face with both hands before he follows. In the immediately overwhelming warmth and noise, he’s only able to find their table because Danny wraps him in a bear hug and physically leads him to it. There’s a pint waiting for him and he slides into the booth with a sigh. Martin isn’t there.

“Bathroom,” Tim says next to him, tilting his head. “Are you alright?”

Jon moves his mouth in an empty simulacrum of a smile. “Fine. He didn’t hit me, at least.”

“Progress!” Danny chirps, casually slinging an arm over the back of the cushioned seat.

“I’m really not sure about this,” Jon mutters urgently, gripping Tim’s elbow as he speaks. “I mean, it’s… it’s really not fair to Martin. You know what I did, and- now that he’s free of me, this just seems cruel.”

Tim looks at Danny over the top of Jon’s head.

“Jesus, he’s good with melodrama, isn’t he?”

“Tim,” Jon sighs.

Martin, despite his sustained loathing for Jon, still manages to save his ego and possibly his life by choosing this moment to slide into the booth on Tim’s other side. His smile is polite.

“Oh, we’re all here,” he says flatly. “Great.”

“Yeah,” Tim says, and though he’s grinning, the beat it takes for his brain to kick into gear doesn’t escape Jon’s notice. “Thanks for coming, guys. I hope we can all play nice for a bit.”

“No promises,” Martin mutters, upper lip curled.

“Valiant attempts are appreciated,” Tim continues with a purposeful glance at Jon who hasn’t even said anything yet.

He takes a sip of his rapidly-warming beer.

“So, anyway, we’ve got a lot to do, because our date’s in four months—”

“Four months?” Martin demands, voice rising in alarm.

Tim shrugs. “We’d been chatting about the idea for a bit, and, uh, Sash actually proposed because there was a cancellation at the venue we wanted, so.”

Martin takes a long drink.

Jon, for one, is deeply relieved. He might even survive a time that short. And then Martin will never have to see him again, and he can sink back into the quiet malaise of his day-to-day life in peace.

“As I was saying,” Tim says, “I know it’s… pretty soon, so I’m not going to ask you guys to do a lot, but there are some events and stuff that I really want you all there for.”

“Stag?” Danny says excitedly.

“Oh! Right. So,” Tim takes a sip of his drink in preparation. “So I was thinking about a weekend somewhere, because Sash and her mates are going to Paris, so it’s only fair.”

Jon bites his cheek so as not to verbalise his only thought: not Scotland. Anywhere on earth but Scotland.

The modest honeymoon he and Martin had taken in the countryside there was one of the happiest weeks of his life.

But that is precisely why the thought of having to be there—with Martin, no less—brings about the stinging itch of hives on his arms.

“Possibly we could do Ibiza,” Tim begins.

“Did you have to get your parents’ permission to get married?” Martin says, smirking. “Since you’re still sixteen?”

Tim and Danny laugh.

“Glasgow?” Danny offers.

“No,” Jon finds himself saying in unison with Martin.

Unsurprising though it is, it still stings a little.

“Scotland’s out, mate,” Tim says casually, and Danny nods with a frown.

“Where do you think, Marto?” Danny asks, and Jon looks down at the table when Martin’s disdainful glare passes over him.

“For a weekend? Mm. Somewhere in France, too, maybe? If the weather’s nice… or Monaco?”

“Yes!” Tim says, leaning over to put an arm around Martin’s neck and kiss the side of his head. “You genius.”

“Yeah!” Danny concurs, raising his glass and nudging Jon in the ribs. “You ever been? What do you think?”

Jon morosely lifts his glass in his left hand, and catches the blush that passes over Martin’s face when he sees the wedding band Jon had neglected to stow in a pocket before he left the office today.

Idiot.

“I like Monaco,” he says, voice weak. “I’d… I think I’d like to go.”

“So does that mean ‘hell yes’ in human language, Timmy?” Danny says with a grin, and Tim laughs.

“It’s as close as we’ll get.”

The whole night Jon schools his expression to stay politely neutral whenever Martin is speaking—he has a new job, a new flat, which he bought himself, and his new boss is paying for him to go to night-school. His lack of a formal education had always been a sore spot.

It would be inaccurate to say Martin has won the break-up, because to do so would imply that there was ever anything even resembling a contest. Martin is smarter, kinder, more sensible with money and major life-altering choices—except, perhaps, for when it comes to accepting marriage proposals—better-looking, more deserving of people in his life who treat him properly…

The list is truly endless.

Any doubt that may have remained as to whether or not he’s still got feelings for Martin is obliterated throughout the evening.

He’s still woefully, desperately, head-over-heels besotted with him.

Although it’s agonising—each passing reference to this ‘Peter from work’ character driving the knife deeper into his chest—the gentle, steady timbre of his voice, punctuated here and there by the music of his self-effacing laughter, feels like returning home after a long journey. The light flashing off his glasses in the warm, dim light of the pub sends Jon sprawling down a mental rabbit-hole of memories of the same flash when Martin would bend to kiss him and say “time for bed, love”, or “dinner’s ready”, or a hundred thousand other gentle little things that said ‘I will always care for you, even when you don’t’.

And Jon managed, in a remarkably short amount of time, to fuck that perfect, beautiful thing up forever. For what?

For one kiss with a person he hasn’t even spoken to in over two years.

Thank goodness Jon’s never been hired into a job in finance. His utter inability to do even a basic cost-benefit analysis is frankly embarrassing.

The one thought that is more persistent than the aching, crushing adoration he’d have hoped would have dulled at least a little after all this time is that this pain is self-inflicted.

He could have been looking forward to their fifth wedding anniversary.

He could have woken up every morning for the last two years to the sound of Martin humming to himself in the kitchen as the kettle boiled—full to the top every morning so that he could fill both mugs with plain hot water to warm them before brewing the tea.

Oliver may have, for a moment, made Jon feel seen in some new, fleeting way that excited him.

Nobody on earth, before or since, has ever come close to making him feel cherished like Martin did.

There is no string of words to adequately express what an unmitigated, drooling imbecile he is.

Jon is mostly quiet all evening—and in fact, he hardly notices when Danny tugs on his sleeve to notify him that everyone else is standing, and ready to leave. He glances at his watch. It’s already two.

He cannot, for the life of him, recall how many drinks he’s had.

He’s only vaguely aware, when they step outside, of Tim giving him a peck on the cheek, then turning to share a few muttered words with Martin, who groans, rolls his eyes, and nods tiredly. Danny and Tim stroll away and are gone, and Martin shoves his hands in the pockets of his camel coloured overcoat.

“Come on,” he says coolly, as Jon inspects his shoes. “Which way are you headed?”

Jon’s face crumples in exhausted confusion. “Wh- I- home?”

Martin huffs in either frustration or amusement. “I know. Which station are you headed to?”

“Euston.”

“Right.”

He nudges Jon with an elbow and sets off. Jon follows him uncomprehendingly.

“Why- wh- w- what- what’s—”

“Tim didn’t want you getting mugged. Come on.”

Jon’s not about to second guess. He eventually falls into step beside Martin, who, he notices, slows to accommodate him.

His throat constricts.

Several moments of silence hang rancidly between them.

“I meant it,” Jon says quietly.

Martin sighs, and Jon can tell that it’s frustration behind it this time. “Meant what, Jon?”

It’s the first time he’s said his name all night, and Jon is not going to weep with relief over it.

He is not.

“You look—you look good. You look healthy.”

Martin snorts.

“Thanks.”

Jon counts to ten in his head.

“And I’m glad you’re well.”

Martin looks sidelong at him with something like judgement in his expression and doesn’t reply.

“I’m… Ma—” Jon groans and cards his fingers through his hair, tugging on it. “I’m sure you got very sick of hearing it a long time ago, but—”

“Yeah,” Martin snaps, raising a hand for silence. “I did. So don’t.”

“Sorry,” Jon says. “I’m sorry.”

There’s no word but contempt for the look in his eyes.

Another few moments pass.

“Jon,” Martin says, his tone a little softer.

“Yes?” he replies readily, his face lifting of its own accord to gaze at Martin before he can stop it.

Another sideways, disdainful glance.

“You’re still wearing your ring.”

It almost sounds like an accusation. The thought gives Jon pause.

“Yes,” he says, finally.

Martin stops. Jon can see the station a few hundred yards away. He can’t meet Martin’s eyes anymore, and he spins the ring around his finger with his thumb.

“Why?”

He can almost feel himself bursting apart at the seams.

“Because I… um. I still—”

The breath he drags in takes physical effort.

“I love you.”

The burst of icy laughter Martin lets out suggests that that answer was, perhaps, a mistake. “Do you.”

Jon sinks down further into his coat. “I’m- I’m not trying to impress you.”

“Good.”

“And… and I have… far too much respect for you to even consider asking you to ever take me back.”

Martin clears his throat. “Mmhmm.”

Jon shakes his head with a trembling sigh. “It’s—it’s not any of that. But you asked. And- and I’m not interested in breaking your trust ever again.”

A twinge passes over Martin’s face, and his cheeks flush with what Jon assumes must be rage.

He continues down the street towards the tube station and Jon cringes as he half-jogs behind him.

At the mouth of the station, Martin rounds on him. “Oh. By the way.”

The angry pinch of Martin’s shoulders tells him that whatever he’s about to say is not, in fact, a ‘by the way’ thought at all. He shrinks in anticipation.

“How is Oliver?”

He could spit a dozen profanities less venomously.

Jon is not thinking straight enough to note how many seconds pass in tense silence. Too many.

“I—” his voice cracks when he finally thinks to open his mouth. “I don’t- I have no idea.”

Martin’s voice doesn’t get any warmer. “Right,” he says at last, nodding curtly. “Well—mm. I- see you.”

He’s gone before Jon can begin to formulate a response.

He walked the whole way home in the rain that night. By the time he mounted the staircase in their building, he had seven missed calls from Martin and it was nearing ten o’clock.

His mind emptied entirely as he climbed the stairs, and when he unlocked the door to their flat, he had to take a few steadying breaths before actually opening it.

Martin was standing in the entryway.

Jon dropped his coat in using every ounce of his concentration not to fall to his knees. He was wrapped without a moment’s pause in his husband’s arms.

He still remembers the thought exactly: just what the fuck have I broken?

“Where’ve you been, love?” Martin said. “I was about to call the police!”

Jon’s jaw may as well have been wired shut for all he wanted to open it.

“You’re soaked,” Martin continued, reaching to loosen his tie and undo the first few buttons of his sticky shirt. “Are you hurt?”

Jon shook his head vacantly.

Martin turned and went to the bathroom for a towel which he put around Jon’s shoulders, leading him to the sofa and muttering something about hypothermia.

Twenty minutes passed of Martin pottering about, bringing him ginger tea and a glass of water and an old, worn jumper.

Jon’s vision constricted to pinpricks. The only coherent thoughts in his mind were the hungry, searching press of Oliver’s teeth against the flesh of his lip, and the soft warmth of his cheeks under Jon’s thumbs.

I had to know too.

The dawning realisation that Jon was about to discover the limit of Martin’s forgiveness sickened him. He drank the still-scalding tea, even if only to reduce the number of makeshift weapons within Martin’s reach by one.

Eventually, Martin sat beside him, scrolling idly on his phone with one hand and rubbing firm, comforting circles on Jon’s now bare back with the other. Jon squeezed water from his hair with the towel in thought.

“Darling,” he said. He couldn’t even bring himself to look in Martin’s direction.

“Mm?”

When Jon worked up the nerve to glance over, Martin hadn’t so much as looked up from his phone.

“You… you know how much I love you, don’t you?”

He chuckled, but as their eyes met, he went quiet.

“Jesus Christ, Jon, why are you looking at me like that?”

Jon was going to force himself to look into his husband’s eyes as he broke his heart and his trust and God only knew what else if the exertion killed him. That was the punishment he’d earned.

“I- p- please don’t hate me.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Martin demanded, quaking with anxiety. “What did you do?”

Jon balled his fists in the towel on his lap. “Oliver kissed me.”

The moment before he said it was the last time he’d seen the fond light in Martin’s eyes.

“What?”

He hesitated, taking a breath as he observed his reaction.

“D—uh. Um. I—fuck. Did—I—I mean, did, did you… did you kiss him back?”

Tears burned Jon’s eyes and he removed his glasses, discarding them on the coffee table.

“Do you really want me to answer that question?” he asked flatly.

“I’ll be the judge of that, thank you,” Martin snapped, standing to his feet to retreat to the corner of the room.

Jon was silent.

“Why would you do that?” Martin hissed, lifting his glasses to rub violently at one eye with the back of his wrist. “Wh- what did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything, darling—”

“Don’t you dare call me that.”

Jon shrank where he sat and waited.

After a discomfiting moment of silence, Martin left the room. 

Jon thought better than following him, and fell asleep on the sofa with the damp towel as a blanket.

When he woke in the morning with the quilt from the bed draped over him, he pressed his face into it and he wept.

Jon begs Sasha to excuse him from the Saturday-night drinks scheduled three weeks later with both sides of the wedding party and plus-ones. He is certain he’s incapable of being civil with whoever the fuck Peter from work is, especially not without his own plus-one behind whom to hide.

When Sasha informs him that no, Jon, cats don’t count, he nearly eats a raw chicken breast in hopes of contracting salmonella.

It’s too tough to chew through, in the end, so he cooks it and gives half each to Benedick and Beatrice for their supper one evening.

“How am I supposed to bring someone when I don’t have any friends?” he texts Sasha upon the failure of his experiment.

“Get some or just don’t bring anyone?” she replies, followed by a frankly unintelligible string of emojis.

“I can’t not bring someone.”

“You can, actually. You just… turn up, and there you have it!!”

“But I’ll be the only one alone.”

“Frankly, not my problem, Jonathan. <3”

Well, fuck.

Three days before the event, Jon approaches his colleague Basira’s cubicle three down from his own on his way in.

“Morning, Basira,” he says, with a smile that is supposed to project ‘relaxed confidence’ but is instead probably ‘suffering with indigestion’.

“What do you want?” she asks, the steady click-clack of her keyboard not faltering for even a second.

“Are you free this Saturday?”

The sound ceases and she looks up at him. “Oh—um—sorry, um, my—my girlfriend might have a bit of a problem with that.”

“Oh!”

His ears and neck are likely putting out steam.

“Oh! Sorry! No! Not—not like that—not that—not that you aren’t—”

He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I just meant, er, my friends are getting married soon, and there’s an—an event… thing. I’ll buy your drinks?”

She arches an eyebrow. “And why are you asking me, exactly?”

He sighs tiredly. “I—I know this might shock you, Basira, given my gleaming good looks and radiant personality, but, erm—I don’t have—any friends. Or, or rather, any other friends. Than, than you, of course.”

Jon was heretofore unaware it was possible for someone to blink judgmentally. 

“Right,” she says.

“Please?”

The click-clack starts up again. “I’ll speak to Daisy. Let you know later.”

Jon places a hand on his heart. “Thank you, Basira.”

She grunts an acknowledgement. He nods and continues to his cubicle.

Chapter Text

Basira Hussain has now saved Jon’s life four separate times.

Three have been rather mundane instances of her telling well-placed lies to cover for his negligence or incompetence or, in one notable instance, both.

The fourth is this evening.

In the cab—because if a gentleman is going to impose on a lady’s weekend, he is going to do so ostentatiously—he insists, repeatedly, that she thank Daisy profusely on his behalf.

Eventually she says to stop asking and to buy them both a round sometime.

She’s a little bit prickly.

“Is there a game plan?” she asks, when he finally shuts up.

“A… a what?”

“Well, presumably you’ve invited me as a meat-shield for something or other, right?”

Jon blinks and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. Martin was always the one that was good at this kind of thing, always reminding Jon not to wear anything one could possibly misconstrue as purple, lest he invoke Mrs Blackwood’s opinions on the monarchy.

Jon’s wearing a dark purple shirt this evening, at Daisy’s insistence, and it matches Basira’s dress.

Maybe he’ll cope. Maybe this was a good choice.

“I’ll—uh—dumb it down a bit for you. Is there anyone I need to be aware of?”

“Oh, in terms of… social threats? To me?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I, uh—Tim and Sasha should be safe.”

“Aren’t there going to be, like, ten other people there?”

“Yes.”

“What, do they all hate you?”

“Er.”

“Don’t answer that, I guess.”

“In—in particular, there’s Jane, she’ll be the short one, with long hair, she, uh, can—I- well, if I were you, I’d be careful about… volunteering information. She can be… I think toxic is one of the acceptable euphemisms these days.”

“Euphemisms for…?”

“Heinous.”

“Ah.”

“And then, erm, Melanie, she… she hates me, a little, but… not in a fun way?”

“Were you bullied? At school?”

Jon turns his head to regard her exhaustedly. “Why ever would you ask?”

“Noted.”

They don’t speak again until the cab pulls up outside the bar. It’s trendy.

Jon hates trendy.

The function room that Tim and Sasha had booked is in the back half, with glass-panelled walls and greenery everywhere. It’s nice enough, but it might be nicer, were it not full to the brim with people who would probably prefer he’d alighted from his cab onto an active train line.

Speaking of which, Martin is standing beside an olive-skinned young woman as she laughs at something he says. 

He’s not getting jealous.

He would just prefer he could have heard what it was Martin said that was so funny.

“Ready?” Basira asks, taking his forearm in both hands.

“Not remotely.”

“Well, you won’t achieve anything procrastinating out here, will you?”

Jon smiles anxiously. “It might be worth a shot?”

Rather than dignifying it with a response, she’s already tugging him through the door. There’s music playing quietly and the speech lulls.

Jon considers the logistics of running home, leaving Basira to fend for herself here.

Sasha approaches as he’s rocking on his feet to test the grip of his shoes.

Damn it.

“Hey, who’s this?” she says enthusiastically, squeezing his free arm with an encouraging grin.

“I’m Basira,” she says, her face melting into an uncharacteristic, easy smile.

Jon might have some things to learn.

“Hi! So, are you two—”

“No,” they both say readily.

“Oh! Well, um… speaking of,” Sasha leans towards Jon conspiratorially, “Tim’s delighted, by the way. He really appreciates you and Martin agreeing to get along.”

Basira’s eyes narrow in Jon’s direction.

“That!” Jon says with far too much brightness to sound believable, “Is—not how I’d describe it, Sasha!” A mortified pause. “Let me go get you a drink.”

Sasha raises her eyebrows. “Okay—Basira, come meet Tim. That’s him, isn’t he cute?”

Jon hears Basira make an impressed noise. “Nice work,” she says, as he walks away.

There’s a bar at one end of the room, but Martin and whoever the girl is are standing in the way, still animatedly chattering. 

Jon begins skirting around the outside instead.

He doesn’t quite make it.

“Hello,” says a voice behind him. Unfortunately, it’s a familiar one.

“Jane,” he says, before he turns to see her smiling benignly up at him. “Hello.”

“I’ve been waiting to see if you’d make it tonight!”

Jon closes his eyes and inhales slowly.

“Here I am.”

“I think you know my guest!”

She takes his arm and starts strolling towards the bar.

“Oh?”

“Well, you remember Olly? I think you worked with him?”

Jon’s stomach drops and he turns his head as nonchalantly as he can to scan the room in a panic.

“Oliver. Yes.”

“Yeah, Olly.”

Fucking Jane bloody Prentiss.

“He doesn’t appear to be here.”

“Did you ever meet his boyfriend? Graham?”

Now Jon breaks his arm from Jane’s grip to look unabashedly around the room.

Graham—who is sitting on a bench and swirling his drink with a straw—does look familiar. His blood turns to ice. Oliver knew about Martin, yes, but Jon knew about Graham too.

“I didn’t,” Jon says vacantly as Jane takes his arm again. 

“Oh,” Jane fairly purrs. “You’ll have to have a chat later, hm?”

Between friends like Jane and Jon himself, it’s safe to declare Sasha has no taste whatsoever when curating her social circle.

Jon grunts. 

“Perhaps I’ll catch up with both of you, later,” he says coolly.

Perhaps when Jon is burning in hell, for example. It might make sense to see Jane there.

Mercifully, she returns to her friend, and Jon finally reaches the mind-altering substances.

He orders three beers, because he hasn’t got a hope of balancing three wine glasses successfully given his luck, and if Basira doesn’t drink beer, he’ll gladly take it off her hands.

When he returns to Basira and Sasha, they’re so enthralled by whatever it is they’re discussing—to his shock, it seems to be alchemy—that they both take a glass from his hands and don’t so much as pause.

With a dejected sigh, he turns to find somewhere else in the room to sequester himself for a few blessed minutes of no human interaction.

No such luck.

In front of him is all beanpole-thin six feet of Michael, a very close friend of Sasha’s and very possibly the strangest person Jon’s ever met.

“Jonathan,” he says, with that bizarre pointy quality he has.

“Michael.”

“What a delight. Are you well?”

“I certainly—ah, mm, funny you should, er, I’m…” He trails off into an overlarge sip of beer. “And you?”

“I am as I always am.”

Okay then.

“Is Helen—”

Jon will testify in court if necessary that she materialises beside him.

“Chr- hrng. Helen. Hello.”

She gives him that same look of patronising compassion she always does, as if he’s a child complaining about a dead goldfish.

“Hi, sweetie,” she says, and Jon grips his pint in both hands. “How are you?”

“Er, funny you should ask, actually, Helen, I- I’m… I need a bit of a favour.”

Michael’s eyes light up.

Somehow Jon is preemptively regretting asking.

“I’m listening,” Helen says, flirtatiously grinning as she lifts her wine glass to her lips.

“Um. Have you—did you meet Jane’s guest?”

“Oh, Graham? Charming boy. Seems kind of quiet—do you think he’s uncomfortable?”

Sasha’s probably told them both the whole sordid story over time, but with Helen it’s never a safe bet. She’s always enjoyed tricking secrets out of people. She could as easily be phrasing it that way because Graham, at the very least, does seem to have—some sort of social anxiety or something.

“Yes, Graham,” Jon blusters ahead. “Him. Could you- can you please keep him away from Martin?”

“Why, Jonathan?” Michael asks, now grinning.

Jon is vaguely aware that he is right in the middle of a miscalculation.

He hardly has a better option.

“Oh, but Martin’s so sweet,” Helen says, pouting. “I’m sure they’d get along beautifully. Doesn’t Martin deserve—”

“Helen.”

She raises an eyebrow in lieu of a reply, as though challenging him.

“F- Fifty pounds,” Jon says quietly.

Helen and Michael look at one another and giggle. Jon presses his index finger to the space between his eyebrows to stave off his incoming headache.

“I’m serious,” he continues.

Helen cants her head. “Don’t be silly, sweetheart,” she says, utterly saccharine, “Of course I’ll help. You asked so nicely!”

Jon’s eyes narrow. “Right,” he says tersely. “Well. Thank—mm. Thank you.”

“It’s always my pleasure, darling,” she croons.

Jon turns, intent, if necessary, on facing the glass wall for a moment of quiet.

He’s there for three seconds before he becomes aware of a presence beside him.

He turns and flinches.

“Jesus, Georgie, you couldn’t announce yourself?”

She gives a perfunctory smile. “Pleasure to see you too.”

He does feel a little bit justified being cool towards her. An ex-girlfriend siding with an ex-husband in a break-up feels like it must violate an international treaty or two. She’s practically a war criminal.

“Yes,” he breathes, turning so his back is against the wall. At least, this way, nobody will do any more sneaking.

“Are you coping?” she asks, tone softening.

“I probably will as long as your girlfriend doesn’t feel like saying hello.”

As he speaks, he watches Melanie, the girlfriend in question, chatting companionably with Danny, Tim, and a short woman he doesn’t recognise.

“Um, rude,” Georgie says, nudging his arm with a fist. “She did have some cases she wanted you to hear about for bullshit detection, actually. You should be flattered.”

“And yet.”

“I’ll see if I can hold her off till you’ve had a couple more,” she says. “Who’s your date?”

“A friend from work. Her girlfriend loaned her out to me for the occasion. I—” He finishes his beer. “I didn’t exactly have many options.”

Georgie meets his eye and nods towards the bar, and Jon eagerly heads towards it.

“You should work on that,” she says sagaciously.

“Yes, thank you, Georgina. A revelation, to be sure. Would you like a drink?”

“Pleasure,” she says with a blithe grin. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

Jon orders two gin and tonics.

“If you tried, Martin might even tolerate being your friend by now. He hardly even complains about you that much these days.”

The friendship that sprang up between the two of them at the same time the marriage was breaking down makes Jon feel distinctly itchy, especially when he recalls that means he has borne witness to none of it.

At the mention of him, Jon finally has the nerve to properly look at Martin. He’s beautifully turned out again, his hair in slightly unruly curls rather than slicked back like the other week, and dressed in blue. Jon’s heart twinges.

“I’m sure it’s ambivalence,” he tells Georgie quietly.

“Isn’t ambivalence what you shoot for in your friendships?”

Jon tears his eyes from his cataloguing of the finer points of Martin’s sartorial choices.

“Ms Barker,” he says, facetiously grabbing at his heart. “I am wounded.”

She winks with amusement. “Melanie and I are over there if you’d rather talk about ghosts than yearn in the corner.”

Jon’s face flames and he doesn’t reply as she walks away.

Left alone, he drains his glass and orders another. Then another.

If he’s going to spend the rest of the evening humiliated, then he fully intends to do so with the plausible deniability of being sloshed.

He perches himself on the lip of a concrete planting box at the side of the room.

Basira is still speaking with Sasha, but Sasha has drifted so that now she’s standing literally back to back with Tim, their hands joined as they continue their separate conversations.

It makes him—well, no, happy doesn’t quite cover it.

It would be more accurate to say that it discorporates the fibres of his very being with agony even as he feels vicarious joy for them.

Joy that’s very hard to focus on when Martin has not so much as glanced in his direction all evening.

It’s not as though he’s harbouring any sort of foolish desire to—to rekindle. He committed the one misdeed from which, when it comes to Martin, there is no return. He did the worst possible thing anybody in the world could ever have done to Martin specifically. Months of intentional malice and preparation could not have dealt a more precise and painful blow. 

And he has spent many, many sleepless nights coming to terms with the gravity of his error. The knowledge, internalised though it may now be, does nothing to lessen the pain.

Nor does it weaken the unfortunate conviction that he’s going to love Martin until the day he dies.

It doesn’t matter how he feels, though. Hoping that they might one day be able to meet one another’s eye and smile is too much. So he will not hope.

And he’ll lock another heavy chain around the tiny, pathetic little corner of his heart that has not stopped screaming since the commencement of this whole wedding business that maybe, perhaps, if he just finds the right combination of words…

No. Martin hates him, and that is his right, and that’s all there is to it.

Jon closes his eyes against the endless deluge of sensory input. The drone of speech fades into white noise.

Someone sits beside him. The smell is familiar.

“You alright?” Basira asks. He cracks an eye open to look at her.

“Feeling sorry for myself.”

“Right.”

She sips her drink.

“So, were you going to tell me you were married to Martin, or…”

Jon leans his head against the window pane behind him and closes his eyes again. “I was hoping to avoid it as long as possible, actually.”

“Why did you break up?”

Jon removes his glasses and holds them in one hand in preparation for the beer to the face he suspects is imminent.

“I cheated on him.”

“Wow,” Basira says, and he can hear the revulsion. “Dick move.”

“Quite.”

“Why?”

Jon lifts his head and frowns at her. “Wh- there are various ethical and moral objections most people have, aside from it being a valid justification for div—”

“No, dickhead. I meant why did you do it?”

Jon finishes his drink.

“Because I didn’t care enough to stop it. Because I took him for granted, even though—” As though aware he’s being discussed, Martin glances in Jon’s direction, but immediately his expression grows pained and he turns his back.

“Even though he’s still the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Basira’s gaze burns into the side of his face. “Yikes.”

Jon cautiously slips his glasses back on.

“You couldn’t work it out?”

“No. Certainly not.”

“I understand. But… ouch.”

“Your empathy means a lot.”

Basira’s eyes narrow. “You’re kind of a prick when you’re tipsy.”

Jon slaps a hand to his face. “I’ve- no, no, I—I’m sorry, I’m—I’m not good with tone. I was being sincere. I promise.”

Her eyes narrow more. “You are very weird.”

His heart aches. “So I’ve been told.”

She stands. “You want another, then?”

“Please.”

He tugs his wallet from a pocket and offers it to her, but she shakes her head, taking his empty glass.

With her gone, he closes his eyes, vaguely hoping that while he’s unobserved he may slip from the universe.

When Tim and Sasha call everyone’s attention to give speeches, Jon almost feels human, either due to the steady stream of drinks Basira has provided, or closing his eyes for an entire half-hour.

Fortunately, he is not set adrift in the novel experience of physical comfort long, as when his vision refocuses, the first thing he sees is Graham standing beside Martin, both of them talking animatedly.

Oh, for a red-hot-poker from the depths of hell with which to gouge out his fucking eyeballs.

And, of course, the only free space in the cluster is between Basira and Helen. Jon strolls a little unsteadily into the spot and looks at Helen, lifting his glass to muffle his speech.

“Helen,” he hisses.

“Yes, darling?” she says, in full voice, with an ostentatious grin. Among most of the others, Martin turns to look at them.

For fuck’s sake, he cannot even have an hour of peace.

“What happened, Helen?” he asks levelly.

“Oh! Yes! Michael helped. You understand.”

“Oh, yes,” Jon replies.

He categorically does not understand at all.

“Okay,” Sasha says, a microphone having materialised in her hand at some point. “We all know Tim loves the sound of his own voice, and that he has opinions on modern-cafe-style-minimalism, so he's banned from speaking today. So… hi.”

Tim slings an arm around her shoulders as she speaks.

And Jon is trying very hard to pay attention. He is. But the echo of Sasha’s voice through the amplification, and the sparkle in their eyes when they smile at each other, evokes such strong memories that it’s as though his mind has dissociated entirely from his body, which remains standing in place, morosely nodding along.

Two days before their wedding, he and Martin had booked out the main dining room of a Spanish restaurant they’d been to a couple of times. They’d scrimped and saved to be able to pay the tab for the few guests they had. They’d both been so proud—Martin’s mother had even laughed a few times, and Martin finally relaxed around her for an evening.

They’d gone through several bottles of a remarkably good Rioja, and Jon had been deliriously happy, and kissed Martin whenever he felt like it.

When they’d gotten home after three that night, Martin had taken Jon’s hands and hummed a song that Jon didn’t know, and they’d danced in the kitchen. Martin can’t carry a tune in a bucket most of the time, but they were so tired and drunk and happy that for once he’d done it without second-guessing himself.

Jon can see exactly the way the sickly fluorescent light looked, filtering through Martin’s hair as they swayed.

Fortunately, Sasha appears to be saying something sufficiently emotional that Jon’s tears don’t look out of place.

Basira squeezes his elbow. “Do you… want a few minutes? I’ll mind your drink.”

Jon nods, handing her his glass, waving a hand dismissively at Tim as he glances over in concern, and hastening for the door.

He’s been sitting for nearly fifteen minutes on a stoop outside when Martin and his date emerge, still chatting away.

Jon turns his head away, but his eye is caught when a silver minivan pulls up beside them, and the passenger side window slides down. He watches as Martin puts his head in the open window and exchanges a few words with the driver. The young woman hugs him, and he opens the door for her, then a moment later the car pulls off.

Martin’s shoulders heave with a sigh, and without warning, he turns and looks directly at Jon with determination in his face.

If he weren’t so much the worse for drink, Jon would take off running in the opposite direction.

Instead he slips off his wedding band and puts it in a pocket.

Martin approaches him, crossing his arms when he comes to a stop five feet away.

Jon stares at a crack in the concrete.

“Graham’s nice,” Martin says, voice venomously sweet.

Jon literally bites his tongue.

“Who’s your- date?” he asks.

“Basira,” Jon mutters. “She’s a friend from work.”

“Oh,” Martin says, nodding. “A friend from work? Hm. I’ve heard that one before.” A slow, considered pause. “So has Graham, apparently.”

It appears Martin is determined to kill Jon in the street this evening.

He looks up and Martin is watching him closely. He thinks of an ant under the carefully calibrated beam of a sadistic child’s magnifying-glass.

“And yours?” Jon dares to ask in a tone he dearly hopes isn’t petulant.

“Hannah. She’s a receptionist, but she’s still on maternity leave. That was her husband. It’s their second baby.”

Jon raises his eyebrows as he sullenly redirects his gaze to the crack again. “Good for them.”

He can still feel Martin’s eyes on him.

“So how long has Basira been your plus-one to things?”

Jon has the presence of mind to decide not to ask Martin which part of I still love you confused him.

“Since,” he glances at his watch. “About three hours ago, when her girlfriend loaned her out to me.”

A moment passes, and Martin sits beside him.

“You alright?”

Jon clears his throat, turning his head to wipe his suddenly misty eyes. It isn’t subtle, but if his current conduct has resulted in Martin voluntarily coming within arm’s reach of him, he isn’t entirely certain he cares.

“I’ve been better.”

Martin steeples his fingers, resting his elbows on his knees. “Graham says Oliver’s working in Antarctica.”

It feels like a trap.

“Is he,” Jon says flatly.

Martin picks at a cuticle. “Could I tell you something?”

He presses a fist to his mouth, making a noncommittal sound.

“I—I was expecting you to turn up the other week with Tim and Danny raving about him.”

“I—” Jon clears his throat again. His breathing hitches. “I didn’t know you thought so little of me.”

Martin straightens where he sits. “It’s not- it isn’t because of you.”

“I don’t follow.”

He turns a little towards Jon. “Well, you know, I- I thought you’d be trying to… win.” A sigh. “I was.”

“Martin.”

He crosses his arms. “What? Is that wrong?”

Jon lifts his glasses to rub his face with both hands. “No. No, it isn’t. That’s- well, that’s my point. You have every reason to want to spite me. If I attempted the same thing, I’d—mm. There are words for what that would make me, but they’re hardly appropriate for polite company.”

Martin gives a long, tired sigh. “Still. I- I shouldn’t have… said what I did. About O- about him. The other week.”

They’re silent for a moment.

“I’m sorry.”

Jon doesn’t look at him as he replaces his glasses. “It’s not as though I didn’t deserve it.”

Martin’s tone lightens. “Yeah,” he says, chuckling. “Good point, actually.”

He’s smiling before he can think to stop it. “Ouch.”

He hears him exhale a breath through his nose in amusement. “Sorry.”

“I’d say the balance is still quite squarely in your favour, my love.”

His internal organs descend into hell.

“Fuck. Shit. Sorry. I d- fuck.”

Martin’s already clambering to his feet, face red. Jon extends a hand helplessly, but he’s out of reach.

“I’m sorry,” he continues compulsively. “I’m an idiot, please don’t listen to me, I’m- fuck, I’m sorry—”

Martin only turns to raise a finger in a gesture intended to silence him. “It’s fine,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”

He’s already gone.

Shitting hell.

Jon puts his ring back where it belongs before he attempts to make it to his feet.

Martin doesn’t speak to him voluntarily again the rest of the evening.

But Graham does.

Corners him, in fact.

He’s about ready to begin gnawing at his own fingers like they’re carrot sticks as Graham meets his eye.

“I—I met Martin,” he begins.

Jon downs the last of his drink. “So I heard.”

“You knew Oliver?”

He knows before he says it that it’s a mistake. “Not biblically.”

Basira, who’s been babysitting him since he returned inside, whacks him across the back of the head. He doesn’t feel anything.

Graham’s mouth falls open. “I—wh—that wasn’t what I meant.”

Jon’s eyes narrow. “Good.”

“I—just thought—” Graham continues, his tone infuriatingly gentle, “—I just thought—we should talk. That’s all.”

His ears grow hot with humiliation. “I suppose you haven’t had your chance to gloat, have you?”

“Jon!” Basira hisses behind him.

“Well—” Jon says, mouth curling in revulsion, “Rest assured, Graham Folger, I’ve done my level best to exact a bit of vengeance on your behalf.”

His voice rises and people are staring and it’s not enough to stop him.

“Unfortunately, unless you’ve figured out a way to sink me even lower in Martin’s estimation, there isn’t all that much left to do—or maybe you’d like a kidney?”

In the corner of his eye, he sees Tim and Sasha hurriedly muttering something to one another, and a cold sweat springs to the back of his neck.

Purely in terms of the depths of his humiliation, it certainly can’t get worse.

So it’s a standard social function, really.

As he draws breath to continue, he’s winded when a hand is firmly planted on his sternum and it begins pushing him towards the door. He fairly crumbles when he sees its owner. He can’t recall the last time they’ve been so physically close to one another.

Martin leans across him to quietly mutter something to Basira, still marching towards the exit, and she raises her eyebrows, nodding and following along.

“Martin—” Jon manages as they near the door. “Martin, I’m—”

He turns his furious gaze on him. “Yeah, I know, you keep saying. Maybe for once in your life you could prove how sorry you are by shutting the fuck up.”

Jon can’t bring himself to say another word until he and Basira are in a cab and Martin—standing on the footpath with his arms crossed—is out of sight.

“That—I didn’t mean for that to go that way,” he says sullenly.

“Oh, you didn’t?” Basira says, raising an eyebrow at him.

He pushes his palms into his eyes—or tries to, and only after remembers his glasses are in the way.

“Everyone hates me.”

Basira laughs quietly. “I don’t think so. Shockingly.”

“They do. You do.”

She runs a hand through her hair. “No, I don’t. I think you’re a grade-A freak.”

“People hate those.”

Basira reaches to pat the top of his head a couple of times. “You can reassess that after you meet Daisy, alright?”

Jon leans his face against the window. “She’s a freak and you love her?”

“Yeah.”

There isn’t a name for the emotion thrumming in his chest, but it brings tears to his eyes anyway.

When she gets out, he grabs her wrist.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry I made such an arse of myself.”

She smirks and pats his arm with her free hand. “I was expecting it a little bit. It’s fine.”

“Oh. Well.”

“See you Monday.”

“Yes.”

When he’s in his flat and his cats have received sufficient attention to stop bothering him for a few moments, he sinks to the floor, crossing his legs, and stares at his phone.

He taps Martin’s number.

It rings six times, and his finger is hovering over the cancel button when the call connects.

“What, Jon?”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Jon,” Martin repeats with an exasperated sigh. “What is it?”

“You told me to shut up.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“No, wait, I’m, I’m not… being flippant. I’m sorry. I just—I miss you.”

He hears an exhausted exhalation.

“I know.”

“Can I ask a question, Martin?”

“You just did.”

It isn’t a joke, so Jon doesn’t laugh.

“Do you think you’d—if I earn it, and if I never hurt you again, and I’m—if I’m useful, do you think you could… hate me a bit less?”

Martin hesitates. “That’s—none of that is the actual—issue.”

“So you couldn’t.”

He groans. “For god’s sake, Jon. Go to sleep.”

He doesn’t say anything else before hanging up the phone.

Jon climbs under the coffee table, pulling their wedding album from the spot it’s stowed under the sofa, and holds it to his chest.

Sasha James and her unhinged desire to socialise at half past eight on a Saturday will not be easily forgiven.

Nevertheless, because Jon would like to make at least a token effort at avoiding a descent into utter iniquity, he arrives at the cafe early—quite an effort in itself—to apologise.

As he sits, head ducked in supplication, Sasha and Tim look at one another, and there’s no humour in it.

“We were just… kind of worried about you,” Tim says, voice soft with a pity that makes the hairs on Jon’s arms bristle.

“I’m fine,” he mutters.

“Yeah, now,” Sasha says, crossing her arms. “You’re not drunk and Martin’s not here yet.”

Jon opens his mouth to reply, but nothing occurs to him. He frowns.

“Jane should have known better,” Sasha admits gently.

“Hmph.”

“Graham’s not going to be at the wedding,” Tim says, lowering his head to meet Jon’s eyes with a slight smile. 

“Right.”

“Just… come speak to us, next time, maybe,” he continues. “Instead of… threatening someone with the gift of an internal organ.”

“It wasn’t a threat,” Jon pouts.

“So, what,” Sasha says, raising an eyebrow. “It was a promise?”

Jon smiles despite himself. “Next time I make an idiot of myself in front of Martin I’ll take that as my cue to go, alright?”

Tim and Sasha share another glance, but this time, they smile.

“Sounds drastic,” she says.

“Bound to happen,” he adds.

He scowls and stands to move to the other end of the table. “Hilarious.”

When Martin does arrive, he sits on the opposite end from Jon. Which is completely understandable, even as it cuts him a little.

He earned this.

Melanie, late as usual, is left sitting opposite him, and rather than bringing out the verbal barbs, she’s… polite.

For Melanie King to be reduced to civility, Jon really must have made a spectacle of himself.

Brilliant.

Apparently there’s a church in Cornwall she’s considering travelling to for an investigation. She’s brought a dossier.

She may be the human equivalent of a Venus fly trap with an attitude problem, but he cannot deny she cares about her work.

He flips through it as she stabs her omelette.

“It’s in Cornwall, though,” he says, looking at her over his glasses with a sceptical frown.

“Yeah, and? It’s a good story.”

“My god,” he says, “But at what cost?”

She smiles almost imperceptibly. “You’re a dick.”

“Thank you, I know.”

She decides she’s still going, and Jon does wonder what the point of asking for his input was when it’s not taken into account at all.

She’s been doing this for something like nine years, so it’s not as though there’s any hope she’ll stop.

She leaves early, saying something about helping Georgie record before a livestream later, and beside him Helen is too enthralled in her attempts to seduce Danny to notice him.

Sometimes there are small blessings in life.

And yet the moment he takes a breath without a vise-grip around his chest, Martin sits in Melanie’s vacated seat opposite him.

With what little composure he has, he reaches for his glass and sips his water without trembling.

“Hi,” Martin says, and his ability to put quite such an amount of you stupid bloody nightmare in one syllable is undeniably impressive.

“Good morning,” Jon replies, lacing his fingers together and placing his hands on the table.

There was a time long ago when an intimidation contest between the two of them was such an easy win for Jon it was honestly laughable.

And now, he can almost physically sense a crown reading Behold, the Lowest Fool in Creation being placed on his head as he pointedly avoids meeting Martin’s eye.

“Are you free? After this?”

“Erm…” An emergency appendectomy would not keep him from answering in the affirmative. “Y- er, yes. I think I am.”

Martin huffs. “Okay. Can I buy you a coffee?”

Jon glances at him for as long as he dares to verify he heard that correctly.

“If- if you like?”

His attempt to wipe the perturbed scowl off his face likely only achieves the effect of making him look more confused.

“Thought we should talk,” Martin explains, rising to go to the counter.

Jon’s face screws up again the moment his back is turned.

What year is it?

He spins his ring around his finger so compulsively he’s surprised it doesn’t start smoking from the friction.

A few minutes later, Martin returns, two disposable coffee cups in his hands, and a brown paper bag balanced precariously on top of one of them.

“You look like you could do with the fresh air,” he explains, nodding towards the door.

Jon presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and stands to follow him.

“Bye, guys!” Martin chirps to Tim and Sasha, who both glance up with surprise. “We’re off!”

And he goes out the door.

Jon widens his eyes at the two of them in a silent plea for mercy.

“We?” Sasha asks, bouncing her eyebrows. Jon puts his hands on the table in front of them. 

“If they find me in the river later, you know exactly what happened,” he hisses desperately. Tim reaches to pat his cheek.

“Have fun,” he says. “Be home by curfew!”

Jon’s lip twitches as he shoves his hands in his pockets and follows Martin out.

There’s a park a little way down the block, and they’re both quiet until they reach it. As they walk, Martin deposits the bag in a pocket, and hands Jon one of the cups. The coffee is black, but a half-teaspoon of sugar was added to counteract the bitterness of the blend from this cafe.

The only thing that keeps him from bursting into tears is the idea that he cannot contend with becoming someone who weeps at an acquaintance remembering his coffee order. 

“Are you okay?” Martin asks him, with a sip from his own cup. It’s probably a decaf latte. He never trusted cafes to brew his tea correctly, but the caffeine in espresso made him too anxious. He’d admitted to Jon after their first date that he’d forgotten to specify decaf, and so he hadn’t heard a word he said the whole time.

“N- No.”

Best to keep it simple. Martin doesn’t actually care about the answer; he’s fulfilling the social contract so he can say what he wants to, which, if Jon had to guess at this juncture, is: with all due respect—none, in case you’d forgotten—you’re an irredeemable freak unfit for human companionship, and I expect you not to speak another word to me until the wedding, then never so much as look in my direction after that.

Martin considers Jon’s answer for a very, very long moment.

“So what was all that about the other week?”

Jon swallows. “I was… afraid.”

“What? Of Graham?”

Jon’s whole being prickles. “No.”

Another long moment.

“Can I—could you—could you do something for me?” Martin asks.

“Of course,” Jon replies readily, catching Martin rolling his eyes when he looks up at him.

“Imagine Jane had brought Oliver.”

Jon scowls. “I’d rather not.”

Martin blinks tiredly at him.

“Fine.”

“Kind of uncomfortable, isn’t it?” Martin says quietly. “That bloke just—appearing. Where you don’t want him to.”

Jon makes a show of checking his pockets.

“What are you doing?” Martin asks with a scowl.

“Oh,” Jon replies lightly. “Just, just thought I’d check for some more salt. I’d hate for you to run out.”

Martin lifts a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“What?” Jon snaps.

“If you’d let me finish—”

“Right. Go on, then.”

“Well. If Oliver was there, and he got completely hammered, and started going off on me for, for, I don’t know, making him feel sad, who’d be wrong?”

“I’m not a child, Martin.”

“Answer the question.”

His lip curls. “He would. Obviously.”

“So you do know.”

Jon groans in irritation and sips his coffee.

“What, then?” Martin asks after a while.

“Hm?”

“You said you were scared. Of what?”

Jon glances sideways at him and his fist tightens in his pocket. “Of… of… having damaged our—”

Uneasy acquaintanceship? No.

The death-rattling near-corpse of our former relationship? Hm. Not particularly snappy.

“Our… whatever it is we’re calling—this, beyond repair.”

Martin snorts. “Haven’t we sort of missed the boat on that one?”

“Correct,” Jon sighs, “As I said, I’ve got no illusions about—about winning you back with some grand romantic gesture.”

When he dares to look up, Martin’s face reddens.

“But,” he continues hastily. “It would be nice not t- to avoid social functions for fear that you’ll be there and I’ll… make you uncomfortable.”

A smile passes over Martin’s face that is neither rueful nor patient nor sad. It’s a little self-effacing, certainly, but it isn’t bitter. For a half-second he rather resembles the cherished, sepia-toned version Jon sees at night when he closes his eyes to sleep.

“If it’s social, I think my being uncomfortable is inevitable, isn’t it?”

Jon chuckles. “Perhaps. All the more reason for me not to add to the burden.”

Martin adjusts his glasses and the smile passes into a thoughtful frown. “Yeah. Thanks, hah—” His expression grows pained. “I- I have had a lot on my plate. P- Peter’s a lot.”

Fucking Peter.

Jon’s hand tightens around his cup sufficiently to pop the plastic lid off the rim, and it flutters sadly to the path a few feet ahead of them.

Martin laughs uneasily as he bends to pick it up, and as he hands it back they’re still for long enough that Jon steels his nerves to speak.

“I’m—I’m glad you’re—you have—that,” he says, trying quite hard not to sound like he’s in physical agony. “I’m glad you’re not… not alone.”

Martin’s face screws up in frustration or fury and he keeps walking. Jon remains a step behind as he attempts to manoeuvre the lid back onto his cup.

“Do you seriously think it’s that easy?” He sounds repulsed. “That, that, like, I- I just- meet someone, and, that’s it, problem solved?”

He laughs sardonically.

“I’m just not lonely anymore?”

Jon doesn’t reply. 

“Do you think I just, just,” he snaps his fingers, “Rebuild? Just like that?”

Jon’s face heats with shame. “You?” he says quietly. “Possibly.”

Martin’s scowl remains firmly in place as he shoves a hand in his pocket. He retrieves the paper bag and thrusts it at Jon like a live grenade.

Jon blinks at it.

“It’s for you, dickhead,” Martin barks, and he takes it.

It’s a thumbprint biscuit filled with what is probably lemon curd and Jon, a consummate imbecile, gasps with the same delighted shock he would if it were an engagement ring.

He gulps a few mouthfuls of coffee as a weak cover.

Martin doesn’t say anything.

Folding the bag around it protectively, he slips the biscuit into his own pocket and blinks, clearing his throat.

“Thank you.”

“Well,” Martin says, shaking his head tiredly. “You look like hell. So.”

Jon blinks, smiling weakly. “Thank you…?”

“Have you even been in the same room as a square meal in the last six months?”

Jon looks down. “I don’t want to self-incriminate.”

The silence that descends upon them is marginally less skin-crawling than the others have been of late.

“Look,” Martin says with a finality that implies he’s going to leave. “I hate—I really hate fighting with you. It’s exhausting. And I’m not interested in helping you torture yourself forever.”

