Chapter Text
apologies are composed, and later made – cats make poor dish washers – Jon is swallowed by a bin – subsequently derailed by his own unexpected nudity – custard creams are not eaten – things, possession of (Martin) – things, admiration of (Jon) – much conversation – smiles and cuddles – very brief appearance of two Good Cows – there is still only one bed
It’s very pleasant to have permission to sleep on Martin’s bed with him, and Jon takes full advantage, insinuating himself into the warm nook Martin’s body makes and settling himself with his head against Martin’s chest, where he can feel his heart beating and the way his breathing relaxes and evens out as he drifts off to sleep.
Martin was entirely right about making the best of the weekend, it’s turned out. Jon had expected it to be awkward and painful, especially after Elias’s untimely revelation, but Martin has been so… well, he’s treated Jon as though he’s actually a cat, albeit one that can understand what he’s saying, and Jon has been letting him. More than that, Jon has been enjoying it, has been letting himself relax into it and act as though everything’s normal between them.
It's not, though. Nothing has actually changed, and Jon isn’t fool enough to think that this is more than a suspension of hostilities.
He is, however, fool enough to wish desperately that spending one single day together while he can’t even talk could turn things around completely. In his defence, he’s a lot more likely to make a good impression on people in general and Martin in particular while he’s unable to speak. It’s amazing how many different ways Jon has discovered, over the course of his life, to insert his foot firmly and irretrievably into his mouth.
But one day of niceness (if you can even count spending half of it industriously attacking Martin’s feet as nice, Jon suddenly thinks in horror) can’t counter all the previous awfulness. Jon knows that. Martin didn’t seem to mind the foot pouncing, even encouraged it after a while, but still. Why is he so bad at this? Why couldn’t he have just snuggled up with Martin all day like a normal, non-horrible cat?
This is too much. Jon can’t fit it all in his brain. It keeps on leaking out in bites and hiding and attacks on Martin’s thick, fluffy socks. He needs to do something. A grand gesture of some kind.
No, a fucking apology is what he needs to do. As a start.
There’s no way he’s going to sleep, not with his brain buzzing away like an intoxicated bluebottle. He’ll start composing an apology.
Martin, I am aware that I neither deserve nor have earned your forgiveness. I merely wish to express my most earnest and genuine…
No, too formal. Martin would laugh Jon right out of his flat slash office slash break room, depending on when and where Jon finally regains his own shape.
Martin, I’m so sorry about every stupid, hideous thing I’ve ever said and done to you; please feel free to visit your wrath upon my wretched head.
Formal and melodramatic, which is a dreadful combination. How would Tim do this?
Look, Marto, I’ve been a massive prick and I’m sorry.
Yes, well, that’s the sort of thing Tim could say and even Martin would believe he meant it, because he’s Tim. Jon, on the other hand, is not Tim. He can’t say Marto. He’s not even sure he can utter the phrase massive prick with a straight face. There’s no way he’d be able to pull off an apology like that.
All right then, how would Sasha apologise?
Trick question. Sasha never apologises for anything, up to and including hacking into people’s personal accounts of all kinds, or, as she likes to call it, taking perfectly natural advantage of their lax attitudes towards privacy.
This isn’t getting him anywhere. How would Martin apologise? Surely that’s the kind of apology he’d be most likely to react well to receiving. And Jon’s certainly heard enough of them.
Shit, sorry, I forgot…
Sorry, Jon. I… I’m really sorry. I thought I had it right this time, I honestly…
O-oh, is that not where it’s supposed to go? Sorry, I don’t know why I…
Sorry, sorry, I’ll get that sorted straight away. Sorry…
Sorry, it’s just I don’t think you’ve drunk anything all day and it’s really not…
This is appalling. Martin’s apologised to him so many times and Jon can’t even force one single pathetic little sorry past his lips. Ugh. All right, he can do this. It’s what Martin deserves.
Martin, I’m not sure how to adequately…
God, no. Useless. If he’s going to say sorry he has to sound like he means it.
Martin, I wonder if I might request a moment of your time…
Martin, you probably won’t believe what I’m about to say, but…
Martin, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the word “apology” as…
What the hell?
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…
Martin, it has recently come to my attention that I haven’t been entirely…
Martin, it has recently come to my attention that I’ve been completely and utterly horrendous, both as a manager and as a fellow human being…
Martin, would you like to join me for dinner one day next…
Martin, I would like to issue you a formal apology, including this signed certificate of sorriness, for…
Martin, your hair looks very soft and is a very appealing colour. I would like to play with it as a cat plays with string, except, I hope, less painfully…
Martin, are you aware of the perfectly fascinating way in which your belly jiggles when you laugh? If yes, (or, indeed, if no) would you be amenable to me telling you jokes all day long just so that I can watch it and, if that goes well, perhaps touch it? I may have to look up some jokes on the internet as I only know three and none of them is very funny, except maybe the one about Doctor Who, but I would happily spend days browsing obscure websites for gems of hilarity if it meant I could…
Jon only realises he’s finally fallen asleep when he wakes up again. Martin is still slumbering softly all around him and it’s the early hours, much too early to think about waking him up to play, which is a shame. Jon could just go for a game of kill-the-sock right now, especially because Martin wears socks in bed that are even softer and woollier than the ones he wears during the day. Jon would love to give them a really thorough biting.
Unfortunately, sleeping hasn’t clarified any of his thoughts on the subject of apologies. In books people always seem to wake up bright and inspired, the answer to whatever intractable problem they’re grappling with having mysteriously materialised in the presence of starlight and unsettling dreams. This has never happened to Jon, not once, which he’ll admit he does resent slightly. It would be so very helpful.
He still has no idea how he’s going to apologise to Martin.
