Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jon is fine.

Of course he’s fine. He’s always fine. Things happen, and…

…and he’s fine.

He gets a new job. His grandmother dies. He gets a promotion, one he doesn’t even apply for, but not unwelcome.

Good things. Bad things.

And Jon is fine. So the archives are a mess. A shambles. Anyone using the word disaster would not be accused of exaggeration. This is not Jon’s fault, although the way Elias looks at him when Jon relates the admittedly pitiful progress he’s made with the mess at each weekly meeting, you’d think he’d deliberately and maliciously spent years putting the place into the greatest state of disorder he can manage. Elias always thinks they should have sorted more, filed more, and, most of all, recorded far, far more statements than they ever have, even when all four of them are working their absolute hardest.

Jon doesn’t know what more they can do. He finds himself coming into work earlier and staying later. He tries not to snap at his assistants, but sometimes nasty, spiky, sharp little barbs tumble out of his mouth without seeming to pass through his brain first and he doesn’t know how to make it stop. He’s sleeping badly, he only manages to find time for lunch a couple of times a week, and no matter how many hours he puts in, even when he finds a camp bed tucked away in the depths of document storage and starts using it occasionally so that he doesn’t have to waste time on travelling to and from work, it’s never, never enough for Elias.

And then there’s Martin. It had started with the dog. Jon had been panicked and horrified by the whole incident, convinced that if Elias found out he’d fire Jon on the spot. It had been hard to like Martin after that, and the problems he’s had with completing work that ought to be quite simple for a man with his qualifications have only made it worse. Also, Martin keeps on being kind. Jon can’t bear people being kind to him. It feels as though Martin has looked right into the depths of his soul and uncovered the core of molten fear that burns there, and the only way Jon knows to try and protect himself is to lash out at Martin with everything cruel in his arsenal. It got so bad that Tim and Sasha had had a conversation with Jon about it, and he's been trying to be better since then. Martin has started smiling around him and once or twice they’ve even shared a small, tentative joke, and Tim and Sasha seem pleased, but he’s shamefully aware that he’s still a long way from being a good manager.

And then…

And then there’s the touching.

Not of Jon. Nobody ever touches Jon. That’s sort of the problem.

When Tim first started working in research, he’d accidentally made Jon jump a few times, with light touches on his hand or elbow, or bumping their shoulders together, or, once, a quick, one-armed hug that had taken Jon completely by surprise. He’d frozen up, heart racing, and then pulled himself away from Tim, scuttling to the other side of his desk like a frightened rabbit. Tim had apologised profusely and that’s the last time he ever touched Jon. He’s careful now, never even walks up behind him without saying something so that Jon knows he’s there, so gentle and respectful of Jon’s personal space that Jon never quite manages to summon up the courage to say he wouldn’t mind if Tim touched him, not any more. That it had only been because he didn’t know Tim then, wasn’t used to being touched unexpectedly, that when it’s strangers it’s different, but now that they’re friends, at least he thinks, he hopes they are, at least a little bit, he’d be okay with it. He’d like it.

He yearns for it.

It hadn’t seemed to matter as much back in research. Jon hadn’t been so tired then, so afraid that Elias was going to decide he was doing a terrible job and fire him. There hadn’t been the hot, acid pit of anxiety and fear swirling around inside him. Exchanging amiable chatter and small smiles had been enough to make Jon feel warm and safe with Tim and Sasha.

Everything’s different now. Worse. So much worse that Jon has no idea how to cope with it.

And he can’t help seeing the way Tim and Sasha are, not just with each other, but with Martin, whom Jon doesn’t think either of them knew any better than he did before Elias dumped him into the archives. Somehow, over the last few months, Martin has been folded into their relationship as though he was there all along, while a distance is growing, slowly, subtly, but unmistakeably, between Jon and the others.

It's his own fault, of course. Jon isn’t a complete idiot, he’s aware of that.

But, just as with everything else, he doesn’t know how to make it stop.

And he’s so bloody tired.