Jon laughs coldly. “Are you sure? There’s p—”

“Jon.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah.” Martin sighs. “And I—I don’t hate you. Not anymore.”

Jon’s eyes widen incredulously. “H- How?”

They reach the edge of the park and Martin comes to a stop. “I don’t know if you even—even understand how much I loved you.”

In his pocket, Jon touches his ring with his thumb. “I think that might be the problem,” he says, voice cracking. “I think, in fact, I do.”

“Great,” he replies, his breath hitching as he inhales. “So I don’t need to explain why I can’t trust you again.”

Jon clutches his cup in both hands in an attempt to mask their trembling. “I promise, Martin—”

“Yeah,” Martin says, and in his voice is an edge that speaks of danger. “Couple of problems, though. With- with that.”

He counts on his fingers like he does every time he’s verbally eviscerating someone.

“First—you’ve made a lot of promises. Oh! Vows, even. We’re both well aware of how that went.”

Jon doesn’t attempt to stop him, even though the weight bearing down on him feels like it’s cracking his ribs.

“And—do you know what, let’s be charitable—let’s say we’ve known each other longer than seven years, including the most recent one. Should I trust you and just—just expect that once or twice a decade you’re going to horribly betray me? Given the scale of last time, should I expect you to bring about the apocalypse next?”

Jon’s chin nearly touches his chest.

“And—and!—even if you could, somehow, prove you aren’t liable to tear my mental health to shreds at the drop of a hat, that doesn’t mean I’d actually believe it. Doesn’t matter what the proof is. I’d like to believe you. I would. But—”

Jon’s hands tighten so much around the cup that the bottom pops out, and the remainder of his coffee spills all over his shoes.

This goes unacknowledged.

“Woo, this isn’t fun to say,” Martin says lightly, and when Jon looks at him, there are tears brimming in his eyes. “I believed you last time you said you weren’t ever going to hurt me—and that you loved me. Look where that got me. Got us.”

Jon nods weakly.

“And you—you can’t move past it yourself. You don’t forgive yourself.”

Jon’s face screws up as he finally finds a rebuttal.

“No, Jon,” Martin says, wiping his tears with an incredulous laugh. “It’s—it’s still real for you. In your head. You’re still there.”

“I don’t—”

Martin’s teary eyes narrow and he tilts his head to look at Jon over the rims of his glasses. “Fine, it- it doesn’t matter whether you forgive yourself, technically.”

Jon redirects his gaze to his filthy shoes, having to think carefully about whether he finished his sentence, because last he checked, Martin isn’t a mind-reader—not literally, anyway.

“But if you haven’t fixed it, in- in your heart, or your brain, or, or whatever, the problem is you’re going to keep doing things like what you did to Graham last week.”

“I- I was in pain,” Jon protests timidly.

“Yeah, and I’m sure he was in pain when his boyfriend cheated on him with you.”

Jon inhales slowly. “I’m- I’m not saying it’s a good excuse.”

“Sure, but you were so intent on making yourself suffer that you didn’t care who else got hurt. And you hurt Graham. You hurt me. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was?”

Jon rubs vigorously at one eye with the back of his wrist. “I’m—I’m so sorry, Martin.”

He closes his eyes with an exhausted sigh. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I know. But—” Martin clenches his teeth and sucks in another breath. “You need to- I need you not to- to wait. I’m- it’s n- it- I—” he stops with a frustrated groan. “I’m not- I’m not there.”

He nods. “I know.”

“And, and you could actually make someone happy, you know? Or even—even be happy. If you tried.”

“I want to make you happy,” Jon mumbles.

“Jon,” Martin says, snatching the crumpled cup from his hands. “Please.”

The tears in his eyes fall.

“Please, don’t do this to me again.”

He turns and is already marching away, throwing the two cups in a bin beside a park bench as he goes.

A week or two after Jon told Martin what he did—around the time Martin stopped acknowledging him when he got home from work at the end of the day—he’d gone cautiously towards the door, an overnight bag over his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” Martin asked, leaning against the worktop in the kitchen with a mug in his hands. Jon considered not responding at all, given that no matter what he said, Martin would hear to see Oliver.

In truth, not two days after it had happened, he’d taken Oliver aside and explained he had no intention of continuing their association. He’d looked disappointed, of course, but apologised for overstepping, and they’d left it at that, politely sidestepping any opportunities to interact ever since.

“Tim and Sasha’s,” he told Martin, gripping the strap of his bag in both hands.

Martin watched him as he sipped his tea.

Jon’s jaw tensed and he did—genuinely—try not to reply.

“Would you like to call them to confirm, Martin?”

He canted his head, gaze cold. “I’m sorry, are you getting testy that I don’t trust you?”

Jon gasped as though he’d struck him in the chest.

He didn’t find the nerve to meet Martin’s eye.

“I love you,” he said, looking determinedly at a floor tile.

The words sat, foetid and rotting, in the air between them.

“Right,” Martin said, smiling bitterly.

“I’ll be home in the morning.”

He sipped his tea again, his eyes burning as Jon met them.

“Suit yourself.”

Jon couldn’t bring himself to glance back when he closed the door behind him.

He sat on the tube a few minutes later, spinning his wedding band around his finger as though doing so would disentangle the threads of the net he’d woven and walked knowingly into.

Since the day it happened, the expectation of discovering Martin had filed a divorce petition hung above him like the proverbial sword. Although, Damocles had probably been able to cling to some little scrap of denial about his fate. Jon, on the other hand, was quite confident that it was a when, not an if.

The certainty of it didn’t make it any more comfortable to sit with. The mental calculations he’d done to figure out whether Martin could be induced into a state of disgraceful stupidity and forgive him were dizzying. He’d been unable to get past the invariable value that he had failed at the basic tenets of love, honour, and obey.

His fist on the door of Tim and Sasha’s terrace house sounded for all the world like a judge’s gavel.

A dog next door barked at the disturbance. It sounded desolate in the late-afternoon lull of the street.

His eyes welled as soon as Tim opened the door.

“Whoa, you look terrible,” Tim said, genuinely horrified, “What—”

“Tim,” Jon said, closing his eyes. “Listen. I know I’m in the wrong, and I know I don’t have any right to feel sorry for myself, and I accept that. I do. But—please—just… I- I know I don’t deserve- pity, or forgiveness, or, or really, anything of the sort, I- I need- could you both hold off on disowning me until the morning? If I tell you?”

When he opened his eyes, Tim was frowning, and the apprehension hadn’t resolved.

“Yeah,” he said. “Okay. C- Come in.”

Tim’s hand stayed on his back as they walked into the uncomfortably spacious open-plan living area. Jon felt like a prey animal.

He placed his bag down and sank to lean against the sofa on the floor, pulling his hair from the elastic that had secured it and letting it fall over his face.

At some point, he heard Sasha come into the room, and she made a sound of dismay.

“What’s—”

Tim whispered something to her, and a moment later they flanked him where he sat.

Sasha took Jon’s hand and the three of them were silent for a few moments.

“D’you want to—talk about it?” she probed gently. Jon’s shoulders heaved.

“Martin hates me.”

Tim scoffed gently, bumping their shoulders together. “I sincerely doubt that.”

Jon grunted humourlessly. “You remember the fellow from work—the, I think, I think ‘hot’ may have been the term you used?”

The two of them chuckled. “Yeah,” Tim said.

“He—ah, Christ—he kissed me.”

Jon counted to twenty in the dismayed silence.

“And, and I told Martin, of course, but now he- I, I mean, I can’t blame him, seeing as a faithful husband seems like a relatively low bar, but—” He choked back a sob. “So, so, I broke it, and it’s—I knew I was going to fuck this up permanently at some point, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Neither replied.

“I’ll make tea,” Sasha said eventually, hesitantly getting to her feet. The gentleness in her voice made his skin prickle like he’d been burned.

On his other side, Tim didn’t withdraw, but nudged Jon with his shoulder.

“You’ll be okay,” he said simply.

“I won’t.”

“Not now,” he said, with a sigh. “I know. But you will.”

Sasha returned with his tea in a mug painted with a bright green J that she’d made the weekend she forced everyone to try pottery with her. She’d had him press his thumb to the top of the thing before it had gone in the kiln. There was a matched set of four of them in their kitchen, Jon knew—the green J, a purple T, a red S, and a blue M—and whenever all four of them were together, she took the proper assignments very seriously.

But ‘all four of them’ was no longer a configuration that existed. Nor was ‘Jon and Martin’.

Thenceforth it was just ‘Jon’. Alone. Singular.

The thought struck him so deeply that he wept.

Sasha, still standing, turned her back and returned to the kitchen. When she knelt beside him, she placed on the coffee table in front of him the mug with the blue M.

He took it delicately in his hands, half expecting it to shatter and send the scalding liquid and shards of ceramic everywhere.

Shockingly, it didn’t.

As he drank, Jon rubbed the thumbprint like it was a worry stone. If he closed his eyes and concentrated hard, it was as though the warmth of it was emanating from Martin’s hand itself.

Tim and Sasha pulled out the sofa bed and brought the duvet from their bed downstairs. All evening, they watched 1950s horror films, only speaking when Jon initiated, and when he finally exhausted himself enough to sleep, it was between the two of them, with one of Tim’s arms securely around his shoulders, and Sasha still holding his hand.

Chapter Text

Jon spends a few more evenings than he would ideally like to admit staring at the dark screen of his phone. 

It’s never been so quiet in his flat, but that doesn’t make sense, because the noise—in decibels, at least—can’t have changed.

But as he packs for the trip to Monaco, it’s as though the air around him echoes with the utter absence of sound.

Normally he can simply… decide not to look at the loneliness, and it goes away.

Now it sits like it lives here.

He doesn’t sleep well the night before the trip.

He realises on Friday morning that, perhaps, arranging to take the whole day off under holiday leave may have been a misstep.

He doesn’t have to leave until one in the afternoon, and the empty morning yawns before him.

When he does leave—assuring the cats as he goes that Georgie will be there within the next three hours, and they really will survive without attention that long—the flat is spotless. 

When he arrives at Tim’s, he’s actually a little bit excited.

How novel.

That is, of course, until he gets into the cab with Tim and Danny and only then learns that bloody Peter from bloody work arranged for Martin to get a private car to the airport.

He’s not pouting about it.

He might be pouting about it.

“Who’s got the single seat?” Danny asks as they near the airport.

Tim frowns nonchalantly and shrugs. “I don’t mind, d’you want it?”

Danny grins. “Yeah.”

Jon folds his arms. “Danny.”

“What?”

He sighs. “Must I point it out explicitly?”

Tim reaches across Danny in the middle seat to shove a fist into Jon’s arm. “I’m sure you’ll survive sitting near Martin for like, two hours, actually.”

“You don’t know that. Suppose I went deep-sea diving yesterday. I could succumb to the bends.”

Tim leans forward to judgmentally narrow his eyes. “Did you go deep-sea diving yesterday, Jonathan?”

Jon gives an irritated grunt. “Alright, but I still don’t want to.”

“You’ve got chicken legs,” Danny mutters.

“Excuse you?” Jon says.

“Well—not to be rude, Jon, but… you do look like you skip leg day.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

They both laugh at him.

“Yep, that settles it,” Tim says, with a smarmy grin. “Danny gets it. He needs the leg room.”

Jon makes a dismissive sound and stares out the window the rest of the way.

Martin is quiet when they find him, frustratedly jabbing at his phone.

“Marto!” Tim says, leaning forward to poke him in the forehead, but his scowl just deepens. He doesn’t look up. “God, what’s your problem?”

That snaps him out of it. “Oh. Hi. Sorry. Just- I just need a second. Peter.”

Jon’s stomach lurches, but as he watches the look of consternation remain on Martin’s face, he can’t help but feel a tiny bit smug. What a shame that Martin finds Peter so frustrating. It’s devastating, really.

Finally, Martin lifts his head, and when he looks at Jon he manages to raise his eyebrows to acknowledge him before turning away.

“I think he might literally not know what a spreadsheet is,” he says to Tim, whose jaw drops.

“Wh- seriously? How?”

“By being rich, or something, I don’t know.”

“Jesus.”

When the four of them start walking, Jon loses track of their conversation, lagging behind the others in thought. In his especially self-pitying moments, he’s hoped Martin might at least go for a—a tenured professor, perhaps, or a publishing executive, or, or at least a senior copy-editor. A step up, so to speak.

Jon knows what spreadsheets are.

With this petty little victory clutched to his heart, Jon finds himself rather chuffed when they’re boarded.

For their first wedding anniversary, they’d gone to Seville for three days. It was Martin’s first time on a plane. The whole trip, Martin had watched the view, and Jon had watched Martin.

The delight on his face was well worth the cost of the tickets by itself.

It hadn’t been quite so novel for Jon, though. One of his earliest memories, in fact, is the discomfort as the air pressure changed when he was on a flight to Pakistan with his mother to visit her family as a small child. Then, when he was thirteen, Grandmother had taken him with her to visit her sister in Auckland. Flying has never been anything but dull and mildly uncomfortable to him, but Martin hadn’t seen it that way.

Jon elects, on this occasion, to sit in the aisle seat, to remove the temptation to—to gaze too much. He can’t have Tim seeing it, after all.

The mockery may never cease.

The quiet between the three of them is, however, rather tense.

Fortunately, Jon feels tense most of the time, so he is a seasoned professional when it comes to tuning it out.

Timothy Stoker, however, is very new to social discomfort.

When they’re in the air, Tim glances at Jon on one side and Martin on the other, and smiles sheepishly.

“So…” he begins.

Jon smiles blithely, resting his chin on his fist.

Tim’s eyes narrow.

“Oh, I assume this is the start of your in-flight entertainment for us, Timothy. I’m very excited. Do go on.”

Granted, his confidence is also coming from the fact that, however passively, he’ll be around Martin all weekend. And if Jon can maintain his composure for longer than ten minutes—which, in all fairness, is contextually a bit of a gamble—he might even smile at him.

Even if not, Martin will remain within convenient pining distance. 

The possibilities have Jon feeling positively giddy.

Tim sighs dramatically. “It’s a real shame,” he says. “You and Martin were pretty funny as a united front.”

Jon nods, raising his eyebrows nonchalantly.

Martin turns towards them, his face going pale.

“He was always the funny one,” Jon says.

“It’s all the conniving,” Tim agrees, winking. “It means his cutting remarks cause arterial spray.”

“You two do know I can hear you, right?” Martin mutters grumpily.

“That’s the point,” Tim says, nudging him in the ribs. “Listen, I get if you don’t want to engage with both of us because the last time we all bantered together, you fell in love with Jon, and he’s a dick,” As he says this, Jon nods, unaffected, “But, hey, you haven’t tried me yet.”

Martin elbows Tim back. “I hate you so much.”

He isn’t doing a particularly good job of hiding the smile at the corners of his mouth, though.

Jon leans back in his seat, and the weight constantly bearing down on him feels a little lighter than usual.

After the flight and the train from Nice, Jon’s in mild danger of biting someone’s arm off, so he joins the others by the pool only after he locks himself away for an hour to rest. They’re at a table under an umbrella, and when Jon sits he can feel the sun on his skin.

Martin may have been correct. He should probably go outside a bit more frequently.

The four of them stay there, well past sunset, and they drink.

And drink.

And drink.

It’s all very pleasant, actually.

To Jon’s surprise, Martin even directs a few full sentences to him in response to things he says. 

Danny begs Tim to go inside and play a round of billiards with him for an entire hour before he actually relents, at… Jon’s actually got no idea of the time, because squinting at his watch in the dark is far too daunting a task at the minute.

Tim gets to his feet and claps the two of them on the shoulder.

“Can you two please play nice while I’m gone?”

Martin peevishly shrugs his hand off, and Jon nods, finishing his drink in silence.

Tim is gone, and they are alone, and Martin is looking at him.

In fact, he is sizing him up. He does it for a moment too long. Long enough for Jon to decide that no, actually, bugger this.

He hasn’t thought about topping himself for an entire day, and he certainly doesn’t intend to start now.

He gets to his feet and—well, after something like eleven mojitos, it can’t really be called ‘marching’, as such.

He ambulates with moderate success to the side of the courtyard that opens onto the street and goes out. He doesn’t make it far before he finds a sweet little black cat that approaches him sooner than he has a chance to try and entice it.

Jon has decided that he loves Monaco, actually.

The cat complains until he’s using both hands to scratch it under the chin and behind the ears at the same time, and by that point he’s far too focused on the task to notice he’s lost his balance until he hits the concrete.

Since he’s down there already, he stretches out on his back. The cat takes its opportunity and curls up on his chest.

He grins, and doesn’t at all notice the approaching legs until one of the attached feet nudges his shoulder.

When he meets Martin’s eyes, he spends a long moment schooling his expression into dignified detachment.

“Oh. Martin,” he says with a nonchalant frown. “Hello.”

Martin rolls his eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”

Jon looks from Martin to the already dozing cat and back.

“What a question.”

Martin sets his jaw and kneels to lift the cat off Jon’s chest. “Careful,” he tells it as he places it gently down nearby, “You’ve got no idea where he could have been.”

Jon sits up and considers Martin for a moment before wordlessly scrambling to his feet and taking off down the street. 

“Jon!” Martin cries after him, sounding rather tortured. Jon doesn’t look back, but it’s hard to evade him entirely when there are so many cats in window boxes and on stoops and they’re all so friendly.

Admittedly, he’s not actively trying to outrun Martin, but avoiding his scorn and disappointment and exploring the city is fun. He’s having fun. When did he last have fun?

What a depressing question. He discards it.

“Can we please go back?” Martin asks from a few paces behind, and Jon’s face warms from more than just the alcohol. We. Like they’re a group. Like they’re together.

“I want to find the cathedral,” Jon protests vaguely, keeping his pace.

“So you don’t even know where you’re going?” Martin’s pitch rises in alarm. How novel.

“N- mm. It’s a mystery,” he says, turning to glance at Martin as he goes. “Are you saying you aren’t compelled by a mystery?”

While he’s still walking backwards, Martin catches his wrist.

He tugs, but the grip holds fast.

Curses. Maledictions, even.

“Normal people just call that getting lost, Jon.”

“Wouldn’t you like me to get lost? I’m sure you’ve said as much before.”

Jon is certain he spies Martin’s smile for half a second.

He huffs. “I think I’d rather prevent a disappearance than report an accidental death where my only alibi is the victim.”

“Suit yourself,” Jon says, uncertain himself whether he sounds morose or cajoling. “But I would be out of your way.”

“Stop it,” Martin replies, with an edge under his tone.

“Let go.”

“No.”

Jon grumbles under his breath and continues.

“Do you have any idea where it is? At all?”

Jon squints, turning his head. Surely, Martin doubting his sense of direction is a fate worse than death.

“Mmm. Yes. Yes, definitely, it’s, er…”

“You’re a crap liar.”

“Curious,” Jon says haughtily, “Seeing as I am most certainly telling the truth. It’s, er, this way.”

What Martin has apparently not considered is that the warmth of his grip on Jon’s wrist is the strongest possible argument for him to take his sweet time getting anywhere.

It’s perfect. It’s utterly diabolical.

There’s no earthly way Martin will suspect a thing.

“Our Lady Immaculate has a four-manual pipe organ, you know.”

Martin sighs. “Oh. Really.”

“That’s four keyboards. Not to mention pedals.”

“Pedals?”

“Mm. Have you never seen someone playing one?”

“Um… no?”

“But you’re Catholic.”

Martin inhales. “I’m not cathedral-Catholic, I’m lectures-every-day-for-maximum-internalised-guilt-Catholic.”

Jon’s eyes widen. “Ah. Pardon me, then.”

For a moment he listens to their synchronised footsteps.

“Well,” he continues, shaking his head. “It’s rather impressive, actually—it’s a four limb activity. They used to have to pump air through them manually, although, these days, that part is operated with an electric motor. For a while they were steam-powered. Almost like the system itself was breathing. Isn’t that fascinating?”

Martin is frowning. “Yeah.”

“So, before steam power, there were people who had to operate the bellows manually, but because it was such taxing work, they were expensive, so most of the practice organists did was done on clavichord or harpsichord. But do you know what the funny thing is? About the harpsichord?”

For a dizzying moment, it feels as though Martin’s thumb rubs gently at his pulse point.

“I have the funniest feeling I’m about to find out.”

“Well, there’s something called decay in music. It—it refers to the natural duration of a note when it’s sounded on a given instrument. The reason the piano came to exist was because the harpsichord has remarkably quick note decay—and it lacks double escapement in the internal mechanisms, but, but I won’t bore you with that. So the piano was invented to circumvent the… the impermanence a harpsichord offered. Pianos have two different pedals for sustaining notes: there’s the sustain and the sostenuto, which is funny in itself, because both of those words mean the same thing.”

“Jon.”

His face heats. “Erm… yes?”

“You don’t even play piano.”

“Well, er, no, but—”

“Why do you know all that?”

Jon smiles sheepishly. “It’s- well, it’s interesting.”

Martin’s face goes through the five stages of grief. “Oh,” he says, “Right.”

They fall silent.

“So…” Martin ventures. “How does that relate back to the pipe organ, exactly?”

“Ah!”

Jon feels his mind whirring as it spools back up like an old computer.

“Well, you see, piano pedals… oh! Right. The piano was a bit of a topic departure, I apologise. But, the, ah, the harpsichord, on the other hand, didn’t have any pedals at all, so there was no way to simulate long note decays. And, and that’s funny, because organs—aside from being housed almost exclusively in churches, which extend the decay even further—have a positively gay- no. Wait. Lay. Lace?”

He stops and shakes his head, rubbing his forehead with his free hand for good measure. Maybe he overdid it a touch on the drinks.

Double digits rarely bode well.

“You know the word, don’t you? It’s, um… slow. Very slow. Like… like the thing the Titanic hit.”

Martin actually sort of laughs. He’s got dimples.

Jon’s not certain how he managed to forget, but Martin’s got dimples when he laughs.

Oh no.

“Glacial?” Martin supplies. Jon takes off walking again.

“Yes! Yes, thank you. Glacial note decay. So, so, there they are, all these organists rehearsing on their harpsichords which have blink-and-you’ll-miss-it note decay, probably all tearing at their powdered wigs in frustration. And then, around the time steam power is discovered, and they don’t need to pay bellows operators anymore, the piano is invented. So they finally have something that is a decent simulacrum of the organ—just in time for it to become inexpensive for them to rehearse on the real thing.”

Martin doesn’t respond.

“It’s, it’s a bit like that song, you know,” Jon clears his throat and sings in a voice hoarse from drinking, “It’s like rain on your wedding day. You know the one, Martin?”

“I hate that song.”

Jon smiles. “Is it the blatant disregard for what the word irony means?”

“Yes,” Martin says readily. “Stupid.”

Jon’s smile grows. “I have only the utmost respect for your wordsmithery, Martin, so I hate to be the one to tell you this, but that’s the point. Of the song.”

Martin’s brow wrinkles. “What?”

“It’s- it’s a- oh, Christ, why am I trying to sound intelligent after that much rum… er, it’s… yes. It’s a meta joke.”

He smirks. “Well, clearly there’s something the meta with that joke. It’s not funny.”

It’s probably been two and a half years since they’ve laughed, together, on purpose, at the same thing.

It’s like the crepuscular glow of the sun after a rainstorm. 

Martin trains his expression to its customary cool disinterest after a moment.

“I still don’t get it, though.”

At a crossroads, Jon inspects their options for a moment, then chooses one at random.

“Yes,” he says as they cross the street, “That’s the point. You’re supposed to think, hold on, none of these situations are actually ironic. That’s the irony. Which, well… isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?”

Martin narrows his eyes with a grin. “You are completely insufferable, Jonathan Sims.”

Jon returns the smile. “Which doesn’t say a great deal about your tastes in men, Martin Blackwood.”

His nose twitches as he forces his mouth into a line. “That’s fair.”

“My observations are only ever astute and salient. Oh, and succinct. We mustn’t forget succinct. You do know that brevity is the soul of wit, don’t you, Martin? Had you heard—”

Martin stops their progress with a roll of his eyes. “You’ve got no idea where this bloody church is, do you?”

Ah.

“Well, y- er, you see, if- if you just… erm, ah… no.”

“Great.”

“I just wanted to look around.”

“Jon.”

“W- I- what? What did I do?”

“You nearly got yourself killed because you wanted to look around?”

“No?! I- no? No, I don’t… what?”

“You were literally lying in the street when I got to you before. Like, where the cars go.”

Jon’s eyes widen. How many drinks did he have? Is there yet more idiocy he’s engaged in and already forgotten this evening? What other inexcusably blathering bullshit has he subjected Martin to?

Just how much does he need to castigate himself in the morning? Should he make an itemised list of the things he does remember? Where’s his phone?

Oh, fuck, he’s going to be sick.

His vision blurs and then blackens entirely.

Maybe his hearing goes, too, because when he regains his faculties, Martin is swearing under his breath, and Jon appears to have lost about three feet in height.

Failing a witch’s curse, he appears to have fallen on his arse.

Inconvenient.

“Don’t be angry with me,” he says, very quietly.

Martin groans. “I’m not angry, stupid. But you need to sleep. Let’s go.”

Jon digs his heels into the concrete below him in protest, which unfortunately gives Martin enough leverage to pull him to his feet.

A physicist he is not.

“I don’t want to.”

“Yeah, I know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep longer than six hours in a row.”

Jon shrugs peevishly. “There’s too much to do.”

Martin sighs and reaches to pat the top of Jon’s head twice. “The word ‘holiday’ really means nothing to you, doesn’t it?”

In a dizzying show of restraint, Jon says nothing about how on this occasion his reticence is due to how much more pleasant the company is at the moment.

Martin shifts his grip to Jon’s wrist again and sets off purposefully, glancing intermittently at his phone’s illuminated screen. Stupid maps and their stupid ability to lead people to places. They’re a scam. A conspiracy to prevent Jon from keeping Martin to himself for the whole evening.

Oh, god, Jon might be a creep. Is he creepy? Isn’t this- monopolising? Or, or, manipulation? In any case, it’s an inconvenience inflicted selfishly upon Martin for his own gain.

Not again. He’s only just stopped seeing Graham’s look of shocked affront when he tries to sleep at night.

Jon pulls and tugs and twists his arm in Martin’s grip, but it does nothing.

“You can go have your temper tantrum as soon as we get back to the hotel, Jon. Promise.”

Jon squares his shoulders.

“I don’t want to go back.”

“We’re going.”

“No.”

Martin throws his wrist away with a dismayed grunt. “You are so fucking infuriating sometimes, Jon, I swear.”

“Yet you voluntarily followed me out here,” Jon snaps.

“Yes, well,” Martin’s face twists in a sardonic parody of a smile, “I preferred you didn’t get yourself killed.”

“Did you?”

It’s an accusation, and the words taste sour even as they pass his lips.

“Don’t be so cruel,” Martin says, grabbing his wrist again and imperiously marching off, heedless of whether Jon’s feet are actually moving.

“Oh, I’m being cruel?”

This time, Jon hears him counting to ten.

“For your sake, Jon,” he says quietly, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

Jon gives a disparaging bark of laughter. “Your man- mag- mang- fuck. Your charity knows no human limit.”

“Equal and opposite to your selfishness then, you fucking- wanker,” Martin hisses.

“Were you somehow, miraculously, unaware of that when you married me? Last time I checked I didn’t coerce you into that.”

As they round a corner and the hotel comes into view, Martin lets go of Jon only to round on him with revulsion on his face.

“Because I saw you, Jon. Or- or who I thought you were. And an insufferable prick—which, yeah, let’s not mince words, was also true—was only part of it. You were kind and intelligent and funny, and—” The breath he sucks in is ragged and high-pitched as though it’s coinciding with a sob. “And invested in our life, or so I thought. But, alright, okay, yeah, I’ll level with you. You are every bit as nasty as you seem to think, and I was wrong about you. Are you- are you happy now?”

Jon reels as though the words hit him square in the face. Even if they had, they couldn’t sting more.

“Why,” he says, meeting Martin’s eyes and crossing his arms, “Then, are you still bothering with me?”

Martin returns his gaze. “I’ve got absolutely no idea.”

He turns on his heel and makes for the hotel entrance, where he stands watching until he’s certain Jon isn’t going to run off again.

Ah. 

Fuck.

Martin’s gone upstairs by the time Jon slinks into the bar, so there’s nobody to stop him from ordering an old fashioned and nursing it with a generous side of self-pity.

That is, he does until about fifteen minutes later, when he realises he’s struggling to keep his eyes open.

He finishes the drink and manages to make it into the lift at some point, maybe a few minutes later. His phone is in his pocket, but pulling it out is too much effort. Without checking, time is fuzzy around the edges. 

He doesn’t remember lifts ever causing such violent nausea before. That must be why, when he reaches his room, the key has taken on a certain unpleasant wavy quality that makes its true shape hard to grasp. Of course this hotel couldn’t have just had keycards. That would be too easy.

“Fuck,” he says as the thing slips from his hand, and he unthinkingly falls to his knees to retrieve it with an audible thud.

The nausea rises again in a threatening wave.

“Fuck, not here.”

There is a click as someone’s door opens nearby. Jon hopes it’s Danny.

It’s not Danny.

“Sorry,” he mutters, “Go to bed, I’ll be out of the way in a minute.”

“I’ll help,” Martin says groggily, kneeling in his boxers and t-shirt to get the key. He isn’t wearing his glasses.

“No, no, I’ve got it.”

“You’re a mess, Jon. Let me help you.”

Well, he can’t exactly argue against the veracity of that statement. He leans back on his haunches and instantly regrets it, closing his eyes against another bile-tinged deluge of illness.

There’s another click as Martin successfully unlocks the door.

“Come on. Can you stand?”

Jon manages to narrow his eyes. “I can take care of myself.”

Martin scoffs. “Okay. Get up, then.”

There is a long pause. “Valid point.”

Martin grabs his forearms and tugs, and the head-rush would be pleasant if it didn’t taste like vomit.

“Please move.”

“No, wait, where’s your phone—”

“Martin, please, I really don’t want to throw up on you.”

“Oh! Shit. Okay, here, this way.”

“No. Please just—”

“Your hair’s too long for you to puke unsupervised. Come on.”

His vision blurs with the telltale tears, but he’s somehow able to kneel and aim in time.

It’s far too sappy to suggest that the gentleness of Martin’s grip as he holds Jon’s hair back with one hand, pushing the remaining sweat-soaked frizz from his forehead with the other, makes it a pleasant experience.

It doesn’t.

But by god, it helps.

His eyes still run as he leans back. 

Martin takes Jon’s glasses from his face, and he guides his head against his knee a moment later. He’s saying something Jon can’t quite hear, resting a blessedly cool palm flat against his forehead.

“You shouldn’t brush your teeth,” he says softly. “Acid. But rinse your mouth out, you’ll feel better.”

“Can’t move.”

“Okay. In a minute.”

“Yes, in a minute.”

He isn’t entirely sure how, but he finds himself lying on his side on the bed without his jacket or belt. His vision clears a little.

“Martin?”

“What?”

His voice echoes in the bathroom.

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning up.”

“Please don’t.”

His head peeks out from the open doorway. “You’re hardly in a state to do it.”

“I’ve been humiliated enough for one night.”

Martin smiles, or it might be a trick of the light. “Puke’s the least of your worries, then, isn’t it?”

Jon grunts unhappily. It may be that he then dozes off for a few minutes, or it may be that his liver shuts off and his eyes stop working.

When he comes to, Martin is standing there, smoothing his hair back from his face. He isn’t smiling. It still feels good.

“Alright?” he asks, the quietness of his voice likely more from consideration of the fact that it must be three in the morning than from any actual gentleness.

“Yes. Fine.”

“Okay. Go to sleep.”

Jon moves to sit up, but Martin detains him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Seriously,” he says, “Sleep.”

Jon presses his hands between his thighs.

“Please don’t go yet.”

The longest moment of his life ensues.

Martin exhales slowly through his nose and slides down to sit beside the bed with his back to Jon.

His eyes slide shut for a few moments, and when they open, Martin is texting. He doesn’t mean to pry. Really, he doesn’t. Because it’s most likely Tim, anyway. Or Melanie. Or something.

By the time he registers the name Peter Lukas on the screen, he’s too far gone to actually react, but the last coherent thought he has is to remember.

The others are all set up on the balcony of Tim’s suite with breakfast when Jon finally joins them at 11:47 the next morning.

He wants to die.

The sunlight is not helping matters.

He hunkers further down into his coat despite the heat.

When he dares to glance in his direction, Martin is smiling, but not kindly. Like a shark.

Jon is afraid.

“Rough night?” Tim asks gently, gesturing for him to sit in the vacant spot between him and Danny.

“Quite.”

“Sleep alright?” 

“No.”

Danny starts tearing bits of toast and handing them to Jon, who is currently too much of a zombie to protest. He begins eating them.

“Well, you look awful,” Martin chirps far too loudly from the other end of the table, meant to seat eight.

“It’s probably all the vomit,” Jon agrees dejectedly. “Adds a certain je ne sais quoi.”

“Blends with your natural vibe perfectly.”

Normally Tim would laugh at a joke that toes the line of proper social decorum. But when Jon glances at him, he’s not smiling.

Jon sighs and rests his forehead on the cool glass of the table, and Tim’s chair scrapes. A moment later, he hears his voice several feet away.

“Marto,” he says, “Mate, I know there’s… history, and everything, but just… tone it down, maybe. He’s looking pretty rough.”

“Only seems fair,” Martin says with an edge of bitterness.

“Martin.”

“What?”

“Why are you being so mean?”

Martin pauses, and when he resumes, his tone is disdainful. “I really don’t want to have this discussion in front of him.”

“Look at him,” Tim says, and in the part of his brain that’s conscious enough to be registering what they’re saying, Jon imagines their faces twisting with pity. “He doesn’t know what year it is.”

Martin sighs. “We- c- can I be honest?”

“Wish you would.”

Jon adjusts his position to at least pillow his forehead on his hands. Much better.

“We—he’s—” he cuts himself off with a groan. “I can’t do all this a second time. I can’t trust him only for him to turn around and—do it again. Or, or do something worse. It… it nearly killed me.”

“I get it. I do. But you didn’t see the bit where it almost killed him, too.”

Martin sighs. “Look, I—I understand that, but… but I’m scared, Tim. I- I thought, you know, eighteen months, or whatever, that would be enough time. I wouldn’t love him anymore. But—”

Tim makes a cajoling sound and there’s some sort of scuffle. Jon doesn’t look, because he’s contemplating whether drinking the toiletries in the ensuite in his room would send him into a deep enough coma to feel like a human when he wakes up.

“Don’t you dare start.”

“Martin,” Tim says, and Jon doesn’t need to look to see the shit-eating grin on his face.

“I’m serious.”

“Oh, I know.”

Martin grunts, and a moment later Jon feels Tim sitting beside him again.

“Fine,” Martin says. “Whatever. Sorry, Jon.”

Jon lifts his head and squints, hearing his name, but waves a hand and returns to resting his head. He doesn’t recall it having been so heavy yesterday.

The others keep talking.

After Danny is satisfied that Jon’s eaten enough dry toast, he must actually doze off for a minute or two, because the next thing he’s aware of is Tim and Danny hoisting him to his feet and taking his arms hostage to get him back to his own room in one piece.

“I’m sorry I’m such an inconvenience,” he says, grabbing Tim’s collar when he goes to stand upright, having deposited him on his bed. “I’m sorry you’re always left with my mess.”

Tim sighs patiently, disentangling Jon’s hand from his shirt, and then placing his open palm over Jon’s whole face.

“Don’t worry,” he says, “You’ve always been a disaster. I know what I signed up for.”

Jon smiles peacefully and Tim removes his hand.

“Get some sleep.”

He does.

There’s a knock at the door.

Jon sits upright, opening his eyes, and it’s already dark again. On the upside, there aren’t railway spikes trying to drive their way through the bone of his skull from the inside anymore.

He grunts.

The door opens, and Tim, dressed in a tuxedo, grins in at him, surrounded by a halo of light from the hallway.

“Hey, boss.”

“Can we save the pet names for when I’m not semi-comatose, Timothy?”

He moves into the room, leaving the door ajar, and sits on the edge of the bed. “Yes, Jonathan,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

“Mrngh.”

He smirks. “Oh, that good, eh?”

“Just divine,” Jon says, flopping back down onto his pillow. “Truly.”

“We’re going to the casino,” Tim says, standing. “I thought you’d probably want to sit this one out, but there’s time if—”

“No,” Jon says, “Excellent intuition.”

“Cool! Okay. Well, I’ll have my phone on me.”

Jon gives him the closest approximation of a smile he can muster.

Before either of them speak again, the doorway darkens.

“Tim,” says Martin’s voice, all clipped formality. It’s… distasteful.

Jon raises himself on his elbows, only to collapse back down immediately.

There may, if he ever actually goes and sees a psychologist or something, come a day when he doesn’t feel decidedly lightheaded seeing Martin in a suit, but today is not that day.

“Are we going?”

“You look lovely,” Jon says softly, dearly hoping he won’t be heard. Martin’s silhouette on the bed shakes its head.

“Mm. Thanks,” he says uncomfortably, then: “Tim. Let’s go.”

“Right, right,” Tim says, and moves back towards the door. 

He turns to face Jon again. “Be good. Oh, and Martin said don’t go out and get yourself killed.”

“Tim,” Martin says, voice rising in distress.

Jon doesn’t laugh at him.

It’s funny, that’s hardly his fault.

“Bye!” Tim says cheerily, and then they’re gone.

Jon stares up at the ceiling in the dark.

When he can’t stop himself anymore, he reaches over to pull his phone off charge and opens the browser, squinting in the blinding light of the screen.

It’s a mistake.

He knows it’s going to be a mistake.

He Googles the name Peter Lukas anyway.

It is—instantly and predictably—a mistake.

The results, of which there are many thousands, speak of a mysterious and horribly wealthy shipping magnate—magnate!—who appears to have a habit of fastidiously avoiding cameras.

He’s probably too good-looking to allow it, lest his privacy be permanently compromised. Especially since the relationship with his colleague means he’s no longer an eligible bachelor. 

The Lukas family engages in philanthropy, funding all sorts of institutions and scholarships and research grants. So, lack of expertise on basic number-processing software notwithstanding, he’s probably at least moderately intelligent on top of fabulously wealthy.

There is no way Jon can compete with someone like this.

It occurs to him, however, that there is a factor much more likely to have killed his chances. Given that his recent encounters with him have been limited mostly to regurgitating the contents of his stomach, and, yet worse, his heart and brain, it’s safe to assume he’s destroyed any possibility of Martin looking in his direction without contempt rather comprehensively.

Stupid, stupid feelings. Stupid Peter Lukas and his stupid inherited hundreds of millions and no doubt excellent jawline and dress sense.

Jon falls asleep stewing.

He awakens, blearily aware of a sound outside his door.

He waits.

“Oi,” drawls a voice.

Fear prickles at the back of his neck until he recognises it.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.”

Jon sits up and gropes for his glasses on the nightstand.

The door—which had apparently been left unlocked—creaks open.

“Oh!” Martin says. “Thought you were sleeping.”

Jon smiles in the dark. “And that was the context in which you were banging on my door at…” He lifts the phone that was still in his hand when he fell asleep. “Two o’clock in the morning?”

“Yeah! And?”

Oh, dear, it appears someone might have had one too many at the casino.

“Nothing,” Jon says breezily. “Nothing at all. Can I help you with something?”

Martin takes two steps into the room. “You’re so annoying.”

Jon actually laughs. “Correct.”

“N—no,” Martin drawls, leaning forward and pointing in… sort of Jon’s direction, for emphasis. “You’re supposed to be offended.”

“My apologies,” Jon says. “It isn’t new information.”

“Well!” Martin advances another couple of steps. “You know what is new bloody information, Jon? Jonathan bloody Sims?”

He’s grinning. “No, Martin bloody Blackwood, I don’t. Please do enlighten me.”

“Do you know I read, like, three separate articles about double escapement this morning? I know what it is now. I could probably bore you with it, actually.”

“Feel free,” Jon replies.

“No! No, you, you’re doing it again. Like I said, you’re annoying.”

Jon flips the lamp on.

Martin, flushed with the alcohol, was already scowling, but he recoils with a little hiss when the light surprises him.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says, doing rather a pitiful job of not chuckling fondly as he speaks. “I thought you’d… maybe prefer to see the affront on my face.”

“You’re stupid.”

“Again, Martin, you might have more luck if you told me something of which I’m not already aware.”

Martin kneels on the bed by Jon’s feet, his scowl deepening. “Well, are you aware of how inconvenient you are?”

Jon strokes his chin. “Mm, no, I don’t think so. Please elucidate, won’t you?”

Martin’s eyes narrow. “I was so comfortable. I was finished! I’d put you away in a little box, and I’d dealt with it, and,” he pauses to swipe his palms together twice, dismissively, “And I was done.”

“Right.”

“And then you—you—you have the gall, the, the audacity,” he hisses.

Jon tells himself that the smile on his face bears absolutely no resemblance to that of the Cheshire Cat.

“Yes,” he interjects, “Yes, I think you’ve mentioned the audacity.”

“Yeah! The bloody audacity to- to, to, to just waltz in, like I hadn’t just spent nearly two years thinking—”

He cuts himself off by pressing his face to the duvet and yelling into it.

“Thinking,” he continues at last, his forehead still pressed to the covers somewhere near Jon’s leg, “Thinking about—about mostly you, and wondering what I did, and, and why I wasn’t good enough for you.”

Jon’s face falls and there is a painful twinge in his chest.

“And! And I got there. I could look in the mirror and say that I didn’t love you anymore and mean it.”

Jon touches his ring.

“Yes,” he says. “You ought to be proud.”

“I was,” Martin says with a sneer, lifting his face and shoving his forefinger into Jon’s chest over his heart. “And you just—you came back and you broke it.”

Jon’s mouth opens uselessly.

“So, so twice now, you’ve—you take a fucking sledgehammer to my entire life because you felt like it. Do you know how annoying that is?”

Jon shuffles away from him and out of the bed, keeping his eyes on him as though he’s a cornered animal. He offers Martin his forearm, his fist clenched. “Come on. You should- you should probably get to bed.”

“Fucking—sleep all day then try to tell me about functional bloody sleep, I swear…” Martin grumbles, getting to his feet unassisted.

When he’s upright, he stumbles, and Jon reaches to catch him, but he recoils, his hands raised defensively.

“I’m fine.”

“Alright,” Jon says lightly. “Sorry. Go on.”

Martin appears to be imagining a tightrope as he walks slowly, placing his feet heel-to-toe as he goes. Jon walks a few feet behind him, hands extended in readiness.

To his credit, Martin manages to unlock his own door, which is better than what Jon managed last night.

He goes to follow him in for safety’s sake, but Martin tugs the key from the lock and throws it at him.

He blinks.

“Okay.”

Martin, not yet satisfied, pulls his wallet from his back pocket and throws it. His phone follows in the same fashion.

Jon breathes in.

“I’m sensing some aggression.”

“Ha, ha, you stupid—fucking—dick.”

“I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.”

Martin’s upper lip curls in contempt, but it doesn’t escape Jon’s notice that when he goes to poke him in the chest again, his finger doesn’t make contact.

“I can do it myself, thank you very much.”

“Okay,” Jon says, and he waits until Martin’s back is turned to collect his belongings from the floor. The door is still open when he stands up, so he goes in, fully intending to turn the light on for him, leave his things on a flat surface, and go back to his own room.

Martin is already sitting on his bed, lifting one foot onto the opposite knee.

Jon flicks the light on and stands awkwardly watching him struggle for a moment.

“Er, would you—”

“Bugger off,” Martin spits, and Jon nods, not advancing.

After another ten seconds, he unobtrusively kneels as far to the side as he can while still being able to reach and unlaces the shoe for him.

“Shut up,” he snaps.

“I didn’t—”

Martin turns to him and lifts a finger to his lips to shush him.

Jon nods obediently, leaning over slightly to untie the other shoelace.

Martin falls limply back onto his bed, his arms out, and wiggles both feet until the shoes fly off.

“You’re stupid.”

“Yes, Martin, I hadn’t forgotten.”

He waves a hand in Jon’s direction.

“Had to be sure.”

“Naturally.”

“You’d better stop.”

Jon blinks. “Stop—stop what, exactly?”

“All of it,” Martin says, his hand dancing in the air for emphasis, “Stop- stop trying to be nice to me and make jokes and especially stop- stop looking at me like that when you think I can’t see you.”

Jon’s heart sinks.

“Yes, I’m… I’m sure Peter doesn’t appreciate that.”

Martin turns his head towards Jon and screws his face up in confusion.

“What—”

He pauses, laughing incredulously.

“Oh my god, Jon, did you think- did you seriously think Peter—”

Jon’s face flames. “I’d be glad to be wrong,” he says hastily.

Martin sits upright.

“He’s just my boss. I can’t stand him—I think I might have told him to kill himself once.”

God Himself could descend surrounded by hosts of angels from the clouds above at this moment and it wouldn’t be a stronger argument for His existence.

Jon schools his expression into reserved indifference.

“Hm.”

“Hm? Don’t bloody hm me, Jon, you’re the- the kicked puppy here. Don’t even—don’t even attempt—”

A smile curls Jon’s lips. “Sorry,” he says. “Are- are you sure?”

“Am I sure? Are you mental?”

Jon timidly meets his eyes. “I- I mean, I haven’t been formally diagnosed, but—”

Martin’s leaned close enough in his bafflement that he is able to place his open palm on the side of Jon’s face and shove him away with a dismayed groan. “Shut up,” he says, “I hate you.”

To keep the smile from his face, Jon bites his cheek so hard he tastes copper.

“Yes. Yes, Martin, I think you mentioned.”

Martin narrows his eyes to slits, and swipes his glasses off when he decides that that isn’t scornful enough.

There is no point in Jon pretending it is not the most adorable thing he’s ever seen.

He laughs again, and Martin nudges him in the chest with a foot.

“Go away.” 

Jon stands, pulling Martin’s things from his pocket. “Yes, I’m going. Where shall I put your things?”

“Don’t care,” Martin says, turning and depositing his face amongst the pillows.

Jon places the wallet and key on the nightstand, bending to retrieve the cord of Martin’s charger and plugging it into his phone.

The screen lights up.

There are three messages from Peter.

Jon glances nervously at Martin.

He could swipe the notifications away. He’s hardly a romantic rival, but Martin doesn’t like him, and he deserves not to think about work first thing when he wakes up.

He stares down at the screen, narrowing his eyes. He might not even realise that it was Jon that did it, when he checks his phone in the morning. He might not notice anything at all.

But how many promises has he made in the last several weeks? 

How ardently and sincerely has he sworn never to break his trust again?

How small a thing did his friendship with Oliver seem at the time?

Jon places the phone face-down next to the wallet and key with a frown.

He looks back at Martin, now breathing slowly as though he may already be asleep, and the frown resolves into a gentle smile.

“Sleep well,” he whispers, turning to go. He doesn’t quite find the bravery to look back again before he closes the door behind him.

The train is at noon the next day, and Martin is utterly miserable the entire way back to Nice. But Jon doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t gloat about the reversal, and he doesn’t tease him for the things he said last night.

He’s rather proud of himself, actually.

But Tim, when they board the flight for London at last, forces Jon into the middle seat—the conniving bastard—and has his nose buried deep in some horrid romance novel the entire flight.

When they’re in the air, Jon puts his chin to his chest. Admittedly, he’s not particularly interested in the possibility of encountering Martin’s cutting remarks. He has always gotten a bit—snappy, when he feels vulnerable. Jon would hate to dislodge the thing resembling peace between them.

So he closes his eyes to the deafening roar of the engines, clinging to the memory of Martin’s touch on his wrists and his forehead and his neck.

They aren’t exactly kisses, but they’re better than he deserves.

At Heathrow, Jon wakes up to something poking him in the cheek.

It’s Tim’s finger.

“Ngh?”

“We’re here.”

“Mrgh.”

He fell asleep with his head straight down. The angles aren’t right.

The- the pillow? The thing his head is resting on feels much more comfortable than a balled-up jacket or something.

He lifts his head from Martin’s arm. He’s squinting disapprovingly.

“Oh,” he manages sheepishly. “I’m… you could have shoved me. I’m- I’m sorry.”

“Hmph.”

As they disembark, Tim manoeuvres himself so that he’s between the two of them. Jon heavily suspects he does this only to lean forward and stage-whisper: “Who do you think put your head there in the first place, stupid? Wasn’t me.”

Jon doesn’t manage to banish the heat from his cheeks for the rest of the journey back to his flat.

In the evening, as he sits at the kitchen table with a pallid ready meal rapidly going cold beside him, Beatrice bumps her head into his arms and face until he relents and takes her in his arms with an indulgent frown. She purrs like a well-oiled motor and bites at his cheek and eyebrow.

“Can you smell all the pining, Bea?” he asks in the empty quiet. “Or are you trying to tell me that you’re a dastardly emotional vampire who feeds on suffering, and I’m your latest unwitting prey?”