Maybe he’s making too big a deal out of this. It is a big deal, of course, what he’s been doing and starting to try to make amends for it, but the apology itself is only the beginning. It’s just words. Jon has never been much of a wordsmith, but surely he can put together a couple of sentences for this. For Martin.
Martin, I am so, so sorry.
That’s probably his best start yet.
Maybe he should do something. Some gesture to demonstrate his remorse before he tries to express it in words. Martin’s done so much for him this last day and a bit, from protecting him while they were on the tube to letting him attack his feet to his heart’s content, and all Jon’s done in return is let him pet him a bit, which, he will admit in the privacy of his own mind, is as much for his own benefit as Martin’s. More, really.
Yes. He’ll do something. He’ll… he’ll tidy Martin’s bedroom for him. He pokes his head out from his cosy little nook to look around, and realises that Martin’s bedroom is already tidy.
Rude.
Well, never mind. Jon can find something else. He uncurls and slinks out from under Martin’s arm, jumps silently off the bed and trots through to the other room.
The other room is also mostly tidy, except for the full bin bag next to the door. Jon definitely doesn’t have the strength to carry it all the way downstairs to wherever the bins are, and that’s assuming he could even manage to get the flat door unlocked and open in his current shape. The only real mess is the dirty things from their dinner, and even those are neatly stacked beside the sink. Jon hops onto a chair and then onto the counter to inspect the situation. If he’s careful and clever, he might be able to do the washing up.
It's got to be worth a try. The fact that Martin hasn’t done it himself suggests that it’s not his favourite activity, which, hopefully, will make it all the more meaningful that Jon’s done it for him.
Now he just has to work out how.
The washing up bowl is on its side in the sink and it’s easy enough to push it down with his paw. Step one is accomplished! Getting washing up liquid into it is trickier, but he manages to pop it open with his teeth and then knock it onto its side and push it into position sticking out over the bowl. The hardest part turns out to be squeezing hard enough to make any liquid come out, and Jon has to put all his weight on it in just the right way before some green liquid dribbles out into the bowl. He even succeeds, after a while, in clicking the cap back on and standing the bottle upright again. It’s a bit messy, with sticky washing up liquid trickling down the side, but he supposes expecting perfection when he’s working with paws and teeth is a bit much. He’s starting to realise that he’s never properly appreciated having a human shaped body, even if it is one with a hip that hurts when the weather’s wrong and occasionally gives way entirely. He misses having opposable thumbs.
Next comes filling the bowl with water. The taps are the kind you have to turn rather than the kind you can just push, and the hot one is stiff, but Jon manages it eventually and soon the washing up bowl is brimming with steaming water and sweet smelling bubbles. Jon takes a moment to sit back on the counter and admire his handiwork.
Great! Now he just has to actually do the washing up. But that’s the easy part, he’s sure.
At least, he’s sure until, in trying to push the cutlery into the bowl, he accidentally sends the whole stack of dirty crocks in with a crash and an enormous splash that sends hot water sloshing over the edges of the bowl and onto the countertop and the floor, and Jon only just manages to skitter out of the way in time.
Shit.
Well, he’ll deal with that mess when he’s done the washing up. He can mop up with a cloth or something, it’ll be fine. And there’s no sound from Martin’s room, which means he hasn’t been woken up by the noise. Jon might just get away with it.
He whaps at the washing up sponge with his paw and it bounces right off the counter into the mess on the floor. Oops. But it’s a simple matter to hop down and pick it up in his mouth. He drops it into the water with everything else and then pauses. He’s done so well up to this point, but now he’s realising, all of a sudden, that there’s not going to be any way to avoid getting himself wet. The thought is deeply unpleasant. He’s a cat. Cats aren’t supposed to get wet!
But the water is getting colder and the dirty crocks aren’t getting any cleaner, and he’s done half the job already. He just has to do the other half. The half where he dips his soft, furry little paws into hot soapy water and scrubs. And once he’s done that, he’s going to have to get the things back out of the water and onto the draining board. While they’re all wet and slippery. Damn. He really didn’t think this through properly before starting.
But he’s got this far, there’s no way he’s giving up now. With a small, determined mew, he dips a paw into the water, aiming for the sponge.
Ugh. It’s hot and wet and nasty. And operating the sponge with one paw is hopeless, and leaning over to get at the bowl on the top of the stack is tricky. Okay, this isn’t working. He’s going to need to get both paws on the sponge and he needs to get in a better position. Maybe if he can sort of wrap his leg around the taps to stop himself from falling in, he can…
He isn’t quite sure how it happens. One moment he’s trying to wedge his back leg in behind the tap, the next he’s slipping, trying to catch himself, discovering that there’s nothing to catch himself on, and then he’s wet and warm and stuck on his side in between the crockery and the side of the washing up bowl, scrabbling helplessly at a slippery bowl, trying to get purchase, trying to… he slips again just as he thinks he’s righted himself. It had seemed like there was hardly any space in the bowl with all the crocks in there, but here he is, and by the time he manages to flail his way out, spluttering and squealing, there isn’t a single hair on his entire body that isn’t soaking wet and plastered to his sopping skin.
For a moment he stands there on the counter, breathing heavily and trying to recover himself.
Most of the tiny kitchen area is covered in soapy water now.
All right, Jon needs to do damage control. If he can leave the kitchen tidy, he can claim he put the dirty things into some water to soak so that they’d be easier to wash in the morning. Assuming he has a mouth that can form human words in time for such an explanation to be relevant, of course. He’ll clean the floor first. He can’t fall into anything from on the floor.