He watches as Tim skirts past Martin to get to a filing cabinet, one hand casually resting on his back as he passes. Martin turns his head to smile at Tim. Jon wishes he was Martin in this moment. Wishes he was Tim. Wishes he was anyone, anything other than himself, all sharp edges and cutting words and unable to stop himself from pushing people away. He hates himself.

Today is a bad day. A very bad day. He knows he’s been pushing himself too hard for a while now, that at some point a collapse is inevitable, but he’s been hoping he can put it off until they’re starting to make real progress with the archives. And then, this morning, he woke up with dry, sticky eyes and a scratchy throat and that annoying dizziness he always seems to get when he comes down with anything, and it’s been steadily getting worse ever since.

When he goes to fill his water bottle up at the sink in the break room, he’s vaguely surprised to find all the other three there. They look up as he comes in.

“Boss!” Tim says, beaming. Jon turns to the sink so that Tim won’t see the face he makes. He hates it when Tim calls him that, it makes him feel small and stupid and afraid. But he knows Tim doesn’t mean it maliciously, that he’s probably trying to be encouraging, so he doesn’t say anything. “You joining us for tea?” Tim says.

Tea. Right. Yes. It is about the right time for a tea break, Jon thinks, glancing at the clock. But his office floor is currently covered in little stacks of statements which he’s been trying to sort into some sort of order before re-filing. He needs to get back to it before he forgets where he was.

“I don’t have time for that, I’m afraid,” he says. The effort he puts in to make his voice sound painless makes it come out sounding brusque and impatient instead.

Tim lifts an eyebrow. “All right,” he says mildly. “You look knackered, though. You should sit down for a few minutes.”

“I’ll sit down in my office,” Jon says. He finishes filling his water bottle and screws the top back on.

“I’m pretty sure he meant away from work, Jon,” Sasha says. “He’s right, you look like shit.”

“Thanks very much,” Jon says, and realises that his voice has tailed into a pathetic wisp of a thing by the end of the remark. He leaves the break room without another word, although not too quickly to miss Martin saying,

“He’s going to work himself into an early grave if he carries on like this.”

It’s tempting to stalk back in and let Martin know exactly what he thinks of that, but Jon keeps a handle on his irritation. In any case, he isn’t sure he could get through a scolding without either losing his voice or bursting into tears. Possibly both. Better to just shut himself up in his office where he doesn’t have to see or speak to anyone.

At least in his office he can leave the awful fluorescent ceiling light switched off. The desk lamp isn’t very bright, but on a day like today that’s a bonus. Jon moves it so that it shines across his stacks of statements, which are sorted by decade. He kneels, ignoring the wave of dizziness that makes him wobble as he gets down on the floor, and picks up the large pile that’s still waiting to be sorted. He has to squint to scan his eyes down the top statement. It’s an older one, rather faded, and the light really is dingy, and there seems to be something wrong with his eyes. They’re wetter than usual, or fuzzy, or something. He’s just tired.

The statement is from the 1950s. He has to start a new stack. That’s fine, it’s fine. The next one is from the 1980s, which already has a stack. The one after that is from less than two years ago. Jon blinks and reads the date again. He’d thought this was a box of historical statements. It had had OLD scrawled on the side.

He starts yet another stack. Then he puts the pile down so that he can have a drink. He wishes his throat would stop hurting. It hadn’t been much more than a dry itch this morning, but now it feels like someone’s taken a particularly abrasive sandpaper to it. He’s so tired, and it hurts so much that he wants to cry, but he doesn’t. That’s not what the wet around his eyes is. They’re just… leaking.

Jon rubs them and picks the stack up again. 1970s. 1980s again. 1940s. That’s two in a row that mention fire.

He puts the papers down.

Sorting them by time period doesn’t make any sense. It’s not about when they happened, it’s about what happened. That’s the important thing. He crawls across his scratchy office carpet, shuffling the statements together again, and puts the two about fire down in a stack together, even though they happened forty years apart.

He has four stacks when he pauses again. This isn’t working. Should a statement about a clown that catches fire be filed with fire statements or clown statements? His brain is slow and heavy. Thinking feels like trying to wade through treacle.