She chirps.

“Excellent point, darling.”

He kisses the top of her head and watches the collection of half-empty liquor bottles on the shelf above the stove. They don’t call this evening as they normally would. If he gets too drunk, there’s a possibility he could forget the nuances of the colour Martin’s face turned from alcohol and fury in the half light, or the way his laugh sounded while he clutched Jon’s wrist, or even the sensation of his skin. Who knows how long it could be before—

Hold on.

His mind throws images at him faster than his comprehension can parse meaning from them.

Who do you think put your head there in the first place, stupid?

I could look in the mirror and say that I didn’t love you anymore and mean it.

Eighteen months, or whatever, that would be enough time. I wouldn’t love him anymore. But—

But.

But?

No.

No, Jon’s got some sort of… of alcohol induced psychosis, or maybe… spontaneous delusions. He must have. Because he’s seeing threads where there most certainly are none. Because there is no earthly way that this is the case. He has misunderstood. He’s misread. He’s misapprehended entirely.

He must only have been fooling himself into thinking that he speaks English all this time. Because—

Martin’s not—

He doesn’t—

He can’t—

Because Jon doesn’t deserve it.

Because Martin told him not to wait, because—

“Oh,” he says aloud, “Holy fuck.”

Chapter Text

Jon has learned lessons in his life.

He does not learn very quickly, but he does like to think that, once a lesson is internalised, it sticks.

The lesson beating itself into his skull as he steps into the lift in Georgie and Melanie’s building is that—although he is a good friend—Danny Stoker does not excel at advice outside the category of what one could call… well, bad.

Last week—which, in itself, was a couple of weeks after Monaco—Jon had spent a not insignificant amount of time in the evenings on the phone with Danny, begging and pleading to be excused from the social event to which he is so imminently about to arrive.

The wedding parties are meeting to discuss a gift for Tim and Sasha. And it would be fine, conceptually, if this didn’t involve sitting for an entire evening in his ex-girlfriend’s flat with three people who love nothing more than to bring discord and torment to his life, Danny, Georgie, and… and Martin.

Besides, he’s terrible with gifts.

Granted, he has found himself idly—desperately—clinging to his own prickliness. It’s something of a badge of pride for him now. Or a protective ward.

The thought of all the impending vulnerability has literally broken him out in a rash.

Alright, that could, admittedly, also be the stress. The wedding is six weeks away, now, and there are still more social occasions and appointments and nonsense, each of which is a veritable minefield of opportunities to make a fucking idiot of himself in front of Martin again. So perhaps he might be panicking a little.

To top it off, Tim’s asked him to give a speech at the reception, for some bloody reason.

He’s not even best man.

Speaking of whom, Danny’s advice—rather than the much more helpful I’ll make an excuse for you, and you can sit this one out—had simply been that Jon should elect of his own volition not to worry about it.

His obsessive anxiety was cured immediately.

It isn’t Danny’s fault. He’s a few years younger than the rest of them, and throughout his life, any disastrousness on his part has been incidental rather than habitual.

Jon cannot relate, but it’s hardly Danny’s fault that the shambling disaster calling itself Jonathan Sims couldn’t relax and not worry about something if his life depended on it.

So as he stands, waiting, outside the door to Georgie’s flat, he repeats to himself that it’s—it’s good to be here. He can’t very well skip out on doing something nice for the two people who’ve tolerated him for a decade now.

As Georgie opens the door for him and they mutter greetings, Jon fixes his gaze on the floor in hopes of seeing and socialising with the Admiral before he has to face the horror of a human interaction.

Georgie squeezes his shoulder as she edges around him in the entryway, and when he glances at her face, she’s smiling, not without something approaching mischief.

He doesn’t care for it.

“You okay?” she asks lightly.

Jon redirects his eyes to the floor. Still no cat, alas.

“Mm. Mm! Great. Excellent. Yes.”

“Jon.”

“Yes?” he asks disingenuously. 

When he looks up, she’s frowning.

“Suit yourself,” she says. “D’you want a drink?”

He hesitates. “Um, erm… no. Thank you. I’m—I’m alright.”

Georgie raises her eyebrows. “Right,” she says, and heads for the kitchen. Jon inhales deeply and approaches the lounge.

Melanie sits with her back to the sofa, and behind her Helen is draped languidly across it, her fingers busy in the task of braiding Melanie’s short hair.

Danny is in the armchair, a beer in his hand as he listens with rapt attention to the conversation unfolding between Jane and Martin, both sat on the floor and discussing the finer details of the practicalities of an at-home pizza oven.

As Jon stands, motionless, his fists balled in the fabric of his shirt, Danny tears himself away from the discussion long enough to grin at Jon with a wave. Jon nods and stays where he is, floating like a spectre in the doorway.

If he makes an idiot of himself this evening, at least he won’t be a drunk one.

After another moment of indecision, he kneels on the floor between the armchair where Danny sits and Jane. Maybe, if he doesn’t sit directly next to him, Martin won’t—suspect anything. And if he doesn’t notice anything, they don’t need to talk about it, and if they don’t talk about it, Jon doesn’t need to live in a reality where Martin confirms that he’s an unhinged conspiracy theorist.

Jon might have been alone too much since Monaco.

Distance feels safer.

“You’ve been quiet,” Danny says, placing what feels like the bottom of his beer bottle on Jon’s head as an apparent gesture of greeting. The conversation lulls.

“Still got a hangover from weeks ago,” Jon mutters with a frown.

“Oh, yeah,” Melanie says, turning her head only slightly so as not to disturb Helen from her braiding. “How was the trip?”

Jon grunts.

“Great!” Danny says.

“Mostly,” Martin adds morosely, and Jon adds his tone to the mental list of things to overanalyse later this evening when he’s trying to sleep.

“Oh?” Helen grins in Martin’s direction. “What happened, sweetie?”

Martin shakes his head. “Nothing. Nothing, it’s just… someone got shitfaced and decided he should lie in the road to talk to a cat.”

Jon may or may not have been distracted as Martin speaks by the Admiral’s entry into the room, his hypnotically fluffy tail held aloft as he comes to rub his face on Jon’s knee.

Jon looks up, blinking, to see everyone looking expectantly at him.

He may have missed something.

“Hm?”

They all laugh.

He scowls.

“And then,” Martin continues, “After narrowly avoiding death once, the same someone decided to go looking for some—some stupid bloody church in the opposite direction from where it actually was, even though it was past one in the morning.”

“I was wondering where you two ran off to,” Danny says innocently.

Helen’s eyes widen like those of a predator that’s just locked on to its target.

“Boys!” she says, theatrically scandalised. “Do you two have some news for us?”

“No,” they say together.

The room falls quiet.

“Anyway,” Danny says, clearing his throat. “Did you guys know Martin is fatal at a poker table? You’d think with all the blushing and everything—”

Jane reaches to pinch Martin’s cheek and he swats her hand away with an irritated grunt.

“But—but he completely wiped the floor with us. It was embarrassing.”

“Hm! Jon struck me as the gambler,” Melanie says, frowning in surprise.

“Melanie,” Jon says, shaking his head, “I only gamble on appropriate things, like—like my long-term health, and, and major life decisions.”

“Oh, so that’s how you ever got the nerve to propose to Martin?”

Danny spits the sip of beer he was drinking.

Martin puts his face in his hands.

Melanie tips her head back with a victorious smirk as the others laugh.

“So nothing juicy?” Helen asks, wiping a mirthful tear from her eye with a long finger.

“No,” Martin says, and Jon can’t decide whether he imagines the edge of haste to it. “Nope. No. Just—just a normal weekend. Except for the bit where Jon nearly died and then puked his guts out.” He shoots a sidelong, haughty glare in Jon’s direction. “Almost like he shouldn’t have been drinking so much.”

“He’s never had the strongest stomach,” Georgie says lightly, having chosen the worst possible moment to reenter from the kitchen with a plate of charcuterie nonsense which she deposits on the coffee table. She gives Jon a blithe smile as she sits on the floor beside Melanie.

Martin scoffs. “You should see him after white wine. God, he’s like an angry zombie.”

“Did—sorry, did I leave the room when I wasn’t paying attention?” Jon asks incredulously.

Martin leans forward to point directly at him. “Now you know how I felt on the bloody plane!” he says, and laughs.

Laughs.

This is not the icy reception Jon was anticipating, and frankly, he would appreciate a refund of the entire week he’s spent dreading this evening.

“Anyway,” Georgie says, reaching across Melanie to stab a cornichon with a toothpick. “You say that like those are embarrassing facts. If I wanted to embarrass you, I’d explain to everyone why Tim calls you boss.”

Martin turns his head to her with a delighted smile. “Oh, please, I love that one.”

A lesser man would confront Martin and tell him that, in fact, it’s very irresponsible to bandy a word like that about when one’s pathetically infatuated former spouse is mere feet away.

“Right, so, in second year, Jon and Sasha and I were all in the same Classics unit, so we got grouped together for a group—homework—thing. The lecturer put us together because we sat together a lot, which was… fine. It was some sort of close study of an excerpt from the Aeneid, but it wasn’t a final paper or anything. The point was to read the text itself. Not a big deal.”

Jon’s skeleton is filing a divorce petition with his flesh as she speaks.

“But on the day we arranged to meet up in the library and get it done—oh, and Tim was there, because he was really good at multitasking, so he would sit and do his own work and give us moral support—in walks this idiot.” 

She points in Jon’s direction with an amused smirk.

“Who I’d had the terrible sense to start going out with a few months before.”

“At least you got better,” Martin offers, and the two of them share a conspiratorial smile.

“Good point. Anyway. He walks in with three separate timetables for the entire day. One for each of us. Like, it had fifteen minute blocks, it was colour-coded, by hand, in highlighter, I think he’d even assigned reading in some bits—”

“It seemed efficient!” Jon protests meekly, pressing a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes.

“Are you a real person?” Melanie asks.

“Debatable,” Jane replies.

“Oh, shall we?” Helen says, laughing.

“And,” Georgie continues, “Sasha and I thought bugger that, obviously, but then… he was really sad we didn’t want to use it. So we tried it, and in his defence, the day itself went pretty smoothly, but—”

“Georgie,” Jon pleads.

“We got a 53%.”

A dismayed silence falls.

“Oof,” Helen says.

“So! Tim said that that was actually a higher achievement than some middle-management might get, either in terms of approval ratings or objective measurements. So,” Georgie turns her gaze to Jon again, beaming innocently. “Boss.”

“You’re like if old corduroy trousers were a person,” Melanie tells him sadly.

“No,” Jane says, “He’s like if you left a depressed plank of wood in the forest for six years then granted it sentience.”

Martin’s started laughing so hard that it’s become inaudible.

“You’re like the neglected youngest child in a family of professors of being insufferable nerds,” Helen says.

“Guys,” Martin croaks desperately, wiping tears from his eyes.

“I think you’re cool, Jon,” Danny says defiantly, still ineffectually trying to mop his beer from his trouser leg with his sleeve.

“That’s a lie,” Jon tells him, though he gives him a smile in weak acknowledgement. “I—I mean, I appreciate the sentiment, but… I’m very much not.”

“Self-awareness is an important step in recovery,” Georgie says sagely. Jon narrows his eyes.

“Recovery implies there’s any hope for change. You’re too kind, Georgina.”

“Boo,” Melanie says with a frown. “It’s no fun if you join in.”

“Oh, my apologies,” Jon begins with faux cordiality. “I meant, of course, er… oh, no, my heretofore healthy self-image. Behold, how it is destroyed, bruised and deflated, like a supermarket grape on the floor. Alas.”

Martin laughs again, and Jon can’t help it, because he’s transfixed by those damned dimples. He gives a lopsided grin despite his best efforts.

“Don’t get cocky,” Helen tells him. “Doesn’t count if it’s Martin laughing at one of your jokes.”

Martin stops abruptly. “Hey, why not?”

“It is indicative of awful taste,” Jon agrees nonchalantly.

“You’d laugh if he broke out ‘why did the chicken cross the road’,” Jane says, patting Martin’s shoulder.

“Or ‘hi, hungry, I’m Jon’,” Melanie laughs.

“Would not,” Martin protests, blushing. “A- And, besides, if he made that joke, he’d say,” he pushes his glasses down his nose to sneer condescendingly over them, dropping his voice a half-octave. “Hello, hungry,” he pauses while the others cackle. “I’m in existential dread at the unknowable horrors of the human experience.”

Georgie especially likes that one.

They’re both traitors.

In the end, they settle on a meat smoker for the gift. It’s a rare example of a hobby Sasha has yet to try, and choosing a gift for Tim that involves fire has never gone poorly.

The following Friday, Jon has plans.

Granted, they’re both technically business, but it’s pleasant to do something that for once doesn’t involve the kind of social mortification one is exposed to when they keep the same circle for around ten years.

His first appointment has him leaving work an hour early, and ending up at the tailor’s shop around four-thirty. The tailor is apparently an old friend of the celebrant Tim and Sasha have enlisted, who herself is a friend from Sasha’s first job out of uni. Both are working at a reduced rate as a favour. 

The tailor’s name is Adelard. He’s a slow-moving, quiet man, probably in his sixties, and he is dressed immaculately, which makes Jon feel rather like a sideshow oddity as he’s poked and prodded and inspected during his fitting. It isn’t as though he dresses in rags for work, but he’s never been quite as conscious of how unironed all of his shirts are as he is while Adelard moves about the shop, sometimes holding a swatch of fabric next to Jon’s face with a thoughtful frown, or pressing a suit jacket into his hands while muttering to himself.

It all feels a bit arcane.

Finally, after one and a half hours of ritual measurements and muttering, Adelard dismisses him, telling him, as he goes, to invest in an autumnal palette.

Jon nods along to this advice, even as he wonders what the hell it means, and leaves.

His second appointment of the evening is getting to the pub Basira named—and then, in frustration, texted to him so he wouldn’t forget—to pay her and Daisy back for their favour of several weeks ago.

He likes Daisy. She’s pointy.

Jon understands pointy.

He already liked Basira—surprised though he was to discover that after his disastrous display, she began chatting with him at lunch and when she passed his cube to go to the photocopier—but Daisy, who’s just as reserved, is charming in a slightly intimidating sort of way. She’s taller than him, and she’s wearing a paisley-patterned off the shoulder blouse that reveals a large, starburst-shaped scar on her shoulder, and she looks at him like she’s challenging him to ask.

He doesn’t ask.

They’re both very comfortable telling him when they think he’s spouting bullshit, too, which is an important aspect of his friendships, given his tendency to spout bullshit.

An hour or two into their conversation, Basira trains her gaze on him and raises an eyebrow like she’s cocking a gun.

“So,” she says. “Jon.”

He looks between both of their faces. “Y- er. Yes?”

“How’s it going with your husband?”

His brow furrows and he unconsciously lifts a hand to his ear to check whether his skin broke with the sudden rush of blood.

“He’s—he’s not my husband.”

Daisy’s eyes widen in sudden fascination. “Who is he, then?”

“W- Well, he’s- he’s my- my ex-husband. Actually. So. There—there’s a marked difference.”

“Eh,” Daisy says, finishing her drink. “One letter at best.”

“It’s- it’s two.”

She gives him a disparaging frown. “Whatever. So what is going on with this—ex-husband? Basira said you made a bit of a tit of yourself at that party.”

Jon shoots a glare in Basira’s direction, but she’s smiling serenely.

“That—is not—a horribly inaccurate summation of events,” he admits tiredly. “But… well, to cut a rather convoluted story short, uh, we were married for a little over three years by the time the divorce was finalised. And it happened because I, I… cheated, and, and that was that, more or less.”

He swirls his half-full pint with a frown.

“Until a—a mutual friend of ours—”

“The hot one,” Basira interjects to Daisy, who nods knowingly.

“Yes. He- um. Asked both of us to be groomsmen in his wedding, so, we’ve seen a lot of each other recently. And I’d convinced myself I—I cared about him, as one does, but that isn’t- that’s not all. Unfortunately.”

It’s like pulling teeth to say it out loud.

“As- As I’m quite certain Basira will readily attest, I’m—well, I’m apparently still… still horribly in love. With him.”

Basira nods. “It’s—it’s really bad.”

Daisy reaches across the table, taking Jon’s glass, and drains it.

He raises an eyebrow.

“I needed that more than you,” she explains. “Because that’s all—what’s the word? Oh. Yeah. Pretty fucking ridiculous.”

Jon finds himself laughing. “Yes,” he says. “It rather is.”

“So,” she says, “Does he hate you, or what?”

“Daisy,” Basira hisses.

“What? Isn’t that a normal question?”

Basira gives Jon such a sincere look of pity that he feels a little ashamed.

“Yeah,” she says, “But does this look like a guy who can accurately assess other people’s feelings?”

Daisy laughs so hard she has to lean over and rest her head on Basira’s shoulder.

“Good one, love.”

“I don’t think she was joking,” Jon says, looking down at the tabletop. “And… and she wasn’t exactly wrong.”

“Right,” Daisy says with a nod. “So… he does hate you?”

“Maybe.”

“God,” Basira says, rolling her eyes. “No wonder Sasha was so sick of you two and your drama.”

“What?” Jon breathes, a genuine twinge of offence in his voice.

“Oh. Sorry, no, not- not sick. She was just—um, telling me about it a bit. She said watching you two dance around each other was a bit excruciating because it’s really obvious Martin’s in love with you.”

Jon feels his suddenly icy blood rush down his spine like water from a bath.

He needs to get his ears checked. Either he’s losing his hearing entirely, or he’s started having spontaneous bouts of idiopathic aphasia.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Daisy cradles her chin against her fists and watches Jon intently, smiling.

“Did I stutter?” Basira says flatly.

“N—no,” Jon says, trembling. “No, you… no, I just, I- I’m failing to—to, to, erm, to understand. What you said. I don’t—I don’t think I—follow.”

“Oh, no wonder you like him,” Daisy interjects. “This is fun.”

“Remember the party?” Basira asks gravely.

“Nrgh,” Jon grunts. “I try not to.”

“Hah. Well. You know when Martin had to get all—security detail on you? You know, after you made a complete dickhead of yourself to that poor Graham bloke?”

Jon gently places his face in his hands. “Yes, Basira. Thank you for the reminder, but I recall.”

“Right. Good. Well, he said—when he asked me to help, he didn’t say, like, ‘I hate this drunk dickhead, can you help me get him out of here’. He was like,” Basira takes on a shoddy approximation of a Northern accent. “‘Oh, oh no, he always gets like this when he drinks, and he’s going to be so embarrassed, can you help him’. He didn’t give a shit that you’d just- just completely socially humiliated him. He was worried about you. So—so Sasha’s probably got a point.”

Jon’s perception defocuses. He may or may not be having some sort of cardiac episode, or a stroke, or an aneurysm, or—

He is vaguely aware of Daisy’s voice. “You killed him,” she says, “That’s no fun.”

At this point, their evening is cut unfortunately short, because, as Jon finds out a few minutes later, his nose starts pissing blood when he loses consciousness and falls face-first on the table.

Two days later, he’s woken by Benedick biting at his nose, purring as though that will mean he’s forgiven for such a crime.

He’s correct. But that’s irrelevant.

It’s half-past seven, which isn’t an unreasonable time to be up, necessarily, but the thought of an empty day almost physically itches in its discomfort.

That’s why he texts Sasha—not out of any actual expectation that she’ll have even a moment to spare barely a month out from her wedding, but more out of feral desperation.

“Can I see you?”

“Busy :(“

“I can help…?!”

She doesn’t reply for ten whole minutes, and Jon begins to wonder if the exclamation mark was, perhaps, a little overzealous.

But then she calls.

“Mm?”

“I’ve got cake tasting today if you want to come with.”

Jon sighs. “Must I?”

She laughs. “That’s exactly why I thought you’d be perfect. You’ll be honest. I’ll pick you up, okay?”

He counts to three, so that she knows he’s displeased. “Fine.”

She’s gone.

He’s only vaguely gotten himself presentable when she texts that she’s downstairs. He kisses the top of Beatrice’s head and gives Benedick a stern scratch behind the ears.

“No more nonsense for today, thank you, young man,” he says on his way out the door.

Sasha’s 2002 Vauxhall Vectra had seen better days in third year at uni when she got it.

It idles minaciously in front of Jon’s building, and Sasha is poking at her phone in the driver’s seat.

Jon hesitantly climbs in.

“I hate this thing.”

“What a coincidence!” she says happily as she pulls away. “It hates you too.”

“As long as it doesn’t want to kill me over it.”

Sasha glances at him sideways and they’re silent for a few minutes.

“How did last week go?” she asks, and Jon sputters. “Georgie told me about it. I don’t know what the gift is.”

He sighs. “Oh. Right.”

Jon redirects his gaze out the side window.

“It was fine. Nice, even. I- I mean, I’m not certain my ego will ever recover, but other than that, it—it was nice.”

“But?”

“I—hmm. We can come back to that.”

He turns his head towards her. “I had drinks with Basira and her girlfriend on Friday. She enjoyed your chat.”

Sasha’s expression doesn’t so much as twitch. “Okay? And?”

His face hardens. “She told me what you said.”

She glances at him. “You’re probably going to want to be a bit more specific, Jon.”

“Wh- What you said about—about how—Martin and I,” Even referring to the two of them in conjunction like that brings heat to his face. “Are—are excruciating, apparently, because in your—frankly, extremely shoddy—assessment, Martin is- uh. Erm.”

She grins enigmatically. “Martin’s what, Jon?”

Jon stares at her. “Sasha James, are you taking the piss?”

She shrugs. “Well, am I supposed to be embarrassed? I can repeat myself, if you like, so you don’t misquote me later in your head when you’re obsessing about it.”

Jon turns his vacant, haunted gaze to the dashboard in front of him.

“I believe it was—hmm.” She drums her fingers on the steering wheel in thought. “Oh, yeah. That it’s been torture watching you two circling each other like twelve-year-olds at a school dance.”

Jon laughs sardonically. “And that implies mutuality, which—”

“—Is so obviously present that your continued ignorance is making me start to doubt my beliefs about your intelligence?”

He deflates, his gaze remaining locked on the dashboard for fear of what he might see in Sasha’s face if he looks.

“Why don’t you want to be happy?” she asks quietly.

That leaves him quite speechless until they arrive. When she parks the car, she turns to him with her arms folded, tilting her head down to regard him expectantly over her glasses.

He looks down at his hands, laced together in his lap, and turns them to look at his wedding band.

“Because I lost the right,” he says.

She groans and lets her temple hit the steering wheel as she lowers her head.

“Am I wrong?” he asks, challengingly turning his gaze to her.

“Yes, actually.”

“Oh?”

“Look, it was—it was wrong. What you did. It was a really shitty thing to do to Martin. Or—or what you allowed. Or didn’t stop. Whatever.”

“What’s the difference, exactly?” he asks archly. She rolls her eyes.

“Well… it doesn’t really matter, anyway, Jon. Are you really going to spend the rest of your life castigating yourself for something you’ve apologised for a thousand times and you’ve lost literally years to in guilt?”

“For one,” he says as levelly as he can, “Apologies don’t always—”

“Yes, thank you, shut up. I know that.”

Jon nods slowly.

“Is that what you want?”

“It’s—”

“It’s not more complicated than that. Think about what you actually want for three seconds.”

He sighs.

“No.”

“I mean, I’ll… level with you, the two of you should probably try to have an actual adult conversation where you don’t both play conclusion-long-jump.”

“We don’t—”

“Jonathan.”

He grunts, and she turns and climbs out of the car. Jon follows with a frown.

“Wh—”

“Look,” she says, scrubbing her face with her hands. “Can we please get inside first? It’s an appointment.”

“Oh.”

Jon nods again, and they go in. The attendant is a nervous, quiet man a few years their senior. His name is Ben. His shy demeanour sort of clashes with the positively kitschy decoration—the place is all stripes, and pastel pinks and yellows, and filigree on the edges of everything, and butterfly motifs. It would already be nauseating, but Ben adds a slightly uncanny twist to it all.

Sasha continues to befuddle him.

Ben says he’ll bring them some tea, as a palate cleanser, and goes to fetch the samples.

“So,” Jon says, persistently frowning. “Do I… need to rethink my understanding of apologies? I was under the impression you have to—to wait until the apology is accepted.”

“Oh my god,” Sasha says, with a genuine look of horror. 

Ben returns and places their tea on the coffee table before the sofa they’re seated on. He shoots them a forlorn glance over his shoulder as he returns to the back room.

“What?”

“You- is that how your gran was?”

“Alright, Sigmund Freud, can we skip the part where we tearfully discuss how deprived my childhood was?”

“You’re not the only one who didn’t have your parents.”

“Y- Yes. You’re right,” he softens, leaning over to nudge her with his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she says, and pauses when Ben places two plates filled with punctiliously arranged little squares of cake. He smiles sadly at them.

“Just call out if you need me,” he says. “I’ll be… in the back.”

Peculiar fellow.

“Anyway,” Sasha says. “So… so you’re—you’re… wrong. About how they work. Because—not to salt the wound—let’s… well, what happened the first time you apologised? You said you were sorry, and…”

Jon huffs with wry amusement as Sasha pours their tea.

“I believe his exact wording was ‘I don’t fucking care, you cheating dick, now fuck off’.”

Sasha pinches the bridge of her nose for a long moment. “Right. Well. You know, contextually, for you two—I sort of understand. But- well, my point is, the way it’s supposed to go is you apologise, and then you leave it in the other person’s hands.”

“But… what—what if that—that doesn’t fix it? What then?”

She pats his knee with a patient smile. “Then it isn’t fixed.”

It doesn’t feel unreasonable to conclude that there is no rationality behind that whatsoever, but it also feels as though explaining this to Sasha would be an exercise in futility.

“I know,” she says, sticking her fork into a square of cake at random. “It’s a bit of a, um—pointy—realisation. You can care, and feel horrible, and express your remorse, and it can still not matter. But you—you should just let it be after that.”

Jon stabs the square which is, apparently, a thyme-infused olive-oil cake with lavender frosting. Admittedly it’s significantly more difficult to keep the sour look on his face when it’s that delicious.

“But what else is there to do?”

Sasha lifts a long index finger at him as she closes her eyes, ostensibly to enjoy the rosewater and candied pistachio flavour.

“There isn’t anything,” she says, eventually. “That’s the point.”

Jon sips his tea in dismayed silence.

Sasha is smirking.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says, sighing. “I just… I hope you’re at least a little aware of how painfully dense you can be.”

“I think Martin may have been the last to put it quite so bluntly, but… yes. Yes, I’ve been told as much.”

“Right,” she says, tasting the aggressively yellow cake labelled yuzu and pineapple. She smiles with satisfaction. “So, then, what has apologising compulsively actually achieved for you, with him?”

Well, shit.

“Not a great deal more than making him angry with me, I suppose.”

“So,” she leans forward to look at his face. “Why do you think you do it?”

Jon takes his time in sampling the lemon sponge with violet glaze. Then, when he has, he mimes chewing for as long as he dares, and takes a long sip from his tea.

“Because—I’m hoping—the outcome will change?”

Sasha rolls her eyes, cradling her teacup in both hands. “No.”

“No?”

“You do it because it feels good.”

“I assure you, it doesn’t.”

She sips. “Yes, it does. Because if you apologise again—regardless of how bothersome to him it might be—then you feel like you’ve taken action. And you care more about how you feel than what effect it is or isn’t having.”

Jon takes another mouthful of the lemon and violet one and doesn’t taste it.

“Are you trying to kill me?”

She laughs, and tips her head to rest her forehead on his shoulder for a moment. He smiles begrudgingly.

Ben returns, and at the picture of Sasha leaning against Jon, he looks stricken, as though they’ve just informed him of the death of a parent, or something.

“How are we feeling?” he asks, vacantly.

“Attacked,” Jon says before he can stop himself, before cringing. “Oh, I’m sorry, I—I meant, er, the—the violet one is very good.”

He has the grace to attempt a customer-service chuckle.

“He’s got the emotional intelligence of an angry parrot, I’m sorry,” Sasha explains, sipping her tea again.

“Well,” Ben says. “Er, openness is important in a marriage, I’ve heard.”

“Oh!” Jon says, while Sasha drains her cup. “No, no, erm—she’s got much better taste than that. I’ve—I’ve been rather unsuccessful in that department.”

“Shut up!” Sasha says, elbowing him in the ribs and attempting to cover it with an extravagant laugh. “So—do you think the yuzu-pineapple is too, er… intense—for picky people? My fiancé, Tim, his—his dad… sort of thinks… cinnamon is spicy.”

For the first time, Ben shows something approaching genuine levity as he chuckles self-consciously.

“Goodness,” he says. “I’ll get a plate of some, er, more traditional flavours for you, then. Though, I admit, personally, I’m more partial to the less-conventional ones.”

“Well,” says Sasha, grinning. “I suppose he can skip dessert.”

Ben smiles slightly and returns to the back.

Jon almost finds himself asking him to stay in his desperation.

Sasha is being perceptive, and he does not care to be perceived.

“So,” she says, arching her eyebrows as she meets his eye. “What was so awful about the thing at Georgie and Melanie’s?”

Jon refills both of their teacups—it’s hardly the strength of drink that he would prefer to have for this conversation, but needs must.

“It—it wasn’t the evening itself. It’s just—these, these things keep happening, and I, I keep being told all these things about how he feels, but—”

“So what has he said to you, then?”

“Well, erm… the last time we were—eugh. You see, the problem is, Sasha, to refer to our… discussions… as ‘talking about his feelings’ is—inaccurate. The last time he was drunkenly berating me for having the—the audacity—” Here he pauses and has to bite his lip to suppress his smile. “To exist in his vicinity, he said that I was annoying, stupid, an inconvenience… oh, yes, and he told me that, in his words, I’d taken a fucking sledgehammer to his life twice. Amorous words, indeed.”

Her eyes narrow. “Why do you look so pleased with yourself?”

Jon purses his lips. “Mm—ngh. He’s—he’s a little bit cute when he’s drunk. Sue me.”

She cants her head. “And why was he cutely-and-drunkenly berating you in the first place?”

“Well, because I’m annoying, stupid, and in—”

“Nope! Bullshit. Why was he saying all that?”

Jon’s face grows warm. “Because…” His expression falls flat. “Because he was angry that he’d—managed to fully excise his—his feelings for me from—from his heart, but then I—I came back, and I… I disrupted it.”

Sasha presses her forehead into her palm. “Gosh, Jon, you’re right, it’s a complete mystery what he might have meant by that, isn’t it?”

“He didn’t actually say—”

“Jon. Shut up.”

“Mm. Right.”

“I don’t know how you lived with him for, what, four years, and never noticed, but he can be a little bit unforthcoming with his feelings.”

In fairness, they are talking about someone who brought a gift of a different vintage book to nearly every social occasion he knew Jon would be at for six months in a row, rather than do something outlandish, like say I like you, do you want to go out with me?

The gravity of this recollection swells as they sit there.

Jon may be drowning.

They settle on the lemon and violet.

Tim uses the excuse of their final suit fittings to arrange yet another social event, either because he’s just that extroverted, or he’s a raging sadist.

Jon can’t decide.

This means that on a Wednesday evening three weeks out from the wedding, the four of them meet at the tailor’s shop around half-past five.

Jon has not, for the record, resolved to ignore Martin. But the background radiation of his persistent guilt, combined with the deranged revelation Sasha thrust upon him a couple of weeks ago, does mean that he hasn’t exactly got his most winning small talk ready to go.

Tim gleefully volunteers himself and Danny to go first, and they disappear into the back room with Adelard. Martin is left standing on the far side of the room from Jon, likely texting Peter if the tight irritation in the line of his mouth is any indication. Jon, perched in a hard, lumpy chair by the door, elects to stare pointedly at his shoes.

“What’s up?” he hears after a few moments. He looks up, half-expecting to see Martin standing there with his phone pressed to his ear. Instead, he’s looking over at Jon, head tilted, with genuine concern in the knit of his brow.

Before he can actually meet Martin’s eye, he looks back at his shoes. They’re suede, and if he looks carefully he can still see the spattered stain from the coffee he spilled on them.

“Uh, nothing. I just—mm. Long day. That’s all.”

When he chances another look, Martin’s scrolling on his phone nonchalantly, his other hand in his pocket. Jon watches the small, regular movement of his thumb.

“You do know,” Martin says, “You literally couldn’t tell a good lie to save your life, right?”

His mouth tilts into a slight, amused smirk.

Jon blinks. “Yes.”

They fall quiet. Tim and Danny are chattering happily in the back room.

“So…?” Martin prompts. Jon crosses his arms.

“So…” He can feel the apology lurking behind his teeth. He swallows. “So, I suppose, I’m—not feeling—very—sociable.”

“Oh.”

Red tints Martin’s cheeks.

Jon looks at his hands.

They wait in silence until Tim and Danny emerge, dressed immaculately in a deep burgundy. Martin beams at them.

“Wow.”

Jon stands, forcing himself not to glance in Martin’s direction. If he does, he’ll picture how this colour will look on him, and—well, he’d rather delay dealing with that thought as long as possible.

“Are the bowties negotiable?” he asks weakly.

Tim adjusts his cufflinks, bearing a striking resemblance to James Bond in doing so. “Absolutely not,” he says with smarmy gentility, “How dare you ask?”

Adelard smiles very slightly at Jon, raising his eyebrows over the half-moon spectacles perched on the tip of his nose. “How about you next, then? I promise I’ve converted plenty of non-believers in my time.”

“He’s a cynic,” Tim says, shaking his head as he crosses the room to bodily drag Jon into the back room.

His suit is hanging from a hook on the wall next to Martin’s. The image nearly brings tears to his eyes.

“It isn’t as though I don’t have reason to be,” he says, rubbing his ring with his thumb.

Tim blows a raspberry. “Whatever, boss.”

Adelard, for his part, says nothing.

Jon sighs and takes his suit behind the flimsy partition in the corner to change. The shirt is a cool grey, and the smooth finery of it makes the jagged outline of his ribs stand out rather starkly as he fastens the buttons. He’s assumed over the last two years that he eats how everyone else does, and yet, undeniably, he’s skinny. The waistcoat also does very little to conceal how concave his stomach has become.

It makes sense. Martin was always the one to interrupt him from whatever it was he was doing to shove slices of toast at his face, or drag him to the kitchen table for dinner, always hushing his protests with a wave of his hand as he said shut up and eat.

“How’s the shirt?” Tim ventures, sounding almost apprehensive.

How he’s managed to know Jon for a decade now and still end up caring about his opinions is an utter mystery.

“I like it,” he says helplessly. “It’s—a nice colour.”

Tim and Adelard exchange some whispered words that Jon doesn’t quite catch.

When he’s at least mostly dressed—including the shoes, made of fine leather, and probably worth six times as much as the shoes he wore to work today—he emerges, the bowtie scrunched in one hand.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to master this bloody thing in three weeks, Timothy.”

Tim takes it from him and loops it around his neck. He starts tying it with practised ease. “I’ll do it for you on the day if you want, but… if you want to kiss me, you could just say so.”

Jon’s face warms. “Excuse me?”

The bloody show-off makes sustained eye contact as his hands continue, undeterred. “Well, it’s a bit romantic, isn’t it? Come to think of it, I think Martin knows how, too, so I guess I could ask him to do yours if I’m too busy.”

He suspects he may have turned purple. “Tim.”

“Yes, Jonathan?” he asks with a wink.

Jon’s eyes narrow.

“Wait—wait a second,” Tim says, smirking. “Are you suggesting you might possibly have opinions on the prospect of Martin kissing you?”

“I am going to kill you,” he grates, turning his head to smile sheepishly at Adelard. “You’ll be collateral, I’m afraid. No witnesses, and all that.”

Adelard waves a hand dismissively. “Do try not to get any blood on my work, please.”

Tim makes a final adjustment and steps back with a genuine smile. “Gorgeous,” he says. “You’re actually quite dishy when you’re not off your arse drunk. Or crying.”

“You flatter me, Timothy.”

Tim and Adelard share a knowing glance.

“Cufflinks,” he says. “I’ve got a few options in the front, if you would…”

He gestures to the curtain. Jon nods and shoves the thing aside, emerging into the front and selecting the floor just in front of him as a safe place to look.

There is a clatter. When he looks up, Martin has bent to pick his phone up from the floor. As he does, his glasses fall from his face and skitter across the floor, hitting Danny’s shoe with a feeble tap.

“Whoa, Marto,” Danny says, kneeling to assist him. “Are you okay?”

“Hm? Me?” Martin asks. When he’s upright, his eyes are wide, almost crazed, and he casts his gaze to the ceiling. “Me? Am—am I okay? Yeah. Yeah, I’m—I’m fine, Danny. Thanks.”

He gives a sharp, awkward laugh and, taking his glasses from Danny’s outstretched hand, turns to face the wall in silence.

Jon raises his eyebrows.

Martin may have been a little sick at the sight of him, but this is just rude.

Adelard crosses the room to a display, stroking his short, white beard as he considers the selection of cufflinks.

“Come on,” Tim says, having moved to place a hand on Martin’s shoulder. “I’m starving, let’s finish up.”

Martin lets his head fall against the wall with a quiet groan before he crosses the room, pointedly avoiding looking in Jon’s direction as he goes.

Adelard hands Jon a pair of teal cufflinks with gold trim.

“Er…” he begins.

“Sasha’s approved them,” he explains, and Jon relents. Adelard returns to the back room.

“What’s his problem?” Jon says, half to himself, as he secures the cufflinks.

“M—Ma—” Danny pauses to squeeze his face in his hands. “How. How are you still like this.”

Jon doesn’t look up. “Like what? He’s the one who just—did—whatever that was.”

Danny lets out a long, loud groan. “Why—okay, fine, I’ll ask. Why—what, exactly, do you think—why do you think he did that?”

“Because he’s sick of the sight of me, I presume,” Jon says, raising an eyebrow.

Danny maintains eye contact as he gets bodily onto the floor, before pressing his forehead to the floorboards in silence.

“I feel like you don’t agree, Danny.”

He returns to his feet with a grunt, brushing himself off. “I’m—you—you are literally beyond help.”

Jon frowns, wounded. “I—alright, then.”

“Assuming, for a sec, that it’s not that, what other possible reasons are there?”

Jon cups his face in his hands in thought. “Well… it’s a symptom of neurological illness in cats.”

Danny wipes his mouth in exasperation. “You—you hear hoofbeats and think unicorns, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Jesus,” Danny utters, retreating into his phone.

Jon sits back in the lumpy chair.

He is not sulking.

He’s been told off for being completely rational, and it stings a little.

After a few minutes, the voices in the back room grow closer, and Tim dramatically throws the curtain dividing the two rooms back. 

Jon stands.

For the record, he is not gawking, he’s—

Well, no, in this instance, there’s no euphemistic excuse. He is staring like a slack-jawed idiot, and he can hardly be blamed for it.

Martin—quite literally—looks stunning. Even that feels like an understatement, but it’s fairly accurate, if the swimming at the edges of Jon’s vision is any indication.

His hair is an unruly mess, sticking out at all angles, and one side of his collar is quirked upwards. 

His bowtie is tied perfectly, though. 

So perhaps Tim wasn’t lying just to rile him up.

An entirely unbidden—and, frankly, painful—image enters his head. It’s him, still struggling with the bloody tie in three weeks’ time, likely having practised in vain in the meantime, and Martin gently taking both ends of the fabric from his hands. Then Jon reaches out and runs his hands through Martin’s tousled hair to neaten it, and then their eyes meet, and—

No. Absolutely not. There’s cruelty, and there’s torture, and then, far beyond, in the ninth circle of hell, there’s that image. That—that complete foolishness.

It’s several seconds before he realises he’s paused on Martin’s brown eyes.

It’s another several before he also realises that Martin has yet to look away.

When Martin apparently decides to initiate an assassination attempt by smiling, all dimples and sparkling eyes, Jon only looks away for fear that if he doesn’t, his entire head may catch fire.

He’s grinning, too, though.

“So,” Adelard says, “I take it I’ll be seeing the two of you again soon?”

“Hah, nice,” Danny says, crossing to offer him his fist. He punches it with a slight smile.

“Uh—er—no,” Jon sputters, shoving his left hand in his pocket to conceal his ring. “No, no, I—I doubt that very much.”

Adelard fixes Martin’s wonky collar, taking the opportunity to rub his shoulder encouragingly. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I’m sure you’ll talk him round eventually.”

Martin tugs his glasses off with a pained, haunted look in his eyes.

“I’m—I’m getting changed,” he snaps, turning on his heel before he can be stopped.

“That,” Tim says, crossing his arms and leaning on the service counter. “Was mean.”

“Mean? Oh, yes, how foolish of me, I’d failed to notice how he was practically taking a knee to propose,” Jon says, voice sharp with sarcasm.

Tim and Danny look at one another and shrug approvingly.

He is surrounded on every side by traitors.

When they’re all dressed like plebs again, they depart for their dinner reservation.

To Jon’s shock, Martin walks beside him, seemingly voluntarily. This information clinks in his brain as it falls onto the mountain of silly little things to which everyone else seems to be assigning a great deal of significance.

There simply isn’t room on the footpath for him to walk beside Tim and Danny, or else, Jon is sure, he would.

“Did I do something?” Martin asks, unprovoked, shortly before they reach the restaurant.

Jon snorts.

“No,” he says, “Of course you didn’t.”

Martin goes quiet, and when Jon looks at him, his hands are laced together in front of him. His knuckles are white.

“Did—I mean, aside from the glaringly obvious, have I—upset you? Er, recently?”

Martin blinks owlishly. “No. N- No, nah, you—um. No. No.”

A corner of Jon’s mouth quirks. “I know better than trusting that many nos, but… I understand if you… if you don’t want to speak to me about it.”

“That’s not it,” he replies, voice emphatic.

“Oh.”

Jon elects not to pry, lest he strain the delicate precedent of mutual conversational initiation he appears to have established entirely by accident. Martin doesn’t volunteer the information, unsurprisingly.

They don’t speak again that evening, and Jon can only shoot so many searching glances at Martin across the table before he decides he must be, as they say, bringing the vibe down.

He makes his excuses and is on the tube by thirteen minutes to nine.

He’s quite comfortably curled into a soon-to-be-hibernating ball on the sofa with a book when his phone buzzes where he discarded it on the floor on his way in.

“Damn it,” he sighs. “Ben, you haven’t sprouted thumbs by any chance, have you?”

The vile creature leaps onto the arm of the sofa next to Jon’s head and meows as though he doesn’t understand English.

Jon glares at him and stretches a foot out to reach for his phone.

When he’s got it and the screen lights up, he learns all of a sudden that he never changed Martin’s nickname.

So, technically, the message is from ‘Beloved’, rather than his name.

When he taps the notification and their message history opens, his heart lurches. Their last communication before all the wedding nonsense had been on Martin’s birthday last year. It had been a stupid thing to do—but he’d done it anyway, because he’s stupid.

The exchange had been remarkably short, but the density of direct insults and passive-aggressive jabs on Martin’s end was—formidable, to say the very least. 

The last thing Martin had said to him before ten months of radio silence was “It’s so considerate of you to mention the one occasion you know I don’t care about.”

But, now, another message sits, mortifyingly, intoxicatingly, beneath it.

“Hope you got home okay :)”

As Jon watches, those menacing little dots that mean he’s still typing reappear at the bottom of the screen. A cold sweat springs up on his temples.

“It’s Martin btw. I don’t know whether you still have my number saved, but anyway. :)”

Jon takes the throw pillow he’d had his head on, places it over his face, and makes a sound he’ll deny having the vocal range for if anybody ever asks.

He rights himself, gently placing his phone face-down on the coffee table in front of him, and laces his hands together in his lap.

The mere fact that he’s receiving direct, intentional communication from Martin—or, no, actually, from Beloved Martin—in his lonely and admittedly rather austere little flat brings about such violent cognitive dissonance that he’s not wholly convinced that his head won’t explode.

He’s not certain what kind of arcane ritual he’s completed in order for Martin to, ostensibly, care one way or the other whether he lives or dies. But there is no price he would not be happy to pay in exchange. Whatever unknowable deity granted this bone-deep desire can have his soul—come to think of it, he hasn’t really been using it, anyway.

The problem with this development is that it leaves him in the untenable position of needing to formulate a response.

Because he must.

Certainly.

He must.

It would hardly do for the police to kick down the door completing a welfare check.

He stands and begins pacing.

Suppose it’s a test.

Alright, yes, even he has to admit that that’s a little unlikely, even if only because he fails to see what, exactly, the goal of such a test would be.

But unlikely is not equivalent to impossible.

Jon hears hoofbeats and he reasonably considers the very real possibility that the hooved beast might like to kick his teeth in if he gets too close to it.

It isn’t his fault if Danny might call Jon’s perfectly reasonable caution paranoia.

Part of the—the fog in his mind may come from his lightheadedness at the idea that Martin doesn’t hate him anymore. It isn’t what he deserves. It’s wrong.

In fact, he crosses the room to his phone to confirm that he is not hallucinating. A carbon monoxide leak is never entirely outside the realms of possibility.

He pinches the inside of his forearm as he reads. The messages do not waver or disappear.

Well, frankly, even if this is all some foolish, dying delusion, he’d rather pass away in his sleep in this version of reality than live corrected.

Unfortunately, the romance of this thought does not inspire within him a coherent sentence with which to respond. 

Instead, he does something utterly deranged, and sends a single smiling-face emoji.

The moment it shows as delivered, he’s filled with such a violent sense of regret that his knees give out and he drops onto the sofa.

He immediately springs back to his feet as though it burned him.

He needs to explain. There is a very real danger Martin may think that he’s been kidnapped for ransom, or—or he’s drunk again, or something.

Oh, Christ.

“That was supposed to imply a yes. Thank you for inquiring.”

What, is he communicating with a work colleague now?

That was not better. That was not better.

“Disregard those,” he begins, his thumb slipping and tapping the send button before he can finish typing.

Oh, fuck.

He slides down to the floor to feel a bit closer to the especially intellectually deficient worm he has metamorphosed into in the last three minutes.

“I can’t type like a human,” he writes, forcing himself to continue breathing at all. Deeply is too tall an order at present. His thumbs hover for a moment. “I meant that yes, I’m home, and I appreciate you asking.”

Appending the thought I’d assumed I’d murdered your patience for me, so thank you for ensuring I don’t stare at my ceiling hating myself all night seems inadvisable, so in a rare display of restraint, he doesn’t.

He presses send with a groan.

Benedick chooses this moment to curl up beside his head.

It may very well be the purring that prevents him from going to find a blunt object with which to bludgeon his own head in.

And then, a couple of minutes of agonised anticipation later, the phone buzzes in his hand.

“You’re so fucking weird lol”

El-oh-fucking-el.

It’s a good thing that he didn’t send the latter part of his last message, because, as it happens, staring at the ceiling hating himself is precisely what he does for the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

The monstrous Vectra sidled menacingly up the street, the engine sounding like an angry rock tumbler. And it was full already.

Jon watched, eyes widening with horror, as it slowed to an uneasy stop in front of him. The front passenger window haltingly rolled down, despite the fact that one should reasonably expect electric windows in the twenty-first century. The door directly behind it opened, and Melanie stepped out.

“No,” Jon said, with half a mind to turn and get back on the train.

“Fuck off,” she replied politely. “I’m not sitting between you two.”

Jon scowled. “Firstly, what is that supposed to mean, and secondly, like hell you aren’t.”

“Children,” Tim said sternly, sticking his face out the open window. “Can we please behave?”

Jon leaned down to narrow his eyes. 

“This is completely humiliating, you know.”

“You can walk all the way to Ashford if you’d rather,” Melanie snapped behind him.

“Tim.”

Tim smiled innocently, reaching to pat Jon’s cheek.  “It’s fine,” he said. “It’ll be cosy.”

Jon turned to purse his lips at Melanie before sliding into the back seat, his eyes fixed on the dashboard as he did so. He had learned from doing this same bloody dance several times now that it behoved him not to be caught blushing in that car.

“Are you five?” he hissed at Melanie as she elbowed him in the side in securing her seatbelt.

“Are you simple?” she replied. “Get out of the way.”

“I’ll turn this car around,” Sasha said without glancing in their direction from the driver’s seat. They both fell quiet and Melanie turned her torso to stare out the window like a child in a temper.

As far as Jon was concerned, he was the one with any right to be—prickly towards her. Granted, there wasn’t any overlap, but she was the one who, technically, stole his girlfriend.

If you squinted.

And if you were looking for a reason to justify existing distaste.

And you ignored the factual particulars entirely.

Once they were underway again, Tim and Sasha chattering over the quiet sound of the radio, he felt a much gentler nudge from the other side. Later that night, while trying to sleep, he’d tell himself he definitely wasn’t blushing in response, and his heart wasn’t beating any faster, and it would be a lie.

“Hi,” Martin said quietly, as though afraid anybody else would hear. Jon pulled his top lip into his mouth to gnaw on it and nodded an acknowledgement. “I- um, I’ve got a question.”

Jon’s stomach lurched.