He makes to jump down, but his paws and the countertop are both absolutely sodden, and he slips. He just has time to let out a yowl of fury as he sees the mouth of the bin Martin emptied last night rushing towards him, and then…
…and then…
…and then everything is topsy turvy, shapes are whirling in his eyes, things are hitting him, grabbing him as he falls, and suddenly he’s wedged in somewhere tight and dark. He can’t see and his legs are pinned against him and he can’t move and he’s tilting and he screams in panic, and then shrieks again when his voice comes out deep and loud and wrong, all wrong, and he’s…
…wait.
Wait.
Those aren’t legs. Well, two of them are, but the other two are arms. And that was his human voice he screamed in.
He remembers the mouth of the bin rushing up towards him and puts the pieces together. He must have changed back as he was falling and now he’s… yes, those are plastic walls around him. He’s stuck in Martin’s kitchen bin with his arms pinned to his sides. He can’t move at all. His legs are wedged up around him and just his head and shoulders are sticking out of the bin, but it’s not as dark as he thought at first, thank goodness. The orange glow from a streetlamp just outside the window casts a dim light across the room, and somehow the mess looks even worse than it did when he was a cat, but at least there’s a chance he can clean it up now that he has hands and arms and legs and things.
Then Martin’s bedroom door opens so hard that it hits the wall, and Martin enters at a sort of shambling jog, rubbing his eyes and staring around him. It only takes seconds for his eyes to land on Jon.
Well.
He might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.
“Ah, good morning, Martin,” he says, as steadily as he can. “I believe I owe you a sincere apology.”
“Er,” Martin says, squinting.
“I have been treating you absolutely unconscionably ever since you were transferred down to the archives,” he goes on, emboldened by the fact that Martin hasn’t hit him or laughed at him yet. “I have no excuse and I’m very, very sorry.”
Martin blinks at him. His hair is all sticking up on one side. He’s still squinting, probably because he hasn’t got his glasses on. “Y’re just saying that ‘cause of all the tuna I gave you,” he slurs at last. He still sounds three quarters asleep.
“I am not!” Jon says indignantly. “Although the tuna was very much appreciated. I… I mean it, though, Martin. I’ve been a dreadful manager and an even worse… well, I won’t say friend, since we never have been friends and of course I understand that there’s no possibility of that now. But potential… well, the point is that I’ve been an abysmal boss and colleague. I’ve been thoughtless and cruel and made your workplace a misery for you, and for that I do sincerely apologise.”
“Jon.”
“You are under no obligation whatsoever to forgive me, of course.”
“Jon.”
“In fact, now that I’m cured, there’s really no reason for me to continue imposing on you. I’ll go back to my flat immediately, and we can discuss this matter further on Monday. If you wish to, that is. I… I’ll quite understand if you prefer to request a transfer from Elias, or to make a formal complaint about my conduct. Or both. I shall ensure…”
“Jon!”
“Yes?”
Martin props himself up against the counter and pushes his hands through his hair.
“Okay,” he says, and puts a finger in the air. “One, you definitely can’t go back to your flat like that. You’re naked and soaking wet.”
Jon looks down at himself and discovers that Martin is correct on both counts. He is indeed still covered in washing up water and stray bubbles. And he is, indeed, completely starkers.
Suddenly he’s rather glad to be stuck in a bin.
“Ah,” he says weakly.
“And B,” Martin continues, holding up a second finger. “It’s six thirty in the morning. I need a cup of tea and something to eat at least before we talk about any of this. Also, my glasses. Okay?”
“R-right,” Jon says, still somewhat derailed by his own nudity.
Martin exhales and turns slowly to start making tea. He pauses with the kettle in his hand, having apparently only just noticed the shambles Jon has made of his kitchen, and then seems to decide this isn’t the moment to address it. He fills the kettle and flicks it on before shuffling back to his bedroom, presumably for his glasses.
Jon takes the opportunity to make a concerted effort to extricate himself from the bin. He wriggles. He writhes. He tugs. He squirms so much that eventually the bin, which has served him quite well up to this point, gives up the struggle with gravity and tips over onto its side, Jon with it. He lets out another little shriek as one shoulder hits the ground, though he should probably just be thankful it isn’t his head.
“What now?” Martin demands, reappearing at a gallop, glasses now on and his dressing gown a-flutter. Then he sees Jon. “Oh my god,” he says. He claps a hand over his mouth, but this does little to conceal the mirth that’s bubbling out of him.
And Jon might be annoyed under other circumstances, but Martin’s belly is jiggling again, the way he’s discovered it always does when he laughs, and he’s so enraptured by the sight that he doesn’t have space to think about anything else. It’s just so adorable. He sort of wants to go over Martin’s entire body with a fine-tooth comb (although not a literal comb) and discover every other delightful little reaction he can make it have.
Christ. He pulls himself together and says, “Ah, I may need some help to… well, ah, dislodge myself, as it were. If you would be so kind…”
“Right,” Martin says, also pulling himself together and stifling further giggles. “Yeah, of course. Sorry. Er. Hm, let’s see.”
The next three minutes are somewhat painful and highly undignified, but by the end of them Jon is sprawled on top of Martin on the wet kitchen floor and the bin has been sent skidding to the other side of the room.
“Er, are you all right?” Martin says from underneath him. His eyes are very big and very blue, and his lips look very soft.
“I think so,” Jon says hastily. He rolls off Martin and tries to sort his limbs into a position that preserves what dignity he has left, which isn’t much. It’s weirdly difficult. He’d got used to being a cat almost immediately, as though all the instincts and proprioception of a cat got automatically dumped into him along with the shape. It’s being a human that feels bizarre and unnatural now, his limbs ludicrously long and heavy, waving about all over the place as though they have minds of their own. Eventually, though, he manages to arrange his various parts into an acceptable configuration and looks around a bit wildly, only to discover that Martin’s vanished again while he’s been getting control of his body.