And… time period is important. A serial killer encountered during the 1920s probably won’t be relevant when researching a statement about an incident that happened in the 2000s, even if the two occurrences do seem similar on the surface.

He rubs his face, takes another drink and tries not to whimper with pain when he swallows, and decides he needs to sort by both type of incident and time period. How, though? Why is thinking so difficult? Jon scrabbles the papers back together again and puts them down on the floor. He needs to stop for a moment while he thinks. Come up with the most sensible system. One that will work. One that does everything he needs it to. One that… that makes sense. Yes.

He draws his knees up to his chest and leans against the back of his desk, and shuts his eyes, just for a moment, while he thinks.

“Jon?”

Someone’s talking to him. He should open his eyes. When did someone even come into his office? Has he fallen asleep?

“Jon, are you okay?”

It feels like trying to lift enormous concrete weights with his eyelids, but Jon manages to open his eyes. For a moment all he can see is a paleish blur. He blinks a few times. His eyes are gummy. His throat is so sore. The blur finally resolves into a round face with worried blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. Martin.

“Are you okay?” Martin says again.

Right. He wants an answer. Jon swallows painfully and says, “Mm.”

Martin frowns. “Are you sure? You were asleep, and you look…”

“I’m…” Jon says. He wants to cry, his throat hurts so badly. He forces words out anyway. “I’m fine.”

“You really don’t sound fine, you can hardly talk. Is your throat sore?”

Jon shakes his head, and the room lurches horribly around him. He squeezes his eyes shut and a small, miserable sound ekes its way out of his aching throat.

“Jon,” Martin says. His voice is so gentle. Jon should be annoyed by it, he knows, but he feels too bad for that. Right now, Martin’s kindness is a balm. “You… you’re shaking.”

Jon finds that doubtful. He doesn’t think he has enough energy to shake. But now that Martin says it, he realises that he does feel shaky. Weak and not quite in control of his limbs. He didn’t have breakfast this morning, hadn’t been able to face it, so he’s probably just hungry.

“What…” He swallows again, but his voice comes out weak and raspy anyway. “What time is it?”

“Almost three,” Martin says. “I was just bringing you a cup of tea and a biscuit, you didn’t come out for lunch or anything, so I thought you could use… and you were asleep on the floor like this.”

Three o’clock. It had been elevenish when Jon had refilled his water bottle in the break room. He must have been asleep for hours. The world lurches again, though mostly with anxiety this time. And a bit of dizziness. He wishes he didn’t always get dizzy when he gets ill. It makes things so much harder, not being able to tell which way is up.

Still, as long as he’s careful, it’ll be fine. And if it’s three, it’s only a couple of hours until the official end of the work day, and Elias surely won’t mind him going home at five just once. He can manage two hours.

He summons up the strongest approximation of a voice he can and says, “Thank you f’r waking me. I’d better get on.”

“Get on?” Martin stares at him, looking appalled. “Jon, look at yourself! You need to go home!”

“’S not th’ end of th’ day,” he says. He knows he’s slurring his words, but it’s easier to talk that way. Maybe Martin won’t notice.

“That doesn’t matter, Jon. You’re really sick. Why don’t we get you to the break room and I’ll call you a taxi, okay?”

“No,” Jon says flatly, too tired to even try to make it sound polite. “Got to…”

He stops talking. It hurts too much. Instead he twists around and gets his hands on the top of his desk, pulling himself up. His office swoops and dives, and he shuts his eyes again and clutches the desk, leans on his elbows with his head in his hands. After a moment he realises he’s groaning with misery and stops because it’s making his throat more sore.

“Oh, Jon.” Martin is close to him, by the sound of his voice. “I… look, I know you don’t like being touched, but I think you need help, yeah? Is it okay if I help you get to the break room? You can lie down on the sofa there.”

Lying down sounds wonderful. Perhaps if he agrees, Martin will bring him some statements so that he can keep working. He can work lying down.

He nods.

Almost before he’s processed what his nod will actually mean, Martin’s hands are on him, one curling gently around his arm, coaxing him upright, and the other resting a moment on his back and then, once he’s mostly vertical, moving so that Martin has his arm right around Jon. The world is tipping dreadfully, but Martin guides him to lean his full weight against him.