“Oh?”

He pulled a small, ragged paperback from somewhere beside him and offered it to Jon with a sheepish smile.

“I know you’re still not a poetry convert, but, um… have you tried Hardy yet?”

It was an old copy of ‘Wessex Poems’, hardly the same quality as some of the other books Martin had given him in the last several months, but there was something about it that gave Jon pause. He surreptitiously opened the front cover and frowned.

“I—I can’t take this.”

Martin’s face fell. “Why?”

“Why? It’s your mother’s, you—you should keep it.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s a present.”

Jon pursed his lips.

“I- I mean, if you don’t want it…”

He shook his head, perhaps hastily if the snort from Melanie beside him was any indication. 

“Of course,” he said, attempting to shove some nonchalance into his tone. “It just seems… wrong.”

Martin frowned in thought, tapping at his pockets with a hand. “I don’t have a pen,” he said.

“I do!” Tim chirped from the front seat, and he and Sasha shared a look, giggling at something or other.

Martin had turned red.

“Thanks, Tim,” he said, scowling as he reached out for it. Jon, either out of morbid curiosity or pure, unadulterated idiocy, glanced up as he took the pen. From this angle, they were now facing one another. Their eyes met. Jon felt the blush rising in his face and he squeezed his eyes shut, angling his head down with a mortified frown.

“Yes,” he said, after all five of them had been silent for a few agonising moments. 

Martin didn’t respond.

Jon cringed.

“I’ve tried Hardy, I meant,” he said, leaning over slightly to nudge Martin’s arm with his shoulder.

Martin turned back towards him, but he was frowning intensely. “Mm?” he asked. “Do I- should I even ask?”

Jon smiled cajolingly. “I rather like him, actually. There’s a certain—pragmatism to it.”

“Oh,” he said, narrowing his eyes with a smile. “So you like him because, what, there’s less poetry per poem?”

“Exactly. It’s ideal,” Jon said, chuckling. Martin rolled his eyes and wordlessly handed the book to him again.

When he looked inside the cover this time, his mother’s name had been crossed out, and instead it said ‘Jonathan BSims’, with the S… sort of written over the B.

Jon inhaled slowly.

“I haven’t,” Martin said lightly, gaze fixed out the window.

“Read Hardy’s poems, you mean?”

“Yeah. No.”

“Tess of the D’Urbervilles is terrible,” Melanie said from his other side.

Martin leaned forward to raise a quizzical eyebrow at her.

“What? It’s depressing.”

“You like Animal Farm,” Martin said.

“Yeah, ‘cause it actually has a message. What’s the message? Don’t get taken advantage of or you’ll stab someone to death in a hotel and get executed?”

“It’s symbolism,” he said, but he was making the face he made when he knew he was probably beaten.

Jon, admittedly, didn’t see it all that often.

“Symbolic of being shit.”

“I like ‘The Phantom Horsewoman’,” Jon ventured, and Martin straightened again. He smiled and wrote on the back of his hand.

“How about you—flip through this, then, and—” Jon said, and tilted the still-open book towards him.

“It’s yours. It’s got your name in it,” Martin said sheepishly.

“Yes, it’s mine, so I can choose if I want to lend it to someone.”

“Who’s Jonathan Bims?” Melanie asked, her face hovering above Jon’s shoulder. She snorted.

“Melanie—” Martin said, but, looking at Jon, turned towards the window again, muttering something under his breath.

“Tim?” Melanie asked with an innocent grin.

“Yes, my love?” he asked, turning and observing the three of them with an inscrutable smirk.

“Do you know someone called Jonathan Bims?”

Tim grinned at Martin. “Hm,” he said, stroking his chin. “No, but I do think—”

“Fine!” Martin snapped, yanking the book from Jon’s hand and crossing his arms over it almost protectively. “Fine, I’ll borrow the stupid bloody book. Fine. God.”

Melanie and Tim shared a knowing glance, and Jon, mystified, laced his now empty hands together.

The silence that remained over them for the rest of the journey had teeth.

Gerry’s place was nothing exceptional compared to the other houses on the street, but it was pure opulence compared to anywhere Jon had ever lived. The informal title they used for it was something of a misnomer—Gerry, a friend of Sasha’s, didn’t actually live there. But he had access to it, and would throw parties whenever his mother was away on business, which was quite often. It was assumed that Jon would be in attendance with Tim and Sasha, and he resented this, but it was a small price to pay for their continued tolerance of—even fondness for—his peculiarities. 

And, to be fair, they’d introduced him to Martin at one of these parties, so at least that was a net positive.

Except for the times Martin went silent for long stretches, and Jon was left second-guessing every attempt he made to converse.

Gerry was by the door to greet them when they arrived. He was a nice chap, clean-cut with short blonde hair, and always wearing pastels.  

Not that Jon was really in a position to criticise anybody’s sartorial choices, given his proclivity for wearing whatever the first two things that came to hand on any given morning were. 

Sasha and Tim stayed behind to chat with him, Melanie rushed off to join a gaggle of people she knew, and Martin—had vanished into thin air.

For someone who cut such a strong figure, he had a remarkable talent for moving silently.

Jon drifted vaguely towards the door in the kitchen that led out to the back garden. There was always a fire blazing in a petrol drum, with all of the garden’s stone furniture arranged in a circle around it. 

Unfortunately, this was a perfect setup for the few—distasteful individuals who enjoyed throwing things into the flames.

Once, a couple of months prior, Jon had only narrowly avoided getting into a scrape with a friend of Jude Perry, a regular fixture at these parties of whom Jon was not particularly fond—in much the same way one would not be particularly fond of the gas can being emptied onto them near an open source of ignition.

Jude’s friend had taken issue with the fact that Jon had brought a book to a party—which, incidentally, he hadn’t; it was a gift from Martin, but that was irrelevant—and tried to take it from him like a regular schoolyard bully. Unfortunately, he’d kept his grip on the dust jacket, though Jon had rescued the book itself, and thrown it into the barrel. 

It had taken Tim and Martin working together to get Jon away from that admittedly rather fraught social situation. Martin had told him afterward that it didn’t matter, he wasn’t all that attached to the dust jacket, because that wasn’t where the words were.

Jon attempted to explain to him that, first of all, it was much more about the principle of the thing, and secondly, the worth of the dust jacket had very little to do with which book it was—in fact, two or so months later he couldn’t recall whether it was the E.E. Cummings anthology or ‘Jane Eyre’. But what he’d failed entirely to articulate was that it was someone damaging a gift from Martin that was such an affront. Apparently, he didn’t make his point clearly enough, because Martin had stayed inexplicably cheery the rest of the evening. That had rankled Jon a little, in all truthfulness. There he was, not belabouring the point, but bludgeoning it, and Martin just nodded his head and grinned along like he was completely untouchable.

Sometimes Martin inspired in Jon the most baffling feeling of impotent rage.

Jon flinched as Martin materialised beside him, offering a cheap-looking bottle of beer.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, taking a cautious half-step backwards and smiling in that singularly shy way he had.

It was very difficult to maintain anger in the face of it.

“It’s a bit of a crap selection,” Martin continued. “But I thought you might want one anyway.”

“Correct,” Jon said, taking the still-sealed bottle with a frown. “Thank you.”

“So,” he said, turning to stand beside Jon and follow the line of his gaze towards the blazing petrol drum. “Were you going outside, or were you going to, um, stay here and look all Byronic at this window like it said something about your gran?”

Jon chuckled despite himself. “I’m—I genuinely don’t know whether to be offended.”

Martin gave a smarmy little grin and started out the door.

Jon followed him in silence, drifting back into composing his mental list of feelings to which Martin subjected him. Affront didn’t really cover it, seeing as he was rather amused even as Martin jabbed at him. The word may have been vulnerability, but he recoiled from it like it was electrified.

“You okay?” Martin asked gently, and Jon became aware they were seated on a stone bench by the fire, a foot of space between them.

Jon turned his head towards him with a quizzical frown.

“You look a bit—a, a bit murder-y.”

“I’ve heard that’s just my face.”

Martin bit his lip, eyes narrowing in amusement. “Yeah, no, you, uh… you sometimes look a bit like you’re mentally carpeting someone’s house with Lego while they sleep, but not—not murder-y. So, so—are you—good?”

Jon sighed and looked down at the still-unopened beer bottle. “Yes,” he said vacantly. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Oh. Good.”

They lapsed back into silence.

“Hey,” Martin said, confusingly, because neither of them had gone anywhere, and the few other people around the fire were variously engrossed in conversation or trying to taste one another’s tonsils.

“Yes?” Jon asked, absently attempting to twist the top off his beer.

“Jesus Christ,” Martin said, digging in a pocket with one hand and snatching the bottle with the other. He pulled out an especially large Victorinox knife from the pocket he was digging in and opened the bottle-opener attachment one-handed. He removed the cap and bent to pick it up from the grass before handing the bottle back to Jon with an apologetic frown.

“And we’re concerned about how murderous I look?” Jon asked, smirking.

Martin huffed, his ears reddening. “Yeah, but, I’m—it- it’s handy mostly when I visit Mum, but I was getting ready to go earlier, and I thought, you know, it’s a house party, so as likely as not I’ll end up spending my evening with that muppet who doesn’t know that his beer isn’t a twist top.”

His cheeks reddened, too.

Jon scowled. “I’m not a muppet.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Martin flicked the bottle cap into the fire with admittedly surprising dexterity.

“Oh!” he said. “I—I was going to- to say something. Your- you distracted me.”

Jon looked at him. “I was just trying to drink, Martin. If I derailed you entirely, that sounds to me like a you problem.”

Martin’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses, the reflection of the orange firelight obscuring them slightly.

“Shut up,” he said. “Anyway. I—I was going to say, um, sorry about—about Melanie. Earlier. In the car.”

Jon snorted. “Am I to expect apologies for her conduct now?”

Martin shrugged. “I mean, no, obviously, it’s just—I thought, maybe she… I don’t know, made you uncomfortable or something.”

“She does tend to do that,” he admitted, sipping his terrible beer. “But it- that’s hardly your fault.”

Martin gave a genuine smile, and said something, but perhaps Jon was too transfixed by the smile to hear it.

That, or it was that, well… fires and parties could be very loud.

“What?”

Martin shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just… hm. Ah—can- could you promise not to be cross? If I tell you what she—she thinks?”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “Certainly not.”

“I’m not telling you if you don’t promise.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Fine, but only if you promise not to be cross when I inevitably break my promise.”

Martin pursed his lips, but his face had gone cold.

“Don’t be mean.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Jon.”

He sighed and took a sip of beer. “Sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“I promise, then. What did you want to tell me?”

“Ah, it’s… m- maybe you’re right, and it is stupid, but—ergh.” Martin took a breath, slipping his knife back into his pocket. “Melanie’s got this idea in her head that I, um. That I’ve—uh, got, like, a… a crush on you. Or something. So- so she was teasing. Trying to, anyway.”

The world reeled around Jon for a moment, and he placed a hand on his face unthinkingly. His processing speed had never quite kept up with reality when it was actually important to do so. 

“What?” he asked, barely above a whisper—or, at least, it sounded barely audible to him above the rushing of blood in his ears.

“Yeah!” Martin said breathlessly. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I said, too! What! ‘Cause, because, it’s, it’s…”

A silence infected the air between them, of which Jon was now painfully aware. Martin was too close, and the fire was too close, and the air was too hot to breathe, and there was a sensation like the press of a boot bearing down on his windpipe.

“It’s—it’s silly,” Martin finished feebly.

“Yes.”

It was silly. Because it was untrue.

How unfathomably ridiculous to think otherwise.

“So—so, she- yeah. Stupid.”

Jon downed half his beer.

“You don’t need to act that repulsed,” Martin said sheepishly, kicking at the grass by his foot.

“No,” Jon said emphatically. “No, it’s, I’m—can you—just, er, excuse me a second?”

He stood and fairly launched himself off the bench, walking as calmly as was physically possible with his heart having sunk down to somewhere in his left ankle. He escaped behind the garden shed and pulled the crushed, mostly empty packet of stale cigarettes from his front pocket with an irritated sigh.

As he slipped the lighter back into the flimsy box and shoved it back into his pocket, he took such an aggressive drag that it set him coughing.

Pathetic.

He was being pathetic, because it—

It wasn’t anything.

Hadn’t ever been anything.

And, anyway, even if—if Jon himself had been, potentially, feeling an emotion, or, or two, that wasn’t—

Well, this experience allowed him to check them against reality. Against rationality. There was a mismatch. His feeble little mind had been found wanting, to no one’s surprise. 

He inhaled and held the lungful of warming bitterness for a moment before exhaling.

It wasn’t like he cared. He didn’t care. He had no reason to care.

It was fine. In fact, like Martin had said, it was silly.

Besides, Jon found him irritating. That was it. That was the name for the hot, ashamed, bubbling sensation in his chest. It was anger.

Nothing else. 

He was angry every time Martin presented him with another book, seemingly schooling his expression so as not to look too proud of himself as he watched for a reaction. It annoyed him every time Martin fooled him into laughing at those stupid little jokes.

He finished the cigarette and ground the butt into the dirt far more violently than was necessary.

He was being rude, hesitating so long. And if he stayed there much longer, Martin might get suspicious, and come to investigate. And what would Jon have to say for himself, hyperventilating behind a shed like some kind of—of what? Rejected admirer?

Pathetic.

He squared his shoulders and gripped the neck of his bottle in both hands, returning to his place on the bench with his head angled to avoid eye contact. They stayed quiet for a few awkward moments.

“Sorry,” Jon managed under his breath.

“I didn’t promise not to be cross,” Martin replied, and there was an attempt at levity in his voice. The bubbling between Jon’s ribs resolved into butterflies, and he pictured stabbing each one and pinning them to a board as specimens.

But he smiled anyway.

“Oh. Yes, I- well, it—it’s, erm, I—I, you know, I, I suppose I can see how—how she might have, um, hypothetically—come to that conclusion.”

He almost heard the cogs in Martin’s brain grinding in the ensuing silence, and sitting and waiting felt like shoving his bare hand into the crush of the machinery.

What he wouldn’t do for the gumption to run from the house and never return.

“What?” Martin said finally. “W- Why- what makes you… say… that?”

“Ah,” Jon sighed, already aching for another smoke. “Well, I- you know, I-I hardly think—think we’re… very well-matched, as it were. R- Right?”

He surreptitiously glanced at Martin, who was now the one staring vacantly into the flames.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Right. Yes. And—and, it’s not- it isn’t that I think—you’re unattractive, or, or- or anything. Because I don’t. You- are. Or, rather, I- aren’t.” He pressed his palm to his mouth to hide the pained grimace into which his mouth twisted. “And, and, of course, it’s not—I- I do- I like you. I—speaking, with you, I mean, and- and even if we aren’t. I- I quite… enjoy your company. Of course I do.”

When he glanced over again, Martin was watching him, lips pursed, and his eyes were sparkling.

Jon certainly hoped that this meant it was working.

“What are you smirking at?” he asked.

Martin shook his head, turning away slightly.

“I’m not,” he said, and paused for a moment. “Okay, it’s just—this is causing you, like, actual physical pain to say, isn’t it?”

Jon sipped his beer. “Shut up.”

Martin chuckled. “Yeah. Sorry. You were saying.”

“Well,” he said. “I was going to say that you’re—rather kind to me, but… er, no, actually, that one is—is still true. You’re just—you’re also just enough of a prick that I don’t find you saccharine.”

Martin watched him silently. 

“So. Erm, so, my- er, point being, I suppose I can see how- how, comparatively speaking, she might think there’s- there’s some sort of—of bond, or, or… or chemistry, if- if you like.” He inhaled. “If you like that phrasing, I mean. Not if—if you like me. Because… you don’t.”

Jon became aware that Martin was laughing.

“Yes, I do.”

His heart leapt.

“No, no, I know,” he said, closing his eyes in agony. “I know, yes, but, I—I meant- I meant romantically. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Martin said.

There was a silence, which Jon would believe for the rest of the evening was rancid, and festering, and ghoulish, even.

He would be incorrect in that assessment.

“So,” he said, swirling the last of the beer in its bottle, “I- I can see where she might have- have gotten that impression, I suppose.”

“So, the, uh…” Martin turned towards him. “Are we- are we just, not addressing the, the, um, the going-behind-the-shed thing?”

Jon downed his drink. “No.”

“Okay,” Martin said, drawing both syllables out uncertainly. They were quiet for a few moments, but this time Jon looked up at the dark sky and breathed and didn’t feel like he was about to die of asphyxiation. “I, um… I read ‘The Phantom Horsewoman’. While you were gone.”

Jon smiled down at the empty bottle in his hands. “Oh. Yes?”

“I see why you like it.”

Jon’s mouth opened in faux outrage.

“Not, like, in a bad way,” Martin continued hastily, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his own neck. “Just- I just meant it… it seems like your kind of poem.”

“I still feel like I’m being insulted.”

There was a devious quirk in the corners of Martin’s smile. “No, if I wanted to insult you, I’d say your opinion on ‘La belle dame sans merci’ makes you sound as pretentious as you look.”

Jon raised his eyebrows, placing a hand on his heart with an affronted gasp. 

Martin looked at him sideways, lip trembling either in an attempt to keep a straight face or to articulate something. “Well!” he said, “I- clearly if pretentious was an issue, I wouldn’t be your—your friend, would I?”

“Good point,” Jon said, shrugging. “I could say the same.”

Now Martin gasped in facetious affront, leaning to nudge his shoulder against Jon’s.

“You’re a prick.”

Jon suppressed the grin on his face. “Yes, but so are you.”

Martin—who, Jon increasingly suspects, must just be taking the piss at this point—starts texting him memes.

And not normal ones.

Extremely low-resolution images of—Jon’s not entirely sure what, with pixelated text in Impact font overlaid, the meaning of which completely escapes him.

He suspects he’s being teased.

It’s hard to be as frustrated as he customarily would when it’s so intoxicating to think that Martin is thinking of him independently of being physically present and deciding that annoying Jon is a good use of his time.

Is he doing it instead of his job?

Jon has to admit that the thought of Martin nodding along to Peter—who, due to the lack of photographs, is something of a person-shaped cloud of fog in his mind’s eye—and looking down at his phone screen as he makes these monstrosities is—

Well, he’s not a robot. It’s delightful.

Although, maybe he is a robot, and he’s failing Martin’s captcha tests.

Oh, no.

The morning of the rehearsal dinner, he gets two within twenty minutes on the way to work. He hasn’t been responding to any of them, which strengthens his conviction that Martin is well aware that his reaction to these things is perturbed speechlessness.

It seems as though inflicting that mental state upon him is the point.

As Jon leaves the office the same afternoon, he stops by Basira’s cube to hand over the key to his flat. She’s cat-sitting with Daisy for the weekend.

“Don’t relent when they try to negotiate on dinnertime,” he tells her, “They’re liars and scoundrels.”

She smiles. “Don’t fuck it up with Martin.”

He rolls his eyes. “Thank you so much.”

“See you Sunday.”

“Mm. Help yourselves to drinks.”

She nods, her smile fading into a sigh, and returns to her work.

The venue is a manor house some way into the countryside with an apparently very impressive ballroom and a small building that was formerly servants’ quarters, which is where the groom’s party will be lodging for the weekend. It looks like something out of a Gene Kelly film. For all Tim and Sasha say about Jon’s melodrama, it’s rather—

Well, no, he doesn’t quite have the heart to dial up the cynicism the day before their wedding. It is a lovely building.

It’s also a far cry from the modest chapel he and Martin had had—Mrs Blackwood, still lucid at the time, had been incredibly put out at the prospect of any son of hers not being wed before the Eyes of the Lord.

Grandmother had been at least nominally religious, but it hadn’t been anything particularly stringent, and the moment she stopped nagging him to come to church on Sundays when he was thirteen, he’d stopped going.

So their location had been something of a compromise, but not one about which Jon had a particularly strong opinion.

Tim’s been raving about this place for weeks. This trend continues as Jon walks into the kitchen area of the servants’ quarters. Danny is nodding along patiently as Tim continues his tirade about—moulding, or—or cornices, or something.

“Jon!” Danny says, eyes widening in a silent plea when he sees him. “How was work?”

Jon cants his head with a quizzical smile. “It was perfectly unremarkable, Danny. How are you?”

“Sick to death of this guy.”

“Hey,”  Tim says, reaching to scrub his knuckles against Danny’s scalp. “You can’t be rude to me, I’m practically the birthday boy.”

Jon moves hesitantly towards them, and Tim turns to envelop him in a hug so tight he loses his breath.

“Erm, hello,” Jon says awkwardly into Tim’s shoulder before returning the hug with a smile.

Tim withdraws and grabs Jon’s face in both hands.

“Aren’t you excited?”

“Yes,” Jon says, voice muffled by the pressure on his cheeks. “Of course.”

Tim is beaming.

It may be overwhelming, but it suits him.

“He just got in, Tim,” Danny says, straightening from his position leaning on the kitchen worktop. “Give him three minutes.”

Tim unhands him, his grin growing, if anything.

“Shall I, er, put this somewhere?” he asks, gesturing to the bag slung over his shoulder.

“Upstairs!” Danny says, rounding the island worktop to put an arm around his shoulders. “I’ll show you!”

Tim’s enthusiasm doesn’t seem dimmed in the least as he sets about making tea as they leave him.

“He’s been like that all day,” Danny says quietly as they mount the dark, narrow staircase.

“It is exciting,” Jon says levelly.

“Yeah, but—where’s he getting the energy?”

“If I knew that, Danny, my eye bags wouldn’t be so large you could fill them with carry-on luggage.”

Danny laughs, and as they arrive on the landing, Jon becomes aware of the sound of Martin’s voice, raised in irritation, from a room down the hall.

“—yes, I understand, but it’s a fu- it’s a wedding, Peter.”

Jon and Danny peek their heads around the doorframe. Martin is pacing beside the bed, on which his laptop is open. His sleeves are rolled up, and his tie is loosened. Jon feels a little guilty thinking so when he’s so clearly frustrated, but he can’t deny it’s a particularly handsome look on him.

“Yes, but have you—”

Martin grunts, taking his phone away from his ear and letting the voice on the other end drone away into the empty air above his head for a moment while he rubs his temples.

He turns, seeing the two of them in the doorway, and gives a tense smile, holding up a finger at them. 

He puts the phone back up to his ear, turning away again.

“Mm. Yeah. That must be tricky, Peter, but- but the thing is, Tim and Sasha have been my friends for seven years.”

There is a long, icy pause.

“Friends, Peter. I’m sure I’ve heard you use that one before.”

An even longer, practically glacial pause.

“Well! How about you fucking Google it!”

Jon and Danny glance at one another in scandalised silence.

“I’m not answering my phone till Sunday afternoon. You’re sixty-three, I’m sure you’ll make do. Bye.”

He makes a dismayed sound and throws his phone on the bed, covering his face with his hands.

“Jon’s here…?” Danny ventures cautiously. Martin turns, smiling apologetically.

“Yes! Yeah. Hi.”

He inhales so deeply that his shoulders meet his ears.

“Hi. Um- I- I need to get this done so I don’t lose my job or my patience, because I- I don’t know what the sentence is for murder, but—” he pauses to grimace. “Can you guys come get me if I’m not down, like, ten minutes before we need to head over?”

They both nod.

“Oh! Wait, Jon, I—”

He cuts himself off, turning to rummage through the small suitcase on a dressing table by the bed, and crosses back to the doorway with something in his hand, which he offers with a shy smile.

It’s a battered copy of ‘Wessex Poems’.

Jon’s eyes widen. 

“Martin, no, I—”

He waves his free hand dismissively. “Come on, we’re not having this argument twice.”

Danny silently slips the strap of Jon’s bag off his shoulder and slinks down the hall to the next room along.

Jon’s hand trembles uselessly where it had been gripping the strap of the bag.

“But it—”

“Nope. Don’t. It- It was in a box I found and unpacked this week, and, and, anyway, it—”

Martin smiles knowingly.

“It’s got your name on it, so.”

Jon nods and accepts it sheepishly, stroking the dog-eared corner of the cover with a thumb.

When he glances at Martin, he’s clenching his jaw with an unreadable look in his eyes.

“So,” he says quietly. “I’ll, um, see you later.”

Jon clears his throat. “Yes. Mm. Later.”

When Danny leaves Jon in his room—making him promise to come downstairs and help him handle Tim soon—he closes the door, resting his forehead against the wood with a shaky sigh.

He turns and cautiously approaches the book where it sits at the foot of his bed, picking it up like it’s made of decaying gossamer. When he opens the front cover, there is a sudden pressure inside his head like he’s in a rapidly ascending aircraft.

His name is still written—incorrectly—on the inside. He runs a thumb over it almost reverently with a smile.

Martin had asked Jon to go out the week after he’d given him this book. It makes perfect sense, in retrospect, but the thought of the intent behind it back then still fills the area behind his sternum with a pleasant, dizzying heat. Jonathan Blackwood, he’d almost written.

It has got a certain ring to it. When they did get married, partially in defiance of Martin’s mother, they’d both kept their own names. It wasn’t proper, she said.

Jon said to Martin when she was out of earshot that it wasn’t proper for her to have an opinion on the matter, and Martin swatted his arm even as he nodded in agreement.

Jon has to wonder to himself how many times Martin had idly written his name like that for it to come to his hand like it was second nature.

It doesn’t matter much, really. It’s—it’s all in the past, now, anyway.

But he’s still smiling when the four of them meet downstairs to go to the rehearsal.

Throughout the rehearsal, which is conducted in the entrance hall of the house—the ceremony is going to take place on the staircase; something about showing off the train of Sasha’s dress—Jon doesn’t mention Martin’s bizarre attempts at internet humour. It feels like that’s what he wants, and he doesn’t intend to give him the satisfaction.

Not until he understands what the actual goal is, at least.

Jon would struggle to fit a word in edgewise, anyway—every time there’s a lapse of even a few seconds, Tim turns to the groomsmen to remark on another aspect of the building’s construction. Or, rather, he does until Mrs Stoker marches up the stairs from her place among the two-dozen or so guests in attendance to scold her son thoroughly, standing a couple of steps above him to be at eye-level. 

Tim blushes as she returns to her spot. Danny laughs, and when Martin glances in Jon’s direction, they join him.

As the walk-through of the ceremony concludes, the celebrant—an elderly, bespectacled woman with white hair in a severe bun—detains Tim and Sasha to speak with them. Danny sits on the nearby step to wait and Jon perches beside him, watching the guests file into the ballroom where they’ll be having dinner. Martin stands nearby, leaning against the bannister.

“D’you finish your work, Marto?” Danny asks, voice hushed to avoid attracting the ire of the celebrant.

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah. He says he wants to have a word on Monday, but—pff.”

“Aren’t you worried?” Danny says, frowning.

“By Peter’s standards, ‘have a word’ means try to berate me till I tell him to explain to me what cloud computing is.”

Jon smiles to himself as they laugh.

The celebrant suddenly stops speaking nearby, with an irritated tut. Tim and Sasha both turn to watch the lanky man in a yellow Hawaiian shirt who’s just barged in the main door stroll towards them. He’s got long, dyed black hair and he’s carrying a guitar case. It’s already almost full dark outside, but he’s wearing aviator sunglasses. There’s something oddly familiar about him.

“And just what sort of time do you call this?” the celebrant asks, thoroughly unimpressed.

Danny stands and hurriedly nods to Jon and Martin, gesturing that they should apparently relocate. They follow him as he tiptoes down the stairs.

“What—” Martin begins.

“You don’t want to see Gertrude when she’s cross,” Danny hisses as he crosses to open the door to the ballroom for them. Jon glances over his shoulder as he goes through, and even though the celebrant appears to be going off on one, as the saying goes, the lanky fellow is nonchalantly removing his sunglasses and tucking them into the pocket of his shirt.

There’s definitely something familiar about him.

Jon tries, much of the time, to relate to Melanie as little as possible. But as she sits between him and Martin at dinner, it’s hard not to feel a small pang of pity. It must be rather awkward. He’s lost in thought as the room buzzes with conversation around him, and it’s only when his phone vibrates in his pocket that he blinks a few times and returns to himself.

He glances down and pulls it out, frowning at the screen as it lights up.

He purses his lips tightly to suppress the stupid smile that threatens him, slips the phone back in his pocket, and nudges Melanie with an elbow.

She frowns at him. “What?”

“Could—could you please explain how memes are supposed to work to me?” he asks.

She chokes on the sip of water she’d been taking, and as she splutters, her head turns towards Martin, whose violent gesturing seems to be an attempt to instruct Melanie not to explain.

Jon leans forward to squint at him.

“You’re aware I can see you from here, yes?”

Martin raises an eyebrow. “Oh, you can? Melanie’s so much taller than you I couldn’t be sure.”

Melanie groans and puts her face in her hands. “I liked you both much better when you were ignoring each other.”

Jon frowns in genuine confusion.

“You liked Jon? Like, ever?” Martin asks, astonished.

“There are numbers below zero,” she replies, sipping her water again.

All three of them laugh.

“My apologies,” Jon says. “Martin’s so intent upon chaos he appears to have forgotten good sense.”

“Hm,” Melanie scoffs. “You know what, I agree.”

She looks at Martin.

“He has forgotten good sense.”

He blushes.

“W- Well, at least I can- can tell jokes that aren’t mean, Jon,” he says.

Melanie glances at Martin, raising an eyebrow. “Since when?”

Jon sniggers, fixing his eyes on the sautéed kale he’s been idly stabbing at for the last twenty minutes.

Martin and Melanie bicker for a moment and then they also fall silent.

When she finishes eating, Jon pulls his phone out and nudges her with an elbow.

“Seriously, though, I don’t know if I’m stupid—”

She raises her eyebrows, nodding approvingly.

“Oh, ha, ha, yes, very funny, but can you look at this anyway?”

She rolls her eyes and takes the phone from his hand. Jon watches her face screw up in confusion and feels a victorious rush of vindication. 

“Hey, Martin?” she says, her voice artificially light.

He turns his head from the discussion he’s having with Sasha.

“Mm?”

She shoves the phone in his face. “What the fuck’s this supposed to be?”

“Hmm,” Martin lowers his glasses and squints at the screen, his mouth curling into a slightly manic smile as he apparently attempts to arrest laughter. “I think that’s called a meme, Melanie.”

She hands the phone back to Jon with a disapproving frown.

“He’s fucking with you, stupid.”

Jon gives a satisfied smile, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “Oh.”

Melanie presses a palm to her forehead in dismayed silence.

A few minutes later, Tim, still as exultantly gleeful as earlier—and, perhaps, a little tipsy, besides—waltzes over and rests his chin on Melanie’s head.

She reaches up to affectionately run a hand through his hair. “How’s your night?”

“My night’s wonderful,” Tim says, grinning like the romantic lead in a musical. “But, Ms King, more importantly, I hope your companions over here are being perfect gentlemen?”

Jon catches her glancing sideways in his direction.

“I thought,” she says, “I’d already sat through all the elaborate Jon-and-Martin flirting rituals I’d ever have to in my life, but…”

She trails off, shooting Jon another knowing smirk before smiling sweetly up at Tim, who laughs as Jon lowers his head, his cheeks heating.

“N- pff- shut up, Melanie,” Martin mutters on her other side. Jon doesn’t have the audacity to look.

“Well,” Tim says, shrugging magnanimously, “If they bother you, just remind Mr Blackwood here that you bore witness to six months of pining before they got themselves together the first time. I’m sure you have a lot of stories Jon would love to hear.”

There’s almost menace in the smile on his face.

“Anyway,” he says, the undertone fading back into ebullience, “See you later, guys!”

Melanie has a satisfied grin on her face for the rest of dinner. 

After dinner, Jon slips outside to have a few precious moments of silence. Most of the guests have already gone, leaving Tim and Sasha and the wedding party sitting at the banquet table they’ll be seated at during the reception tomorrow. The caterers—a young, smiling man with a port-wine birthmark across the bottom half of his face, and a tall, pretty young woman with vibrant red hair—sit down for a drink at Tim’s insistence as Jon slips out. He doesn’t see Martin. Perhaps he’s gone back to his room to do some more work and ensure Peter is off his back tomorrow.

He probably doesn’t want to be disturbed.

Jon finds the long-haired chap and Georgie sitting by the fountain in the main garden, both smoking. He almost passes them by, but she gestures him over. He sighs.

“D’you remember Gerry?” she says, gesturing to the man beside her.

Jon frowns and looks into the man’s smiling face.

“Yes, but—that’s- that’s not you, is it?”

He smiles. “Guilty. Jon, was it?”

Jon nods. “You- er—I don’t mean to be rude. You look very different.”

He and Georgie laugh.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding, “Most people have an emo phase in their teens, but I- I had what you might call an accountant phase in my early twenties instead.”

Jon laughs, and when Gerry looks down there’s something in the line of his brow that does resemble the clean-cut party host he knew several years back.

“But,” he continues. “Gertrude and I haven’t had any trouble getting work with me—well, looking like this, so. Here I am.”

Georgie shakes her cigarette packet in Jon’s direction. “Want one?”

Jon shakes his head. “I’ve done enough to kill my liver recently as it is.”

She smiles.

“Would it be weird to ask how your mother is doing?” Jon asks awkwardly. “I remember it was, er, complicated.”

“Oh, yeah,” Gerry laughs and takes a drag of his cigarette, swiping his hand in a straight line across his throat. “She’s dead.”

“Oh. I- I’m… sorry?”

Gerry shakes his head. “I’m not. Sold her house.”

“Oh. Er, congratulations.”

He finishes his cigarette and butts it out on the stone lip of the fountain, holding onto it to presumably discard inside, and stands, stretching his long arms above his head.

“Well, see you guys tomorrow,” he says, starting back towards the house. He turns to face them again as Jon takes his place beside Georgie. “Oh, Jon, are you okay with speaking between Helen and Danny tomorrow? At the reception.”

The fucking speech.

He’s written it, of course, but he’d managed to slip into blissful forgetfulness of it in the activity of the day.

“Er, yes,” he says vaguely. Gerry nods and gives a lazy two-fingered salute before he heads back in.

Georgie smiles.

“You tracking alright?”

He frowns. “Why is it always you asking me that?”

She lifts her cigarette to her lips and Jon watches the embers flare.

“Because you’re the one who—well, er, copes less well in big social functions. And you never invite me to coffee, you bastard.”

Jon chuckles. “Sorry. I thought you picked Martin.”

Georgie rolls her eyes. “Melanie and I—helped him out, sure. That doesn’t mean we—” she pauses, brow furrowing. “Wait, you’ve really been thinking I don’t like you anymore? For, like, two years?”

Jon straightens uncomfortably. “I supposed you had your reasons.”

“Jesus, Jon.”

He shrugs.

“Right. I know Melanie’s a bit prickly towards you, but that’s just… god. Let’s get coffee next week, then.”

Jon raises his eyebrows and glances at her to gauge whether she’s serious. She’s looking directly at him, her mouth a straight line.

“Alright,” he says hesitantly. “I- I suppose there’s a bit to catch up on.”

She shakes her head disbelievingly and finishes her cigarette. “Yeah. And don’t go and isolate yourself all night, okay? Come have a drink with everyone.”

Jon sighs and stands when she does.

“Fine.”

Jon does end up sitting on the far end of the banquet table. The conversation is still a little too animated for his tastes. Jane, Helen, and Sasha are having some sort of debate about—crystals or some such nonsense, and Tim is chattering with the caterers while Melanie and Georgie speak quietly, their heads bent together.

Jon sits and sips idly at a glass of gin from a decanter on the table in front of him. He must look rather mismatched compared to the rest of them, but when he isn’t talking, he can’t make a fool of himself, at least.

For once, he isn’t drinking to escape. It’s just—everything has been loud and frenetic all day, and he’s never been good at paying attention and staying silent for so many hours in a row. There are angles in his brain that have been sharpened from constant friction and—and he is tired. Besides, Martin’s not here, so it isn’t as though he’s got any reason to maintain the ability to string a sentence together.

It’s when he’s pouring a second drink that he becomes aware of a presence at his elbow as someone pulls out the vacant chair beside him.

“Anybody sitting here?” Martin asks, already sitting and reaching for one of the two empty tumblers left on the table. “No?” he continues. “Good.”

With the arrangement of the chairs, they’re at right angles from one another, and if he moved his leg, their knees might touch. So he doesn’t.

“I thought you’d—gone to bed,” Jon says, filling Martin’s glass too.

“Nah,” he says, sighing. “Just- Just needed a minute. Long day.”

Jon nods, smiling cautiously as he angles his glass towards Martin slightly. “We probably missed a toast, we should make it up.”

Martin taps his glass against Jon’s with an indulgent smile. “Okay,” he says. “To neither of us saying anything that horrendously cheesy again until I’m at least three drinks in.”

Jon makes a sound that is supposed to be affronted, but it comes out more like an amused scoff. “Firstly, I was unaware the poet Martin Blackwood took umbrage with cheesy,” he pauses to steel his nerves and take a sip of his drink. “And, and secondly, does that mean you’re giving me permission to try again later?”

The corners of Martin’s eyebrows rise challengingly. “Depends,” he says slowly. “What are you thinking of trying, the definitely-not-a-poet Jonathan Sims?”

Jon frowns facetiously. “Oh, you’ve mispronounced. I’ve cross-checked my sources, and according to my copy of ‘Wessex Poems’, it’s Jonathan Bims.”

Martin stares at him in mortified silence for a long moment, then one of them—unclear who, really—cracks, and they both laugh.

He reaches across Jon for the decanter and refills both glasses.

“Shut up,” he hisses, face still flushed. 

“It’s hardly my fault twenty-two-year-old you couldn’t spell.”

He smiles ruefully. “Twenty-two-year-old me was a bit flustered sitting next to the unbearable nerd he inexplicably had a big, stupid crush on.”

“Ah, there we certainly agree. Stupid and inexplicable,” Jon squints one eye and gestures like he’s shooting a gun at an unseen target. “That’s precisely it.”

Martin bites his lip and pulls out his phone. They lapse into silence that only ends when Jon feels his own phone buzz in a pocket.

Somehow he suspects he knows precisely who’s texted him.

“Am I a joke to you, Martin?” he asks, narrowing his eyes with a tired grin.

“Are you a psychic?”

Jon lowers his glasses on his nose. “Your phone is quite literally still in your hand.”

He finishes his glass and Martin refills it again, slipping his phone back into his pocket. He’s still smiling. 

“Hold on,” Jon says, lifting his glass and hesitating before drinking from it. “Are you trying to get me sloshed so I can humiliate myself in public again?”

Martin smirks deviously. “So what if I am?”

Jon regards him with false distrust and sips anyway.

They smile.

“Besides,” Martin says. “I maintain that making sure you didn’t get yourself killed makes me a pretty good friend, actually.”

“Could have done that bit myself,” Jon says petulantly, raising an eyebrow. “And—and it’s… friends, now, is it?”

Martin’s ears flush and he leans forward, resting his elbow on the table and bracing his chin on his fist. Jon shrinks away from him very slightly.

“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”

Jon is mildly shocked when his pinch to the inside of his forearm reveals that he is, ostensibly, experiencing this conversation in reality.

“So,” he says. “Do friends of yours normally get some sort of—orientation session before you start sending them unknowable jpeg horrors, or…”

“Oh, that?” Martin sniffs. “No, that’s special. That’s for you.”

Jon purses his lips. “Marvellous,” he says. “Does that mean you are attempting to gaslight me into believing I’m having a stroke?”

Martin lifts his chin to free his hand and swat at Jon’s shoulder with it. 

“Shut up.”

He perches his chin on his fist again.

“Maybe.”

“Oi, lovebirds,” Melanie says loudly from the other end of the table, hands cupped in front of her mouth.

They spring apart as though they’d been caught actually doing something untoward.

Jon feels his face flaming.

He rubs his cheek with a fist.

“Stop being so anti-social,” she says, gesturing to the chairs Helen and Jane had been in. They’re both gone.

Martin takes the decanter in one hand and his tumbler in the other and stands, and a moment later, Jon follows him, feeling rather like a scolded dog.

“Better not complain about your hangover too loudly tomorrow,” Tim tells him as he sits. “Or my mum might get at you.”

Jon gives him a disdainful sideways glance. “Consider me thoroughly menaced, then, Timothy.”

“Hey,” Georgie says, leaning forward. Jon frowns at her. “What was so important you two had to isolate yourselves over there?”

Jon silently chews on the inside of his cheek.

“I,” Martin says, leaning in front of Jon with his elbow braced on the table to address Georgie, “Was—testing a hypothesis.”

“Oh?” Melanie asks, giving Martin a look that seems disingenuous in its cheeriness. “Are we allowed more information, or would that compromise your results?”

Martin leans back in his chair, glancing apprehensively between Melanie and Jon.

“Wait,” she says. “Is this your meme bullshit again?”

The others laugh, probably partially in surprise. Jon lifts his glass to his lips.

Martin looks chastised and crosses his arms. “I didn’t say it was important.”

“On the contrary, Martin,” Jon says, not breaking eye contact with the bottom of his glass. “It’s very important. My sanity’s at stake.”

“Lost cause,” Sasha says across the table with a chuckle. “What’s your hypothesis, Marto?”

When Jon looks up, Martin is watching him with a trepidatious frown. “W- Well, I was sort of thinking, you know, because, er…” He finishes his glass and pours another. “Well—so—a few weeks ago, I texted Jon for, for, um, the first time. In—in quite a while, and, er—” he pauses to fight the smile that blooms on his face. “And he kind of made a little bit of an idiot of himself.”

Jon scowls.

“W- Well, sorry,” Martin says. “But you kind of did.”

He nods begrudgingly. It isn’t as though he has an argument against the truth.

“And it was—well, it was kind of funny, so, um,” Martin sips his drink. “So I was thinking, I wonder how much—hah, er, unhinged nonsense I can send him before he either, just, you know, asks me what the deal is, or, like, tells me to stop? So—got to three weeks. But now he knows.”

Martin meets Jon’s eyes.

“So now I’ve got to find something else to annoy him with. What—what a shame.”

“Right,” Melanie says. “Cool. Whatever. So, you two, what’s with the googly eyes?”

Georgie swats her on the arm and Jon downs his drink hastily.

He shrugs and, out of the corner of his eye, watches Martin place his tumbler on the table and spin it carefully, his hand hovering above it in readiness in case it strays near the edge of the table. This activity apparently necessitates his full concentration. 

“There aren’t any googly eyes,” he says vaguely. “We’re—we’re just on—speaking terms. That’s all.”

Melanie coughs dramatically twice and glares at Martin for a long, silent moment. “Bullshit,” she says, and coughs one more time.

Jon smiles despite himself.

“Anyway,” the caterer with the birthmark says, from the place beside Tim where he sits.  “We’d best be off. Lots to do in the morning.”

Tim stands. “I’ll see you guys out. Thank you so much for your work today.”

The caterer with the red hair gives a wave. “Thank you for your wonderful example of, er, oppositional-friendship-banter!” she says to Melanie, who laughs in incredulous confusion. 

“Agnes,” the other caterer says gently beside her. She grins blithely and waves again before the two of them go for the door, Tim chattering beside them.

Melanie widens her eyes at Sasha.

Sasha waits until the door closes and leans forward conspiratorially.

“She’s—Agnes had a bit of a weird upbringing, so she can be, um… like that. She and Jack are such a sweet couple, though.”

Melanie’s lip curls in distaste. “They’re dating and they work together? Eurgh.”

Martin cants his head. “Hold on,” he says, “How- How many views did your girlfriend reveal video with Georgie get, again?”

She places her hands on the table and leans towards him menacingly. “Listen, Martin,” she says, lowering her voice to a dangerous hiss. “I’ll gladly fight you, but do try to remember that a fight over who’s done more embarrassing shit when they’re in love is not a fight that you, of all people, should be starting.”

Martin’s had enough to drink that instead of shrinking away, he sets his jaw defiantly. “You’re the one who tried to cling to Georgie’s ankle so she wouldn’t leave that time you had a cold.”

Melanie’s eyes sparkle maliciously. “The Canterbury Tales, Blackwood.”

Martin’s eyes are like saucers and Georgie and Sasha shriek with laughter.

Jon smiles slightly. “I don’t think I know this story.”

“Doesn’t matter!” Martin says, turning his slightly hysterical gaze to him. “Does not matter.”

“No, go on,” Melanie says, still staring at him as she returns to her seat and steeples her fingers like a Bond villain. “You started this one, Martin. Finish it.”

Martin removes his glasses, discarding them on the table with a pained groan and hiding his face in his hands.

Jon watches with—with minimal disinterest.

He groans again, but it peters out into a pitiful sort of squawk.

“So, um,” he begins. “Th- f- hm.”

Sasha leans across the table towards Jon, reaching to grip his arm gently. “Remember just after you and Martin met when he lived with Melanie and I for a bit?”

Jon blinks incredulously. “Yes…?”

Sasha grins and leans back. “Go on, Marto, we set the stage for you!” she chirps.

Martin glowers at her from between his fingers. “F- Fine. Fine. So, er…” he pauses and pinches the bridge of his nose as he straightens in his chair. “Oh, and I hate all three of you, by the way,” he says to the others. “Um. God. So, er, Jon, um…”

“Yes, Martin?” Jon asks, truly trying his very hardest not to sound smug.

Tim returns and sits beside Sasha who apparently whispers an update to him.

“Well, when we- we met, I… we don’t—need—to discuss what my- my feelings were. We were all there. We’ve all got brains, supposedly. But, but anyway, um—I wanted to—you know, since we’d spoken about Beowulf once or twice—I just thought it might be nice to get you a, a book, as a gift, because I—I—” he draws the syllable out as though doing so indefinitely will save him from having to finish the sentence.

Unfortunately not.

“I—I liked you. Whatever. Obviously.”

Obviously, he says.

All Jon’s Christmases have come at once.

“So, so, I know there’s a bit of a difference in time period between Beowulf and- and Chaucer, but I thought, since you, you know, had an English degree, the, the difference of a few hundred years wouldn’t… be a dealbreaker, necessarily.”

Jon sort of feels sorry for him as he drains his glass.

“I, I mean, I- I did sort of worry you’d think I was an idiot for conflating the two, but- but you already—kind of—did—think that. So I supposed there wasn’t any making it worse.”

“I didn’t,” Jon says softly.

Melanie snorts.

“You did use the word puerile once or twice,” Sasha says.

“Honestly, my love, have you never heard of cuteness aggression?” Tim asks, facetiously withering. “You know, when something’s so cute you want to crush it?”

Jon’s face is uncomfortably warm.

“I didn’t think you were an idiot,” he insists emphatically before taking an overlarge gulp from his drink.

Martin glances at him with a melancholic smile before taking a deep breath, and when he continues, the sadness dissipates. But it is replaced with humiliation.

“Anyway, I- I thought it would be a good—conversation starter, at least. So. So, I went and found a copy at, um, at…” 

He digs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

“At the same bookshop I got you all those other books from—shut up, you lot—and, and, I mean, I’d never read it, so… I did. And I mean, it… it wasn’t too bad, mostly. I actually thought all the romance and stuff was, erm, kind of nice, but—” he refills both of their glasses. “But, I mean, there’s a story about a guy called John from Oxford getting cuckolded. I couldn’t just, just give you that book and then say, like, hey, can I take you on a date?”

The others laugh, but Jon frowns.

“You—you did give me The Canterbury Tales, though.”

To the sound of the others’ roaring laughter, Martin calmly gets up and crawls under the table, where he stays for a good thirty seconds.

When he emerges, his skin has taken on a near-purple tint with the rush of blood. 

“Shut up,” he tells them all meekly. “It was at our wedding, okay? As a joke.”

Jon snorts in his effort to hold back his own laughter.

“It isn’t funny,” Martin hisses at him.

Jon breaks, placing a hand over his mouth as he laughs.

“I’m sorry,” he manages. “It—it is a tiny bit funny.”

Martin scowls at him, but as he resumes his seat, Jon is fairly certain he sees the ghost of a smile in the corners of his mouth. He replaces his glasses and takes a long sip of his drink.

“What was the first book you gave him, again?” Sasha asks innocently. When Jon looks at her, her grin is utterly dastardly.

“Um,” Martin breathes, “It- It was—a—Keats anthology. So.”

Sasha stands so she can reach across the table and full-on punch Jon in the arm.

“Ow! What the hell?!”

She narrows her blazing eyes at him. “This beautiful boy gave you a Keats anthology and you didn’t notice he had a crush on you for six fucking months?”

“I- I was—I’m—am—” 

Oh, dear, how many gin-and-nothings has he had this evening?

“The fact that I’m stupid isn’t the issue for debate here, Sasha.”

“I hand-wrote him a Shakespeare sonnet for his birthday,” Martin tells her.

Jon puts his face in his hands. “I am very, very stupid.”

Melanie stands. “Well, I’m going to go puke.”

“Thought you weren’t drinking tonight, babe?” Georgie asks, rubbing her arm as she frowns up at her.