He returns a moment later with a small bundle in his hand, which he holds out to Jon. “Er, some… some clothes, if you want to borrow them. They’ll be kind of big on you, but…”
“Oh, thank you,” Jon says, and Martin tactfully turns his back as he pulls on a pair of Martin’s boxers, a t-shirt that keeps slipping indelicately off his shoulders, and some jogging bottoms which only stay up by dint of pulling the string as tight as it’ll go. Jon imagines that he now looks like a peculiarly drab clown, but it’s still a step up from where he was five minutes ago. He’ll take it. He even manages not to fall over more than twice while putting the clothes on.
Martin, in the meantime, has been getting out teabags and pouring hot water into mugs, and a very pleasant smell of tea is beginning to pervade the kitchen. He’s kind enough to wait until Jon has found his feet again after falling over putting the jogging bottoms on before he asks, “Jon, why’s my kitchen such a mess?”
“Oh,” Jon says. “That. Well, I was trying to help.”
Martin looks at the miniature lake that’s currently swamping his peeling linoleum, at the sink, still full of dirty crockery in water that can’t be any more than lukewarm now, and then at Jon. “Okay, I think I’m going to need a bit more of an explanation than that.”
That’s fair.
“I was trying to do the washing up,” Jon says. “Before I changed back. I mean, I didn’t know I was going to change back, I just wanted to…” He cringes internally and discovers that he can’t look Martin in the face. “I wanted to do something nice. For you. But I, ah, well. It turns out that cats aren’t really built for… for washing up. I accidentally pushed everything in at once, and then, well, I fell in.” From the corner of his eye, Jon sees Martin’s hand go to his mouth. “And by the time I managed to get out again, there was water, well, everywhere. And then I fell off the counter when I was going to clean up, and that was when I changed back and you came in.”
He risks a glance at Martin. Martin is standing very still, with his hand pressed hard over his mouth, and Jon can’t tell what he’s thinking from just the top of his face.
“Obviously now that I can, I’ll finish it properly,” he adds. “And, ah, clean up after myself.”
Martin makes an odd, cut off wheezing sound.
“Are you all right?” Jon says.
Martin takes his hand away from his mouth and, oh, he’s laughing. Again.
“Sorry,” he says, controlling himself with an obvious effort. “I just… god, Jon.” And he’s off again, leaning on the countertop and heaving with giggles.
Jon lets him laugh in peace. He’s mostly just grateful Martin isn’t kicking him out, even if it is just because he doesn’t want Jon absconding with his clothes. Also, Martin looks nice when he laughs. His eyes crinkle up and his round, pink cheeks get even rounder and pinker and his belly jiggles and even the sound of it is nice, bright and light. It makes Jon want to smile too, although he carefully represses it. He definitely doesn’t feel as though he’s on solid enough ground here to start smiling.
“You’re going to be the literal death of me one of these days,” Martin informs him once he’s got his voice and breathing back under control.
“Sorry,” Jon says meekly. Meeklyish.
Martin shakes his head and gives another chuckle. “It’s fine, Jon. Well, it’s a huge mess and you’re definitely cleaning it up, but it can wait until we’ve had a cup of tea and a talk.”
He fishes the teabags out of the mugs, adds sugar to Jon’s and milk to both, and leads the way to the sofa.
It feels odd to sit there as a person. Secretly, Jon wishes he could just curl up in Martin’s lap again and have his head petted. That would be nice. But it would also be very weird and offputting, so he restrains himself and sips at his tea instead. Oh, that’s good. Cats really miss out, not liking tea. He sips again. Mmm.
“Good tea?” Martin says casually. Too casually. Jon shoots him a sidelong glance and sees that he’s grinning. Ah. He may have mmm’d out loud, now that he thinks about it.
“Your tea’s always good,” he mumbles, taking another, slightly too large, gulp.
Martin goes very pink. “D’you want a biscuit?” he says, jumping up. “I finished the chocolate digestives yesterday, but I’ve got some custard creams.”
“Custard creams?” Jon repeats, unable to keep the horror out of his voice.
“Oi!” Martin points at him from the kitchen. “Don’t you diss custard creams! I think I’ve got some squashed fly biscuits somewhere, though.”
After some muffled thumping and minor swearing he emerges, triumphant, with a packet of garibaldis and not, thank goodness, the threatened custard creams. Custard creams. Honestly.
Martin sits back down beside him, more comfortably this time instead of perching as far away from Jon as possible, and offers him the biscuit packet. Jon takes a couple from the top and bites one. God, that’s good. He’s ravenous, probably because he only ate enough for a cat yesterday. Not that it’s the first time; he’s notoriously awful at noticing his own body’s needs.
That had been one of the nice things about being a cat. Martin gave him food and water and made sure he ate and drank it, and took him downstairs so that he could go to the toilet, and played with him and petted him and… all right, this train of thought is steaming towards a station Jon does not want to get off at.
He yanks the emergency cord.
“So, Tim likes Coronation Street?”
“Er, what?” Martin says, startled.
“You… you said. Last night, when you were putting Bake Off on. You said Tim… never mind. Sorry.”
“Oh!” Martin laughs a little. “No, I just, I’d forgotten I’d said that. God, I talked a load of bollocks at you, didn’t I? Sorry.”
“No, no, it’s…” Jon swallows. “It was nice, actually.”
At that, Martin finally turns to face him, his eyes sort of scrunched up and his mouth open. “Nice?” he echoes.
Jon feels his cheeks grow warm. “Well, yes,” he says. “You have a, ah…”
“I have a what?” Martin’s still staring at him like he’s sprouted wings. Or turned into a cat. Or turned back into a person and got stuck in a bin. Naked.
Jon looks down at the sofa cushion between them and mumbles, “A very pleasant voice.”
Martin blinks a lot of times.
There’s quite an extravagant silence.
Jon clears his throat. “Is it… that is, you said you needed a cup of tea and something to eat before we… talked. Is it too soon?”