“You can shut your eyes if that makes it easier,” he says. “I’ll make sure you get there okay. You just have to walk.”

“Mm,” Jon says.

When Martin starts to walk, very slowly and with the arm wrapped around Jon guiding him gently but confidently, Jon moves with him. It’s easier now that he doesn’t have to think about where he’s going or which way is up. Martin won’t let him fall. Martin is tall and big and soft, but Jon thinks this is the first time he’s realised how strong he is. He’s warm, too, and so steady, and his voice has been gentle on Jon’s aching head, all his movements slow and kind. Jon should try to remember exactly how this feels. He hasn’t been touched in so long, unless you count Elias’s unpleasant hand on his shoulder a few times, and he doesn’t want to forget a single moment of it. He catalogues the feeling of Martin’s hand just above Jon’s elbow, his arm warm against Jon’s back, the softness of his jumper against Jon’s cheek where he’s resting his head on Martin’s shoulder, the heat of him all along Jon’s side where he’s pressed against him.

As if from a long way away, he hears Tim’s voice.

“Woah, what happened?”

“He’s ill,” Martin says. His voice is a gentle rumble against Jon, and normally Jon would hate someone speaking for him, but right now he’s only immensely grateful for it. Martin seems to know exactly what he needs without being told. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut against the brighter light out here. They’re still leaking a little. “I’m not sure exactly what with,” Martin goes on. He doesn’t stop moving, guiding Jon along. “But a sore throat definitely, he can hardly talk, and maybe a headache, too. He had his light off. Pretty sure he’s got a bit of a fever, too, and some vertigo.”

“’S fine,” Jon rasps. “Always get dizzy when I’m ill.”

“We should get him home,” Sasha says.

“Yeah, I’m just…”

“No,” Jon says. His voice comes out reedy, barely audible. He tries again. “No. Only a couple ‘f hours left. I’ll lie down ‘n’ you can bring me statements.”

God, talking hurts. It hurts so much. Hot tears prickle in his eyes and nose. He blinks them away, although a couple escape and trickle pathetically down his face. He hopes the others haven’t noticed.

“Jon, that’s ridiculous,” Sasha says flatly. “You can’t even stand up by yourself, you can’t work.”

“Let’s just get you to the break room,” Martin says. “We can talk about what happens next once you’re lying down.”

“’M fine,” Jon mumbles.

“Course you are,” Martin says, still moving slowly across the assistants’ office towards the door.

Jon has to shut his eyes again as they turn down the corridor towards the break room, his sense of up and down swinging wildly. He leans on Martin’s solid bulk and concentrates on moving his feet. It’s really quite easy, so long as he doesn’t move his head or open his eyes. Almost before Jon’s realised it, Martin is easing him down onto the break room sofa, which is old and tatty and has several extremely dubious stains on it, but is soft and surprisingly comfortable.

“There we go,” Martin says, his voice still slow and soothing. “There’s a cushion for under your head, just… that’s it. You’re doing great, Jon.”

Jon feels his cheeks get warm. He blinks his eyes open to look fuzzily up at Martin, who’s smiling down at him. He’s got a nice smile. Jon’s noticed it before, but he’s never let his mind linger on the fact. It’s always been so much easier to stamp and frown and snipe at him. Now it feels far, far easier to just let Martin touch him and smile at him and tell him how well he’s doing. Also, nicer. Not-sick Jon is a fool.

“I’m going to call you a taxi now,” Martin says. His phone is in his hand already. Jon didn’t even notice him getting it out.

“No, don’t,” Jon says, wishing his voice wouldn’t sound quite so weak. It makes him seem much more ill than he really is. “I need to finish sorting… there’s a box…”

He pauses to swallow, and then to blink back more incipient tears at the pain of swallowing.

“Absolutely not.”

That’s Tim’s voice. Jon moves his gaze, slowly, so as not to make himself too dizzy, up to where Tim’s standing in the doorway. He realises that Martin hasn’t switched the light on in here. He must have remembered that Jon had the light in his office off. He’s so kind. Jon’s been so stupid, all this time, not to let himself see it. No, he’s seen it. Not to let himself like it.