She looks at Jon, then Martin, disdain in her face. “Didn’t need to.”

Tim and Sasha laugh as Melanie and Georgie head for the door.

“Well,” Martin says, raising his eyebrows as he stands a little unsteadily. “I think I’ve made quite enough of a dickhead of myself.”

Jon gazes up at him with a smile. “Ah, at last,” he says. “You can relate.”

Martin reaches to touch him, but remembers himself and withdraws the hand like he’s been burned. He turns his attention to Tim and Sasha with a grimace.

“Night, guys. Love you.”

“L- fuck,” Jon blurts.

He kicks his chair away in his eagerness to take refuge under the table.

The others exchange a few whispered words he doesn’t hear, but he doesn’t emerge until Martin’s footsteps have receded entirely and the grave thud of the door falling into place stops echoing.

When he peeks out above the table, Tim and Sasha both have their chins resting on their fists on it, smiling angelically.

He narrows his eyes.

“Hello.”

“Hiya,” Tim says.

“Are we going to address that?” Sasha asks, her smile growing yet more.

Jon drags himself to his feet. “No,” he says, “I—I don’t think we are.”

“Aw, are you sure?” Tim asks, bouncing his eyebrows.

He plants his fists on his hips. “I’m sorry, are you two somehow—miraculously—confused about my—my feelings on this topic?”

They share an adoring glance.

“Isn’t he cute?” Tim asks.

“He’s so cute,” Sasha replies, leaning her head on Tim’s shoulder as she turns her saccharine little smile on Jon.

“Oh, piss off,” he mutters without any venom.

“Sleep well,” Sasha croons, kissing her fingertips and waving at him.

“Oh, and drink some water, son,” Tim adds.

Jon waves his arm dismissively and grunts as he turns and heads for the exit.

Chapter Text

Jon awakens at some point before dawn, and after the momentary shock of not recognising the bed he slept in, he’s too lucid to have any hope of going back to sleep.

He ought to have had the presence of mind not to sleep with his head and an arm hanging off the edge of the mattress. Every joint in his body seems intent upon announcing itself with a percussive crack as he sits upright.

Ow.

And of course, last night’s off-his-arse Jon—traitorous dick—also didn’t think to remove his tie before going to sleep, so there’s an angry, irritated indent on his neck where he was effectively garrotted for a good few hours.

Luckily, given how little he’s slept, his eye bags are certainly in fine form this morning, so he’ll be looking suitably dishevelled across the board.

Jon doesn’t remember the damned floorboards being so noisy last night.

He hurries downstairs and leaves the door to the servants’ quarters propped open with a tin bucket from the kitchen. It’s only when the bracing cold hits him that he realises he should have brought a coat with him, but he doesn’t dare go back up and risk waking everyone. As it is, today looks like it’s going to be an—an impractical amount of socialising.

He wanders to a marble bench under a tree and sits, hissing when the cold of the stone cuts through the thin fabric of his trousers.

He sighs.

Ineffectually stretching his still-aching neck, he looks to the sky. The deep blue is already tinted at the edges with pallid grey on its way to sunrise, and he squints against even that amount of light.

If only he’d asked Tim to bottle some of his enthusiasm yesterday. ‘Ready to die’ hardly feels like an appropriate mood for today.

But he’ll muddle through. He’ll survive, because it’s necessary.

It will be a wonderful day.

It just—isn’t yet.

Jon flinches, cursing, when something big and light and soft lands on his head.

What the fuck?

There are no birds with this shape and texture, and he dearly, dearly hopes no spider in the world could produce such a heavy web.

He grabs at whatever it is, struggling to find an edge, but a hand pulls it away before he figures it out.

Martin’s laughing at him.

“Sorry,” he says, pressing the back of his wrist to his mouth, “Couldn’t resist.”

He’s tinted blue by the predawn light, but the curls of his hair and frames of his glasses catch the orange of the light from the kitchen that he must have switched on as he came outside.

Jon couldn’t narrow his eyes if he tried.

“It’s alright,” he says softly. “Y- You’re up early.”

Martin tilts his head forward, squinting judgmentally. “Glass houses. I mean, there is one just there, but,” he says, pointing at the main house with its huge windows.

Jon huffs in amusement. “Stupid.”

“Yeah,” Martin says, his smile brightening not only his face, but seemingly the air around it, too.

Jon’s going to blame the dubious quality of his eyesight and his hungover brain for that one.

Martin tosses the thing at him again, but this time it lands in his lap. It’s one of his jumpers.

Jon is going to throw up. But—happily?

That is a brand-new emotion.

He takes a moment to recalibrate his existence around the fact that Martin’s just voluntarily interacted with him and apparently decided to lend him a jumper.

“Why are you up?” he asks.

Martin chuckles. “You’re really bad at creaky stairs.”

“Oh. Shit. Sorry.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t worry. Put that on.”

Jon obeys, but when he manages to navigate his head through the hole, Martin’s gone.

He sighs and, casting a glance over his shoulder—as though anybody else would even be capable of being conscious so early—tentatively lifts the fabric to his face and holds it there for a moment, his eyes slipping shut involuntarily. There’s a herbaceous sort of undertone to the smell; maybe it struck a branch in its trajectory to his head earlier. It smells like Martin’s pillow. Jon used to wake up after he had left for work and cling to it for far longer than he’d like to admit.

This could be an elaborate assassination plot that involves lulling Jon into a false sense of security, and it would not matter a whit. Martin could come back and tell him, explicitly, that that’s his plan, and he’d walk, eyes wide open, into the trap. What a pleasant way to go.

The sky has bloomed into periwinkle and pink, and the few clouds are lined with orange. It’s supposedly not going to rain today.

“Here,” Martin says softly.

Jon glances up to see him holding two mugs by their handles in one hand; a technique that always evaded his own mastery. In the other is a plate stacked with a frankly immoderate amount of toast.

Well, isn’t this morning full of surprises?

“You going to move over, or…”

“Oh! Sorry.”

“You’re really going to need to stop saying that today, Jon.”

He slides over enough that the mugs and plate can fit between them. Martin sits directly next to him anyway. The hammering of his heart must be audible.

“T- Today specifically, or just… in general?”

The light is still low. Though he’s fairly certain he does see the smile on Martin’s face, he inspects it for a moment or two longer.

Just to verify, of course.

“How about you start with today and see how you go?”

Martin offers Jon one of the mugs and he takes it in both hands.

“I think I can do that.”

“Good,” Martin says, nodding.

Jon holds his mug to his chest, tipping his head back and cringing when it gives a loud crack in protest at the movement.

“Jesus,” Martin says. 

“Anyway,” Jon says, clearing his throat. “Er, did- how- did you, um, sleep well?”

Martin chuckles. “Yeah, fine, until a bull got in and started dancing.”

“S—” Jon shoves a slice of toast in his mouth to stop the apology before it gets out. He swallows. “I- mm. G- Good.”

Martin watches him over his mug as he sips his tea slowly.

“How about you?” he asks lightly.

Jon grumbles. “Do you want the honest answer or the polite one?”

“You’ve never been polite a day in your life.”

“Rude.”

Martin scrunches his nose challengingly.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t true.”

The pink light from the sky reflects in Martin’s glasses, and on the tip of his nose, and his forehead.

But Jon isn’t going to act upon this information, because that wouldn’t be respectful, and he has no certainty of how he’d be received, and—and he’s afraid.

He’s a little bit afraid.

He tips his head back again to fix his eyes on a cloud drifting directly above them with a sigh.

The sigh catches in his throat as he feels the warmth of Martin’s palm resting at the nape of his neck, his thumb rubbing the still-present indentation from his tie. 

Jon can’t move, even if he wanted to.

“What happened there?” Martin asks, and he almost sounds—scared?

“Nothing,” Jon breathes.

“Jon.”

“What?”

His thumb falls still. “Tell me.”

He sputters. “I- I just slept—I forgot to take my tie off before I went to bed.”

Martin watches him with a frown for a long moment before withdrawing his hand, flexing it compulsively a few times.

“Ah.”

They sit in silence, eating.

“D’you think you’ll cope?” Martin asks. “Today?”

Jon shrugs. “I—I suppose I haven’t got much of a choice. I’m only really concerned about the speech, though, so—”

Martin pauses in his chewing. “Huh?”

“W- um, I—did- did Tim not—not tell you?”

He shakes his head with a distinctly haunted-looking frown.

“Oh. Er… he, um, asked me to say—say a- a few words. Before Danny.”

“Oh,” Martin breathes, finishing his mouthful and taking a sip of tea. “Right.”

Jon watches him with a bemused smile. “Wh- yes. I—you—have I said something?”

The smile Martin gives him is a little weaker than the others this morning. “No. Nope.”

“Oh, dear.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, you—you just—generally say no three to seven times when you’re, um… when you mean yes.”

Martin’s smile turns devious. “Well! You didn’t let me finish, did you?”

Jon looks down into his mug. “Sorry. You’re right. I didn’t.”

Martin nudges him with his shoulder and stays there. “What did I say about apologising?”

Jon meets his eye, glancing, before he can stop himself, at his lips. There’s a freckle on the left side of his lower lip.

How did Jon ever forget? He used to brush it with his thumb before they kissed. It was like a ritual. 

“Yes,” he says vacantly. “Right. Well…” He scarcely finds the energy to draw breath, his throat suddenly dry. “Sorry.”

The freckle shifts as Martin grins, but he doesn’t withdraw. Jon can’t withdraw either, transfixed by the thought that kissing him feels like a necessity.

Something imperceptible changes, and Martin stands, clearing his throat and placing the plate where he was just sitting.

“Better go,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “Probably going to be a queue for the shower.”

He clears his throat again.

“Eat some more, okay?”

“Right,” Jon says weakly. “Oh, um, your- your jumper?”

Martin smiles again. “Just hang onto it for now.”

He turns and is gone.

Jon presses the cuff of the too-long sleeve to his slightly parted lips and gazes into the sky. It’s a cheery, gentle blue, and now the clouds are stained with pale pink.

In further unprecedented events, following the Lending of the Jumper, Jon manages to go back to sleep for an hour or two. He’s only woken when Tim—who’s at least had the decency to keep his towel on—barges into the room and shakes his wet hair over Jon’s face like a dog drying itself.

Jon, still half-asleep, reaches a hand out impulsively, apparently catching Tim full in the face with it.

“Oh, spicy!” Tim says, shaking his head a moment longer for good measure. “Love the energy!”

Jon cracks an eye open to glare as he grumbles.

“Wake-up call, boss!”

The eye closes.

“Can we save the enthusiasm for when I’m upright, perhaps?”

The bastard bends down to scoop an arm around Jon’s waist and lifts him into a seated position.

Honestly, it’s like it’s the best day of his life, he’s so peppy.

The thought does bring a begrudging smile to Jon’s face as he rubs his eyes.

“It’s a big day!” Tim says, and when Jon opens his eyes, he leans forward conspiratorially and grabs a handful of the jumper Jon hadn’t had the heart to remove before he climbed back into bed. “Although—sort of looks like you already had a big night.”

“I don’t want to slap you again, Timothy.”

Tim bounces his eyebrows.

Jon hides the bottom half of his face in the neck of the jumper.

“You know it’s not—”

“Yeah, I know, it was a joke. Sorry.”

His face is genuine. Jon feels his cheeks warming.

“And, regardless, it’s—he just—he just brought me some tea this morning. That’s all.”

Tim raises an eyebrow. “Truly, the actions of an embittered ex-lover.”

“Truly, shut up.”

As he stands upright, Tim grabs Jon’s head in his hands and kisses the top of it.

“We’re going to have a beautiful day.”

With his eyes closed, still curled in the warmth of the duvet, the feel and scent of Martin’s jumper wrapped around him, Jon can actually bring himself to agree.

As it happens, Martin is the one who’s left with the task of tying Jon’s bowtie, but, as is almost invariably the way, it’s not anywhere near as romantic or eventful as the intrusive little fantasy of a few weeks ago led him to hope.

Martin is being reserved. It isn’t as though he isn’t permitted to be, of course, but after the garden this morning, the shift feels like having a bucket of icy water dumped on his head. 

But he isn’t being impolite. He isn’t being mean.

And even if he were, today isn’t about Jon, so he is going to keep his mouth shut—for once—and keep moving.

Martin leaves the makeshift dressing-room they’ve turned the kitchen into when he’s finished.

Jon’s hands clench into fists in front of him.

Tim and Danny are—somewhere. He looks around the strikingly silent kitchen. 

The servants’ quarters were nothing spectacular when they were constructed, and these days, well—rustic would be putting it diplomatically.

It’s a warm day outside, but in here it’s chilly and silent and Jon rather feels like he used to when crossing the threshold at Gerry’s parties. Like a bump on a log, Grandmother would say. Extraneous. Unnecessary.

He wouldn’t mind so much, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s been positioned to be so prominent and inapposite today. Being in the wedding party is one thing, but—

He should have taken the opportunity yesterday to show his speech to Tim. There won’t be time, now, and he’s probably inadvertently included some horrifically embarrassing detail that Tim would have spotted, or…

Well, no, there’s no ‘probably’ about it. He’s going to be speaking about his feelings in public. Of course horrific embarrassment is inevitable.

Ah, well, at least Helen is likely to say something unhinged before he has the chance. Hopefully she’ll bring out enough confusing aphorisms that everyone will still be scratching their heads the whole time Jon has a microphone in front of him. 

“Jon.”

Tim’s got an arm around both his shoulders.

“Sorry,” he says reflexively. “I—you told me to drink some water before bed. Should have, er… done that.”

He frowns. “Are you—are you okay?”

Jon sniffs, shaking his head. “Yes. Fine.”

The frown doesn’t move.

“Okay,” he says. “D’you know what you’re doing with your hair?”

“Oh. Shit. Uh—I hadn’t—” Jon rubs his eyes hard. “I hadn’t thought—do you have a preference?”

Tim puts his hands on Jon’s shoulders to look into his face. He smiles unconvincingly, and something in Tim’s expression changes. Without a word, he hugs him.

Jon’s eyes prickle as he returns the hug with a shaky sigh.

“I’m okay,” he says, though he’s not entirely certain who he’s trying to convince.

“Braid?” Tim says, all the brightness back in him as he pulls away. “I know they’re, uh—” he pauses, wiggling his fingers to illustrate, “Fiddly. Suits you, though.”

Jon nods. “I’ll manage.”

“Great! We’ve got to go in twenty minutes, okay?”

He nods again, and Tim goes outside.

He pulls a stool out from its place beside the island worktop and sits with a tired sigh. Despite his efforts to just—get on with it, apparently his body has elected to remember in painful detail that the last wedding he was at was his own.

He cracks his knuckles and collects a chunk of hair at the crown of his head and divides it into thirds. Truly, he hates braiding, but he’d also rather spend the next twenty minutes cursing under his breath and focusing on a task than weeping inconsolably. There’s probably an excellent joke to be made about weaving and the lesser of two evils, but he’s too exhausted and morose to construct it.

“Bloody thing,” he mutters as he loses his grip on one of the strands.

“D’you want a hand?”

Jon’s head whips around, and Martin is in the doorway leading to the stairs. His stomach sinks.

“I’ve got it,” he says hastily, grabbing a section of his hair at random to replace the strand he misplaced. He turns his back on Martin, but now his hands are shaking. He closes his eyes.

He stops entirely when he feels Martin’s hands gently gripping his.

“Jon,” he says softly. His skin is so warm in comparison—is Jon always this icy?

He makes a vague sound of acknowledgement.

“You do remember you’re the lesser of two weavers, don’t you?”

He only fights the laughter because of the accompanying tears he can feel budding behind his eyes. 

“That was awful.”

Martin chuckles. “Yeah. Sorry. Let go.”

Jon fails utterly in suppressing a shiver when Martin’s fingernails lightly scrape his scalp.

Neither of them speaks. 

“Darling, I—”

Jon didn’t finish the sentence—the plea, more like—because Martin was already kissing him again.

“You’re going to be late,” he eventually managed to say, shoving his shoulder into Martin’s chest to push him away, and finally fastening the top button of his sherwani.

“Don’t care,” Martin said decisively, leaning in yet again.

“Ah!” Jon barked, placing his whole hand on Martin’s mouth to detain him. “I do—” he paused and they both laughed giddily. Martin managed to sneak in another kiss, the wily bastard. “I care, I mean. Your mother already hates me—”

“She’s literally like that with everyone—”

“Be that as it may, we can’t exactly arrive together, can we? Sort of defeats the purpose of the whole—church—thing, doesn’t it?”

Martin pouted. “Fine. It’s not my fault you’re too beautiful to leave unattended.”

Jon forced himself to look cross, but he knew he was blushing. “Martin.”

“Okay, okay, fine, I suppose I can survive an hour without you,” he grinned. “If I try. Probably.”

Jon arched an eyebrow. “You’re very brave.”

“You’re very beautiful.”

“So you said. Go on.”

With great reluctance, Martin collected his keys and wallet and returned to kiss Jon one more time.

“I love you,” he said, and even if it’s a trick of nostalgia, it was as though the dust motes on the midday air glittered in gold and silver around him.

“I love you,” Jon replied deliriously, and then he was gone.

“Okay,” Martin says. “Done.”

Jon rubs at his eyes, either to dry the tears there or to banish the memory. Everything feels very dull and very far away.

“It was beautiful, wasn’t it?” his mouth says unbidden.

Martin crosses to the other side of the worktop to lean down and look into his face.

“What was?”

“The- The ceremony.”

“Jon, it hasn’t—” he breaks off and gasps quietly and there is a long, awful moment of silence. When he speaks again, his voice is softer. Sadder. “Yeah,” he says, rubbing his mouth. “Yeah, it—it was.”

Jon pulls the braid over his shoulder. “I think I had an elastic upstairs, if—oh.”

His hair is already secured.

“Did you—your hair’s too short.”

Martin’s face reddens.

Jon blinks uncomprehendingly. 

“Sh- w- well!” he says, crossing his arms defensively. “You never used to have one on you when you needed, and you’d always get all cross, so I- kind of- got in the habit back then of carrying one for you, and—I- I just- kind of got used to it.”

He scowls, and Jon still doesn’t reply.

“Shut up!” he says, crossing to the full-length mirror in the corner.

Jon touches his ring.

“Okay, lads—” Danny’s voice breaks the uncomfortable quiet as he barges in from outside. “Time to—oh. Shit. Sh- sorry. Should I come back?”

“Nope!” Martin says far too brightly, turning to Danny with a very convincing smile. “We’re good. Aren’t we, Jon?”

Jon’s eyes widen, but he nods and gets to his feet.

“Let’s rock and roll!”

“Oh,” Martin says, placing a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Congratulations!”

Danny frowns. “It’s—you do know it’s not my wedding, Marto?”

He smirks. “Oh, no, yeah, obviously, I know, it’s just—what you just said, I thought that was only legally allowed if you were someone’s dad, so…”

Danny wrestles Martin into a headlock and scrubs his knuckles on his scalp. He looks over his shoulder at Jon.

“You’ve got no taste,” he says over Martin’s grunted protests.

Jon smiles.

It’s 3:07.

Danny and Martin develop a theory that the ladies have gone on a coffee run, or else they’re much more committed to convention than had originally been believed, because it is not a long journey from the external door of the east wing of the house to the main entrance.

Tim’s been trying to get Gertrude to laugh for the last five minutes, and to his credit, he’s almost succeeded once or twice. Martin says  he thinks she’s losing patience, and he cites his skills in charming intimidating old—older, he’s quick to clarify, when Gertrude hears him and shoots him a glare, pursing her lips—ladies. He speaks their language. This he says with an amused smirk in Jon’s direction.

“Jon’s gran loved me,” he tells Danny, and Jon is completely unsuccessful in suppressing his smile.

“Glad you clarified,” Danny mutters. “I thought you were calling Jon an intimidating old lady for a second.”

“If the house-slipper fits,” Jon mumbles, and Martin elbows him as all three of them chuckle.

It’s 3:09 when Gerry, situated by the door, gives the guitar strapped to him an experimental strum and winks at Gertrude. She clears her throat and straightens her posture, finally managing to silence Tim with a warning sideways glance. Gerry starts playing.

Helen’s first in the procession, and the requisite slow pace as she struts across the room gives her ample time to exchange a few whispered, smiling words with Michael as she passes him where he stands at the front of the clustered guests.

Jane’s next. She looks very nice. And that is the only thought Jon intends upon having about her for the rest of the day, because she is Sasha’s friend and he won’t be rude.

Melanie does, admittedly, look exquisite. She’s wearing the same suit as the groomsmen, but in a deep teal. Behind his back, Jon touches a cufflink idly. That tailor may very well be superhuman.

She exchanges a knowing grin with Georgie, who blows her a kiss, as she passes. Even though she is—prickly, as Georgie so elegantly put it last night, the two of them fit together so well that it’s impossible to be cynical. Especially today.

It’s a good thing the double doors were both open, because Sasha needs the full breadth to make it through with a skirt so voluminous. The dress is a dark teal, with gold—fiddly bits.

There’s a reason Jon is not working as a dressmaker.

She looks perfect. Perfectly beautiful and somehow perfectly herself as she strides between the two clusters of guests unaccompanied. Tim said she had agonised over whether to ask Michael to give her away, but she didn’t like the implications of the practice. She didn’t need it, she said. 

She was right.

Even more heartbreakingly lovely than the way she looks, though, is the look she’s giving Tim the whole journey. It’s like she’s transfixed.

From the position a few steps above Tim, Jon only gets a glimpse of his expression when she meets him on the landing. There are tears streaming down his face, and he’s smiling so broadly Jon’s a little concerned he might dislocate his jaw. 

Then again, when Jon lifts a hand to his own face, his illusion of being anything other than a blubbering wreck himself is quickly dispelled. 

There’s his—baggage nonsense, of course, but more than that, he’s very proud of them. And he’s very happy.

They’re—perhaps not soulmates. Jon’s always thought of that as sentimental nonsense. But they’re a unit. He’s never known them apart, and, selfishly motivated though it may be, he hopes he never does. The two of them deserve their happiness. Because neither of them are as stupid as Jon is, they might actually get it.

“Hi,” Sasha says through her tears.

“Hey,” Tim says. Reverently.

Jon remembers with agonising lucidity what he must feel like. To look into the face of a person who sees every bit of you and still wants to pledge themselves and their time and investment forever, it’s—it’s dreadfully nice.

As long as one doesn’t horribly and irredeemably fuck it up.

Jon inhales deeply. It is still not his day. This train of thought is hardly conducive to keeping up the correct appearances.

“Right,” Gertrude says, her voice carrying impressively given her—well, lack of stature. Whatever chatter there had been from the guests stops abruptly when she speaks. “I won’t pontificate too long.”

She pauses.

“Now that I have,” she says, with an almost imperceptible quirk of her lips. There are scattered sounds of amusement, and Gerry laughs until she shoots him a look. “As you’re all aware, we’re here today to witness the marriage of Sasha Eurydice James and Timothy Charles Stoker.”

“Eurydice?” Martin whispers, turning slightly towards Jon.

“D- Have I never told you that?”

Gertrude turns her threatening gaze on the two of them, and they straighten.

“Sasha,” she continues, “I know you had your objections to the ladies-first construct, but—to be entirely frank—your betrothed here wrote nearly double what you did. As such, I thought I would do you the courtesy of allowing you to speak while we all still have our patience intact.”

Sasha looks to the ceiling as she laughs, and her tears sparkle in the light. “Thank you, Gertrude,” she says, running the tips of her forefingers along her bottom eyelids to collect the tears before they affect her makeup.

“Tim,” Sasha begins, but she can’t get another word out around the burst of giggles or sob that emerges first. It’s—sort of hard to tell which of the two it is.

She takes a deep, shaking breath and commences afresh.

“Okay. Tim. Um.”

She screws her face up in frustration and laughs again as her mascara runs.

“I’m—clearly—not super great at this kind of thing, which I know you know, because looking back, it feels like your proofreading was the only way I got through uni. But this is about—feelings. So—hopefully—I do a bit better.”

Tim cups her cheek in his hand.

“Even though it—annoys me a bit sometimes, I think I might have run off years ago to join a commune without you there as my external impulse control. And I am grateful, no matter how great an idea the one in Norway seemed to be.”

Tim laughs so hard his shoulders curl inwards as Sasha beams at him.

“And also I—even though you’re sensible, I love that you make me laugh every day. It might be that because I love you, I automatically think your jokes are funny. But—but that distinction doesn’t really mean anything from where I’m standing, because—”

This time, the sound she lets out is categorically a sob.

Jon clasps his hands behind his back until his knuckles rub together painfully.

“Because—I’m planning on—on loving you for the rest of my life. So I really hope you haven’t got any other plans. Um.”

Her face flushes, and Tim reaches with his other hand to wipe her tears away.

“Oi,” Danny says, descending the three steps that separate him from Tim to nudge him with an elbow. “You can’t kiss her yet, mate.”

The guests chuckle appreciatively as Danny retreats, and Martin whispers something to him.

Sasha shakes her head vigorously to recover herself.

“Um. Yeah. Lost my place.” She raises her hand to cover Tim’s on her cheek. “Oops. So. I—I also hope that, while I’m sure you’ll keep me grounded, I can remind you that actually, researching currently-active Scandinavian cults can sometimes be really helpful. Because it can lead me to discover ski resorts that apparently make excellent honeymoon destinations.”

Tim reluctantly lets his hands fall to his sides as he laughs again.

“You’re welcome,” she says. “And… more than anything, I hope that every day I can make you as happy as you make me, because that is—is exactly what you deserve.”

“Lovely, Sasha,” Gertrude says. She turns to Tim, canting her head. “Well, Timothy. Go on.”

“Thanks!” Tim chirps with characteristically unflappable enthusiasm. 

The tenderness in Jon’s chest threatens to burst out of him, and he takes a slow breath, smiling in hopes of venting a bit of it.

It doesn’t dissipate in the least.

“Sash. Um. Hi.”

She laughs. “Hi.”

Tim pauses for a moment, and his shoulders heave. “Hi. It’s—it’s kind of funny you mentioned proofreading—partially because I suspect Gertrude would have preferred you proofread this before I gave it to her—but also, because I only ever managed to stay awake doing both our work at uni because you were reading scary stories and conspiracy theories out loud to me the whole time. Oh, and inserting your commentary and speculation.”

She says something under her breath, and the two of them laugh.

“And you’re kind of a menace to society,” Tim continues, “But—honestly—that might be the best bit about you. You’re why I have fun, most days, and—and sometimes it feels like you’re—you’re the blue bits of the sky in a sunshower. Like, you’re the—the reminder that—that the sky always comes back.”

Tim pauses in his recitation and tilts his head to the side. Jon can’t see it, but he can hear the smirk in his voice.

“Yeah,” he says, “Maybe Gertrude had a point. I’m—I’m not really a poet. Really should have gotten Martin to give me a hand. Sorry.”

Sasha glances in his direction with a grin, and in yet another unprecedented event, Martin Blackwood appears to experience a genuine emotion in front of an audience.  He smiles, but clears his throat, lifting a hand to cover his mouth.

Unthinkingly, Jon places a hand on his shoulder blade, and—

And Martin leans towards him very slightly.

“Thanks,” he breathes so quickly and quietly that Jon is only mostly certain he hears it before they both remember themselves. Jon clasps his hands together behind his back again.

“I hope that in our life together I can help you feel safe and secure every day.”

Jon knows Tim isn’t casting aspersions with that one, but the resolute way Martin looks in the other direction as he says it stings anyway.

“And I—I plan to—to build our home and our life together in a way we’re proud of. I want—us—to give each other certainty. That we can base everything else on. You’re the best bits of me and you’re, actually, significantly better in some ways—even if I do need to take this opportunity to insist in front of all of our friends and family that you are unreservedly, utterly, and completely wrong about pizza toppings, every single time.”

There are chuckles from the guests, and Tim turns his head to address them.

“And, before anybody gets cross with me, she has avocado and anchovies, so, you know, objectively…”

More laughs.

Jon is learning some disconcerting truths about his friends today.

“But, since you’re going to be my wife—and even when I was writing this a few weeks ago, I thought it was important to put it in bold and all-caps, and also put a note about how fun it was to type, with, um, seven exclamation marks, I think—then… that’s the only time I’ll acknowledge that you’re wrong publicly ever again. Unless it’s about architecture, or wine, or video games, in which case all bets are off.”

Sasha winks at him.

“But in everything else, I’m—I’m on your team, and I know you’re on mine, and… I guess that’s—that’s kind of why we’re here. So, um.”

Tim wipes his face with the cuff of his shirt. “Go, team,” he says, bowing his head as his voice cracks with emotion.

“Stupid,” Martin whispers, turning his head slightly towards Jon, who is doing his utmost to give him a chastising frown in response. He is likely failing utterly.

Tim turns his face towards Gertrude.

“Um… yeah. That’s- that’s it.”

Gertrude sniffs. “Thank you, Timothy,” she says, and her voice seems to have softened slightly. “Now, while we attend to some—paperwork nonsense, Gerard is going to provide some more accompaniment, I believe. I thank you all in advance for your quiet patience. Helen and Daniel, if you would please step forward to witness.”

Jon’s only ever heard anybody call Danny that once, and it was the morning after he’d taken Mr and Mrs Stoker’s car out for a joyride when he was sixteen. The look of abject horror on his face, however, had cured both Tim and Jon of their hangovers fairly quickly.

As the music starts up again, Martin turns his head, raising an eyebrow.

“You okay?” he mutters.

Jon sniffs nonchalantly. “As a matter of fact,” he whispers, “I have—never actually had a human emotion—in my life—ever.”

He rolls his eyes, mouth upturned. “Oh, right, so, um… your face is just—leaking?”

Jon wipes at an eye with his thumb. “Indeed, but it’s, er… localised. To my tear ducts. I’m a medical mystery.”

Martin lifts a hand, but changes his mind, nudging Jon with his shoulder instead.

Jon nudges him back.

In his determination not to meet his eye, Jon’s gaze lands upon Georgie, who appears to be covertly filming on her phone. He raises an unimpressed eyebrow, and she waves with a theatrical wink.

Gertrude turns to address the guests as Gerry launches into another chorus of whatever sappy acoustic ballad he’s singing.

“Gerard,” she calls, and he stops suddenly.

“Sorry!” he says cheerily and gives a sheepish little wave.

“Right,” Gertrude says, clearing her throat. “Now, it is my great pleasure to welcome Mr and Mrs Timothy and Sasha James.”

She starts an almost violent round of applause as Tim and Sasha stride forward, hand in hand and fairly glittering with joy. They kiss until Danny steps forward to shove at Tim’s shoulder. When they break apart and smile at each other, Jon’s facial leak suddenly increases in severity. Perhaps he should go to A&E.

Martin steps forward to offer Helen his arm and the two of them file in behind Tim and Sasha as they descend the stairs. Danny gives his arm to Jane.

Perhaps this pair-off is due to the fact that Jon distinctly recalls Martin once describing Jane as the human equivalent of a termite infestation.

And that doesn’t count as an honest thought about her, because it came from someone else. 

Jon meets Melanie at the back of the procession with an attempt at a patient smile. The applause persists. 

Gerry shoots Jon a grin as he passes which he returns through his tears—

No, not tears, they’re—

Yes, they’re tears.

When they’re in the garden, Melanie shoots him a sideways glance, and her brow wrinkles with something that looks suspiciously similar to concern.

“I didn’t know you had an emotional setting,” she says.

He huffs. “Only at weddings.”

“Ah,” she says, then frowns. “Oh. Right. Like yours. Yeah, you were—pretty nauseating.”

Jon finds himself staring at the back of Martin’s head, his hair catching the sunlight.

“I rather was, wasn’t I?”

After a collectively frustrating half-hour, the photographer—a quiet, smiling young woman with short, bleached-blonde hair—elects to try for some candid shots. It’s unclear whether this was scheduled beforehand, or if the idea came to her spontaneously when she witnessed what happens to Jon’s face when he tries to smile on purpose.

Regardless, she sends Tim and the groomsmen off to chat, and says to ignore her. Jon is trying.

“Who’s the guitar guy?” Martin asks a little coolly.

“You don’t remember Gerry?” Tim says casually, somehow managing to look like a model in some glossy bridal magazine as he speaks. “You know, used to host all those parties? You saved Jon from his mum that time you helped him clean up that whole bottle of beer he spilled on the carpet when you—”

“Shut up, Tim,” Jon says hastily.

“Oh!” Martin says, grinning. “Yeah! Going to have to go with Jon on that one though. I’ve—I’ve only just recovered from the secondhand embarrassment.”

“Your fault,” Jon says under his breath, and Martin raises an eyebrow.

“That’s an interesting interpretation,” he says, though he’s smirking with amusement as he meets Jon’s eye. He looks down at the grass.

Tim laughs.

“Anyway,” Jon says, sticking his hands in his pockets. “How did I never notice Sasha had such—fascinating tastes in pizza?”

“I mean, you’re not exactly the most observant person in the world,” Tim says gently. The camera clicks.

“True,” Martin says, and Jon narrows his eyes at him with a smile.

“Worst part is,” Tim says, “I’ve suggested once or twice that she try adding it herself at home after we get it, but she likes oven-scorched-avocado. No accounting for taste, eh?”

When Danny and Martin laugh, they manage to make it look elegant. Staged.

Bump on a log, Jon says in his head morosely.

The photographer wants to take some photos of the happy couple alone, so the three of them are sent to cluster standing by with the bridesmaids. The chatter continues.

When there’s a lull, Danny turns to watch Tim and Sasha as they grin at each other, leaning against the trunk of a tree. It’s uncertain whether they’ve been instructed, or whether they just naturally look so—perfect.

“Doesn’t she look amazing?” he asks nobody in particular. “They’re so lucky.”

“What about that girl you brought to that event—you know, the one where Jon was really nasty to G—”

“Jane,” Martin barks, and Jon loves him as fiercely as he ever has for it.

“Oh, Nikki?” Danny says briskly. “Yeah, she’s, um… she’s—really cool, but she’s not, um… not really the, uh, getting-married type?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Melanie asks challengingly.

Danny sighs. “W- Nothing! Of course. Just, uh, you know, she—doesn’t want kids, for one, and…” He relaxes very slightly as Melanie nods, apparently mollified. “And she’s a trapeze artist, so, like—I mean, I’d be happy to travel, but—hopefully for something other than a touring circus, you know?”

Martin laughs. “Fair enough.”

“Her loss,” Helen says to Danny with a coquettish pout.

“Besides,” Danny says uneasily. “I really hate clowns.”

After they’ve been posed and snapped and rearranged and documented to the photographer’s satisfaction, they’re arranged in pairs in front of the exterior entrance to the ballroom. As they wait, Jon begins to suspect that Tim or Sasha—or both of them—had a secondary goal for today: either kill him by embarrassment through prolonged exposure to Martin, or have Melanie do the job more directly when they inevitably escalate to a knife-fight.

It hasn’t quite come to that yet, at least.

All the sound is beginning to grate on him, and he’s still got to keep a human face on through dinner and all the speeches—including his, he remembers with a dizzying wave of nausea—before he can escape to a broom cupboard or something for a few blessed moments of peace.

Tomorrow is going to be hellish.

At least it’ll be a Sunday.

“Are you coping?”

Jon blinks a few times and realises he must be scowling mightily from the tension headache beginning to form between his eyes.

It’s Martin that asked.

“Mm? Er—w- yes.”

To Jon’s surprise, Martin rests a hand lightly on his elbow, and he focuses so intently upon not flinching from shock that he completely misses whatever it is he says.

“Mm—what?”

Martin steps out of line to look into his face, but his cheeks dimple as he forces back his amusement. “I said I think you’ll do fine.”

“What?”

From his other side, Melanie tugs on his ear, making a show of pretending to look into it.

“Is this thing on?” she says, tapping his temple with two fingers.

Martin laughs, but reaches to swat her hand away, putting his arm around Jon’s shoulders in the process. “Don’t be mean to him,” he says, “It isn’t his fault he’s allergic to compliments.”

Melanie and Martin both laugh, and after far too brief a moment, he withdraws and returns to his position.

“I’m sure you’ll speak beautifully,” he says.

Jon squeezes his lips together and nods his acknowledgement. As he straightens his suit jacket, Melanie narrows her eyes.

“It’s normal to say thank you, I think.”

He blinks. “Yes. Thank you, Melanie, I know.”

“He’s shooting for plausible deniability,” Martin mutters from behind them. When Melanie looks over her shoulder at him, she rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling.

“How’d he spend so long around you and still end up so bad at manipulating people?”

Jon can picture the disingenuous, wide-eyed look on Martin’s face without needing to turn and confirm that it’s there.

“Excuse me, Melanie,” he says, “But I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”

The doors in front of them open.

Melanie drags Jon into the ballroom by his arm when he hesitates.

“First off, we’ve got TV’s Melanie King and the positively Edwardian—” Gerry stops to affect a terrible impression that’s either an offensive caricature of Jon, or a serviceable Richard Burton, “Jonathan Sims.”

Tim and Sasha must really think they’re the wittiest people alive.

“Gosh, aren’t they gorgeous? Like Grumpy Cat times two,” Gerry says, grinning as they pass by him.

Jon gives Melanie a commiserating grimace as he pulls her chair out for her to sit. He takes his place beside her.

“Next up, please welcome the maid of honour, Helen Richardson, accompanied by the gentleman-of-arguably-dubious-repute, Martin Blackwood.”

It seems as though one of them must have said something amusing before they enter, given the genuine smiles they both have, muttering now and then to one another as they cross the room.

“Are we supposed to clap?” Jon murmurs to Melanie under the sound of applause. 

“Don’t be stupid!” she snaps, and then, a second later, adds, “I don’t know.”

They both sit awkwardly motionless.

Helen has always been a bit confusing to Jon. 

She was at a dinner party Sasha threw a few years ago, and she took an instant liking to both him and Martin—but especially Martin. It’s not as though he doesn’t deserve the spontaneous, unquestioning admiration of all those he meets, but… well, it’s weird. 

It’s a bit weird.

Martin’s always liked her, though.

Jon is perfectly aware that it is, perhaps, ill-advised to stare at Martin the whole time he crosses the room, but the coloured lights rigged to the second-storey balcony reflect with almost technicolour vibrance from his skin and hair and Jon can’t help but think of the night at the Spanish restaurant two days before their wedding and damn it, he is not going to cry again.

It’s over, because he’s fucking stupid, and he’s the one who put things where they are now, and maybe Martin will tolerate being in the same room as him now, but—that’s it.

It’s masochistic to keep thinking or hoping otherwise, and though a masochist he certainly is, he’s not going to ignore reason.

As Martin and Helen part ways in front of the table, and he turns towards where Jon and Melanie are seated, their eyes meet.

And almost immediately, Martin ducks his head and looks away, smiling sheepishly.

Fuck.

Jon’s going to need a minute to explain that one away, especially as it appears his brain isn’t working anymore. 

“Next,” Gerry says, “Please welcome the infectiously charming Jane Prentiss and the best man and…” He trails off, apparently weighing up a choice, and continues, “Frankly just remarkably sexy Danny Stoker.”

Gerry winks at a guest as he says this. Admittedly, seeing Danny, wide-eyed and blushing, mouthing an apology to his parents as he passes, is quite amusing.

“And finally, ladies, gentlemen, and those too sensible to get bogged down in such nonsense, please join me in welcoming our guests of honour, Mr and Mrs James.”

They really do make a stunning couple. They’re both almost literally glowing, irrepressible smiles on their faces as they walk hand in hand across the ballroom, pausing to hug Gerry as they pass. Finally, when they reach the table, they split apart to walk individually around it and take their seats.

It must be nice to derive any joy from the—pomp and circumstance of it all. On their wedding day, Jon had certainly not been rude, but his smiles only felt real when he was looking directly at Martin—who, as far as he was concerned, was the point. So Jon had wanted to escape back home to be alone with him as soon as possible.

Martin is—or, at least, had been; it’s not like Jon knows anymore—similarly reserved, internally, but he was always much better at hiding it. The whole day, he’d grinned and joked and made conversation with everyone—though, granted, they’d only had something like fifteen guests, which was nothing compared to the five-dozen or so here today.

Somehow Martin made it all look effortless. Jon was unspeakably grateful to him. Still is, in fact. It’s probably only through the reflected positive regard of their guests on that day that he didn’t lose every social connection he’d had after the divorce.

Martin has always been far better than he deserves.

He could easily say the same of Tim, and of Sasha—who squeezes his shoulder as she passes behind him on her way to her seat. 

Jon bites his tongue.

He can find an obscure corner of the building to weep in overwhelmed gratitude after the public speaking portion of the evening.

While they eat, Jon keeps his eyes fixed on his plate, supposing that perhaps if he isn’t interacted with, he can avoid imploding.

“Oi,” Melanie says at some point, shattering his delicate optimism.

He takes a deep breath before looking up at her, eyebrow arched.

“Martin says are you okay.”

The irritability isn’t at him. It isn’t at her either, actually. He is focusing very hard, and it’s exceedingly difficult to get words out at all, let alone vetting them for tone first. 

“Tell him,” he says sharply. “Jon says he doesn’t need to pass notes.”

Melanie narrows her eyes. “What’s your problem?”

He grunts, squeezing his eyes shut. “Sorry. I’m—it isn’t you. I- I’m sorry.”

Her nose wrinkles with distaste, and she turns back to Martin.

“He’s fine,” she tells him, “Apart from the usual Terminal Git Disease.”

Jon doesn’t make out Martin’s reply over the sound of the chatter and the music playing underneath it. He returns his focus to dissecting a roasted carrot and tuning it all out for as long as humanly possible.

“Right,” Gerry says into his microphone from the centre of the empty dance floor after—truly, Jon couldn’t guess how long at this point. A while. “So, before we can get to the actual fun, we have some wonderful speeches to get through. First of all, we’re going to hear from my close personal friend and partner in…” He pauses for a conspicuously long moment. “Only perfectly legal recreational activities, Gertie—”

Gertrude stands from her place at one of the guest tables near the back, her expression stormy.

“Gerard,” she barks, audible even without a microphone.

“But,” Gerry continues hastily, “I can’t guarantee your physical safety if you call her that. She prefers Madam Gertrude Robinson, Respectable Society Lady.”

He crosses to hand her the microphone and sinks into her vacated seat beside Michael, with whom he exchanges a few friendly-looking words.

Social circles have always reminded Jon of spiderwebs. Lose your footing, and before you know it, everyone you’ve ever known will be ready to tear you to shreds.

“Alright. Hello,” Gertrude says as she steps onto the dance floor with the practised confidence of a seasoned orator. “I wasn’t horribly enthused about speaking again, but—well, Sasha asked very nicely, and in all frankness, I’m rather fond of her.”

With this, she turns to give Sasha a perfunctory smile.

Tim reaches to rub her shoulder as she wipes her eyes again.

“Timothy, on the other hand, well…”

She turns again to watch him for a long moment.

“You’re acceptable, I suppose.”

A chorus of chuckles from what must be Sasha’s side of the room.

“I don’t need to praise you too effusively, because Sasha has that comprehensively covered—as I’m sure anybody here who’s had a conversation of longer than thirty seconds with her will agree.”

She clears her throat.

“It does feel a bit unusual to try and offer counsel to a pair of people who are so—mm, cohesive already. So I thought it would be best not to. Instead, let me instruct you to continue. You’ve done admirably, so presumably something is working well.”

She turns to them once again. “And for god’s sake, Timothy—get a haircut.”

Tim and Sasha begin applauding before anybody else.

Gertrude actually smiles before she crosses to return the microphone to Gerry.

“Ugh, lovely!” he says into it. “Thanks, Gigi.”

He takes several hasty steps towards the dance floor, only just escaping the smack over the arm Gertrude aims at him.

“Now,” he says, crossing the room to where Helen sits between Tim and Danny. “We’re going to start on the table of the stars with the lovely Helen.”

That’s—certainly one word for her.

Jon doesn’t see what Gerry does when he steals Helen’s seat after she stands, but he suspects it must be making Mr and Mrs Stoker rather uncomfortable judging by the shrieks of laughter coming from the other guests.

“Hello,” Helen croons in that peculiar way she has. She always sounds as though she’s about to break out in either a lullaby or a jazz ballad. “I’m Helen, yes. I first met Sasha, ooh, sixteen years ago, so we were very well-acquainted by the start of the whole delightful saga that’s led to today. And I can tell you, it’s just been—”

She pauses to wink at Sasha.

“Utterly nauseating. Though, granted—” She strolls over and ruffles Martin’s hair, giving Jon a serene smile. “We’ve seen a lot of those sorts of couples, haven’t we?”

She grins and goes back the way she came, perching between Tim and Sasha.

Jon grips the handle of his steak knife, not out of any intent, but because it was the first thing to come under his hand, and it was that or crawl under the table.

Melanie casually reaches out and takes the knife from him without so much as a glance in his direction. 

“But the thing that really sticks out to me is the way she reacted after their first date. She came to visit Michael and I immediately afterwards, and she was just distraught. You know, we were a little bit concerned, given that by eighteen she’d already come to us worried about having committed some light breaking and entering, wire fraud, and—”

“Helen,” Sasha hisses.

“And nothing else of note,” Helen finishes hastily. “We were a little bit mystified as to what the issue was. Lo and behold, she’s moping around telling us all about the wonderful date she’d just been on with this wonderful boy who spent the whole evening talking about Linux kernels.”

It’s comforting to be reminded that Jon’s not the only insufferable nerd in the general vicinity.

“Oh, and, of course, he wanted to talk all about the intersections and contrasts between their fields, even though they were both in first year. It was all terribly charming and sweet. And of course, when we met the boy in question, he seemed… a little bit scared.” She glances down at Tim with a smile. “Which I, personally, thought was nice. Now, our Sasha would never be deterred from something once she’d set her mind to it—but we did give our approval anyway. I remain perturbed by how… normal he still appears to be, but… well, I trust her judgement. So—congratulations, sweetheart.”

She bends to kiss both their cheeks to the sound of applause.

Gerry stands, taking the microphone, and looks at Jon with a grin.

Oh, fuck.

“Now,” he says, “Before we can hear from my love Danny, we have the pleasure of giving our rapt attention to this thoroughly eloquent gentleman.”

He stands at Jon’s shoulder, offering him the microphone with that easy smile plastered on his face.

Jon was unaware that he’s thoroughly eloquent.

Good lord, he certainly hopes it’s true.

He takes the microphone with a trembling hand as he relinquishes his place at the table. Gerry takes it and turns to Melanie, saying something he can’t hear over the beating of his own pulse.

“Erm, hello,” he begins, the uncanny sound of his own voice reverberating back at him as he speaks.

He lowers the microphone to take a steadying breath and tries again.

“If—If you don’t know me, I’m Jon. Jonathan.”

As he takes a few steps forward, he turns to look at Tim and Sasha, who are both smiling attentively.

“Jon,” he says, nodding. “Um… I- I’ve known both Tim and Sasha since I was nineteen years old. And in all of that time, I have yet to figure out where the ends of their patience for me or their love for one another are.”

He has to consciously decide to breathe. 

“And perhaps the most awe-inspiring thing about that is how that love so inspires them to—to love everyone who knows them. Now, I’m no expert.” He chuckles self-effacingly, and when he happens to glance at Georgie at a table nearby, her smile is—genuine. “As—as I’m sure anyone in this room whom I’ve known longer than two days will readily tell you.”

To his dismay, there is a peal of laughter from various places in the room. He hears Melanie and Martin beside him, but he doesn’t dare look.

“But,” he continues, “But… but what little I do know feels like it’s come almost exclusively from the two of them.”

He pauses and inhales.

“Even though,” he says, “These lessons have needed, at times, to be repeated. Incessantly. And loudly.”

Sasha is laughing, and Tim looks down, wiping at his eyes.

“Er, if you know me, you are also well aware that I’m not… not generally very quick to learn.”

Something catches in his throat. He makes a weak attempt at clearing it.

“So, Tim—um—Tim, you- you have been far more loyal, wise, and devoted a friend than anybody so proficient at styling their hair has any right to be.”

Tim mouths something Jon can’t quite work out, and thank heavens, because he likely couldn’t handle it at the minute.

“And- And, Sasha, your—mortifying opinions on pizza notwithstanding—”

This earns a proper laugh from the guests. He smiles weakly.

“I have a gift for you. In front of—all these witnesses, I’m- I hereby recant everything I’ve said in the heat of arguments that I usually caused by electing to die on a very stupid hill. You’re—you do generally end up being right, anyway.”

“I know,” she says at full volume, and there is scattered applause. Jon chuckles.

“So, all of that is as much to say that, er, it’s—it is not an exaggeration when I say that most, if- if not all, of the good things to happen to me in the last ten or so years have been, directly or indirectly, because of you.”

An image flits through Jon’s mind of a smoky house party seven years ago, and of a sheepish and unfamiliar young man flanked on either side by Tim and Sasha, their smiles made devious either by intent or the ludicrous amount of alcohol in which they’d already indulged that evening. Or both.