“Honestly Jon, you look like you might explode if I make you wait any longer,” Martin says, but he doesn’t look annoyed. His mouth is curling upwards in a little half-smile that makes Jon’s face heat up again. “Go on.”
Suddenly put on the spot, Jon plays for time by clearing his throat again, and tries desperately to remember any of his drafts. The only one he can call to mind is the one that begins with the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word apology, and even he knows that would be a terrible way to start, particularly as he can’t remember what the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word apology is. He clears his throat again, and then, for good measure, a third time.
“Hairball?” Martin says mildly.
A laugh bursts out of Jon too loudly and entirely without his consent, and Martin’s face skips pink entirely and floods bright red, all the way to the tips of his ears. It’s a very pretty look on him.
“I’m sorry,” Jon says, and suddenly it’s easy. “I am so sorry, Martin. I… there’s really no excuse for the way I’ve treated you, but I promise I’ll do better, so much better, in the future. If you decide to stay, of course. I… I’ll understand if you prefer not to.” It isn’t fair to tell Martin that he wants him to stay. It isn’t fair to tell him how much he wants him to stay. He wants him to stay and be his friend and hug him and pet his hair and drink tea and eat garibaldi biscuits together and laugh about that time Jon got turned into a cat. It isn’t fair to tell Martin any of this. “Whatever you want,” he finishes, too vaguely and also, perhaps, too genuinely.
He watches Martin’s throat move as he swallows. Watches his fingers tighten around his mug and his teeth dig into his lower lip.
“It’s just,” Martin says, eventually. “Elias said…” His eyes dart towards Jon and away.
“Ah,” Jon says, his heart sinking. “Right. Yes. That. It… it’s not… untrue.” Martin stays silent, but Jon sees the way he seems to shrink, just a little, as though he’d been hoping for a different answer. He plunges on. “It was only twice, though, and it was right at the beginning, when everything was still new and awful and I didn’t know you at all and I didn’t know how to… I… I’m bad at people. Obviously. A-and I’m bad at change. So I was stressed and scared because I didn’t know what I was doing, I still don’t, really, and Elias didn’t even tell me he was transferring you, you just appeared and it was… well, you know. I handled it terribly and then I continued to handle it terribly a-and I thought that if you were gone then perhaps it would be easier. I could pretend me being awful never happened and just work with people I already knew. But Elias refused, and now I’m glad, but at the time it felt like, I don’t know, the last straw or something. And I took it out on you. It… I know it isn’t an excuse. There is no excuse. I wish I could take it all back. For what it’s worth, I truly am sorry. I have been for a while now.”
“It’s worth a lot,” Martin says.
“Really?” Jon looks at him doubtfully, trying to tell whether he means it or is just trying to spare Jon’s feelings, although why Martin should want to do that at this point is beyond him.
“Yeah. I mean, I thought you hated me, so…”
“Oh, god, Martin, no! I’ve never hated you. At least, I suppose I did at first, rather, but only because I was an idiot, not because of anything you did.”
“Not even the dog?”
“No!”
“Or when I accidentally put that whole box of statements in the outside bin that time?”
“No! I admit that was stressful and frustrating, but I didn’t… didn’t have to…” He winces, remembering how he’d scolded Martin for an honest mistake that he probably wouldn’t even have made if he hadn’t been so afraid of pissing Jon off in the first place. “It was as much my fault as yours,” he says firmly. “And I should have admitted it at the time.”
“Oh,” Martin says. A pause. “What about how I still get confused about how to cite my references?”
“You don’t do that on purpose to annoy me?” Jon says before he can stop himself. He flushes hotly. God. No wonder he’s hopeless at making friends.
But, for some reason, Martin is laughing again. “Okay, sometimes,” he says. Jon’s mouth falls open. “But then one time I thought I was doing it wrong to annoy you and I accidentally did it right and you… er, well. It doesn’t matter. It didn’t seem worth it if I was just going to accidentally do it right, though. I just… stuff like that doesn’t stick in my head. I’ve never been great with, like, academic type things.” He hunches his shoulders a bit. “I dunno why Elias transferred me. I’m kind of useless.”
“You’re not!” Jon says indignantly. “I… yes, you struggled at first, but it was new work and I should have helped you instead of terrifying you into forgetting what you did know. And you’ve been improving all the time.”
“You actually thought I was doing it on purpose? No wonder you were so pissy all the time.”
“Not everything. Not most things. It’s just, you’re better educated than I am. I don’t have a Master’s. I suppose I assumed you’d already know that sort of thing but I… I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”
Martin says, “Oh,” in a slightly odd tone of voice that Jon can’t parse.
“It’s my fault,” he stresses. “I should have had a conversation with you about it and helped you, not just assumed and got angry about it.”
Martin puts his mug down and presses his fingertips into his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but that one’s not entirely on you, Jon.”
That brings Jon up short. “What?”
“I… okay, I need you to promise not to give me the sack for this, because I really need the money and there’s no way I’m going to find another job that pays as well as this one does. Please?”
For a second, Jon wonders wildly whether Martin’s about to tell him something genuinely terrible, like that he’s murdered the real Martin Blackwood and stolen his identity, or that he’s sleeping with Elias (as far as Jon is concerned, these are two things that are roughly equal, morally speaking). Then he reminds himself that this is Martin, the man who makes cups of tea for everyone in the archives, even Jon, for no other reason, apparently, than that he wants to. The man whom Jon twice made cry, much to his shame. The man who brought Jon home and took care of him even though he thought he hated him.
Plus, if Martin really is a murderer, it doesn’t matter what Jon promises him, he’s screwed either way.
“I promise,” he says.
Martin exhales shakily. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. I don’t have a Master’s degree.”
Jon has to run this past his brain several times to be sure he’s understood it. “Yes, you do,” he says at last. “A Master’s in parapsychology. From… Edinburgh, was it? We had a whole conversation about horrible halls of residence just a few weeks ago.”
“Yeah, and I was practically wetting myself by the end of it,” Martin says. Jon stares at him. “It was a lie, Jon. I don’t have a Master’s, I don’t have a degree, I don’t even have A levels, okay? My mum was ill and it was just her and me, so I dropped out of school and started applying for jobs and… and nowhere was hiring. I started lying on my CV and sending it off to just about anywhere and for some reason the parapsychology thing got me an interview with Elias. But most of my employment details are made up. I’m only twenty eight.”
“Wh… I… what?” is all Jon can muster as a reply. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so gobsmacked in his life. Martin is the same age he is. Martin is… good Lord. “You’re a very good liar.”
Martin’s shoulders hunch a little further. “Yeah, well, I’ve kind of had to be.”
“No, no.” Jon reaches out and touches his hand gently. Martin looks at him. “That was supposed to be a compliment. On… on Friday, with Elias, I’ve never seen anyone lie to him like that. I mean, not even Sasha. It was…” he laughs. “It was honestly one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen.”
“Really?” Martin’s face is pink again. “You’re not, I dunno, furious with me?”
“For what?”
Martin shrugs. “Coming down into your archive and ruining everything like the massive ignoramus I am.”
The careless, unhappy way he says it goes straight to Jon’s heart.
“No!” he says. He wants to touch Martin’s hand again, but the first time was impulsive and he’s not sure how Martin felt about it. He keeps his hands in his lap. “No, absolutely not, Martin. The only person who’s ruined anything is me. I… if anything, this just makes your work even more impressive.”
“Um, does it?” Martin says dubiously. “Seems to me it makes me a hopeless case.”
“Well, I disagree. Martin, the quality of work you’ve been producing is more than satisfactory for anyone. The fact that you’ve acquired that level of skill by yourself, without having it drummed into you over several years by a bunch of academics who don’t have anything better to do, is frankly spectacular.”
And at last Martin gives a faint, reluctant smile. “I guess I’ve got pretty good at bullshitting my way through things over the years. And, honestly, Tim and Sasha helped with a lot of stuff.”
“Good,” Jon says. “You deserved to have people to support you, particularly since I was the reverse of helpful.”
“They’re pretty nice. They found out about my lying. Well, Sasha did. I think she knows more about me than I know about myself at this point.”
Jon laughs. “Yes, I’m afraid that is a hazard of working with Sasha.”
“I don’t really mind.” Martin gives Jon a small, hopeful smile. “I mean, I was upset at first, but they didn’t seem to mind at all, they just helped me, so…”
“Well, they like you,” Jon points out. “Of course they’d want to help you.”
Martin looks at him, bafflingly baffled. “I mean, they’re nice,” he says. “But they’re nice people. I don’t think that necessarily means…”
“Martin,” Jon says, raising his voice a little. Martin shuts his mouth with an almost audible snap. “Do you know how many times Tim has yelled at me for treating you unfairly? Five. It’s five. And Sasha twice.” Martin’s eyes have gone very round. “And do you know what they did the first time they heard me say thank you to you?” Martin shakes his head. “They went out at lunch and brought me back a Belgian bun.” Martin’s eyebrows wrinkle. “You know, as positive reinforcement,” Jon explains. “For not being horrible to you. Not,” he hastens to add. “That I did it for the Belgian bun! And I’m aware that saying thank you only counts as basic human decency and I intend to do much better than that in the future, if you’ll let me. But my point is that Tim and Sasha care about you a great deal.”
“Oh.” Martin looks as though he’s recontextualising his entire life.
“And,” Jon says, determined to do the thing properly now that he’s started. “So do I. A very great deal. I… I know I haven’t shown it very well. Or at all. The opposite of showing it, in fact. But I do. I’ve grown very… well.” He clears his throat. “Very fond of having you around in the archives.”
“Oh,” Martin says again. “Wow. You know, you haven’t been all bad. At least not recently. Sometimes you’ve been quite nice. I mean, I still thought you hated me, but I hoped you were getting used to me, a bit.”
“I’m sorry I made you think I hated you,” Jon says.
He’s screwed everything up so horribly. Martin is so gentle and kind and nice, and Jon is… none of those things.
“It’s okay,” Martin says, and Jon’s eyes fly up to meet his.
“W-what?”
“I mean, it’s not okay, you were really awful, especially at first. But, like, I believe you when you say you’re sorry and you regret it and everything. And I… I forgive you.”
Jon feels as though his soul has been lifted cleanly out of his body and dropped down about six inches to the left. He’s forgotten how to operate his mouth, or any other part of himself. All he can do is stare at Martin.
After what feels like roughly half an hour but is, he hopes, only a few seconds, he manages to croak, “I don’t understand.”
Martin’s mouth twitches. “And there was me thinking I’d been clear,” he says. “I believe you when you say that you’re going to do things differently now, and I forgive you.”
“But why?”
“’Cause I believe you, like I said,” Martin says. “And because I kind of like you, especially recently, and it was really nice spending yesterday with you even though you were a cat. And because I don’t like being mad at people. But mostly because I want to.”
“But,” Jon can’t help repeating. “Why?”
“Don’t you want me to forgive you?”
“I… yes, of course. I just… I’ve been so… how can you just… just… what if we go to work on Monday and I’m horrible, just like always?”
Martin shrugs. “Then I’ll probably unforgive you.”
“Oh,” Jon says. Martin makes it sound so simple. He can just unforgive Jon. “I… I’ll try to make it so you don’t have to,” he says.