“Jon,” Tim had said, with a momentousness that hadn’t made sense at the time, “This is our friend, Martin.”

“He’s a poet!” Sasha had added, and Martin’s face had flamed. “We’ve been dying to introduce you two.”

Jon shakes his head as if to clear it.

“If- If love is anything, it’s—it’s feeling at home, isn’t it? And…” He smiles again at the two of them, and makes no attempt to stop the tears from falling for fear of the sob that may emerge from him if he does. “And if you’re very, very lucky, the other person becomes your home. You can go anywhere, but—but if they’re with you—”

Jon truly doesn’t mean to look at Martin, but he discovers when he does that he’s looking back so intently that it traps him.

“If they’re with you,” he repeats, “Then—there you are already.”

As far as he’s concerned, nothing but Martin exists, and he doesn’t so much as blink, for fear he’ll fade into nonexistence with all the rest.

“You’re home.”

Martin’s face fills with an emotion Jon isn’t entirely sure there’s a word for and he looks into his lap. Melanie covers his hand with hers and says something.

Jon casts an unfocused eye around the room before settling on his feet.

“So,” he says, “To both of you, I hope that no matter where you go, you’re—you’re always home.”

Everything is silent until Gerry puts him out of his misery and stands to take the microphone back. There is a roaring sound in the background.

“Sounds like Jon and Gertrude are going to have to have some words later about Tim’s tonsorial preferences, eh?” Gerry says. When Jon is seated, his hearing fades entirely for a few moments. 

When his senses return, he dares to lift his head. Danny is already speaking at the other end of the table.

“Where’s Martin?” he whispers to Melanie.

“Just, um—I, I think…” She sighs and looks at him with genuine sympathy. “I think he needed a minute.”

“But—”

“Jon, seriously,” she mutters, “Just leave him alone.”

He frowns and the fingers of his right hand find his wedding band like it’s some kind of talisman. Perhaps it is.

Or, at least, a memento of an untouchably distant time in history.

“And Mum was furious that we had to get another whole truckload of topsoil to replace it,” Danny is saying, and apparently it’s a punchline. He grins at the laughter. “Anyway, Sash, um… all that’s to say, uh… welcome. I know you know Tim loves you, but—we really do, too.”

Danny pauses as Sasha stands and launches herself bodily at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He lifts her off her feet for a moment, and Tim calls him a show-off.

“And,” he says, as Sasha returns to her seat, “Timmy, um… I was going to make a bit of a joke here and just say, like, congrats, and leave it at that, but… well, there are more reasons than me being so much better-looking for your being the comedian in the family.”

He clears his throat.

“Um, I know this might not—make sense to you, but you’ve—you’ve kind of always been my hero. And I’ve always looked up to you, even once I had that growth-spurt when I was twelve and it became impossible, at least physically.”

Jon laughs with everyone else in the room, but he stops as Martin silently resumes his seat with a careworn expression on his face.

He leans forward, and Melanie turns to glare at him.

“Jesus, Jon, not now,” she hisses, before turning back to Martin to whisper something at him.

Hypocrite.

“And,” Danny says as Jon leans back and crosses his arms. “And I know there are—well, I know Mum and Dad may not love this, but you’re—you’re my example, too. Not only because you’re smart, and determined, and kind, but—heh, you also somehow managed to bag a wife who’s fifty times hotter and smarter than both of us put together.”

Another chorus of laughter.

“So, um, well done. Um… I sort of didn’t have a neat button to—to put on this, because you’re the writer, and I didn’t get you to proofread, because I didn’t want to risk you trying to get me to take out the line about your wife being hot, so…”

Danny lifts his glass and gestures around the room. Everyone follows.

“So I thought I’d just say, er, I hope I’m…” His voice cracks. “I hope I’m just like you when I grow up, and… and I probably speak for everyone when I say—we love you, and, um. Congratulations.”

It’s hardly ‘to your health’, but everyone gets the idea.

Melanie frowns warningly as she taps her glass to Jon’s.

Gerry takes the microphone back and moves towards the centre of the dance floor.

“Wow, everyone! Beautiful man, and a beautiful mind. What’s not to love?”

It occurs to Jon that there’s a distinct possibility that Gerry is not, as they say, doing a bit.

“Anyway. We’re going to resume the festivities shortly—do thank Jack, Agnes, and their worker bees as they clear up. See you soon!”

The second Gerry switches the microphone off, Jon is walking as quickly as he dares for the side exit, which leads to the garden behind the servants’ quarters.

When he’s in the blessedly quiet night air, he pulls at the stupid bloody bowtie until it finally comes undone and shoves it haphazardly in the pocket of his waistcoat. He bounds down the five or six stone steps into the garden, giving the marble bench from this morning a dirty look as he passes it. He settles on leaning against a tree, shielded behind it from the lurid lights of the ballroom.

He leans his head back, not shrinking away when he impacts the tree trunk harder than intended.

It’s suddenly rather difficult to draw a full breath.

He tears off his glasses and massages his forehead with the heel of one hand.

“Hey, Jon?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

For a moment, he tries to calculate his chances of crawling unseen into a flower bed, but Martin rounds the tree and finds him before he has a chance to commence the manoeuvre. 

“Hey,” Martin repeats quietly, and because there’s a branch between the lights and his face, Jon can’t read his expression at all. “That was very, um… public.”

Jon doesn’t reply.

“Is—are you okay?”

He laughs coldly. “Am- f- I—” He takes a breath and thrusts his glasses in his jacket pocket, barking out another caustic chuckle as he struggles. “Wh- Please enlighten me, Martin—what on earth would possess you to ask?”

Martin is still.

“So we’re doing this, are we?” he asks tersely. 

“Doing—doing what?”

When Martin tiredly leans his temple against the branch which still obscures his face from the light, Jon springs away and inspects the nearby area for somewhere else to brood in peace for a moment.

“Jon.”

He doesn’t answer, sneering again at the bloody bench as he completes a circuit of the tree, at last settling on standing a few paces removed from it with his arms crossed tightly.

“Jon.”

“What?”

“You seriously want to have a stupid argument right now?”

A ghastly pause.

“I’m—I’m just trying to make sure.”

Jon’s jaw spasms painfully as he opens his mouth, and it feels bizarrely like he’s biting his own attempts to speak.

“I- I don’t want anything,” he manages, “Wh- Why would I?”

Martin shifts his weight enough that Jon can see his eyebrows raised with an unimpressed frown. “Can I be honest, I don’t think you’re actually the one who gets to be cross right now.”

The exhaustion, or the overstimulation, or something, stops him from having the presence of mind to either explain that he needs a moment to himself before he can have any hope of discussing this like an adult—or, failing that, to turn and run away.

“What did I do?” Jon hisses.

Martin scoffs incredulously. “Are you serious? Alright, okay, let’s just go in order, shall we?”

Jon narrows his eyes.

“So, since- since it apparently still hasn’t been emphasised enough for you—you cheated on me after five years. That really seems to me like long enough for you to have worked out that that was literally the worst possible thing you could ever do to me. And I didn’t know. You didn’t even try to talk to me about—about how you were feeling, so that I could at least try to help you. Just- Just, just, oh, hi, Martin, yeah, work was fine, and by the way, I kissed some bloke I’ve known for five bloody minutes, how are you?”

“I didn’t—”

Martin raises a hand. “Let me strongly advise you not to quibble over who kissed who, Jonathan.”

There’s another mephitic pause.

“But, you know what, let’s put that aside, shall we? Hell, let’s limit it to the last month or so, eh?”

Jon has made an error.

“So we’ve got whatever the hell was going on at the fitting, which was—I don’t—I don’t know if you were trying to, to- to play hard to get or something—”

“Wh—”

“I’m not finished. I don’t—I really don’t care, either way, to be honest. It was nasty. You were—you were mean. And I hadn’t done anything to you. But you didn’t care, because yet again, you were more concerned with showing off how sorry for yourself you felt. But now? Today? For once, you’re not going to decide how I feel and then martyr yourself accordingly without even thinking to ask me. And, also, you—you know what the worst bit of all that—that woe-is-me bullshit of yours is, Jon?”

Jon inhales. “I have the funniest feeling I’m about to find out.”

“Oh!” Martin laughs derisively. “So you do understand how actions and consequences are meant to work?”

“Martin—”

“Still not finished. It’s that it—it could—we could have been friends, maybe, or something, but you haven’t ever tried to just, I don’t know, start a conversation like a human. You don’t—you don’t ever ask how my day’s been. You never bothered to ask what I was reading, or—or anything. Because it didn’t ever occur to you. Because you were so focused on your feelings and how sad you were. So I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised about what—whatever that was just before.” Martin gestures in the direction of the ballroom. “I suppose it was pretty standard, given your demonstrated habits.”

“Wh- What, exactly, do you think I was—doing?”

Martin’s voice freezes over entirely. “You’re confused?”

“I’d certainly like to hear your interpretation,” Jon snaps.

“Ignoring how much you know I hate—having to—have people know my business in public like that? And after everything you’ve done to me over the last four months, with all the—the poking right at—at how—how insecure you know I am about being left behind, especially by someone I l- care about?”

He takes one step forward and plants himself where he stands. “You just hijacked our best friends’ fucking wedding reception to make some—some ridiculous attempt at- at, at what, exactly?”

Jon is silent.

“Great! So you don’t know either. Cool. Regardless of all the other disruption and- and bullshit, it— it wasn’t enough for you to fuck with my life, but you had to wreck something as important as this for Tim and Sasha, too.”

Jon’s jaw clenches. “You’re saying all that like I had some—some grand idea of, of winning you back or something.”

Martin cants his head wordlessly.

“This—it wasn’t about you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Fine!” Jon hisses. “Fine, fine, it was, because—I don’t- I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice, Martin, but there’s not a great deal else of which I’m capable of thinking.”

Martin’s expression stays blank. Jon forces himself to take two deep breaths, clenching his left hand and pressing the tip of his thumb to his wedding band.

“And I- I didn’t mean to—to make you uncomfortable, so—I’m sorry. I am sorry. But I can assure you very, very confidently that there wasn’t—it wasn’t a, a ploy. I’m- I just—”

His face feels so hot it could be steaming in the night air.

“Of- Of course, even if it had been, we both know it would likely have been just as hamfisted and mutually mortifying, so the distinction scarcely matters, does it?”

Martin doesn’t move.

“But just—just to make things perfectly clear—so we’re on the same page: yes, I’m still—still fucking desperately in love with you despite my efforts, and- and it’s probably never going to go away, but—”

There are no tears in his eyes, but his frantic inhalations sound like sobs.

“But you don’t love me, and I’m—I am perfectly—fucking aware of that. It’s just about the only thing I think about apart from—from you, so- just—don’t- don’t waste your breath anymore on my account. I’m quite certain you’ve already done enough of that for one evening, so let’s—let’s save you the shame and me the humiliation, and I’ll just—be out of your way.”

Despite his words, Jon couldn’t move if he wanted to.

Martin blinks.

“You’re—you are really fucking nasty sometimes, Jon.”

“Sometimes?”

“Seriously?” Martin asks exhaustedly, pressing his hands to his face.

“Seems an inappropriate moment for a joke,” Jon says with a bitter smirk.

Martin watches him for a long moment before spreading his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Right. Okay. Fine,” he says, turning to go back inside.

“Fine!” Jon barks after him, preserving the last scrap of his dignity by not dropping into a crouch and squeezing his legs painfully with his arms until Martin is back inside.

Chapter Text

“So, really, Chernobyl was much more the fault of shoddy engineering and standard bureaucracy—and, and, of course, graphite-tipped cooling rods, but- but I already… I won’t get started on that again—than the inherent dangers of nuclear power. RBMK reactors were heavily flawed, but it’s mostly CANDU reactors in use these days. So, um…”

Jon looked down into his mug with a frown, and forced a smile onto his face as he glanced up again.

“Martin, are you alright?”

His eyes widened and his head twitched towards Jon with a manic, frenetic sort of energy.

“Um… hm? Yeah! Oh. Yeah. I’m—I’m great. I’m really great. Hey, is the air a bit wavy in here?”

Jon’s smile grew genuine.

“I don’t- no, I- I don’t think it is,” he said, his brow wrinkling in concern even as he grinned. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

The flickering fluorescent lights were illuminating the beads of nervous sweat at Martin’s temples, but again, he shook his head, finishing his latte like it was three fingers of hard liquor.

“Totally fine,” he repeated, swiping the back of his wrist across his forehead. “Sorry! You, um… w- Three Mile Island, or something, you were saying.”

Jon straightened the collar of his shirt with both hands. “It’s alright. How about, er—I think I could do with some fresh air. I’ll go and pay, and—”

“No!” Martin said urgently, catching the table with his leg in his haste to stand. “Y- You’re not allowed to- I asked, so I’m supposed—”

Not that there were a great many to choose from, but this was shaping up to be the most excruciating first date of Jon’s life.

Unfortunately, he had cherished every painful second thus far.

“Martin,” he said, telling himself even as he did that it was patience and not fondness in his tone. “It’s fine. You can just—pay on the next one, okay?”

Immediately he felt a twinge of remorse for saying something so sadistic, because Martin’s face went so blank it was as if his CPU had crashed.

“Um!” he managed, voice tight. “Um—y- w- okay. Okay! Yeah.”

Jon pressed a fist to his forehead with a grin that was beginning to make his cheeks hurt in its persistence.

“Excellent. Do you want to wait outside?”

Without responding, Martin made for the door.

When Jon followed a few minutes later, he was crouched with his back against the shopfront, his face in his hands. Jon frowned and knelt to gingerly place a hand on his shoulder.

“Do you need to—go home or something?”

“No!” Martin said hastily, standing so quickly that his shoulder smacked Jon in the chin on the way.

Jon pressed his hand to his mouth as his eyes watered, and he felt hands on his shoulders, accompanied by a frankly impressively diverse stream of profanities.

“Oh, my god,” he said, and he sounded near tears himself. “I’m so sorry, I’m—”

When Jon opened his eyes, Martin had removed his hands and was wringing them together instead, staring at a spot on the footpath with abject mortification in his face.

“I should have bloody known I was going to completely cock this up,” he said vacantly, and continued muttering under his breath.

Jon frowned, wiping the water from his eyes, and—staying cautiously at arm’s length, since there was apparently an ancient curse afoot—placed a hand on Martin’s elbow.

“You haven’t,” he said, not quite able to meet his eyes. “I’m—you may not be, but I’m—I’m having a nice time.”

His expression shifted. “Y- Really?”

“Yes,” Jon said, inhaling and making eye contact with a slight smile. “I really am.”

Martin’s brow furrowed quizzically even as he smiled. “What’s—what is wrong with you?”

Jon took a half-step closer to him. “Shall we go alphabetically, or chronologically?”

Boldly placing Jon’s hand on his forearm, Martin nodded, looking sincerely impressed. “I’m surprised you haven’t got some sort of trauma—Dewey Decimal system.”

Jon rolled his eyes fondly. “Ah, yes—it’s in the works, you see. I don’t have anything for 123 yet.”

In the open air, Martin regained the ability to construct full sentences.

“Is that one out of your control?” he said, raising a challenging eyebrow.

Jon was rather surprised to find that at no point for the rest of the date did cartoon love-hearts, in fact, explode from his eyes.

While luxuriating under the tree in his own brilliant wit, timing, and restraint, Jon chews the nail of his left forefinger to the quick.

It takes—with no exaggeration, for once—every bit of sense he has left not to stand, not bothering to collect his belongings, and walk either back to his flat or into the parkland surrounding the manor to hopefully be abducted by—aliens, given the distinct lack of deadly London-based cryptids, or perhaps killed in a fall.

But it would hardly do to leave yet another one of his messes for his friends to deal with. And the thought of Martin burning his personal effects in effigy is a little depressing.

“Hey,” someone says, and Jon hastily swipes at his eyes with the backs of his hands. He lifts his head.

Melanie is frowning down at him, her suit jacket slung over her arm, and her hands in fists on her hips.

“Please don’t gloat,” he murmurs. Her frown deepens and she squats beside him, resting her elbows on her knees.

She watches him for a long moment.

“I won’t,” she says at last, “But—what did you do?”

“I—” Jon cuts himself off with a sigh, pressing his hands to his face. “I did what I always do. I was- mm. I was—rash, and selfish, and—and I fucked it up. Again.”

Melanie sighs, tipping her head and scratching at her eyebrow with the nail of her little finger. “He was really overwhelmed.”

“Yes,” Jon says sharply, lacing his hands on the back of his neck as he squints at her. “Yes, I think I realised that when he spent ten minutes castigating me.”

She purses her lips. “I didn’t come out here to bully you, dickhead.”

“Right,” Jon says, tugging his glasses from the pocket he shoved them in and ineffectually wiping at the lenses with the cuff of his shirt. “Sorry. I—yes. Sorry. I’ve been—even more of a bastard than usual to you today. I’m sorry.”

Melanie gives something of a pleasantly surprised grimace. “Um, okay—s- er.” She tilts her head. “Did you, like, hit your head?”

“Very funny.”

The corner of her mouth twitches upwards. “Give those here,” she says, gesturing to his glasses. He does, and she pulls a handkerchief from her waistcoat pocket.

“It’s clean,” she says in response to Jon’s scowl. When she’s satisfied, she hands them back, and he slips them on.

“I shouldn’t have been short with you,” she says brusquely, gaze fixed on the grass in front of her. “I know you—you were probably feeling pretty shit.”

Jon gives a weak half-smile. “That’s certainly one way of putting it.”

“It was brave,” she says, masking her words by standing and stretching her arms above her head with a groan. “And you might—sometimes—be a bit of a prick, but… it was nice. What you said.”

“Did—Melanie, did you just compliment me?”

She turns on him with blazing eyes. “Nobody will believe you.”

Jon laughs, standing with the usual few audible cracks. “Alright. Okay. Did you hit your head?”

Melanie scoffs as she pulls her jacket on. “You don’t have—that many good points, so—makes sense for you to at least be aware of the few you have got.”

“Ah, there she is,” Jon says, pushing the errant strands of hair off his forehead with one hand. “Welcome back.”

She rolls her eyes. “We’ve got to do the first dance soon. Come on.”

Jon follows.

When Jon makes it inside and acclimates sufficiently to begin parsing meaning from all the input again, it strikes him as surprising that Gertrude is seated at the baby grand piano on the dais to one side of the room serving as a stage. If he recalls correctly—though it may be that, in fact, he does not—Gertrude is here because she was Sasha’s first boss out of university. Sasha was hired on as an archival assistant at some stuffy academic institution or other, but she and Gertrude had gotten along well enough to stay in contact.

Well, perhaps she’s multi-talented.

Sasha has, after all, always maintained what could be described as an eclectic social circle.

Jon probably doesn’t even make the cut for the top three weirdest friends she has.

Speaking of which, he allows himself one more honest thought about Jane as she stands in front of the piano, singing ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’: he didn’t know she had such a pleasant voice.

When she finishes to applause made stentorious by a good few hours of drinking by now, Gerry emerges from the crowd with an acoustic guitar strapped to his back to kiss her on the cheek, adjusting the microphone stand to his own height.

“Okey dokey,” he says, clasping his hands together, “Now that we’re all good and tipsy, we’re going to have the opportunity to show off our moves in just a minute—but first, we’re going to witness the stunningly lovely first dance of our very own Mr and Mrs James.”

He pulls the guitar by its neck to his front and gives it a strum.

“Now,” he says, “Sasha asked me to tell you all not to look too closely at their feet, because they haven’t quite nailed the footwork.” He pauses and grins. “So, let’s all agree to focus on how mesmerizingly they’re gazing at each other, okay? Great. In the immortal words of Mr Timothy James himself—go, team.”

Without giving him the chance to continue, Gertrude starts playing the introduction to ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’. He has time to turn to her and say something off-mic before he turns and begins singing.

Melanie appears beside Jon as Tim and Sasha twirl and glide around the dance floor in, at the very least, a pretty convincing facsimile of effortlessness.

“If it helps,” she mutters, “He’s as stupid as you are.”

Jon raises an eyebrow as he turns his head only slightly towards her. “I’d say avoiding me like the plague is indicative of his far superior intellect, wouldn’t you?”

She shakes her head tiredly and doesn’t speak again until they are joining the rest of the wedding party members on the dancefloor during the second half of the song.

Melanie places her hand on Jon’s waist and offers her other hand for him to take.

He frowns. “I don’t think—”

“What,” she snaps, “Like I’m supposed to trust you not to break any of our bones?”

Jon sighs as he capitulates and places his hand on her shoulder.

“Can I tell you something?” she asks when they’ve set a sustainable pace.

“I suspect you will anyway.”

She nods. “You do know he never actually stopped asking after you, right?”

Jon blinks. “He—what?”

“The last two years, every time he was at our place and he knew Georgie or I had seen you, he’d make this big show of being—you know, catty, but he’d say, like, ‘oh, I bet he hates that new job’ or ‘his flat is where?’, but—”

Melanie smiles.

“You know how Martin’s a really good liar provided he doesn’t give a shit about the thing he’s lying about?”

Jon returns the smile. “Yes.”

“And you know how when he’s lying badly he starts nervous-sweating?”

He chuckles. “Yes.”

“He’d be gleaming every time you got mentioned, and he’d just… insist, until we gave him whatever new intel we had,” she says that with a quirked eyebrow and a facetious smirk, “Which was never much, because you never answer Georgie’s texts.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, I’ve already received my lecture on that topic.”

They fall quiet as Gerry transitions into another song.

“Point is,” Melanie says eventually, “Well—he’s asked—more, since—all this.”

Jon’s face warms and he doesn’t reply. 

“Listen,” she says, “Just- Just don’t assume the worst of him like you do of yourself. He probably respects you more than you respect you.”

“Oh. I- I suppose you’re right.”

It isn’t exactly a particularly high bar.

She laughs softly. “Are you self-actualising right now because Martin yelled at you?”

Jon looks away. “No,” he says, “Because he—didn’t raise his voice, actually, so.”

Melanie smiles again, and it’s a little uncanny seeing warmth in her gaze, but—not in an unpleasant way.

“I literally can’t stand you,” she says.

Jon chuckles, but suddenly his face falls. “Hold on,” he says, schooling his expression into genuine-looking concern. “Good lord, are we friends now?”

Melanie baulks, going stiff as she shoves him to arm’s length with a much more characteristically derisive scowl. “Fuck you,” she says. “No.”

Now, Jon is grinning. “Melanie,” he says vexatiously, “I- I don’t mean to alarm you, but I think we might be friends.”

“Bye,” she says, immediately splitting away from him and crossing the dancefloor to offer her hand to Georgie.

Still smiling, Jon crosses to go out the other side of the ballroom, where the fountain is. He stands awkwardly halfway between the fountain and the door, covering his face with his hands and flinching when the cold metal of his wedding band touches his overheated cheek.

Behind him, a pre-recorded song starts blasting over the loudspeaker.

“Hey, Jon,” says a voice. He turns.

Gerry and Gertrude are descending the steps, both looking a touch overloaded themselves.

“Gertrude really liked your speech,” Gerry continues, grinning as he shoves his hands into the pockets of his black suit-jacket. Gertrude scowls sideways at him.

“Mm,” she intones begrudgingly, “It- I thought it was very earnest. I’m certain the happy couple appreciated it.”

“Oh. Er—I- th- thank you,” Jon says, mystified.

She turns to Gerry as they stop in front of him. 

“I’ll be back in five minutes,” she says, before turning and continuing off around a corner.

“Mind if I smoke?” Gerry says, pulling his long, black hair over one shoulder.

“By all means,” Jon says, adjusting his glasses.

“So you and Sash met at Oxford, right?”

He pulls a cigarette box and a lighter from somewhere, lighting up with practised ease and depositing them away like it’s a sleight of hand routine.

“Y- Yes. First year.”

Gerry nods. “Could have guessed.”

“What?”

He snorts, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, you do sort of have a bit of the, er,” he affects the same RP-accented impression from before dinner, “Oxford man thing going on.”

Jon shrugs, chuckling. “My, ah, my—ex-husband once called me a professional pretentious prick in an argument, so… fair enough, I suppose.”

Gerry raises his eyebrows. “Ooh, that is some nice alliteration, though. What did you do?”

He inhales, admittedly relishing the strong scent of the burning tobacco in the air. “I- do you know, I don’t remember.”

Taking a drag, Gerry cants his head. “Oh, hold on, were—weren’t you and the, uh, librarian-looking chap, like… a thing?”

Jon covers his mouth in a vain attempt to stifle his sudden laughter.

“That’s the one,” he says breathily, wiping his eyes. “Martin.”

Gerry purses his lips, eyes darting about in thought.

“Jon,” he says hesitantly. “Can I ask you something?”

“Mm.”

“Did you mean to pull that whole ‘it is the east, and Juliet is the sun’ thing at him earlier? During your speech?”

Jon’s laughter dies and he squeezes his eyes shut. “Was it that bad?”

“I’m not saying the romantic intent could be seen from space,” Gerry says, chuckling. “But- ah, it’s fine. I was nearby, so of course I saw it.”

Jon doubles over with a tired groan, bracing his hands on his thighs.

“D’you not wanna talk about it?” Gerry murmurs conspiratorially.

Jon smirks up at him. “Should I instead be asking about your designs on our Danny?”

Gerry blushes lightly, turning slightly away. “Mm- well, it’s not- you know, I’m not blind.”

Jon straightens. He crosses his arms. “You’d best not hurt his feelings.”

His brow wrinkles with judgmental amusement. “Or, what, you’ll read me to death?”

They both laugh.

“I’ll have my phone directory at the ready,” Jon says, and Gerry bends to butt out his cigarette on the footpath. When he stands up, Gertrude returns, patting her tightly-styled hair.

“Good luck, then,” Jon says with a smile. Gerry winks.

“Likewise,” he says, and he and Gertrude disappear inside.

He’s alone scarcely ten seconds before Mrs James herself emerges, eyes trained on him immediately.

He has half a mind to retreat.

“Been looking for you!” she chirps, approaching and taking his arm in order to pull him further towards the fountain. “Let’s talk.”

“W- Won’t you- you can’t miss your own party.”

Sasha grins, turning her face to him. “They’ll have to survive for a few minutes. I’ve barely seen you today.”

Jon returns her smile vaguely. “You seem to be having a marvellous time.”

Her smile grows so wide that her eyes close blissfully. “Loved your speech,” she says, leaning her forehead against the side of his head for a moment.

“Oh. You did?”

She squeezes his arm. “It was gorgeous. I see why Tim asked you, you’re amazing under pressure.”

Something stirs in the pit of his stomach.

“I—I was a little worried I might have, er… inadvertently—redirected the focus.”

Sasha slips an arm around his shoulders as they walk. 

“Being looked at like you’re the only person on earth is kind of the dream, isn’t it?” she says comfortingly. “I’m sure he liked it. It was very romantic.”

“I doubt that very much,” Jon says, flexing his left hand where it rests at his side. “We just had a hell of a row about it.”

She tilts her head, narrowing her eyes. “I just don’t see him hating you permanently over you making eye contact during a speech. He really loved you.”

“Past tense,” Jon says peevishly. “Loved.”

Sasha pinches the bridge of her nose. “I can’t speak for him, Jon. I’m not a mind-reader. Have you tried having a human conversation?”

He blinks. “I—suppose not.”

“Hm.” 

She lets go of his shoulders and takes his arm again. 

They walk another loop of the fountain in silence.

“Also,” Jon says, once it begins to grate. “I didn’t know that you had such a—storied criminal history.”

“Eurgh,” Sasha says with a sneer. “Helen being Helen again. I don’t. I just—I just maybe—broke into a phone exchange building when I was a kid.”

“You what?”

“W- Well.”

For the first time in recent memory, Sasha blushes.

“I was- I was really interested in how they worked, so I—I unplugged some things, to see if I could disassemble them with the—very understocked, as it turns out—toolkit I brought with me. Then I, um… made some calls. Got onto the deputy commissioner at the Met.”

Jon’s eyes widen. “Who are you?”

Sasha grins. “A loon.”

They stop.

“Correct,” he says, hesitating a moment before putting an arm haltingly around her. She squeezes the breath from his lungs.

“You ready to come back in?” 

Jon closes his eyes. “Relatively speaking, yes.”

Sasha grins and he cannot help but follow her.

“I’m not dancing to bloody Elvis.”

Martin cradled his face in his hands with an exhausted sigh.

“Okay,” he said, laughing. “So… another song… then?”

“But I like this one.”

Martin tilted his head down to scowl affectionately at Jon over his glasses.

“I don’t think sheer force of will is going to change who the singer is.”

“You don’t know that, though.”

“Are you trying to make this harder?”

Jon pouted. “I think my solution is very elegant.”

Martin’s scowl deepened and he looked at his laptop screen again. “The grief of love lasts a lifetime?” He squinted up at Jon, sighing. “Take me through the thought process one more time?”

He rested his chin on his fist. “Firstly, my love, I thought you of all people would understand the beauty in the melancholic—”

“You do know that, like, happy poems exist?”

He laughed incredulously as Jon presented his open palm, rolling his eyes.

“Secondly,” Jon continued, “Who speaks French these days? How gauche.”

Martin was now watching him quite intently, a loving sort of infuriation in his features. He didn’t respond.

“So nobody will know what the text means. They’ll just hear ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You’, which—”

“Which you don’t want because it’s—too mainstream.”

“Yes.”

“And this, which, to be clear, is you spending—” Martin looked at his watch. “Forty minutes talking your way around using the Elvis song you’ve admitted about seven times this evening to liking, is- is… the preferable option to you.”

Jon nodded, subdued.

“You’re completely unhinged.”

A pause.

“Darling,” Jon said, smirking. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say that sounded like capitulation.”

Martin closed his laptop, stood, and bent to press a kiss to the back of his neck.

“You’re really lucky I love you so much.”

Jon is left blessedly alone for five minutes when Sasha returns to the crush of people on the dancefloor. 

Perhaps he has a glass of champagne.

A hangover feels like less of a looming danger when one has no intention or expectation of sleeping. 

Granted, the hangover still happens, but it’s more of a gentle fade than a sudden shock upon waking—and given Jon’s propensity to exist in a state of vague malaise anyway, it doesn’t feel very daunting.

The second glass is not intentional.

But, when returning his champagne flute to the bar, he turns and sees Martin at the edge of the dancefloor, facing towards him with that inscrutable, pensive expression that means he’s Got Something To Say. It’s remarkably familiar.

So Jon pivots where he stands and asks the redheaded caterer—Alma? Edith?—for a refill before swiftly finding a different corner in which to sequester himself.

There’s the squeal of microphone feedback over the end of the electro-pop song that’s been blasting over the speakers, and Gerry fairly leaps onto the stage, his guitar strapped to him. He’s beaming.

“Hi, all!” he says, and from his voice, he’s probably fairly tipsy. “Me again! Grab someone you’re into—” He points at someone in the audience, and there are a few scattered, drunken shouts of encouragement. “Because we’ve got a mushy one coming up.”

Jon hesitantly drifts to sit at a table on the edge of the dancefloor, so as to at least be able to pretend that he’s still participating.

The gentle, arpeggiated guitar introduction sounds oddly familiar, and, as though spurred on by instinct, Jon finishes his drink.

Oh, shit, no.

Not by instinct.

By the very clear thought that it was truly insane for Tim and Sasha to elect to have this song performed.

It’s an ill omen, if nothing else.

“Wise men say only fools rush in,” Gerry sings, and Jon finds himself standing, eyes wide in confusion—or horror—or embarrassment.

On the other end of the dancefloor, like some horrid parody of the final scene of a romance, Martin is watching him, but he looks appalled—he looks haunted.

Jon hasn’t even had the decency to die in order to be a proper spectre.

How rude of him.

As he stares back, Martin’s face goes pale, and his frowning mouth tightens into a tense, twitching line. Then, blinking once, he turns on his heel and strides out the door leading to the fountain.

Jon lets out an inarticulate, infuriated groan, then marches to Tim and Sasha, twirling in blissful unawareness at the centre of the dancefloor without a care in the world.

He crosses his arms.

They both turn to smile serenely at him.

“I suppose you both think this is hilarious.”

“What makes you say so, boss?” Tim says disingenuously, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, that’s right,” Sasha continues, smirking. “If I remember rightly, your, um, your first dance was—yeah! ‘Plaisir d’amour’, which—hmm, I seem to recall you telling us several times was a completely different song from this one.”

Jon’s eyes narrow.

“Don’t you two think Martin’s been through quite enough for one evening?”

Tim’s eyebrows make a valiant attempt to acquaint themselves with his hairline. “Oh, I think he was looking for you, actually.”

He turns his eyes to Jon with a grin. “Why don’t you apologise on our behalf while you’re commiserating over your shared hatred of this song?”

“And us,” Sasha adds with a wink, and they both laugh.

Jon mutters profanities under his breath as he turns and heads for the door.

He doesn’t see Martin anywhere.

Shit.

He creeps around topiaries and trees diffidently, not convinced he’s not about to be ambushed with a sledgehammer to the cranium.

This evening might even be worse than the whole—Oliver debacle, given that it’s all transpired in public. Jon can hardly blame Martin if he’s escalated to being literally murderous.

It was stupid to have said any of what he did. Because, in all truthfulness, he’s not actually convinced that Martin hates him—it’s just that he didn’t want a response.

Doubting whether someone loves you is slightly better than knowing with certainty that they don’t, isn’t it?

Finally, Jon spots Martin, sitting on the lip of the fountain on the far side from the ballroom. From this distance—concealed as he is behind a conical hedge of some sort—it’s impossible to tell what, exactly, his face is doing, but he’s gripping the stone hard with both hands. His suit jacket sits folded by his feet, and he’s rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He really is dreadfully handsome.

Jon presses his face into the pointy foliage with a groan.

Dreadfully handsome and dreadfully sick of dealing with Jon.

The universe has been a little cruel with this one.

Even people literally sentenced to execution don’t have to walk to the gallows without being forced.

Jon swallows.

As he approaches, Martin looks up at him, and it’s still difficult to gauge what he might be thinking. He sniffs and doesn’t speak.

Jon clears his throat, adjusting his glasses with thumb and forefinger.

“C- Can—may I sit with you?”

Martin blinks a few times and gives an ironic little smile.

“Yeah,” he says, and Jon precariously perches himself a calculated one-and-a-half feet away.

The silence yawns and stretches its arms.

“So,” Jon begins with a frown. “Er, I—how- how’s your day going?”

Martin looks at him, lips pursed tightly.

“It’s fine,” he says.

Jon leans towards him very slightly, eyes fixed on a point in front of him. “Have you read any good books lately, Martin?”

He huffs, tired or amused—Jon doesn’t have the heart to look.

“Yeah,” he breathes.

“Please tell me more.”

When Jon glances up, Martin is scrunching his nose and watching him sideways.

“The Subatomic Monster. It’s by Asimov.”

The silence shows its teeth.

“I—would like—to hear about it,” Jon says, head swivelling awkwardly as he places the words in order with all the grace of a toddler arranging wooden blocks.

Martin leans forward, lacing his hands and resting his elbows on his thighs.

“He wrote a book of limericks for kids once.”

Jon smirks. “Ah, limericks. Truly, the unfinished Rubik’s cube of poetry.”

Martin quirks an eyebrow silently.

Nodding, Jon places a hand on his forehead. “Yes, alright, that was unnecessary, but you’re going to have to give me something to work with here.”

“Want to hear one?” Martin says brightly.

Jon turns his torso in order to properly glower back at him. “I—”

Martin raises his eyebrows.

“Would—” Jon continues haltingly. “Be—delighted to.”

He sits upright, smiling sincerely. “Great! Okay. Ask me how many.”

Jon hesitates. “What?”

“How many—ask how many there were. Limericks. In the book—of limericks.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose with a long-suffering sigh.

“How many limericks were there in the book of limericks, Martin? I am on tenterhooks.”

“Shut up,” Martin chuckles, pressing his hands flat together to recite. “Some say that my rhyme-schemes are shifty. Some say that my metre is nifty. I don’t care either way, for what I have to say: is I’m finished. Please count them. There’s fifty.”

Jon covers his mouth with his hand as he sniggers.

Martin looks rather pleased with himself.

Then the silence grins with its shining teeth, and the flagstone at Jon’s feet wins the staring contest that he starts with it.

“I—” he sighs and spins his wedding band. “I want to apologise.”

He almost feels the drop in temperature.

“Okay,” Martin says.

Jon pulls his bowtie from his waistcoat pocket, running the smooth material between his fingers. 

“I- I had no right to speak to you that way. I was- I was very overwhelmed—I know that’s no excuse—and I shouldn’t have engaged. But the- the only thing worse, to my mind, in—in the moment, than talking to you was—was not.”

He groans quietly.

“And that isn’t your fault. So, so—I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” Martin says, nodding tiredly and pursing his lips in thought. “I- I’m sorry too.”

Jon cants his head. “For what?”

He snorts disbelievingly. “For earlier. I- I didn’t have to throw all of that at you at once. Uncalled for.”

“I—disagree.”

Martin fiddles with a cufflink. “No, Jon, it—it really was. I was—” He gestures vaguely with one hand. “I wanted you to—feel bad. And- and, anyway, I was- I was lying.”

He sighs morosely.

“Everyone loved your bloody speech.”

“You are—unreservedly forgiven. I- I don’t blame you at all. It was—completely inappropriate on my part. And…” Jon pauses, running his tongue along the inside of his teeth. “And I shouldn’t have said—what I did. In the garden. Not- not in that way.”

He glances sideways at Martin, who is inspecting his shoes.

“Or, indeed, at all. It’s—it is neither your fault nor your business that I’m a pathetic, lovesick idiot.”

“Jon,” Martin says, head turned. Jon sighs and meets his gaze.

“Yes?”

His lips quiver, and he looks away, scoffing. His ears have gone red. “Mm. Nothing.”

Jon removes his glasses and puts his face in his hands. His thoughts stab into one another.

He half expects that Martin will already have left when he lifts his head again.

He’s rather shocked when he hasn’t.

“And if—” Jon turns to sneer over his shoulder in the direction of the ballroom. “If the happy couple’s nonsense recently has made you uncomfortable, I’m sorry for that, too.”

A pause.

“You know, I’m beginning to suspect they’ve finally gone, er—non compos mentis, choosing to have that song performed.”

“Probably thought it would be funny,” Martin says quietly.

“Seems rather malicious to me.”

“Um.” He raises an eyebrow. “How, exactly?”

“Well,” Jon sighs, “Y- I mean, you know—poking fun at a—a woeful little—unrequited… crush. Strikes me as being in poor taste, at a wedding.”

“Jon,” Martin says, his tone sparkling.

“What?”

“I think,” he chuckles lightly. “I think they probably, um—probably don’t see it that way.”

Jon puts his glasses on. “Oh?”

“Yeah. They, uh… their—hm, their perception of the situation, as you’d put it, is—probably a bit different,” Martin explains, and continues as though unaware he’s saying it aloud, “Because I’m obsessed with you, you stupid arsehead.”

The world reels.

Jon has to close his eyes against his sudden dizziness for fear of throwing up—or of his brain liquefying and flowing out of his tear ducts.

“I beg your pardon?” he asks, vaguely aware that his tone is cold.

He can’t help it, given that his heart is apparently, at present, out on a joyride somewhere a bit beyond Jupiter.

Martin springs up and backs away twenty full feet so quickly that Jon’s only partially convinced he catches him moving.

“Nothing!” he says, far, far too hastily.

Jon lifts an eyebrow, if only because any more movement than that might discorporate him from how hard his pulse is hammering.

“Martin.”

“Nope.”

By some miracle, Jon makes it to his feet, but he stays where he is. An irrepressible smile curls the corners of his mouth. He may float away, just for the hell of it. 

“No,” he insists. “I- I believe I heard you say—something. It may have ended with ‘stupid arsehead’...?”

Martin frowns like a particularly ill-tempered sturgeon. “Nope!” he repeats. “No—no, um, I- I think—I think it must- um. Well, you- you know how loud the wind can get. I- yeah. Yeah. The wind. So- so there.”

The silence dances.

“You just said no four times in a row, Martin.”

Jon won’t—cannot—deny it. He’s smirking like a self-satisfied git, because he is one.

“Pfft! Tch. Pfftch. I—” Martin perches his glasses on top of his head and rubs violently at his almost luminescent red cheeks. “Did not.”

“Look,” Jon says magnanimously, spreading his open hands. “I’ll just—I’ll just stand all the way over here, alright? I’ll stay here.”

A giddy pause.

“But I would just love it if you elaborated a little. On your—fascinating hypothesis.”

Martin replaces his glasses and narrows his eyes. “I hate you.”

Jon doesn’t laugh, which, in his opinion, is a testament to his excellent self-control. “Do you.”

“Shut up.”

“Shutting,” Jon says, biting the inside of his cheek.

Martin puts his hands on his hips and gives a long, tortured sigh.

“It- It was—I was just- just saying, they probably—ch- chose that song, in particular, because—because since… since all- all of this, I, I- I’ve, um, maybe—possibly—not- not spoken about- about many other things? Whenever you’ve—you- you haven’t been around.” He cringes, apparently steeling himself. “I- I sort of—wouldn’t shut up about you?”

Jon would be more than satisfied for him to leave it at that, but for some reason, the cosmos is smiling upon him, and Martin continues.

“I- I mean, I don’t—it- it’s not like, you know—not, not like I couldn't think about anything else. I- I definitely could.”

His eyes widen.

“Did. Have. Do! Frequently!”

Without a word, Jon begins taking step after cautious, halting step towards Martin, his smile growing wider the closer Martin allows him to get.

“And! And, besides, anyway, wh—” Martin’s breathing hitches, but he doesn’t turn away, or withdraw, or move at all. “What are you smiling at?”

Jon is quite aware that his smile is so wide that it’s gone crooked in its attempt to split his face in two at the jaw.

“Nothing, Martin,” he says, still somehow containing the joy bubbling between his lungs. “Absolutely nothing. You were saying?”

Martin looks down again, apparently intent upon reaching the end of whatever blathering sentence he’s just launched himself into headfirst.

But Jon isn’t listening anymore, because at the moment he’s focusing far too hard on making sure that, when he reaches to brush the freckle on Martin’s lower lip with his thumb, it isn’t bitten off in the manoeuvre.

Martin trails off in the middle of a word.

An eternity passes as Jon grapples for the question.

“May I?” he asks, at last.

Rather than replying, Martin removes his glasses, then Jon’s, and holds both pairs in one hand. He places the other on Jon’s neck, lacing his fingertips in his hair, and kisses him.

Jon is very glad for that hand, because without it, he may indeed float into orbit given the immensity of the weight dissolving instantaneously from his back.

He has been so terribly far away for so long, but now he is home.

Joy and exaltation are both such pallid words for the feeling welling so suddenly and violently in his chest that it feels as though he may literally explode. He grips Martin’s wrist—hoping to detain his hand where it rests on his neck, possibly forever—and feels the pulse thudding under his fingertips.

When Martin breaks the kiss, he takes Jon’s left hand in his, stroking his wedding band with a thumb and kissing that, too.

“So—it wasn’t the wind I heard?” Jon asks.

Martin lets go of his hand to shove his whole face away.

“Shut up.”

Jon returns as though pulled magnetically, taking Martin’s face in both hands to kiss his nose. “No.”

Martin grins, narrowing his eyes. “Shut up,” he repeats.

Jon tips his head. “Make me.”

He does.

Then he presses the backs of his fingers to Jon’s cheek, meeting his eyes with a suddenly sober expression.

“You were wrong, though.”

Jon almost forgets to respond.

“Mm- hm?”

“I do,” he says gravely. “I love you.”

Jon fairly squeaks.

“R- Really?”

Martin rolls his eyes before putting an arm around his neck to trap him, punctuating each word with a kiss to his face as he speaks. “Good—question—actually, I—clearly—can’t—bear—the sight—of you.”

“You are tickling me,” Jon manages to say as he squirms out of his grasp.

Facing one another, their incredulous smiles boil over into stupefied laughter.

The silence glitters.

“Hi,” Martin says with an earnestness that brings tears to Jon’s eyes. He chuckles, wiping his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

It does nothing to stem the flow once it starts.

“Hello,” he says reverently, grinning.

Martin hastily rolls down one sleeve as he steps forward, using it to dab at the tears streaming from Jon’s eyes.

“It’s okay!” he says, a little desperately. 

“That,” Jon says, laughing breathlessly, “Is—exactly why I’m—doing this.”

When he’s calmed himself, Martin spares a hesitant glance towards the ballroom.

“We should probably go back in,” he says, but from the sound of it, he thinks it’s a stupid idea, too. “Don’t want Tim and Sasha to think we’ve killed each other and—” He places his hands flat on Jon’s shoulders. “Come out and investigate.”

Jon nods hesitantly.

“We can, um… talk—properly—later. Okay?”

“Yes,” Jon says, but he strongly suspects his answer would not be different if Martin said that they could fling themselves bodily from a cliff into the ocean later.

Martin shakes his head, chuckling. “Okay. You—ready?”

Jon considers the many hundreds of gloating ‘I-told-you-so’ speeches waiting for him inside and frowns.

“Um, I- you, erm… you go. I think I—need a moment.”

Martin’s smile is only dampened for a second or two. “Okay,” he says, grinning. “I—I’ll see you in a minute, then.”

He bends to retrieve his jacket, then pauses, tilting his head.

“I love you,” he says.

Jon kicks at the flagstone like a bashful child. “I love you, too—but can I have my glasses, please?”

Martin’s eyes widen and he offers them with a sheepish grin, shaking his head.

Jon puts them back on, and he watches him, listening to the rhythmic click of his dress shoes on the stone footpath as he goes. When Martin has bounded up the stairs two at a time and disappeared inside, he presses his hands to his cheeks.

This time, when he sinks into a crouch, it’s to stop having to expend so much effort on remaining upright through the haze of spinning, delirious joy.

It was—by Jon’s count, and he was correct, obviously—their fourteenth date. 

Martin said fifteenth, but Jon said watching a movie at Tim and Sasha’s house while sitting on opposite ends of the sofa for the sake of plausible deniability did not count, no matter how much they may have kissed outside Jon’s building afterwards. 

It was a glorified hookup, and Jonathan Sims did not, would not, and could not go in for such nonsense. 

Especially without a societally agreed-upon label attached. 

So that was roughly how they’d ended up there, on the charity shop Persian rug in the living area of Jon’s studio flat, eating fish and chips from plates because that was what humans were supposed to do. 

He didn’t have a sofa, and there was only one chair at his desk. 

“Oh!” Martin said, when there’d been a lapse in the conversation for a minute or two—one of Jon’s favourite things about him remained the fact that he didn’t feel an immediate need to stuff every silence with meaningless yammering. “I- I didn’t finish telling you about your new book.”

Jon glanced at his bookcase, upon which a shelf was reserved specifically for the most important category—Books From Martin. 

The gifts hadn’t let up since his hesitant, clumsy attempts at courting-through-literary-gifts had turned into—

Whatever this was. 

Eating slightly stale, oversalted chips on the floor on a Thursday. 

Talking. Laughing. Kissing. 

Lots of kissing. 

And, twice now, getting so engrossed in conversations that they ended up falling asleep together mid-thought. The first time, Jon woke up tucked in bed, with Martin sitting propped up against it, his head bent at a ghastly angle as he snored quietly. 

The second time—which had only been a few days after the first—Jon told him not to dare cause himself such discomfort for the sake of propriety again. So that time, when he woke up at some time after four, the light in the extractor-hood above the stove was still on, Jon was again tucked comfortably in bed, and Martin was curled behind him, one arm draped over his waist, on top of the duvet. 

Very endearing though it was, Jon would be lying if he said it didn’t make him feel like a bit of a damsel. 

He certainly appreciated the chivalric thoughts behind it, though. 

So maybe ‘courting’ was an oddly appropriate word for it all, actually. 

“You there?” Martin asked, and Jon blinked, smiling. 

“Sorry, did I—have I missed the important bits?”

Martin chuckled and reached to tuck his hair behind his ear as his face warmed. 

“No,” he said softly, inhaled, and made another attempt: “I told the guy at the shop I was looking for something new, and that I wanted something kind of similar to Orwell, but in a Pratchett way.”

Jon chuckled, brushing his hands together to remove the remaining salt from his fingers. “Very interesting request.”

“Yeah,” Martin said shakily, and he was blushing. “I said my boyfriend—um, my- b- yeah. Liked Orwell but wanted a bit less—realism in his doom and gloom, yet he refused to try Poe.”

Jon blinked, bringing the back of his hand to his mouth as he focused on not choking. 

“Er- w- I—I’ve read The Raven.”

Martin rolled his eyes, grinning. “Is that the bit of that sentence we’re getting hung up on?”

“W—uh.” Jon swallowed twice just to be safe. “I don’t see why I’d—have any issue with- that—terminology. If- If it’s what you use.”

“That’s—” Martin mopped his forehead with the short sleeve of his t-shirt. “I thought we should—talk about it, maybe. If you want to.”