And then Martin smiles at him, like it’s all settled. Like he’s happy. “I know,” he says. “And I trust you. Right, I think I’m going to have a shower. I still feel all night timey.” He gets up, smiles down at Jon again, and goes off towards the bathroom.
Jon sits there for a long, dazed moment. Martin has forgiven him. Martin wanted to forgive him. Martin liked spending time with him while he was a cat. Martin trusts him.
Jon feels strange inside. Sort of fizzy and glowy and light.
He notices that the packet of garibaldis is still lying open on the coffee table, so he folds the plastic over carefully and tucks the flap underneath so the biscuits won’t go stale. Then he picks up their mugs and carries them through to the kitchen. Good lord, he really did make a mess in here. It’s remarkably easy to breeze through cleaning it up as a human, though, especially as he now mostly has control of his arms and legs. He finds a mop and cleans the floor, then does the washing up, properly this time, and without spilling any… well, without spilling much water on himself. After he’s washed up he dries, and the kitchen area is so tiny that it doesn’t take much investigation to work out where everything should go. Finally, he wipes the counter clean and dry and then, for good measure, gives the sink a quick clean. Take that, cat Jon!
Martin comes out of the shower just as Jon turns to see if there are any other obvious jobs he can do. He’s.
He’s.
He’s only wearing a towel. It’s blue and fluffy, tucked in around his waist, and all sorts of things are suddenly visible to Jon’s eyes that he’d only in his wildest dreams imagined having licence to stare at.
Which.
Right.
Yes.
He doesn’t have licence now. No matter how small Martin’s towel is or how nice his… things are. He has so many… things. And all of them are nice.
“Er,” Martin says.
Jon, with an almost physical effort, wrenches his eyes away from Martin’s… things. He meets his eyes instead, wide and blue and startled.
“Sorry,” Martin says.
Jon’s brain has packed up and left the building, along with the power of speech, the power of movement and, indeed, the power of thought. All that’s left is a sort of deep yearning to spend the rest of his life looking at Martin’s… things. From his dimpled ankles (ankles! dimpled!) to his soft, ruddy hair, which is currently springing up around his head in a damp halo. And everything in between. He’s just so.
So.
Pretty.
“I’m just going to go and get dressed,” Martin says in a slightly strangled voice. He scuttles away.
Jon sits down.
It’s a little unfortunate that there isn’t a chair anywhere near him, but he manages not to yell when he hits the floor.
Once he’s rather more comfortably installed on the sofa, he puts his hands over his face and groans into them. Martin’s just forgiven him, and then he walks out of his own bathroom in one of his own towels after showering in his own shower, as is perfectly normal and natural, and Jon can’t stop staring at him like some sort of lecherous old man. Why? Why?
When Martin reappears, eventually, he’s dry-haired, dressed, and still quite pink about the cheeks and ears. Although he’s only wearing jeans and a jumper, Jon, still in his baggy t-shirt and jogging bottoms, suddenly feels extremely underdressed. While Martin had been in his dressing gown he’d felt as though they were more or less on the same level, sartorially speaking, and now Martin looks so warm and comfortable and lovely. He pulls self-consciously at his hem, and Martin makes a little face.
“Sorry about the clothes,” he says, apparently deciding not to address the whole towel incident. “I can try and find something nicer, I just don’t think I’ve got a lot that’ll fit you.”
“No, no,” Jon says. He is also feeling decidedly pink about the cheeks and ears. “It’s… the clothes are fine. Thank you. For them. I… ah, I was just thinking, I should probably get out from under your feet. Now that I’m human again. Ah, I don’t have any, well, anything with me, so I’ll need to borrow the tube fare, but I’ll pay you back on Monday, of course. Tomorrow. If… if that’s all right.”
“Oh!” Martin looks flummoxed. “Yeah, of course.” He half gets up, and then sits down again, looking at Jon with his head on one side. “Er, how are you going to get home?”
“On the tube,” Jon says. “I just said.”
“Right, yeah, but when you get there, I mean. You haven’t got a key with you. Do you keep a spare one anywhere? Or have you left one with a friend?”
As though Jon has any friends. Martin himself is about the closest he’s got, apart from Tim and Sasha, but it’s never occurred to him to give either of them an emergency key. And he doesn’t keep one anywhere. He’s never needed to until now. He remembers, suddenly and very clearly, giving Martin the cold shoulder when he’d asked if Jon wanted him to bring anything home for him. Nice work, past Jon.
“Well,” he says, regrouping. “All my things are still at the Institute. I’ll just go there first.”
“Jon, it’s Sunday. There won’t be anyone there to let you in.”
“I have a key. Oh. Ah.”
The key, of course, is with all the rest of his things. At the Institute.
“I suppose you could call Elias,” Martin says doubtfully.
Jon can imagine exactly how that will go. He’ll come up with some excuse that seems foolproof right up until the moment Elias answers the phone, whereupon it’ll instantly transmute into the flimsiest story ever told, riddled with holes and contradictions, and Elias, without appearing to even try, will pull the real story out of Jon in all its ridiculous, humiliating glory, and it will just confirm what he’s known all along, that Jon is completely unprofessional and incapable of doing his job to the required standard.
Just the thought of it makes him feel light-headed.
“No,” he says. “No, I don’t think I… no.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to, either,” Martin says. He claps his hands together. “Well! I guess that means you’re staying here fot the rest of the weekend, then.”
“R-right.”
“Er, unless… you can use my phone to call Tim or Sasha if you’d rather,” Martin adds quickly. “Obviously. You like them, so…”
“I like you, Martin,” Jon says, a trifle tetchily. “I… I’m fine staying here. If you don’t mind, of course. If you’d rather I left…”
“No!” Martin says. “It’s been nice, actually, having the company. I, er, I don’t usually get out much.”
“All right.” Jon finds himself smiling at him a bit shyly. “I don’t get out much either.”
“So, what d’you want to do? Oh, I noticed you cleaned the kitchen up, thank you!”
“Yes, well, I was the one who made a catastrophic mess of it in the first place,” Jon says, and gives Martin a sidelong look. Martin rolls his eyes.
“Is this how it’s going to be now we’re friends?” he says. “You punning at me all the time?”
And, oh, Martin thinks of them as friends. Already. That must mean he really does believe Jon, really does trust him. Really does like him. That’s…
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” Ridiculously, Jon grabs at his own face to try to feel what he’s looking at Martin like. It feels perfectly normal.
“All… all smiley.”
“Oh. Ah. I didn’t realise I was… all smiley.” He tries to keep his face straight, but then he catches Martin’s eye, and Martin’s lips are curling upwards at the corners, and suddenly they’re both laughing.
“So is there anything you want to do?” Martin says again. “I don’t have a lot of stuff, but you’re welcome to read any of my books. Or we could finish that Bake Off marathon. Or we could go for a walk, though I think your feet are quite a bit smaller than mine, so walking in my shoes probably wouldn’t be great for you.”
Jon feels the smile on his face this time. “Yes,” he says. “Perhaps it’s best if we stay in.”
“It’s still really cold out, anyway,” Martin says. “Much cosier inside.”
“It is cosy,” Jon says. He thinks of his own flat, which is bigger and obviously more expensive than Martin’s but, now that he’s here, seems somehow rather bleak and chilly. Martin has pretty cushions on his chairs and cheerful prints on the wall, and a brightly coloured throw on the sofa and fairy lights around the window. Even the messy, overfilled bookcase and the basket of yarn piled high beside it add colour and texture to the room. It feels like a place that’s loved and that loves its owner back. Jon doesn’t know how to express any of this, so he just says, “It feels like a home.”
“Oh!” Martin blushes again. It’s like Jon’s found a clever little switch: say something nice to Martin, watch him blush. And to think he could have been doing this all along, if he’d just had the courage to pull his head out of his own arse. “Thank you! It’s the first place I’ve had on my own, and I know it’s tiny and a bit shite, but it’s been a lot of fun making it feel homey.”
“It’s lovely,” Jon says sincerely.
They do do the Bake Off marathon, in the end. Jon isn’t particularly interested in the show, but he is very interested in anything that allows him to spend all day on the sofa with Martin, gradually creeping closer and closer to him in what he hopes is a casual, even accidental-appearing manner. His very clever and subtle plan is thwarted when Martin, returning to the sofa with two fresh cups of tea, plumps himself back down, tucks his feet up onto the sofa, and leans himself companionably up against Jon. Jon catches his breath and holds it for long enough to make himself go slightly dizzy, not wanting to exhale and possibly ruin the moment. But nothing happens when he finally does let his breath out. He leans into Martin in turn, and is rewarded by Martin turning his head and smiling sunnily at him.
Jon thinks that if he dies right now, he’ll die having achieved everything that is important in life.
The rest of the day is equally blissful. They watch Bake Off, and then a couple of nature documentaries, and in between they talk, and it all feels so natural and comfortable that Jon has to remind himself, slightly disbelievingly, that it’s the first time they’ve done this. He very much hopes it won’t be the last. When it’s time to cook dinner, Martin puts him on chopping duty and then lets him do the washing up afterwards. Later on, he shows Jon exactly how to finagle the shower controls so that the hot water stays mostly steady, and gives him a pair of pyjamas that are just as ridiculously large on him as the clothes. There’s a brief argument over who’s going to sleep in the bed and who’s going to take the sofa, which is resolved when Martin says,
“All right then, why don’t we just share? We’ve already done it the last two nights, it’s not so different. And,” he adds, fixing Jon with a mock-stern glare. “You didn’t even have permission the first night.”
Jon’s face gets very hot. “Ah, yes,” he says. “Sorry about that. It… well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“I didn’t mind,” Martin says. “Anyway, it’ll be much comfier than either of us sleeping on the sofa, if you’re okay with it.”
As though there’s any universe in which Jon would say no to sharing a bed with lovely, soft, warm, kind Martin.
“I’m okay with it,” he says. He smiles. Martin smiles back.
Martin prefers the outside, so Jon sleeps next to the wall. He hasn’t been in a position to know which side of the bed he likes best in a long time, but this feels nice, with the wall on one side, painted a cosy shade of purple and a framed photograph of a pair of fluffy Highland calves a few feet above him, and the warm, solid shape of Martin on the other side, a polite few inches of empty bed and duvet between them.
Martin turns his head on the pillow and says, “Goodnight, Jon.”
“Goodnight,” Jon says, and feels Martin shift slightly beside him. The lamp goes out and they lie there in the dark. Jon wants Martin to reach across the few inches between them and take his hand, to fold it up in his, warm and safe. Maybe he will.
Maybe he won’t.
For the last two days, Martin has been the brave one, every time. He agreed to take Jon home. Lied to Elias for him. Kept him safe on the underground. Made sure he had everything he needed. Forgave him. Named them friends. Leaned against him on the sofa, laid a head on his shoulder. Suggested they share the bed.
Surely, with all of that, Jon can be brave once.
He moves his hand before he can think himself out of it again, finds Martin’s arm, his wrist, his hand, and intertwines their fingers.
A very soft, “Oh,” comes from the space Martin occupies, and Martin’s fingers wrap around his. His hand is so warm.
Jon turns over onto his side. He never can sleep on his back; he’d only lain that way because it felt politer, somehow. Safer. But he doesn’t need politeness, and, of course, he’s safe however he lies, with his hand in Martin’s. He turns over and Martin does too, so that they’re facing each other.
“Hi,” Martin whispers.
“Hi,” Jon whispers.
They fall asleep like that.