Jon leaned his head back against the wall behind him, laughing quietly. “So,” he said, “To circumvent my own likely ignorance here, I—”

He paused, relishing the anticipation with a smile. 

“Are you—are you asking me to be your boyfriend?”

Martin looked away, almost frightened. “That depends,” he said. “If I—were, would you—say yes, maybe?”

“I thought we agreed no stupid questions during dinner,” Jon said a little flatly, standing to take their plates to the sink. 

“Yeah,” Martin said, following him and crossing his arms. “But that was, like, I’m allowed to ask who Oppenheimer was again without you getting cross at me, not—”

Jon struggled to work out whether it was an intentionally sad-puppy-dog look Martin was shooting him from under his eyelashes. 

“Not—will you be my boyfriend?”

Jon nodded in facetious nonchalance. “That’s—reasonable, I suppose,” he said. “And, in that case, yes.”

Martin’s face grew pale as his mouth flapped open uselessly a couple of times. 

“W- um- o- are you sure?”

Jon grinned. “Are you not? No refunds or exchanges, I'm afraid.”

No sooner had he said it than Martin was threading his fingers in his hair and kissing him. 

“Good,” he said eventually, lightly scratching Jon’s scalp at the base of his skull in that way that always made him shudder involuntarily, then bending to kiss the side of his neck just once. “Because I don’t want anyone else.”

When Jon walks back in the door, Melanie—of all people—is passing, two drinks in her hands. She looks up at him, and it appears that something in the way he looks causes her gaze to catch on him.

Oh, dear.

She turns towards him, her eyes slowly narrowing.

Oh, dear.

“No…” she says slowly, taking a few steps closer to him. “No way.”

He blinks his ingenuously widened eyes. 

“What?” he says, shooting for nonchalant before rapidly realising he likely should have aimed for somewhere in the vicinity of mildly irritated instead.

“Oh, my god,” she says, “You took advice, what year is it?”

“No—what? No. No, no, I didn’t.”

Melanie takes a step back as though expecting him to physically detain her.

“Oh, Tim owes me eighty quid!” she says, laughing as she bounds away.

“Melanie—Melanie!”

“Georgie!” he hears her shouting over the thumping music as she goes.

Ah, wonderful.

Jon hunkers down into his jacket as though doing so will turn him invisible.

He spots Martin, dancing with Helen—or, more accurately, Helen is dancing, and Martin is haplessly along for the ride—and they’re talking animatedly.

As he watches, they stop suddenly, both looking immediately in his direction.

Helen smiles languorously, and Martin puts his face in his hands as she walks away.

This evening just keeps getting better.

Martin speedwalks towards him, already apologetically grinning—or grimacing.

“Sorry,” he begins, which has never been the start of any good interaction, “I didn’t mean to—”

“Martin,” Jon replies admonishingly, though his smile returns effortlessly. “What have you done?”

“Nothing!” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets as he pivots to stand beside Jon rather than in front of him, swivelling his head to look around suspiciously. “I did nothing, I literally just—just came inside, and Helen asked me to dance, and then—I didn’t say anything—she was just like, ‘did he use tongue’ and I was like, what?” Here, he pauses, blushing, and Jon loves him violently for it. “And I swear, she, she said ‘I saw him kiss you’, and I was like, well, shit, I can’t really argue with that, so I told her not to tell anyone, and—and off she went.”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “Helen, of course, famously being a prolific truth-teller.”

“Shut up,” Martin says, jabbing him lightly with an elbow. “You weren’t there. Bet you’d fall for it.”

“Congrats, boys!” says the photographer, who apparently materialised in front of them while Jon wasn’t paying attention.

“Who told you?” Jon snaps.

At the same moment, Martin says, “Hold on, for what?”

She gives an enigmatic smile and snaps a photo, despite the distinct lack of smiles on both of their faces.

“I was informed—repeatedly—that it might be of value for the two of you to have some documentation of this evening. For future reference.”

“That’s… nice?” Martin says, and puts an arm around Jon almost protectively.

“Thank you,” the photographer says, her smile unaltered. “Can I get one more?”

They look at each other as though to deliberate, and the camera clicks again before they can stop her.

“Gorgeous,” she says, smile widening. “Thanks, boys.”

She disappears again.

Jon scowls.

“Didn’t your gran ever tell you that if the wind changed, your face would stay like that?” Martin asks, not removing his arm.

The scowl turns to a smile. “Yes, repeatedly. What, do you think I look like this all the time voluntarily?”

Martin leans closer to him conspiratorially, and his heart leaps. “I quite like your face,” he says gently.

“Guys!” says Tim’s voice, distorted from squealing microphone feedback.

Behind him on the stage, Helen and Michael are whispering eagerly back and forth.

Oh, no.

Jon does love Martin desperately, but he may very well have to take him back into the garden and throttle him to death for this.

It’s only right.

“Guys!” Tim repeats. “Everyone! We—we can dance again in a sec, okay, but—but I have an announcement!”

Jon’s eyes are locked on Tim. “Martin,” he hisses.

“And!” Tim says, gesturing to the meddling pair of interlopers behind him, “And I’ve checked my sources, too, so—so it’s legitimate.”

He clears his throat theatrically.

“Okay—um, okay, so, anybody who doesn’t know, just—hah, I guess someone’ll fill you in if you ask. But for those of us that get it, I’m—I’m am—” He pauses and takes a breath to collect himself. “I… am… just—very relieved to tell you all that Jon and Martin finally pulled their heads—”

Well, from whence heads may have been pulled is obvious.

There’s a cheer, at which Jon takes not a little umbrage, to be entirely frank.

How was he supposed to know?

“See?” Tim says as Jon glances sideways at Martin. “See how Jon’s looking at Martin like he’s gonna kill him?” His voice goes legitimately tearful. “Aw, guys, it’s just like old times.”

Jon grits his teeth in a weak approximation of a smile, leaning towards Martin and whispering, “It’s not like I’m going to kill you.”

Martin cringes in response. “Don’t worry,” he mutters through his teeth, parted lips unmoving, “I’ll help.”

Tim finally has the sense or the compassion to put them out of their misery and gestures for the music to be started again.

“Right,” Jon says, rubbing his hands together. “Well—clearly—I- I can’t possibly be seen in public, with you or not, ever again, so—so I’d best get started trekking for the Swiss Alps, where I intend to take up hermitage, permanently, effective immediately.”

Martin grips his wrist. “Like hell you are.”

Jon inhales levelly. “One does not need both hands for quiet meditation, Martin.”

"Start gnawing, then,” Martin says with a frown, “Because I’m not letting go.”

“Hi, boys!” says Timothy James, a drunken idiot, a traitor, and a general bastard, as he approaches. “Is it a bad time?”

“It is now,” Martin huffs.

“Well, Marto, I’ll just keep you two a minute—and you can’t argue, because you may have forgotten, but I’m a very special boy today.”

Martin rolls his eyes, adjusting his grip so he’s holding Jon’s hand.

“Anyway!” Tim says, beaming. “Lads, I just thought I’d pop over, because as you may have just heard, I need to pay up on a couple of bets. So I supposed I should do my due diligence and fact-check.”

“Oh, after telling a hundred people?” Martin asks, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his middle finger.

“You mean to tell me,” Jon says, trying very diligently to maintain his scowl. It’s rather challenging when everything feels so—right. Tim is meant to be smilingly taking the piss. Martin is meant to be holding his hand. Not a great deal else matters. “You, Timothy, would cheapen the pain and suffering of your own friends with gambling like that?”

Tim slings an arm around Jon’s shoulders. “No, Jonathan, but would I cheapen the needless moping of my two friends who are too shy to have a big boy chat about their feelings?”

A pause as he wrinkles his nose.

“Yes! Absolutely.”

Jon blinks, unimpressed.

“Martin!” he continues. “Your boyfriend here is glaring at me. On my wedding day.”

“He’s—not—it’s not—”

“Oh!” Tim interjects, tilting his head forward and raising his eyebrows. “You take issue with my terminology, Mr Blackwood?”

Martin blushes and his grip tightens on Jon’s hand. “W- No, but—”

Tim laughs and looks over his shoulder.

“Hey, Sash!” he shouts over the music. “Come here!”

Sasha swans over to their little cluster, so weightless and carefree one might think it was her wedding day or something.

“Good evening, Mr James,” she croons.

Tim’s eyes sparkle. “Good evening, Mrs James.”

“You make me sick,” Jon mutters from his position lodged under Tim’s arm.

Sasha’s face wrinkles as she looks down at him. “Are we going to tally points for sickening? Because you’ve already made quite an egregious display today.”

Jon lifts an accusatory finger to point at her. “We already—discussed that, thank you very much.”

Martin blushes.

Sasha nods. “Fair. And, anyway, it’s hardly your fault that you’re so besotted with Martin that you literally couldn’t think about anything else during your speech.”

“That’s—” Jon casts an eye sideways at Martin, groaning. “That’s—not entirely inaccurate, actually.”

Tim and Sasha squeal together, and Martin pulls Jon away from Tim with a frown.

“Hold on,” Martin says. “Have you two been scheming?”

Their mouths drop open in faux shock.

“We never scheme!” Tim says.

“No plots here,” Sasha says vehemently, crossing her arms.

“Not a single ounce of chicanery.”

“Oh, my god,” Martin says, pressing his palm flat to his forehead. Jon smiles.

“Nary a skerrick of rascality to be found here,” Sasha continues, barely containing her laughter.

“No capers,” Tim says, counting on his fingers, “No larks, no foolishness, and absolutely no devilry.”

“Stop,” Martin groans.

Jon squeezes his hand.

“But also,” Sasha says, “Even if we were guilty of such crimes—”

“Which we’re not!”

“We would have achieved our end goal, and you two wouldn’t really have anything to complain about.”

Martin is scowling in such a way that it shows his dimples, and, possessed by the overwhelming spirit of it all, Jon lifts his hand to his lips and kisses it.

Tim clasps his face in his hands, apparently near tears, and makes some sort of delighted sound that would, before now, have seemed out of his vocal range.

“Look at our boys!” he says.

Sasha gently places an arm around his shoulders. “Yes, but did you consider our boys might be a tiny bit fed up with all the ribbing?”

Martin grunts affirmatively.

“Did you consider, my beloved wife,” Tim replies, clearly luxuriating in it, “That I might not care?”

She looks at Jon, grinning. “It’s probably reasonable payback, you’re right.”

He tries to roll his eyes in response, but for some mysterious reason he finds himself chuckling instead.

How bizarre. In an entirely new arrangement of circumstances, Jonathan Sims is laughing for joy.

In his confusion, he doesn’t immediately register it when Tim and Sasha apparently depart, nor when Martin takes his left hand and places it on his shoulder, gently swaying them both to the quieter, more subdued song now playing.

Jon’s heart catches in his chest.

“Hey, guess what?” Martin says, beaming at him.

Jon makes a sound that he hopes technically passes for human communication.

“You’re dancing.”

He gasps in mock offence. “I’ve—I’ve been duped!” he says, then gasps. “This—deranged individual has fooled me.”

They don’t stop.

Martin rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he says.

Jon raises an eyebrow. “You know, Martin, for someone who’s so fond of telling me to stop talking, you—you do talk to me an awful lot.”

Martin lifts his hand from Jon’s waist to adjust his glasses, sighing fondly. “And my reasoning is completely opaque, I’m sure.”

Jon shrugs nonchalantly. “All I’m saying is it doesn’t necessarily make a great deal of sense to tell one’s flirting partner to stop talking so often. I- I mean, if you aren’t careful, I might obey you, and then where will you be?”

With his forefinger, Martin slides his glasses back down the bridge of his nose, glowering over them. “Okay,” he says, “Firstly, ‘partner’ implies an even match, which—pfft.”

He smirks, pausing to focus on spinning Jon without either of them breaking a bone. 

“And, secondly, are you suggesting that you’re capable of shutting up when instructed?”

The song ends and Jon presses his hands to Martin’s chest.

Just to smooth out his lapels, of course.

“I don’t appreciate the implication,” he says.

Martin’s gaze turns devious. “What are you going to do about it?”

Jon’s face goes hot and he stares at his hands.

“Ah, so that’s the secret to getting you to stop talking, hmm?”

“Shut up, Martin.”

He puts an arm around Jon’s shoulders, gently guiding them off the dancefloor.

“Mm, no,” he says. “I don’t think I will, actually.”

Jon is an adult, and therefore most certainly does not stick his tongue out.

It’s a quarter to three, as the song goes, and there are—very few people left in the place.

Jack, the caterer, is polishing glasses with a cloth at the side of the room, Agnes—oh, yes, that’s her name—sitting on the banquet table beside him, her head drooping as she teeters precariously on the edge of consciousness.

Gerry is leaning on the frame of the open door that leads to the garden behind the servants’ quarters, listening intently as Danny chatters in front of him.

In a stairway leading to the second-storey balcony, Tim is reclining on his back, hands laced on his stomach. Sasha is perched a few steps below him, her back against the wall and her head resting against the handrail. On the bottom two steps, Melanie and Georgie are facing one another, talking softly. They look like a particularly exhausted band—who never learned about genre cohesion—on the cover of their third album.

Jon doesn’t quite have the audacity to take Martin’s hand as they walk over to the stairwell to say goodnight.

Martin, however, feels no such bashfulness.

Sasha is the first to notice their approach, and she lifts her head with a sparkling smile.

“Where’ve you two been hiding?” she asks slyly. Jon’s face heats.

Their hands remain linked as they come to a stop. “Away from all the—eurgh—people,” Martin says, sneering with faux revulsion. “But we’re going to—go back.”

He nods towards the doorway where Gerry and Danny had been standing, but they’re gone.

“You sure?” Tim says, weakly lifting his head off the step on which it’s been resting. “Seems like you might catch an earful in there.”

“Tim,” Sasha says, swatting at his leg, which is thrown across her lap.

“Just saying,” he says, as he lets his head fall back to the floor.

“We’ve got legs,” Jon says flatly, compulsively blinking in hopes of keeping himself conscious.

“Hey,” Georgie says, swiping a hand through the air to gain his attention, though she isn’t close enough to actually make contact. Jon frowns down at her. “You two look really happy.”

Martin squeezes his hand, and he fails entirely at suppressing the stupid little grin on his face.

“I’ve still got my notes somewhere if you fuck up again, though,” Melanie says, vacantly squinting at the wall opposite her above Georgie’s head.

Jon raises an eyebrow.

“Melanie,” Martin hisses.

She lazily turns her gaze towards him. “Just politely informing him.”

“Of—what, exactly?” Jon says.

Martin looks pleadingly at Georgie, who tiredly nudges Melanie with a foot.

“Of the fact,” she continues coldly, “That the three of us sat down after you two broke up and planned how we’d—” She pauses meaningfully. “Deal with you. I’ve got some very detailed notes.”

A chilly silence.

“So—don’t fuck up aga—”

“Thanks, Melanie!” Martin says cheerily, his eyes wide with horror as he cringes apologetically at Jon.

Georgie gestures for Jon to lean down to her and he does, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” she whispers, “She’s just a bit—restless, because she said something nice about you earlier. It’s all bluster.”

Jon glances again at Melanie with a smile, nodding as he straightens.

“Can we stop with the split-custody arrangement now?” Tim says, without lifting his head this time.

“The what?” Jon demands, affronted.

Sasha slaps her husband in the leg, and he half-heartedly nudges her back.

“Nothing,” she says hastily.

“Well,” Georgie says, crossing her arms. “Not nothing— you know how you two couldn’t be in the same room for two years? We- We didn’t want to pick sides, despite what apparently both of you thought, so—you know.”

She looks them both over.

“Arrangements were made.”

Jon and Martin frown at one another, and Jon can’t help but notice how any moment in the last two years before tonight already feels as though it’s fading like a bad dream.

Jon’s quite happy to let it all evanesce.

“Oh, don’t—shit,” Georgie continues, rubbing her forehead. “Don’t, like, think—I mean, I’m so happy for you, guys! Just—it was annoying. You know.”

Melanie snorts and Georgie glares back at her.

“Thank you, Georgina,” Jon replies witheringly, but he gives a tired smile.

“But!” she continues.

It occurs to Jon that perhaps his track record of becoming involved with people who ramble into rudeness when they’re flustered has been some sort of subconscious self-sabotage.

Oh, Freud would have a field day.

“But, it—it’s fine, obviously. You guys just—needed some time. To—to restructure.”

Martin frowns, amused. “That really makes it sound like a corporate merger.”

“Blackwood-Sims Incorporated,” Melanie says, standing to her feet with a smirk. “For all your melodrama and bullshit needs!”

Goodness, she really is overcompensating for having been polite for ten minutes.

She offers her hand to Georgie. “I’m knackered,” she says, stifling a yawn.

Georgie takes it and smiles as she stands.

They say their goodbyes and disappear into the manor somewhere.

Sasha tilts her head, eyes scrunching with the breadth of her smile.

“You both look exhausted.”

Martin raises a finger excitedly as Jon opens his mouth to reply.

“Can I guess?” he says, eyes alight with—mischief.

Jon heaves a sigh. “Yes, dear.”

“Were you going to say ‘that’s just my face’?”

He and Sasha literally giggle as Jon rolls his eyes.

“There’re spare bedrooms,” Tim pipes up, gesturing with a hand from his prone position. “Just—”

He sits up, blearily rubbing his eyes.

“Just please don’t tell me if you have to come inside because my baby brother is getting busy with a goth. I think I can probably live without knowing that.”

Martin laughs, but Jon shakes his head with another sigh.

“Goodnight, then,” he says, turning towards the door and tugging on Martin’s hand.

“Love you, boys!” Tim yells after them as they step outside.

The two of them don’t make it back to the servants’ quarters for about twenty minutes.

It should only be a thirty second walk, but—

Well.

They get distracted.

When they do make it inside to the relative warmth of the kitchen, Gerry laughs, lifting a lazy finger to point in their direction from his position leaning on the worktop. Danny is standing close beside him, looking rather flushed.

“Hi, Jon,” Gerry drawls with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows, “How’s your evening, my friend?”

Jon fails utterly in endeavouring to glare.

“Just as good as yours, apparently,” he says drily, shrugging off his jacket—which Martin takes from his hands and folds before he can even begin to find a surface on which to fling it.

“Your librarian is a gentleman!” Gerry says, and when Danny laughs, he looks over his shoulder at him with a wink.

“Um, what?” Martin says flatly, crossing his arms with the jacket still folded over one of them.

“Oh, no offence,” Gerry replies sincerely, spreading his hands. “I’m just—kind of bad with names, and it’s been a few years since I saw you guys, so—Librarian and… mm, well, Jon’s either Oxford or Tax Accountant, depending on what he’s wearing.”

Jon hides his amused snort behind a hand.

Martin scowls.

“Sorry, Marto,” Danny says, casually placing his chin on Gerry’s shoulder. “He’s—he isn’t exactly wrong, though, is he?”

“Beauty and brains,” Gerry mutters, and the two of them laugh softly.

Jon has the horrifying realisation that this might be what he looks like when Martin is around.

“Well,” Martin says, crossing to flick on the kettle with an irritated frown, “I’m—an—executive assistant, actually, so.”

“Anyway,” Danny says, standing. “We’ll get out of your hair, guys.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m buggered,” Gerry says, winking at Danny as he stretches his arms in front of him.

When Jon glances surreptitiously at Martin, he’s already looking back, widening his eyes in silent opprobrium.

“Goodnight,” Martin says, as though it’s an instruction.

They drift towards the stairs, whispering and giggling.

When they’re gone, Jon shakes his head and lifts himself to sit on the worktop, his legs crossed.

Martin is still scowling severely as he peeks in the fridge.

“Is everything alright there?” he ventures cautiously.

Martin grunts in reply.

Jon gives a cajoling smile. “Are you sure?”

He moves to where Jon is sitting, frown still securely in place as he rests his fists on the worktop on either side of his crossed legs.

“I do not look like a librarian,” he gripes, leaning forward to kiss Jon’s nose as though it’s an appropriate vent for his frustration.

“Well—” Jon says sceptically, curling his lip on one side.

Martin sticks his tongue out.

“You’d make a very handsome librarian.”

“Hmph.”

He cracks a smile, lifting Jon’s left hand to his lips and kissing it.

“Tea?”

Jon’s brain short circuits.

Martin exhales through his nose, amused at whatever it is that Jon’s face happens to have done.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

As he sets about making the tea, Jon closes his eyes. He is exhausted, but how is he supposed to sleep after an evening like this?

While it’s steeping, Martin returns to cage Jon in his arms where he sits.

He’s not about to complain.

“Hi,” Martin murmurs.

Opening his eyes, Jon goes to take his face in his hands. He’d already started to stand up straight, so instead, he only manages to take hold of the collar of his shirt.

It’ll do.

He kisses him—admittedly, a tiny bit more aggressively than he intends to—and balls his fists in the fabric to avoid clinging to him so tightly that it causes pain.

Martin lets out an amused exhalation through his nose.

Jon pulls away, and he cannot readily deny that the expression on his face is categorically a pout.

“What?” he asks defensively as Martin grins, reaching to tuck his hair behind his ear.

“Nothing,” he says, “I just- I’d- kind of forgotten how—clingy—you are?”

Jon looks into his lap, withdrawing his hands from Martin’s shirt. “I’m just making sure.”

“Of?”

He touches his ring. “That—that you’re still here, and I’m not—dreaming.”

Martin turns suddenly to finish making the tea.

“Sorry,” Jon mutters, shoulders hunching.

“Don’t be,” he replies confidently, still facing away. “It isn’t bad or anything, it’s just—I mean, um, you haven’t always—said that kind of thing—out loud.”

“That doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking it.”

Martin turns to face him, bending to place his forehead on his knee.

“I’m just—a tiny bit overwhelmed,” he admits with a breathy laugh. “It’s not a problem.”

In the silence they lapse into, there is one suspicious sound too many from upstairs, and Martin says he’ll go get a duvet, sending Jon to wait outside with the mugs in the meantime.

The cold air wakes him up a bit, and he looks into the dark sky, chewing the inside of his cheek in thought. He’s overwhelmed, too.

He knows, logically, this is quite literally all too good to be true, but—

He’d sooner die than ever give it up.

He sips his tea and exhales slowly, watching the condensation from his breath curling in the air.

“Oi,” Martin says through the closed door. “You’re in the way.”

Jon smiles sheepishly and takes a few steps forward to let him through. He grins and strolls past him to the same bench from—well, it’s yesterday morning now, isn’t it?

Jon perches cautiously beside Martin under the dusty, mothball-scented quilt, handing him his mug.

Without speaking, Martin snakes his free hand around Jon’s waist, tugging until he relents and relocates to his lap.

“The bloody bench is cold,” he explains, as though it’s a matter of practicality, and presses his face into Jon’s back. “I don’t want you getting hypothermia.”

Jon chuckles. “Gerry was right.”

“I’ll chuck you off.”

“I meant about the gentleman part!” Jon says hastily. “You couldn’t look less like a librarian if you tried, darling, I promise.”

There is a pause that is markedly cooler than the bench.

“Darling?” Martin asks, laughing incredulously.

“Er—yes,” Jon breathes with all the confidence he can muster when he suddenly feels as though his lungs are imploding.

“God,” Martin continues, “You could at least take me to dinner first.”

Jon lets out the breath he’d been inadvertently holding.

“Alright,” he says, perhaps a little too eagerly. “Tonight?”

He feels the warmth of Martin’s sigh of exhausted amusement.

“Seriously?”

“Yes. Why not?”

Martin slips his arm around Jon’s middle and squeezes. “How long did you sleep last night, again?”

Jon sips his tea. “Erm, f- four or five hours?”

“Well,” Martin says imperiously, “You’re not allowed to drop dead, so, you’re going to have to catch up at some point. We’re not going out.”

“Tomorrow, then?” Jon says, brow wrinkling in concentration. “So, er—Monday night? I’ll take—wait, I’m not allowed?”

“Yes,” he replies archly. “I—forbid it. Entirely.”

Jon huffs, pinching the bridge of his nose with a smile. “Alright. Noted. Given my Monday plans of dropping dead have fallen through, can I take you to dinner, then?”

Martin turns his face in order to manoeuvre his mug to his lips. “Yes, stupid,” he says after a moment. “I’ll go out for dinner with you.”

Jon’s very glad Martin is at the wrong vantage point to see the extremely undignified look of triumph that likely passes over his face.

“So,” he says nonchalantly. “Can I call you darling at the restaurant, or is this going to be more the sort of situation where I need to fully clear the hurdle first?”

Martin’s laughter sounds distinctly exasperated.

“Oh, can I guess what you’re going to say?” Jon asks enthusiastically.

“Mm.”

“Is it shut up?”

Martin kisses his shoulder. “Spot on.”

They drink their tea while it’s still hot. Mistrustful of leaving Martin unattended for too long, lest he fade with the sunrise, Jon places their mugs on the grass nearby instead of taking them inside, and returns to sit back on Martin’s lap.

Well, he’s right. It is terribly cold anywhere else. So it’s only pragmatism.

He turns and puts an arm around his neck so as to watch his face with a contented grin.

“Hey, Jon?” Martin ventures after a few blissful, silent minutes.

“Mm?”

“Could I—I hate to, um, wreck the mood, but—I- I really want to say something, and- and I don’t want it to—fester.”

Jon uncomfortably redirects his gaze to the sky, which is beginning to lighten at the edges. “Yes.”

“When—when I saw you again, I- I really was—” He sighs. “I really didn’t want to forgive you.”

“Want to?” Jon repeats incredulously.

“Yeah. I- I thought you’d have, like, moved in with Oliver, or, or someone else, and—and if you had, I was going to refuse to be civil.”

“Oh.”

“And then I still didn’t want to—I didn’t want to be nice, even though I saw how sad you were. Because it felt like- like doing that would be letting you win.”

He groans and rubs his face.

“I’ve spent so long annoying my psychologist talking about you again lately.”

“Oh,” Jon breathes. “Should—should I ask, or…”

Martin smiles up at him. “It’s okay. She… mm. She got a bit fed up, because I was—a little obsessed, like I said, before. And she said I didn’t have to—do either of the things I was thinking. I didn’t have to do anything, but—I had to—decide how I felt.”

Jon frowns.

“What- What things were you thinking?”

He smiles self-effacingly. “Well, I thought that—that one option would be picking one of the events before the wedding and just- just going off on one at you. Like, really make it awkward for everyone, and, and save up my best insults from the last two years, and tear shreds off you. Really, really make Tim regret asking me. And—” He sighs, his face reddening as he looks away. “And make you feel awful about having to see the wedding through. About having to—to see me.”

Jon reaches to cup his cheek, and to his delight, his eyes close in response.

“Da—mm. Martin,” he says, smiling.

Martin opens his eyes, frowning sceptically. “What?”

To be fair, he was correct to have his doubts. “You do realise you’re—just a little bit deranged, don’t you?”

He narrows his eyes. “Yes.”

“Ah. Good.”

Martin pouts.

“So—what- I shudder to think, but—what was the—other option?”

Martin presses his face into the front of Jon’s shoulder. “I’ve been writing drafts of sonnets for you for, like, two months.”

Jon’s smile is not smug.

Not—not exclusively, anyway.

“And I haven’t heard a single poem from you?”

Martin clears his throat, lifting his head. “Roses are red—”

“No! No, thank you.”

A pause.

“If you’re going to—be like that about it,” Jon says, smiling. “You could at least make it a limerick.”

Martin’s brow furrows in thought.

“That was a joke,” Jon says a little apprehensively.

Martin shushes him, lifting a hand. 

Jon groans preemptively.

“Okay!” Martin says after several moments. “Ready to puke?”

“Must I?”

He smirks. “You did this to yourself.”

Jon grunts.

“You make me so angry I want to shove you. But to me, there’s nobody above you.” He pauses, blushing. “I was stupid for lying, so to stop that I’m trying, and in spite of all logic, I love you.”

Jon’s eyes prickle as he leans down to kiss him.

When they pull away, Martin’s smirking.

“What?”

“I made you like limericks,” he says, his tone taunting.

“I’m afraid it was the messenger, not the content,” Jon says, turning his head to subtly wipe at his eyes. “Though I am a little miffed you hid your other poems from me for two entire months.”

“I- I kind of—” Martin huffs. “I was a bit scared you- you maybe didn’t like me anymore.”

“Martin.”

He inhales shakily. “Yeah, I know, it sounds stupid now, but—”

“I’ve been wearing my wedding ring the whole time.”

“A gold ring’s a gold ring. I didn’t—know.”

Jon lowers his glasses, lifting an eyebrow. “You literally asked me about it the first time we saw each other.”

“Yeah, but,” Martin sighs, irritated. “I d- I’ve got—I don’t have the strongest self-esteem, I don’t know if you’d noticed—”

“Well,” Jon says, shaking his head. “You—were—incorrect, anyway. I did still like you—and I do—and I plan to persist.”

Martin looks down, the annoyance melting from his expression as he grins.

“Anyway,” he says, “My—my psychologist, eventually, she said, is he sorry? Like, does he really mean it? And I said yes. And she asked if I wanted to forgive you. The first time she asked, I said no, because I didn’t. I really—I wanted to—hurt you. Wanted—my pound of flesh?”

Jon presses his left hand to his chest.

“What changed?”

Martin bites his lip. “D’you remember in Monaco when you told me about pipe organs?”

“After I tried to get myself killed saying hello to a cat? Mm, rings a bell.”

“Well, I—” Martin purses his lips as he fights back his smile. “I just—it was really cute? And, and—I made you laugh, I think, and it was like—woosh, you know?”

Jon grins. “Like, woosh. Mm. Yes, I think I do.”

“So—so I went back and I told her I’d changed my mind. I did want to forgive you. So she said okay, great. And I was confused, and she was like, oh, well, we’re done with that for today. You’ve chosen it, so—so it’s done.”

Martin chuckles to himself, and they’re quiet for a moment.

“But—” Jon says, massaging his temple with two fingers. “But if—if that was right after Monaco, why—why were you so angry earlier tonight?”

“Do—I- I was—petrified.”

Jon tilts his head, pressing a fist to his mouth as he frowns.

“Do we really have to get into this?” Martin says uncomfortably, lowering his head.

“No,” Jon says gently. “But I’d—I would like to understand.”

Martin purses his lips and is silent for a long time.

“Because I- ugh. Until the—until your speech, I could—I’d been able to just- just remember how I felt when you first told me about Oliver, and then it’d make it really easy to—” He squeezes his eyes shut and presses his chin to his chest. “To believe it when I told myself I didn’t love you. But then you—said all that, and—and you didn’t look sad when you looked at me, and—then I didn’t have a safety net all of a sudden, so I—”

He cuts himself off with an agonised groan.

“I wanted to scare you back.” He shakes his head, lifting one hand to gesture dismissively. “It was—it was really bloody stupid.”

“Ah,” Jon says coaxingly. “Luckily, that makes two of us.”

Martin squints at him. “You aren’t stupid, Jon.”

He rubs the side of his nose with an unconvinced grimace. “Agree to disagree, perhaps.”

“You’re not.”

“I am. Oh, and I can prove it.” Jon closes his eyes. “I adopted two cats instead of one, directly because of you, even though we hadn’t spoken—in about three months.”

Martin scoffs. “Cats?”

Jon chuckles. “Yes, I—did I—have I not raved about them yet?”

He frowns. “No. How disappointing.”

“Probably I didn’t want to push my luck.”

Martin tuts. “Jonathan, we might have skipped, like, half a day of melodrama if I knew there were cats.”

Jon blinks twice, frowning. “Are you—are you teasing me?”

“Hm. Mostly.”

They laugh.

“Eugh, my phone’s inside,” Jon says, and Martin tightens his arm around his waist.

“What a shame,” he says perfunctorily.

“Alas,” Jon agrees. “Anyway, I- I went looking a little while after I moved into my flat. I was—I was horribly lonely, but I didn’t- I didn’t want to meet anyone else. However, I also didn’t want to—die of acute alcohol poisoning, so—so I went to some rescue centres.”

He smiles.

“At the second one, there were two very sweet black cats together, and the woman I dealt with told me she was worried about them, because it was bad enough trying to get one black cat adopted.”

“You’re so predictable,” Martin laughs.

“What?”

“Just—just, trust you to bring home extra cats because someone told you nobody else would.”

“That’s—that’s not why,” Jon objects with a frown.

“Right. Okay. Why, then?”

“Because—well, I asked her if they were siblings, and she told me that no, they were unrelated. They’d come from opposite ends of the city, but—but then, when they were housed adjacently, they—kept trying to reach out and groom each other, and they—cried and cried until the staff tried putting them together.”

“Then?”

“Then—then, they had to be taken as a pair whenever the vets needed to see one of them for whatever reason, because if they were put in separate rooms, they’d start hissing and biting.”

Martin’s eyebrows lift in surprise. “Wow.”

“And—and do you know how she put it? The woman at the rescue centre?”

“I mean—no? Obviously?”

Jon smiles, rolling his eyes. “Well—she said, as casually as you like, where one goes, the other does.”

Martin exhales, eyes wide. “Oh.”

“So—of course—I thought of you, and—” Jon sniffs. “So I took them both home with me. Their names are Benedick and Beatrice. Wishful thinking on my part, perhaps.”

Martin grins, tapping his fingertips against Jon’s side where his hand rests. “You are such a nerd.”

“Oh, alright, Mr Canterbury-Tales-and-a-Keats-anthology.”

“Yeah,” Martin says, tipping his head back with a sceptical squint. “But, I mean, they both worked on you. Because you’re a nerd.”

“Thank heavens for that,” Jon replies with a facetious frown. “Or else I wouldn’t like you.”

Martin’s smile is utterly smarmy. “But you do.”

“Yes, Martin,” Jon says, leaning closer to kiss him. “I do.”

It’s morning when they finally get around to packing their things. Only very early in the morning, of course, but when they step outside again, the sky is light blue.

Jon’s head pounds—with the memory of the music, and with sleeplessness, and with joy. He’s utterly enervated, but Martin’s hand in his like it’s been there all along anchors him to consciousness.

How is he ever to sleep again if this is reality?

“You look dead on your feet,” Martin tells him gently as they walk down the long gravel driveway.

“I’m afraid that’s just how I look.”

They smile.

“Hey,” Martin says, with a lazy approximation of affront, “You do know that’s my boyfriend you’re talking about?”

A delirious pause.

“And! I happen to think he’s very cute, actually.”

He leans forward and kisses Jon’s forehead.

“Darling,” Jon says, pausing to gauge Martin’s reaction, but he only rolls his eyes with a tired, put-upon smile. “Your prescription desperately needs an update.”

Martin removes his glasses with his free hand.

“Hmm,” he says, squinting. “Nope.”

Jon smiles bashfully. “Thank you, but you have just ably proven how—desperately in need of sleep you are.”

Martin bites his lip, nodding. “D’you think your cats will cope for another few hours without you?”

Jon’s face warms. “Uh, w- why do you ask?”

He turns his head to focus on the wrought-iron gates looming ahead of them. “Well, I mean, I, um—I don’t know about you, but—I always used to—s- sleep better when you were there. So—”

He clears his throat.

“So, I thought, maybe—you know.”

Jon squeezes his hand. “I—would—I’d love to.”

“Great! Oh. Great.” He glances sideways. “Just—just don’t tease my—interior decorating.”

Jon raises his eyebrows. “Martin, how could you be so cruel as to suggest I would ever tease you for anything?”

Martin opens his mouth to reply.

“Yes,” Jon says, raising his free hand. “Yes, yes, I know. It was a joke.”

“Didn’t know you knew how to do those,” Martin says with a smirk.

Jon rolls his eyes and pulls his phone out to text Basira.

“Would it be possible for the two of you to stick around a few more hours?”

Three minutes later, it buzzes with a response—Basira has sent a photo of Daisy curled on her side on Jon’s sofa, one arm around Beatrice, and Benedick sprawled bodily across her face, with the message: “So you didn’t fuck it up?”

As they stand outside the gates, Jon squeezes Martin’s hand, and he looks up from anxiously watching the live-tracking of their incoming Uber.

“Mm?”

“Can I take a picture?”

His shoulders slump. “We haven’t slept, and I probably look—”

“Lovely, but that’s not the point. Besides, it’s a limited time offer.” He smiles cajolingly. “Who knows when next I’ll be feeling this smug?”

Martin smiles indulgently and puts an arm around his shoulders as Jon snaps the photo.

It’s a little blurry, and he’s cut off his chin, but he sends it to Basira and changes his lock screen photo as soon as Martin isn’t looking anyway.

Basira replies with a thumbs-up emoji and tells him to call when he’s on his way.

Rather than the norm of feigning a smile feeling like an insurmountable challenge, this morning it appears Jon couldn’t keep the smile off his face if he tried.

They do fall asleep in the Uber, resulting in the slightly concerned-looking driver having to prod them until they awaken and get out with groggy, muttered thanks.

In the lift, they don’t speak, instead leaning against one another to the sound of the well-oiled hum of the machinery.

It’s a very nice flat.

Two bedrooms—hardly anything to sniff at in itself—and it’s actually in London.

“How much does Peter pay you, again?” Jon says incredulously as he drifts past a near-overflowing bookcase to stare out the window at the view.

“Nowhere near enough whenever he’s in earshot,” Martin says, chuckling. “But, um, I mean—when you’re that rich, you maybe- maybe don’t—notice slight upticks in your ‘discretionary spending’ budget.”

He pauses, and Jon feels his presence close behind him.

“Especially if you never look at the spreadsheet in the first place.”

Jon scoffs. “Are you—are you admitting to embezzling? Is that what’s happening currently?”

Martin rests his forehead against the back of Jon’s head. “Well! I- I don’t think—strictly speaking—it’s embezzlement if the expenditure is explicitly labelled ‘Martin is going to spend this on a new rug’. I think past that point it’s Peter’s fault for not looking.”

Jon laughs so hard he snorts.

When he turns to face him, Martin is blushing, staring at a spot on the floor.

“What?” he says, lifting his shoulders defensively. “Not my fault he’s stupid.”

“You’re utterly diabolical, you know.”

Martin lifts his eyes with a gleeful little smirk. “Shut up.”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “I shudder to think what other dastardly deeds you effectuate when left unattended. Have you—” He gasps, leaning towards him collusively. “Don’t tell me you’ve even stolen pencils?”

Martin rolls his eyes and crosses the room, removing his suit jacket as he goes, disappearing into one of the bedrooms for a moment. When he returns, Jon crosses his arms with a pointed frown.

“What now?” Martin asks tiredly, scrubbing his scalp with both hands.

“Well, I can’t very well sleep in this, can I?” Jon replies, grabbing a handful of his waistcoat.

He blinks. “I literally gave you one yesterday morning.”

“Yes,” Jon says peevishly. “It’s been worn already. What kind of barbarian do you take me for?”

Martin laughs in disbelief. “Y- d- this is—very transparent, you do know that, right?”

“Shall I take this to mean you would, so cruelly, deny me sleepwear?” Jon presses the back of his wrist to his forehead. “After I abandoned my poor, sweet children in the interests of spending but a few more precious hours with my most belov—”

“Fine,” Martin says, turning to go back into the same bedroom.

He emerges with a jumper that looks like it’s probably comically oversized even for him, offering it with a facetiously impatient sigh.

“Am I a stupid arsehead?” Jon asks, wrinkling his nose.

Martin takes Jon’s glasses in order to cover his whole face with his hand. “Mm, nah, I think that’s just a regular head. Probably a pretty sleepy one.”

“Oh, well,” Jon says, tugging at his wrist. “I—I certainly can’t sleep now, because I feel a sudden violent urge to vomit.”

“Oh, ha, ha,” Martin says, rolling his eyes. “Shut up.”

When he’s extricated it from his face, Jon keeps Martin’s hand in his with a fond grin. “Yes, darling.”

They settle on the rather expensive-feeling—and perhaps, technically, illegally acquired—leather sofa. Jon sprawls himself across Martin’s chest, and in response he wraps both arms around his waist with a contented sigh. They aren’t conscious for much longer.

For the first time in two years, Jon sleeps well.

When they were halfway across the pitiable patch of thirsty grass that qualified as a park in name only, Jon stopped suddenly. The street was a little busy for his tastes, but it was going to have to do. If he didn’t do it now, he was going to let something slip in front of Martin’s mother, and the very last thing in the world he wanted was her input on the topic.

“Jon,” Martin said, tugging lightly on his hand. “What are you doing?”

He looked around nonchalantly. “What do you mean? I’m just, er—oh, would you look at that, it appears I’m taking a knee, how peculiar.”

“Jon,” Martin hissed.

“Yes, Martin?”

With his right hand, he gripped the strap of his backpack so hard his knuckles turned white. “Mum’s waiting—”

“Well,” Jon said with a beneficent shrug, “I suppose she’s going to have to wait a little while longer.”

Martin sighed and faced him, skin glistening with nervous sweat in the sunlight.

“Wh- fine. What’s—what are you doing?”

Jon gazed up at him. “What does it look like I’m doing, my love?”

His eyes bulged. “I- I, I don’t—really think I want to guess, actually.”

Jon stroked his left hand with both thumbs, attempting to exude practised—or, technically, rehearsed—confidence.

Tim had made an excellent stand-in in the dry runs.

“Martin Blackwood,” Jon began.

Martin blanched. “Seriously? Here? Now? It’s a bloody Tuesday.”

“I can stop if you like.”

A pause.

“Mm.” Jon facetiously lifted an eyebrow. “May I please finish?”

Wordlessly, Martin nodded, biting the knuckle of his right forefinger.

Jon beamed. “Thank you. Oh—now, I’ve gone and lost my place, so—” he paused with a melodramatic sigh. “Hm. Martin K. Blackwood—you are a truly fascinating collection of—of surprisingly fervent opinions about the poetry of Thomas Hardy, and contradictions, and, yes, neuroses, and—” He chuckled. “And allergies, and dimples, and—in case it was not yet bleedingly obvious—I love you quite desperately.”

“Jon,” Martin repeated, casting a furtive eye to their surroundings. “People are looking.”

He lowered his head to kiss Martin’s hand. “Let them.”

Martin scowled, but nodded his head in assent.

“Though, come to think of it, I’m quite sure you knew that last bit already. That I love you. Ardently. Fanatically. Did you know that, Martin?”

He turned bodily to the side, covering his face with his free hand, blushing furiously.

“Yes, Jon, I did.”

“Good. Excellent. I just wanted to be positive—partially for thoroughness, and partially because you are—unbearably adorable when you’re flustered.”

“I might kill you later,” Martin grated through clenched teeth.

“As you wish. Now—mm, where was I?”

He laughed exasperatedly. “You’re such a dick.”

“And yet you continue to tolerate me. Ah! Oh, yes, that was the bit I forgot—Hardy, neuroses, and so on—and you have frankly abominable taste in men—”

“Jon!”

“For which I ought to return to church to bend in supplication before the Lord for His many blessings.”

Martin’s protestations were garbled entirely behind his irritated—but still amused—giggling.

“But! But—your very, very few defects notwithstanding—you—” Jon paused, his smile fading as he took a deep, shaking breath. “You make me happier than—than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m more myself with you, Martin, but—but you—elevate me. You make me want to be my best self. And I hope—I hope I—at least sometimes—do the same for you.”

Martin had fallen silent. His eyes were wide and misty with tears. 

“I want to ensure that—that I have the pleasure of being by your side every day. And I want to live in the certainty that—wh—”

He pressed his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat.

“Where—ah.” He closed his eyes. “Where you go, I go, too. So—so, Martin.”

Jon’s eyes opened as he recalled with a jolt of panic that he hadn’t even taken the fucking ring out of his pocket yet. With a trembling hand, he did, relieved to find that it was, in fact, where he’d placed it that morning.

He exhaled shakily.

“Sorry. Erm- Martin.”

He gazed up at him, biting the inside of his cheek.

“My—darling Martin, will—would you do me the incac- ink- lack- oh, god damn it.”

Jon released Martin’s hand to press his hands to his eyes, vaguely aware of the sound of his laughter.

“Sorry, I—”

“It’s fine,” Martin said through a gasped inhalation as he cackled. “I can wait, it’s fine.”

Jon inhaled very, very slowly, and held his hand out to Martin, who, still chuckling, placed his own in it again.

“You okay?” he asked. Jon nodded, cringing. “Okay. Take your time.”

“As I was saying,” he said, holding the ring between his thumb and forefinger. “Martin, would you do me the—” He paused once more for luck. “Incalculable honour of—of becoming my husband?”

Martin withdrew the hand Jon had been holding to press it to his face, nodding so vigorously that Jon was a little concerned he might injure something.

“Yes?” Jon ventured timidly as he returned to his feet. Martin grabbed the front of his shirt, taking his breath away.

“Yes,” he said tearfully, pulling Jon to him with force in order to kiss him.

Chapter Text

Jon had never exactly been the most agreeable person in the world.

This had caused him all manner of issues throughout his life—from stupid, completely avoidable arguments, most often with Sasha or Georgie, to antagonising the wrong person at school and having to explain to Grandmother why there was blood on his uniform yet again and really, Jonathan, is it impossible to just keep your mouth shut?

Well, in fact, it was.

It wasn’t his fault that people had always gone around spouting factual inaccuracies and ridiculous opinions as though they expected to be mindlessly agreed with. And Jon, having a brain, and not being particularly agreeable, often took issue.

What else was he to do?

Although, to be entirely fair to everyone else, they weren’t to know that he had the same aversion to compliments as he did to misinformation—especially when said compliments veered towards inanity and repetitiveness. The problem was that being polite and friendly and maintaining a thin veneer of normality was quite enough of a challenge at the best of times. 

So people feeding him an observation—about him, no less—couched in a value judgement was hardly as conducive to sustaining a conversation as simply asking how his week had been or remarking that goodness, hadn’t the rain been heavy on Tuesday.

As such, on that evening, he was perhaps a bit antsier than he would normally be. 

It didn’t help that the frankly disastrous conversation with Martin from the week before was still excruciatingly fresh and vivid in his mind, and so, avoiding him as he now was, there was essentially nobody else with whom he could sit safely in silence. 

Generally speaking, this would have been fine, because acting as a set piece in other people’s social interactions was hardly new territory. However, that day, everyone else was apparently set on telling him that his hair was longer, as though this was some sort of revelation, and that it suited him, as though it was an objective truth.

Even Melanie had echoed the same sentiment—though, admittedly, since she had, it was truly straining the bounds of credulity—and he was biting back his seventh “why, yes, my hair is longer—typically that’s what happens when one doesn’t cut it” when he realised it might be judicious to remove himself for a few moments.

Of course, he had this realisation only a minute or two after Martin had brought him a drink—probably as some sort of peace offering, due to his persistent reticence all evening. But—being the indomitable prick he was—he left anyway, doing his utmost not to cast a regretful, guilty eye over his shoulder as he stood.

It was probably about time he did some sort of irreparable damage to their—friendship? Just as he had to all the others. With Georgie it was—unsurprisingly—his guardedness; with Melanie it was—well, it was hard to pick one factor; and truthfully, he didn’t know what it was with Tim and Sasha, but surely if he obsessed about it enough in his free time he’d find something eventually.

As he walked away, Sasha and Georgie were engaged in a heated debate over whether the initials in E.E. Cummings should be capitalised or not.

The man himself had used them more or less interchangeably. Jon only knew this because Martin had told him when he’d given him a collection of his poems a couple of months prior.

That gift had led to one of their most protracted text conversations to date—Jon hadn’t hated the poems, but ‘poem’ did feel like a generous term for the clusters of phonemes arranged seemingly at random on the pages.

Martin had had a great deal to say in rebuttal.

It was a little bit—charming, when he got fired up, if only because it happened so rarely.

There was nowhere in the house to sit unmolested except for the front room, which, though Gerry had said it was fair game like everywhere else, everyone avoided out of instinct. Jon felt a similar hesitance to cross the threshold, but there was nobody in there, which was the thing of utmost importance to him at the minute, so he stood in the doorway for but a moment before entering. He perched himself on one of the hideous floral sofas which, he now knew, were also hideously uncomfortable to sit on, placing his beer bottle beside his feet with a sigh.

He straightened, cracking his knuckles and scrubbing his face with his fists, then lifting his hands to rake his fingers through the loathsome birds’ nest on his head.

The longer hair was really beginning to grate on him. On top of the compliments, it was warm and ticklish and—horribly unpleasant. At this rate, he was considering engaging the services of a sheep-shearer to crop it so thoroughly that it never regrew so much as a few millimetres. It might look a bit ridiculous, but it couldn’t be any more ridiculous than the show he’d made of himself in response to all the compliments.

Maybe it was all a ploy. Maybe there was a joke he wasn’t in on—perhaps, in fact, the number of friends he had was not five or six—depending on whether Gerry had greeted him or not on a given evening—but he was surrounded by traitors, and the real number sat closer to zero.

He was quite absorbed in morosely imagining what the impending chants of stupid-fluffy-friendless-Jon might sound like—he supposed they’d use trochaic stresses, because the absolute savages wouldn’t even have the decency to imbue it with a little bit of elegance.

He paused in this supposition to suppose that he needed to stop actually internalising the information Martin shared when he was off on yet another rant about feet.

The—the poetry kind. Obviously.

“Hey,” Martin said, throwing him off his brooding.

Because Jon recognised his voice, despite it having come from behind him, he sprang up, and, with his not-at-all-poetic feet, kicked the beer bottle he’d placed on the floor, and spilled it all over Mrs Keay’s fucking carpet, because if there was one thing he was, it was beloathed by all divinity in the universe.

Sasha had told him a few times about the rages Mrs Keay had flown into when she’d discovered these parties, so presumably Jon’s murder was imminent, because Gerry would likely sell him out to avoid getting his own throat slit.

Which was—fair enough, really.

Martin had crossed the room and had already taken off his jumper and—and was now unbuttoning his shirt, under which he was wearing a t-shirt, thank god, because the last thing Jon needed was to make more of a bumbling idiot of himself.

Dropping to his knees, he pressed his shirt to the still-spreading brown stain.

Jon’s fingers spasmed uselessly in front of him.

“Wh- what are you—what are you doing?” he asked, helpfully, of the person who was very nobly attempting to clean a mess for which he was responsible.

Martin shot him a slightly agitated smile, only meeting his gaze for a moment. “Avoiding your murder, hopefully.”

“Well—I—you don’t have to. It’s- it’s my fault. So.”

His smile broadening, dimpling his reddening cheeks, Martin continued. Jon averted his eyes in irritation.

If he was going to come in and be all—dashing, he could at least have the decency not to look the part of bloody Prince Charming while he did it.

“I know,” Martin said after a moment. “But you haven’t done anything to help, so.” A shrug. “You know.”

Jon’s lip curled, and he turned and went up the stairs. The second storey was typically reserved for hookups and such, given the five self-contained bedrooms, but it seemed as good a place as any to find a towel that would hopefully not be missed. Although, even if it was, he hoped that Gerry would rather explain the conspicuous absence of a towel to his mother than help her dispose of Jon’s corpse.

When he finally had his hands on a relatively ragged-looking towel, pilfered from an ensuite, he returned downstairs and wordlessly peeled Martin’s sopping shirt from the stain, replacing it with the towel.

“Jon,” Martin said, and he was so close that his breath rustled the too-long hair hanging over his ear. He flinched backwards, his shoulder covering his ear almost protectively.

“Yes?”

“Are—um, I was going to say, you might—want to unfold it.”

Jon looked down.

He began unfolding the towel as nonchalantly as one could when their soul was fleeing their body.

“Thank you, Martin,” he said haughtily, “I’m not a complete idiot.”

Martin leaned back on his haunches and began laughing a little manically, then covered his face with his hands.

Jon scowled.

“Well, there’s no need to laugh. You could just say you disagree,” he said bitterly, lifting the towel to check the status of the spill.

“No!” Martin protested from between his hands. “No, it’s—sorry. Oh, god, it’s not that. Sorry. I don’t—”

He cut himself off and inhaled to collect himself. Cupping his face in his hands, he gazed at Jon from the other side of the towel where he knelt with a look in his eyes that made his stomach churn intoxicatingly.

Or—or, no, churn sickeningly. Or unaffectedly. Obviously.

Stomach churning in a fashion about which he felt only the utmost ambivalence, Jon stared down at the towel.

“What are you laughing at, then?” he muttered.

“Nothing—it’s- nah, it’s—nothing.”

“Martin.”

“Yeah?”

A pause.

“You have just told me you ostensibly don’t think I’m an idiot.”

An even longer pause as Martin gave a sheepish smile. “Well, yeah, no, I don’t. You’re, like, the smartest person I know.”

Jon clenched his jaw. “Oh.”

In the overwhelming silence, Jon shifted to lean his back against the sofa, wrapping his arms around his legs.

“Can—look, could you either—tell me what’s so funny or—stop- stop talking?”

Martin made a dismayed sound and kept laughing.

“Oh, this is a disaster,” he said under his breath before growing serious. “I—can I—I’m sorry, I just wanted to—come and—check on you, but I’ve wrecked your night instead.”

Jon blinked.

“Are—well, since—since it—can’t get any worse, can I ask you a question, maybe?” Martin ventured quietly.

His blood turned to ice.

“What is it?”

Martin moved to mirror his posture, not close enough to touch, but enough that Jon could feel the warmth of his bare arm in the empty air. He inhaled slowly.

“W- um- so—you—remember—last week?”

Jon had stared at the ceiling above his bed for countless sleepless hours since the evening it happened, unable to think of anything except for how utterly he’d cocked that entire interaction up.

“Yes?”

“Oh. Great,” Martin said limply. “Well—I- I was—I’ve been—I- so the thing is I was—I was kind of… lying.”

Jon arched an eyebrow. “What, Melanie didn’t actually have that stupid little theory?”

They fell silent for an uncomfortably long moment. 

“Um—” Martin began almost inaudibly. “Um, no. No, uh, she—she, ah, she definitely does, but it’s because I—I do.”

Jon’s eyes narrowed. “You do what?”

Another silence.

“I thought,” he said, “We already discussed all of this. We’re friends, so—”

“No,” Martin interjected, “No, like, I mean—I mean I have a really big crush on you.”

Jon looked at the ceiling. “Stick to puns, Martin.”

In his peripheral vision, he saw Martin turning his head towards him with a frown. “What?”

“That’s not funny,” Jon sneered. “I—I don’t know if the others told you to do this, or, or what, but—”

“No, Jon,” Martin said emphatically, “I’m—I’m not joking. I- I mean, honestly, calling it a crush is probably—understating it a little bit? Like, I—I think there’s probably a possibility I’m—I’m in love with you, actually?”

Jon’s eyes widened, his brows furrowing, which probably made him look a little bit crazed.

“I mean—I don’t know. I- I might be? Because, apparently, past- uh, past four months they say that it’s—I’m—you—okay, I’m—you’re—you’re looking at me like that and I’m still talking for some reason, w—”

Martin pressed his fingertips to his forehead.

“Why am I still talking?”

“Good question,” Jon said vacantly.

An aeon passed.

“So—” Martin drawled awkwardly, his shoulders acquainting themselves with his ears. “Um—even though I’m—probably—cocking this up severely, I was going to—ah, ask if you wanted to—go out.”

Jon closed his eyes to prevent them from popping out of their sockets.

“On a date.”

He heard Martin inhale shakily.

“With me.”

Jon began counting to ten, but he only got to eight before he decided the silence was too long.

“Are you serious?”

Martin laughed breathlessly. “I—I’d be weirdly committed to the joke if I wasn’t?”

When Jon opened his eyes to look at him, his smile only faltered slightly.

“Um, w—” Jon forced himself to stop and inhale. “I—yes. Yes.”

Martin pressed his palms to his eyes with a sound that was closer to a bark or a cough than laughter.

“Oh, thank god,” he muttered.

Jon smiled despite himself, but glancing in Martin’s direction killed any ability he may have had to—to throw some sort of banter at him in response.

They sat.

Jon watched the beer evaporate from the towel in silence.

Upon reflection, it struck him that perhaps he may have been a little obtuse about this whole—situation.

He may have been one-hundred and seventy-nine degrees of obtuse about this whole situation.

Martin couldn’t get through a whole conversation with him without blushing and stammering at least once, and usually—usually a lot more than once.

“I know, yes, but, I—I meant- I meant romantically. Obviously.”

“Obviously.”

As stealthily as he was able to, Jon lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose hard.

There were normal levels of idiocy, and there was Jonathan Sims’ singular and miraculous ability to observe the obvious and simply turn his eyes away again with a dismissive shake of his head.

For all he knew, Martin had been excruciatingly attempting to—imply his—affections for months now.

What a nightmare.

Jon flinched and only realised after the fact that the thing brushing against the back of his closed fist on the floor was not, as he assumed, a spider, or even an errant strand of hair, but the back of Martin’s finger—which was now curling with the others into a retreating, mortified fist.

Jon’s other palm collided with his forehead so quickly and violently that it slapped audibly.

“God, I’m—sorry, I- I thought it—”

Deciding against sticking his foot in his mouth hard enough to asphyxiate on it for the second week in a row, Jon clambered to his feet and gathered the wet, sticky towel in his hands.

“I’m—I should—go—deal with—with this,” he said, bouncing on his heels in his eagerness to retreat, head bowed in an attempt to avoid making eye contact. “I’ll—I’m going to doe goo—”

Jon stood still and silent, his jaw falling open in abject humiliation.

They blinked at one another. It would have been rather romantic, had they been cats.

He elected not to remedy his—mess was insufficient; his nuclear disaster zone—before he fled up the stairs in search of a laundry hamper or, failing that, an incinerator with which to mitigate the cataclysmic shambles he’d made of the last twenty minutes.

He’d only gotten thirty seconds into his compulsive hyperventilation when he heard the creak of someone ascending the stairs.

And his apprehension—dread, really—only grew as Martin came into view, holding his soiled shirt and wearing a puzzled frown that evaporated into a self-conscious grin when their eyes met.

Jon hated him.

He hated him so violently that the only balm for his incipient rage might be to kiss him on his stupid, dimpled mouth.

“What are you doing?” Martin asked, his voice hushed despite their surroundings being deserted.

“What am I doing? What are you doing? Y- Your jumper’s completely defenceless down there.”

Martin shook his head as he looked at his feet with an incredulous chuckle. “Are you—looking for the washer, maybe?”

Jon blinked, squaring his shoulders. “Maybe.”

“Did you try downstairs? In the kitchen?”

He watched him, eyes narrowing mordantly. “Is that the universally-agreed upon standard for the location of a washing machine?”

Martin’s smile turned into a smirk. “Is that a no?”

“Shut up.”

“Got you. Come on.”

He nodded in the direction of the stairs and started down them.

Jon scowled, even as he followed Martin downstairs and into—damn him, he was right—the utility room in the kitchen.

There were two problems with this, both of which only occurred to him after he’d closed the door and was already trapped for the foreseeable future.

The first was that the light switch was on the outside, so the only light in the room was filtering down from a small, high window in the opposite wall.

The second was that the utility room was very, very small.

Accordingly, he stood with his back pressed firmly to the door, the towel held in both hands like a shield.

A limp, soggy, beer-scented shield.

Martin straightened from his position bent in front of the washer, having already deposited his shirt inside.

“I’ll—probably be a bit more successful if you give me the towel.”

Jon frowned. “No.”

He placed his hands on his hips. “No?”

“You’re cleaning my mess. I’m—I won’t help.”

Martin quirked an eyebrow. “Okay, then—um, why?”

“Because—” Jon tensed his shoulders. “That—isn’t how it works. I- I made it, so, so logically—”

He trailed off as Martin laughed, still watching him.

“What?”

Martin took a step towards him, which halved the distance between them in the confined space.

“So—you don’t like that I’m helping you, and your way of dealing with that is—is to make it harder and more inconvenient—which is going to make it take longer.”

Jon stuck his chin out imperiously.

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

“Yes,” Martin chuckled. “Hmm. It denotes contemplation. I’m—I am intrigued.”

“I see you’ve been holding out on me with your vocabulary,” Jon said, though he already regretted the caustic edge in his tone.

Unfazed, Martin began inching closer to him with a confident smile. 

Jon heard his own pulse hammering in his ears.

“Well, maybe—maybe I’m feeling even more like I want to impress you. Than—than before.”

He paused.

“Since now, apparently, I might—have a snowflake’s chance.”

“I- w- if—if you’d never impressed me, would I have—said yes, before?”

Martin gave an equanimous shrug. “Maybe. For a joke.”

Jon canted his head, brows furrowing.

“W- I- am I wrong?” Martin asked, his confidence faltering.

“I mean—yes, certainly, but—it’s- it’s irrelevant.”

“How?”

Jon’s face flamed so aggressively that he worried momentarily that he might be glowing.

“W- er, well, firstly, that would be—very—unkind. Of me. But I—” Jon paused, searching for somewhere else to look, but settling back on Martin’s eyes when he was unsuccessful. “I’m—I’m very fond of you. And—and I was glad—you—you asked.”

“Really?” Martin asked incredulously, now less than an arm’s length away.

“Yes.”

He made a surprised sound in his throat, grinning. “Oh. Great.”

Jon wasn’t entirely certain whether the nausea was anticipation or terror. “Yes.”

“So—since you’re so fond of me,” Martin murmured, taking one last step forward. He lifted a hand and very gently took Jon’s chin between his thumb and forefinger to angle his face upwards, gazing meaningfully into his eyes with a shy smile. “May I?”

Jon inhaled shakily.

“Yes.”

Martin’s hand stayed where it was as he timidly leaned in to kiss him. 

It was gentle, and careful, and over far too quickly, and when Martin turned away again the towel had somehow magically been transferred to his hand.

“You—you duped me.”

He was now very, very focused on the dials and buttons on the washer as he placed the towel inside it and closed the door with a decisive thud.

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” he said absently, biting his lip.

“You were asking for the towel.”

Martin glanced at him slyly, one side of his mouth quirked upwards in a satisfied little smirk. “Yeah.”

“But I thought—”

“Honestly, Jon,” he said, turning a dial and setting the machine going. It roared as it began to fill with water. “You do know two things can be true at the same time, right?”

“Yes, but—”

Martin had returned to standing in front of Jon, and his proximity stole his voice.

“I won’t kiss you again if you don’t want me to. It’s okay.”

“I- well—let’s- let’s not be hasty.”

“Ah,” Martin breathed, lip curling deviously. “So you’re upset just because I pulled one over on you.”

Jon—well, in the darkness of an unlit utility room, he could admit it: he pouted. “Yes, and?”

He beamed. “So—oh, so, just to be clear, the kissing bit—that wasn’t a problem?”

As he spoke, he pressed his palm gently to the side of Jon’s neck.

His pout intensified. “No,” he admitted, under great duress as he was, “It—no, it wasn’t.”

Martin’s nose wrinkled with amusement. “Cool,” he said, and kissed him again. His fingertips tangled themselves lazily in the too-long hair at the back of Jon’s skull.

Perhaps, he decided absently, skipping a haircut wasn’t so bad.

Late in the morning, when Jon actually rights himself and moves towards the sofa, dropping himself onto it with a groan, he hears Martin muttering almost rhythmically to himself in the kitchen, and he frowns.

“Something on your mind?” he asks, and Martin seems to literally bite his tongue.

A moment passes in silence, except for Bea crying for her breakfast at Martin’s feet, the perfidious, furry little harlot.

“Um,” Martin says, turning to feed the cats. “No?”

When he returns to continue making the tea, Jon blinks languidly.

“I- I mean,” Martin relents, “I—I was just, um, thinking.”

“Yes, that much was apparent.”

He is conspicuously silent as he discards the spent tea, then crosses to the sofa. He places two mugs—coasterlessly, no less—on the coffee table, and Jon smiles to the sound of Mrs Blackwood rolling in her grave.

“Just—thinking it’s sort of funny how ‘The Phantom Horsewoman’ is your favourite Hardy poem.”

“Favourite is a strong word.”

Martin plops down and leans over to kiss his shoulder. “Okay,” he says, resting his forehead there for a moment. “What is your favourite, then? I could see ‘To Lizbie Browne’.”

In hopes of it feeling like a punishment, Jon drapes himself bodily across Martin’s lap. It’s a diabolically clever manoeuvre—not least because now he’s going to struggle to get up again.

He runs a hand idly up and down Jon’s—as ever, aching—spine. 

“I’ve had quite enough unfulfilled yearning for one lifetime, thank you very much,” Jon says, and hears Martin laugh breathily. “Anyway, why—why would ‘The Phantom Horsewoman’ be funny?”

Martin hums thoughtfully. “Well, ‘cause it kind of sounds like you. The first bit, anyway.”

Jon glances at him over his shoulder. “Are you suggesting you’re the boyfriend of some sort of spectral equine voyeur?”

“I mean—no. But if you had a chance to check out a ghost-lady riding a ghost-horse, are you saying you wouldn’t?”

He gives an approving grimace and rests his head on the leather of the sofa next to Martin’s leg.

“Valid point, I suppose—how does it go again? The first bit?”

“What, you don’t remember?”

Jon carefully rotates himself to face him without falling off.

“I like when you recite,” he says. “It’s nice.”

Martin blushes, running a hand through his hair. 

“Okay, um—it’s been a bit, so, mm—I think…” 

He squints in thought.

“It goes: queer are the ways of a man I know—”

“Unparalleled wit, darling.”

Martin glowers at him and sticks two fingers in the tickly bit of his ribs.

“If you’re going to interrupt, you can just read it yourself. Alone.”

Jon places the backs of his fingers against his chin with a cherubic smile. “Is that a threat?”

Martin snakes a hand under his shoulders and lifts him slightly to kiss him for a long moment.

“As I was saying,” he says haughtily, “He comes and stands in a careworn craze, and—um, watches the sands and the—ocean? No, no, it’s sands and the seaward haze.”

Jon cradles his head on his laced fingers and watches Martin fumble for the words with a smile.

Then he swears and pulls his phone from his pocket.

“Cheater.”

He narrows his eyes. “How many poems have you got memorised, again?”

Jon purses his lips, sufficiently daunted.

“Blah, blah,” Martin continues, frowning over his glasses at the screen. “Craze, et cetera, sands and the seaward haze—with moveless hands and face and gaze, then turns to go—and what does he see when he gazes so?”

“Is it the frown lines?” Jon asks with a disingenuous pout.

“No,” Martin says, very soberly. “It’s—it just sounds like how sometimes you—get all—”

“Dashing and Byronic?”

Martin sticks his tongue out. “I was going to say guarded and hard to read, like—like you’re—contemplating the horrors of the universe, or something.”

“Mr Blackwood, you have such a way with words.”

Martin goes to speak, but instead smiles down at him for a long, quiet moment.

“I’ve got some—work to do,” he says regretfully. “I’ll torture you some more later, okay? Maybe even with one of mine, if you ask nicely.”

A little taken aback, Jon wriggles to one end of the sofa with a vague frown. Martin reaches to brush his chin with a thumb.

“Thanks, love,” he says, smiling gently. “I’ll be in the study.”

Jon watches him go and hesitantly takes his mug back to bed.

He’s roused from dozing by Martin saying his name in the doorway. It’s been a good couple of hours. His tea’s gone cold.

He rubs his eyes. 

“Jon?” Martin repeats in his five-minutes-late-for-work voice.

It’s a Sunday.

Jon sits up. “Mm?”

“Have you seen ‘Wessex Poems’ anywhere?”

He blinks. “May I ask what’s—” The yawn interjects very rudely. “Mm. What’s inspired the—fascination with Hardy today, my love?”

Martin crosses his arms. He’s wearing the mustard-coloured jumper Jon has made very clear is his favourite with how often he’s stolen it.

That’s interesting.

“You’re a comedy genius. Is that a no?”

Jon shrugs before clambering out of bed and following him to the bookcase. 

When he moved in, it was—decidedly unfeasible to try and fit his books into the already above-capacity bookcase Martin had.

So, Martin, being a veritable land baron with his two-bedrooms-in-central-London salary, paid for something larger and more permanent to be installed. They’d been worried about Ben and Bea tipping something free-standing over and hurting themselves, but neither of them were skilled enough to bolt some piece of IKEA’s glorified cardboard to the wall. 

This was the most elegant solution.

It’s much more capable of holding the frankly slightly outlandish number of books—on a rainy weekend last year, when Jon counted as he alphabetised them, there were six-hundred and thirty-eight—but it does mean that if one is looking for a specific title, one may as well acquire a cup of tea first, because one is likely going to be looking for a while.

“Do you know ‘Between Us Now’?” Martin asks absently, with an undertone that implies that he is Obfuscating His Motives.

That’s very interesting.

“No, darling,” Jon says, crouching to squint at the second shelf from the bottom.

“Want to hear it?”

When Jon glances sidelong at him, he’s looking back with keen attention, though he feigns disinterest as he runs a finger along the spines of the books on the top shelf.

“If you like. Of course.”

“Great!”

Martin turns towards Jon, who stands.

It’s then he notices that under the mustard jumper is the blue collared shirt that is also one of his favourites.

Well, not counting formalwear. But few sights on earth can compare to Martin Blackwood in a three piece suit.

And one cannot very well surprise their boyfriend at home in a three-piece suit on a Sunday afternoon without tipping their hand entirely.

This observation graduates events from very interesting all the way to downright peculiar.

“Okay,” Martin says, inhaling slowly. As he begins his recitation, he methodically pushes the sleeves of the jumper up, then unbuttons and fastidiously folds the sleeves of the shirt to the elbows.

“Between us now and here—two thrown together who are not wont to wear Life’s flushest feather—”

In Jon’s defence, he only laughs because he’s wearing a shirt advertising Melanie’s YouTube channel paired with only the voguest of tracksuit bottoms.

Martin smiles, but apparently this recitation takes precedence over any witty little quip he may have thought up.

“Who see the scenes slide past; the daytimes dimming fast—let there be truth at last, even if despair.”

Jon’s laughter lapses into stupefaction.

Martin pauses, his eyes darting between Jon and the bookshelves in deliberation. He clears his throat. “So thoroughly and long have you now known me—so real in faith and strong have I now shown me, that nothing needs disguise further in any wise, or—”

His voice gives out, and he stops, bringing the back of his hand to his mouth. Unthinkingly, Jon closes the distance between them, pressing both hands to his chest—which, yes, may partially be because of the pleasing texture of the jumper, but it’s predominantly the desire to make sure he’s alright.

As though reading his thoughts, Martin shakes his head dismissively. “It’s fine,” he mutters, sniffing. “Um, where—oh! Yeah, that’s right.”

His jaw sets.

“That nothing needs disguise further in any wise, or—or asks or justifies a guarded tongue.”

He gently runs a tendril of Jon’s hair between his thumb and forefinger, then meets his gaze, unsmiling.

“Face unto face, then—” Ah, it appears the smile was just running late. “Then say, eyes mine own meeting, is your heart—is your heart far away, or with mine beating?”

Martin covers Jon’s hands on his chest, and his face flushes, the smile falling away again.

Jon’s severe idiopathic tear-duct-localised facial leak appears to have come out of remission.

“When false things are brought low, and swift things have grown slow, feigning like froth shall go—faith be for aye.”

They are both silent for a long moment.

“Ah,” Martin says, though his eyes have yet to leave Jon’s. “Found it.”

“Darling—”

“Shoosh.” Martin presses his forefinger to Jon’s still parted lips. “Not finished yet.”

“Oh, no audience participation?”

Martin rolls his eyes and kisses him for long enough to get the message across.

“I said be quiet,” he reiterates, turning to the bookshelf and reaching with ease for ‘Wessex Poems’.

It’s almost as though he staged it there earlier.

Peculiar may have been too weak a word.

Suddenly this performance feels momentous.

Martin opens the front cover with an ostentatious flourish, then tilts his head with a rather unconvincing look of surprise.

“Ooh,” he says, “I think we might be haunted.”

“Is that so?” Jon asks, folding his arms.

“Yeah!” Martin bites his lip against the mischievous grin blooming on his face. “Look!”

He offers the book to Jon, the cover closed, his expression near-diabolical in its dastardly anticipation.

Jon shakes his head with a long-suffering sigh, then opens the cover and—frowns.

He knows very well what he expects to see—goodness knows he’s spent an inordinate amount of time over the years staring at that hastily struck-through B.

But now the whole bungled surname is carefully struck through in the same blue as it was written twelve years ago.

Below it is now written, in red, and in a much more confident cursive, the—well, contextually, Jon suspects it’s the proposed revision.

Blackwood?

Jon lifts his eyes to Martin, who must have been practising, given that he’s effortlessly produced a gold ring that doesn’t look at all like it’ll fit. 

“I don’t think bracelets are customary for this sort of thing—”

“Hilarious,” Martin says, rolling his eyes. “It’s—this is—this is mine.”

The facetious displeasure melts from his face, replaced with earnestness.

“I thought—I thought it might be a, a better, um, omen?”

He inhales.

“If—if this time, we, er—” He gestures with the hand holding the ring towards the book, clutched in Jon’s hands. “If we matched.”

Martin looks down at the ring, which is, indeed, the lost partner of the one that Jon still refuses to remove for any significant period of time.

It is the principle of the thing, of course—it’s a constant reminder that Jon does not ever intend to make such a reckless, stupid mistake again. But it’s also a reason to smile when they’re apart and Jon catches its glint in the corner of his eye. And, less sentimentally, he’s worn a ring for twelve years, and he doesn’t want to stop, lest he grow unused to the sensation.

Sensible decision, apparently.

“Are—Martin, are you—”

“Yes. Yeah. I- I wasn’t… I wasn’t certain, honestly, because I- I mean, I’m me.”

They both smile.

“But, if I waited much longer, I’d have to either pr- erm, you know, in the- in our thirteenth year, or wait over a year, and—”

A sheepish shrug.

“I didn’t want to wait anymore.”

“Oh. W- uh, well, that—that makes sense.”

A pause.

“Um—love?”

“Yes, darling?”

Martin gestures with the ring again. “You’re sort of leaving me in suspense here.”

Jon exclaims inarticulately and throws his arms around Martin’s neck, stomach twisting in delighted knots when he’s caught and held aloft for a moment.

“Yes, you fool,” he says into his shoulder. “Though I would like to have it noted officially that this is a monumentally terrible decision on your part.”

When both their feet are on the ground, Martin presses their foreheads together. “Fine,” he says, “But my official response is I don’t care.” He smiles. “I love you.”

Martin puts his wedding band back where it belongs.

Jon reaches to brush the freckle on his lip.

“I love you, too.”

There is but one regret Jon has about their relocation to the Scottish countryside: it’s very difficult to find the gumption to get up and go anywhere when life at home is so bloody pleasant.

But he’s managed—mostly.

The tightness of his shirt gives him pause as he buttons it, though. He faces himself in the full-length mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door. When he draws his chin towards his spine, there’s a bunching of flesh that was definitely not there eighteen months ago.

He scowls at his reflection, adjusting his glasses, unconvinced that that’s really his image looking back—maybe he’s overdue for an eye test. But it doesn’t waver or resolve. That’s him.

It’s not as though he’s ever been overwhelmed with his own stunning good looks, but he skipped just-whelmed entirely and is now rather underwhelmed.

Disappointed, even.

“What’s that look for?” Martin asks as he passes behind him to go into the bathroom for a moment. When he emerges, Jon pokes his belly with pursed lips.

“I’m fat,” he says. 

With a smile that Jon only sees because of the mirror, Martin puts his arms around his middle and squeezes.

“Yep.”

“And,” Jon continues, “My hair’s gone all grey.”

Martin kisses his temple, still smiling. “Well-spotted, love.”

“And I’m ugly.”

Martin takes his shoulders and turns him bodily, inspecting his face with narrowed eyes and then kissing him.

“Are not. We’re going to be late.”

“But I look ugly,” Jon insists, glancing sideways at his reflection and grimacing.

Martin guides him out of the way and closes the wardrobe door, then embraces him, squeezing ever-so-slightly too tight for comfort. But that’s the point, because it works.

Jon’s psychologist calls it deep-touch tactile sensory input. He calls it an effective shutting-up trick for Martin’s back pocket.

“Nobody’s going to be looking all that closely at you, love. Except me.”

“Well, that doesn’t help.”

Martin laughs and withdraws to place his hands on Jon’s shoulders.

“You’re just not quite as pretty as either of them. Not your fault.”

Jon pouts. “You’re being terribly mean to me.”

“You started it.”

Jon breaks away to retrieve his tie from the bed, slipping it around his neck and beginning to tie it.

Poorly.

Martin takes over when Jon’s hands fall in irritated fists to his sides. 

“You don’t have to agree.”

Martin tilts his head down to frown over his glasses.

“I can’t help it if—if it’s a little bit true. But you can’t cut glass on your cheeks anymore, and you’re—well, nice and soft, and—also, I think your hair is very dashing, actually, and I wouldn’t think you were ugly even if you had seventeen extra eyeballs on stalks and no skin.”

As he finishes knotting the tie, he kisses Jon’s forehead and leaves the bedroom. Jon follows with a morose scowl.

“You’re just saying that,” he insists.

Martin groans. “I’ve known you how many years?”

“Yes,” Jon says, “But you hated me for two of them.”

Martin circles back so that he can start pushing Jon towards the front door. “Stop sulking. It won’t change your hair, and anyway, Daisy knew what you looked like when she asked you to do this.”

“Fine.”

While he stands grumpily by the door, Martin does a circuit of the living room and kitchen, pausing to say goodbye to Ben and Bea before he collects his keys and scarf from the worktop.

Jon cracks a smile as they step outside.

“No, I said left.”

“I bloody hate Edinburgh,” Martin says through gritted teeth. 

“Don’t shoot the messenger.”

When they make the turn, his face softens. “Sorry, love. Let me know if you want a break.”

“I thought we were running late.”

Martin’s lips purse, and his cheeks redden. 

“We—were.” Then, much more quietly: “By—by Jon time.”

His eyes widen as he slowly turns his head. “By what time?”

“Mm—hm? Nothing.”

“Martin Blackwood.”

Facetious irritation crosses his face. “What?”

“What, pray tell, is Jon time?”

He waits until they pull to a stop in the queue for a junction. “Um—well, I—I—sometimes—tell you that an event, or whatever, is, like, half an hour earlier than it is—so—so we get there on time.” He chuckles to himself. “Or, I guess, so we get there Jon time.”

Jon gags. “Darling, that was atrocious, even by your standards.”

Martin’s jaw sets. “Yeah. Yeah, it—it was.”

The journey continues mostly in silence, punctuated now and again by Jon relaying a direction, or one of them humming along to a song on the radio.

He’d been correct, in his speech—home goes with them.

It’s such a simple, understated pleasure to feel safe.

When they arrive, Jon looks down at his hands, laced in his lap.

After a silent moment, Martin covers them with one of his.

“You didn’t let me finish, at home,” he says. “I’ve had an—embarrassing crush on you—the whole time.”

When Jon looks up, he’s beaming.

“That’s what I meant to say,” Martin says, and kisses him briefly.

Jon smiles despite his efforts to continue his stormy little brooding session.

They get out into the chilly afternoon air. Thank goodness Daisy’s so talented at building fires, or they might be in for some sort of Everest disaster reenactment.

There’s a security guard standing under an archway amongst the unruly beds of roses and catmint and daisies—when Jon mentioned that maybe they were a bit heavy-handed, Daisy told him to shut up.

They do look nice.

Daisy doesn’t talk about it much, but she’s—at least implied that in another life she knew enough unsavoury characters that having no security presence whatsoever was not a risk she felt comfortable taking.

Martin does the talking, putting his arm casually around Jon’s waist as he speaks.

Jon feels his face warming, and he ducks his head as they’re allowed through.

“I don’t think you needed to say ‘husband’ quite that many times,” he says as they pause on the porch, several paces from the door. There’s already raucous laughter and conversation coming from inside—Tim and Sasha arrived on time, then.

Martin slips his keys into a pocket and adjusts his scarf. “So?”

“So—so isn’t it—embarrassing?”

He gives an unconvinced grimace. “No, but—” It resolves into a smirk. “If I cared about embarrassing, would I have married you twice?”

Jon chuckles bashfully. “Touché.”

At the back of the living room, which has been rearranged for the occasion, all the furniture pushed to the side except for the dining chairs arranged for the guests, Daisy is clutching Jon’s arm very, very tightly. If he didn’t know any better, he might begin to think she’s nervous.

“She’s not going anywhere,” he mutters.

She shoots a sharp, sideways glance back at him.

“You don’t know that.”

“Daisy,” Jon says, disentangling his arm in order to turn to her with a concerned frown. “Trust me, she’s not, but if you’d like some logic to bolster the sentiment—”

“Don’t fucking patronise me, S- uh. Blackwood.” A pause as her attempt at menace dissipates. “Sorry.”

Jon grins shyly, averting his eyes. “It’s—it’s quite alright.”

He faces forward and places her hand back on his forearm.

“Keep going, though,” she says, voice hushed. 

Jon chews his lip. “W- mm. She’s—she’s similar enough to Martin that I can say categorically that the only thing you could do to push her away would be to—well, to- to fuck up as badly as I did.”

She laughs breathily. “Oh. Great, okay, well, never mind. I’m sorted.”

Jon glowers with his old, fat, wrinkly face.

Martin wouldn’t approve of that assessment, he suspects.

“Yes,” he says, squeezing her hand. “Thank goodness you’re not as stupid as me, Daisy, or I might have to actually comfort you.”

“Eurgh.”

“Eurgh, indeed.”

With a gesture from the celebrant, positioned beside Basira, whose back is turned, the room falls quiet.

It’s a very small assembly—as it happens, Daisy and Basira are almost as bad at maintaining a social circle as Jon is. So he’s sort of—superimposed them over the one he had already. It’s—gone well, mostly, except for how comprehensively Melanie and Basira can tease him when they’re working together.

Melanie and Georgie are on Basira’s side of the room, standing behind Basira’s father and her witness, Manuela. Jon’s sort of in the dark on where exactly they met, but they’re close. On Daisy’s side are Tim and Sasha, and Martin in front of them. When Jon sees him, he realises he hadn’t been smiling. That changes very quickly.

Daisy had invited Gerry and Danny—mostly out of courtesy, although she has gone to climbing gyms with them once or twice—but they’re skydiving in Thailand this month.

At the other end of the room, as they approach, Basira turns to them and Jon notices the tears streaming down her face. She’s still wearing a stoic expression, probably hoping that it might fool the tears into disappearing.

Daisy’s hand tightens on his arm, and when he glances at her face, she’s not looking at him. She probably wouldn’t look away from Basira if her life depended on it.

It would be terribly nice to attend a wedding and not weep one day. Alas.

Jon pecks Daisy on the cheek and retreats to take his seat beside Martin, who takes his hand, and the ceremony begins.

Basira’s father goes home early, so after dinner, things get a bit more—relaxed.

Jon’s been nursing the same glass of red wine all evening—even if he wanted to, he cannot hold drinks like he used to. These days, the only delirium he finds himself in regularly is post-scalp massage, which normally only lasts about a minute before he’s dozing off entirely. This suits him just fine, and it’s also just about all the excitement he’s interested in.

Sasha has apparently taken a keen interest in Manuela, and the two of them are sitting engrossed in conversation at one of the mismatched dining tables Daisy bought a few weeks ago from a charity shop in Edinburgh. Jon had gone with her, and they’d had to hire a van to get them home. He’d done little but supervise as she wrangled them fairly easily single-handedly.

Everyone else is arranged in a buzzing cluster, dancing and laughing.

Does it go without saying that Jon is the exception? Possibly.

He’s watching from a corner and ruminating. So it’s—it’s a rather typical arrangement, really.

The song changes. Jon watches Martin split from the group and cross the room, a little unsteady from a few drinks, a smile on his face.

“Am I allowed to ask?” he says, stopping short of touching him.

“Ask what?” Jon replies, clasping his glass in both hands with a coy smile. 

Martin rolls his eyes. “If—if I asked you to dance, would—you say yes?”

His smile grows. “Sir, while I appreciate the offer, I’m afraid my husband may object.”

Martin takes the glass from Jon’s hands and places it on the nearest table, then offers one hand with a facetiously courtly bow. “Your husband will cope.”

“Oh,” Jon says, taking his hand with his eyebrows raised in innocent surprise. “You know my husband?”

The scowl Martin gives in reply is good-natured, if a little long-suffering. “You are so annoying sometimes.”

Jon emits a melodramatic sigh. “My husband says the same thing.”

“Right. Fine. I’ll bite, you—”

“You’ll what? No, I’m afraid my husband will certainly object to that sort of nonsense.”

Martin kisses him and comes away with a vexed little pout.

“Tell me about this husband of yours,” he says. “Since you can’t shut up about him.”

Martin leads on the rare occasions that they dance. It’s funny, because he seems to have this idea that he’d follow Jon anywhere. It’s certainly a romantic notion.

However, in reality, Jon would just about follow Martin blindfolded into hell.

Dancing sometimes feels like that is exactly what he’s doing.

Not now, though.

The song is slow, and subdued, and they’re simply swaying from side to side.

“Well,” Jon says pensively, “Let’s see—he’s- mm, he’s about your height, and—hmm. Yes.” He makes a show of painstakingly inspecting Martin’s face. “I’d say just as ruggedly handsome. Although he probably smiles a bit more than you—then again, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’s also thoroughly fed up with me by now.”

Jon lifts an eyebrow superciliously. “Be a good lad and ask him, if you see him, won’t you?”

Martin presses two fingers to his ear like a television reporter. “Hm? Ah. Oh. Bugger. Right.”

He sighs.

“I’ve just heard back from him—he said I’m stuck with you now.”

Jon laughs, pressing his forehead to Martin’s shoulder. “Oh, my sincerest condolences.”

“Bloody scam,” Martin mutters, cradling the back of his head in one hand as they dance.

Eventually, Jon ends up dancing with Daisy while Tim and Melanie get Martin doing shots with them. Basira and Georgie are seated at the same table as Sasha and Manuela, who are still deep in discussion. String theory, Tim said. 

Jon and Daisy are both apparently too exhausted to talk much, except for when she asks him whether it was so nerve-wracking for him—only the first time, he tells her. The second was—well, still overwhelming, but for very different reasons.

It’s hard to remember vows when you’re evaporating from joy.

Then, when they tire of dancing—which happens to coincide with Tim taking control of the music—Daisy goes to perch her chin on the top of her wife’s head, not participating in the conversation.

Jon looks between the two groups, decides both are too much socialising, and steals Martin’s scarf from the back of a chair before slipping outside. 

Normally when he visits he’s got to be careful not to let the dogs get out. But they’re rehabilitated rescues, and Daisy was worried how they’d cope with all the noise and disruption, so they’re staying with a colleague of hers.

But for the music thumping inside, it’s rather peaceful.

Jon sits on the steps on the back porch, which looks out across a deserted-looking valley, with a miniscule triangle of the ocean visible in the distance. 

The day has gone well. It’s been very nice.

Jon’s admittedly had quite enough of weddings for a good, long while though.

Melanie and Georgie aren’t planning on it, and Gerry says that if he and Danny ever go that way, they’re eloping.

Mr and Mrs Stoker don’t entirely approve of him. It’s got much less to do with the fact that he’s a man than it does the fact that he has tattoos and plays the guitar for a living.

Jon supposes they’ll come around, anyway. Gerry’s very hard to dislike.

Martin tried.

He did get almost a year into it, but at someone’s birthday party or something, Gerry cornered him and sat him down with two beers each, and said he wasn’t allowed to stand up until they got to the bottom of it.

On the way home that night, Martin was on the brink of tears as he asked whether it made him a bad person to have been so unkind with so little cause.

Jon told him that yes, possibly, it did, but if that was the tipping point, the label of bad person likely didn’t mean all that much.

Martin said that that was reductive.

They were talking about virtue as conceptualised by Nietzsche by the time they crawled into bed that night.

Jon presses the scarf to his lips with a soft smile.

A door creaks open behind him.

“Hey!”

Oh, dear, that sounds like a dreadfully enthusiastic greeting for someone who’s supposed to be operating a motor vehicle in the next hour or two.

Jon looks up at Martin, who’s standing behind him, face flushed and sweaty. They smile.

“Hi, darling,” Jon says with a needling bounce of his eyebrows.

“Hi!” Martin chirps, plopping himself down beside him.

“And how many shots has Tim fed us this evening?”

“Don’t know! What are you up to out here? It’s cold.”

Jon lifts one end of the scarf to offer it to him, and he shakes his head, one hand lifted.

“I meant you must be cold.”

Jon tips his head noncommittally. “I’m fine.”

Martin slings an arm around his shoulders anyway, squeezing and resting his cheek against the top of his head.

“Suit yourself, weirdo.”

“I already scarfed myself,” Jon says, smiling. “Or—or scarved. I don’t know.”

He hears Martin blow a raspberry. “You’re so lucky you’re hot.”

Though Jon’s brow furrows in response, he doesn’t find the motivation to lift his head and impart the full strength of his judgmental disagreement.

“And!” Martin continues eagerly. “That’s subjective, so—you know. It’s my opinion. So—there.”

Jon chuckles. “I’ve been syllogistically bested, yes.”

“See?” Martin says, pulling away enough to give a cheeky grin. “Hot.”

He narrows his eyes. “Bizarre.”

Nodding, and apparently mollified, Martin looks out at the view. It’s a remarkably clear night for how cold it is, and everything is painted in deep blue and silver.

“Can I tell you something?” Martin asks, his voice very sober for someone who is decidedly not.

“Mm.”

“You remember our first date?”

“Our very first? In—in detail, yes.”

“That makes one of us.”

“Yes,” Jon says. “I—you—you forgot to ask for decaf.”

“Yeah.”

They lapse into silence for a moment. Jon tangles his hands in the ends of the scarf.

“D’you remember you called me that night?”

Jon tilts his head. “Did I?”

Martin glances at him, perhaps to gauge his sincerity, then smiles shyly.

Nearly fourteen years and the man’s still finding the self-consciousness to be shy. It’s something of a superpower at this point.

“You did.” He inhales giddily. “You were checking on me.”

“Good,” Jon replies, quirking an eyebrow. “I’m—I was a little surprised when you didn’t keel over.”

“I already said,” Martin says with faux impatience, shaking his head. “You’re hot, so—so I probably would have been like that even without the espresso.”

He grins. “You were—and are—under the heavy influence of mind-altering substances, darling.”

“I’ve still got eyes, though.”

“If you insist.”

Martin lowers the arm he has around Jon’s shoulders and idly walks his first two fingers up the length of his spine as he speaks.

“Anyway. You left a voicemail, um—because—I—didn’t answer. Because I was a little bit too scared.”

Jon frowns incredulously.

“What?” Martin asks.

“You were scared?”

“I was terrified.”

“Of—of what?”

Finding a knot at the junction between Jon’s neck and shoulder blade, Martin presses on it gently, and as though it’s a button, Jon’s head tips back with a satisfied sigh.

“Well, because I- I thought you were going to—I thought you’d called to, like, I don’t know, let me down gently or something.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Is not.”

Jon places both hands to the inside of his knee. “I was just as—er, infatuated—as you were. But I was—well, I was rather put-out over it.”

“I mean, yeah,” Martin says, blushing, “I know that now.”

Jon rolls his eyes.

“But, anyway, I—I thought I’d made a complete dickhead of myself, and you wouldn’t think I was cool anymore.”

“I’m afraid your—coolness hasn’t got a lot to do with it. And if it did, wouldn’t—if anything, wouldn’t my high regard in that respect actually be an indictment?”

When Jon looks into his face, Martin is scowling with an adorable attempt at irritation.

“Was it something I said?”

“I’m—too drunk for that many—big words.”

Chuckling, Jon wets his lips. “Well—if I think you’re cool, doesn’t that, by definition, mean you’re not?”

Martin’s brow furrows in contemplation, his eyes widening. “W- b- um, uh—that’s—that’s not my point.”

“Ah. Apologies.”

“Anyway—the—I—I did make a dickhead of myself, but that—isn’t—you know. You liked me anyway, because you’re stupid or something, and, and so—you left a voicemail, and I didn’t listen to it for, like—a week?”

He falls quiet for a moment.

“You’ve outdone yourself with this fascinating anecdote, Martin.”

He presses his hand to the side of Jon’s head to push him away with a breathy laugh. Jon doesn’t resist, letting his ear fall against his shoulder. Martin, apparently not approving of this arrangement, replaces his arm around Jon and pulls. Jon ends up with the side of his head pressed to Martin’s chest instead. 

“You’re the worst,” he says, laughing.

“I’m quite aware, thank you,” Jon replies. “Was there more to it, then? About the voicemail?”

“Yeah. I- I saved it. And it—oh, wait, no, are—are you going to—is this too vulnerable?”

Jon frowns. “My darling.”

“Mm?”

“You married me twice, voluntarily, so—I think you’d have to work a touch harder than this to embarrass yourself.”

“Oh. Yeah. True.” He sighs, as though relieved. “So, so, I, uh, I saved it—the voicemail—and I kept it. For—for bad days.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“What—” Jon exhales. “Am I allowed to—ask—what it- what I said?”

“But then you’ll know I’ve got it memorised.”

Laughing, Jon lifts his head to press his face into Martin’s neck, and pushes a stream of air through his pursed lips. He shrieks and pushes his face away with both hands.

“What was that for?”

“You—” Jon wipes his eyes. “You’ve literally just told me you have it memorised.”

“Oh. Fuck.”

“You might as well just tell me, then.”

“Fine.”

Martin clears his throat and launches into his interpretation of the message, complete with a—slightly concerningly accurate impression.

“Hello, Martin. I’m sure you’re, erm, busy, but—I just wanted to be sure you were—well. After this—after our d- ah. Date. This afternoon. I—well, in case you—forget, I had—”

When Jon looks at his face, Martin’s misty eyes are fixed on the horizon.

“I had—”

He clears his throat.

Jon places a hand on his shoulder in concern. “Are you—”

“Not done yet,” Martin whines. “I’m acting.”

Jon sniggers and rubs his face. “Ah. Sorry. Go on.”

“I—had—a lovely time. I’m not—good—at this, but I—”

Loath to guess incorrectly a second time, Jon doesn’t interrupt, but he suspects he didn’t break into a drunken, flustered fit of giggles in the middle of this fabled voicemail.

“I like you very much, you said. I like you very much, and I’m—” Remembering himself, Martin knits his brow, frowning archly, and takes the impression back on. “I like you very much, and I’m—looking forward to seeing you again. Erm—right. Yes.”

Martin beams. “Then, then—beep. Didn’t even say bye.”

“It’s a wonder you didn’t propose on the second date, my love,” Jon says, cringing. “With such eloquence and politeness.”

“I thought about it.”

“Lying is a sin, Martin.”

“It’s true!”

Jon sighs. “Well, thank heavens you didn’t. That would have—that would have been a horribly embarrassing thing for me to have accepted unquestioningly.”

Martin hastily covers his face with his hands, fingertips covering the lenses of his glasses as he giggles.

“I’m serious,” Jon insists, trying to suppress his own laughter as he watches Martin double over, waving a hand as if telling him to stop.

Unfortunately, while Jonathan Sims may have been intermittently incorrigible, Jonathan Blackwood is much worse.

“I mean, picture it—hello, yes, I’m Jonathan, and this is my husband. Mm? Sorry? How long—oh, yes, we’ve been together a whole fortnight now, and we are blissfully happy.”

Martin silently makes an obscene gesture and clambers to his feet, eyes watering from his giggling.

“You—are—a—mmph.”

He offers a hand.

“I need a nap before we can go home, you coming?”

Jon accepts his hand and stands, turning to take in the view for a moment longer before he follows.

Basira barges in at eight to kick them out.

She’s smiling, though, and she even claps them both on the back as they head towards the front door. That’s an unprecedented amount of affection, so she’s—probably not cross at the imposition of their presence.

That, or the physical contact is supposed to imply that she means to do violence if she doesn’t see the back of them immediately.

It’s always a bit tricky to tell with Basira.

Daisy, though, hugs Jon almost hard enough to cut off his circulation, and gives Martin a hearty two-handed handshake before affectionately slapping his back as the two of them descend down the creaky steps and make for the car.

Jon hasn’t slept. From how infrequently Martin drinks, he was a little too paranoid he might—throw up, or choke, or something, so he laid there, staring at a crack in the ceiling, listening to him breathing.

He’s a lot more energetic than someone who was yelling Bohemian Rhapsody four hours ago has any right to be.

But at least that means they’ll be home soon.

Jon opens the navigation app on his phone as they roll to the end of the driveway and pull out onto the road.

They’re only driving for a matter of a few minutes before he catches himself dozing off for the third time, so he lifts his feet onto the seat and arranges his legs below him in a non-Euclidean sort of pretzel configuration and leans forward a little. The discomfort should keep him awake.

Martin raises an eyebrow.

“Love, can you sit like it’s a seat, please?”

Jon grunts tiredly.

“What’s the matter?”

“Can’t stay awake.”

Martin inhales slowly.

“Jon.”

“What?”

“Please sit down, that isn’t safe.”

He grunts again, bracing his chin on his fist and staring uncomprehendingly down at his phone.

“I really don’t want to pull over, Jon.”

Grumbling, Jon returns his feet to the floor.

A moment later, he feels Martin scratching at the back of his head, and his eyes close before he can try to prevent them.

God, he is knackered.

“I’ve got to give directions,” he protests around a yawn.

“It’s fine. I’ll make it.”

At this point, Jon’s dead to the world for what could be ten seconds or twenty minutes—it’s hard to tell.

“I need to,” he insists, and from how long Martin laughs, he’s guessing it was probably closer to the latter. “You’ll get us lost and we’ll end up in—bloody—Glasgow.”

Martin exhales through his nose, and Jon feels his hand resting on the back of his neck, the thumb stroking a circle.

“Don’t worry, love,” he says tenderly, and Jon’s already halfway unconscious again. “I know the way.”