“Tim,” he croaks, but Tim just shakes his head.

“You’re not working,” he says. It’s not an argument, not even a command. It’s a simple statement of fact. “If you really don’t want to go home, you can kip where you are, but we’re not letting you anywhere near work.”

“You can’t get back to your office without one of us seeing,” Sasha says, appearing in the doorway behind Tim. “So don’t even try it. Here’s the duvet from the camp bed in document storage.”

“Wait, you know…?” Jon says, slowly and painfully.

Martin laughs softly. He’s still kneeling beside the sofa, very close to Jon. “Yes, Jon, we know about the camp bed in document storage.”

“We’ve been meaning to have a word with you about it,” Sasha says. She leans over him, spreading the duvet out. Jon hadn’t realised he was cold before, but now that the duvet’s tucked around him it’s suddenly an enormous relief to be warm. He wiggles his arms out from underneath so that he can wrap his fingers around lumps of the duvet.

“Only use it sometimes,” he says.

“Yeah, sometimes is still way too often,” Tim says. “It’s getting ridiculous, Jon. You’re paid to work from nine ‘til five, you shouldn’t be doing any more than that.”

“Guys, maybe we can have this conversation when Jon’s feeling better,” Martin says.

“Look at him, Martin!” Sasha says, waving an expressive hand at Jon. “He’s…”

“I’m not saying we don’t need to talk about it, just not now. I’m pretty sure there’s only a fifty-fifty chance he’ll remember anything we say anyway.”

Sasha sighs. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go home?” Tim says. “You’d be a lot more comfortable.”

“Don’ want to,” Jon says. He needs to show that he’s trying, even if they won’t let him do any actual work. And what if he feels better after lying down for half an hour? He might be able to start working again, and if he goes home he could end up having wasted hours! And… and if he’s being completely honest with himself, it’s sort of nice here, with Martin and Sasha and Tim being so kind to him. He can still feel the echoes of Sasha’s hands tucking the duvet gently around him, and Martin’s, carefully lowering him onto his back on the sofa.

“All right,” Tim says. “Do you need anything else?”

“Can’t think of an’thing,” Jon says. He wishes his throat would ease up, but if anything it seems to be getting worse.

“Okay, then,” Tim says. “We’ll let you sleep until it’s time to go home, all right? Just call or text one of us if you need anything. Have you got your phone?”

“Mm,” Jon says. It’s about all he can manage right now, but he thinks his phone is in his pocket.

Beside him, Martin gets to his feet. Then he bends over for a moment to brush a lock of hair out of Jon’s face. His fingers are cool and smooth against Jon’s skin. He wishes they wouldn’t go. He wishes they’d stay, and keep touching him the way they have been, gentle and kind and slow. But they want him to sleep, and even as they file out of the room, his eyelids fall shut.

He pulls them open again when the lights flicker on above him, and then immediately shuts them once more. The lights have never seemed so bright, so harsh, so painful. They’re like big sharp knives stabbing into his eyes.

“Jon,” a familiar voice says. A voice that sends instant coils of acid anxiety swirling through Jon’s insides.

He carefully squints his eyes open again. “Elias?” Only the second syllable makes a sound at all. “Elias,” he says again, slightly more successfully. He wonders how long he’s been asleep for this time.

“You look comfortable,” Elias observes, and even though there’s no obvious judgement in his tone, Jon can still feel it. The anxiety inside him starts to burn. He struggles into a sitting position, shutting his eyes while he moves, going by the feel of the sofa under him instead of trying to make sense of the fractured brightness of the break room.

“’M not comf’ble,” he mumbles. Christ. He feels worse than he did before he fell asleep. Much worse. His throat is an aching, burning source for all the pain that radiates up through his jaw and into his head and down into his chest. He swallows, but that just makes it worse. He needs a drink. Something warm, maybe. He needs… he doesn’t know what he needs. He wants to cry, but he’ll rip off his own arm before he cries in front of Elias. He wishes Martin were here, or Sasha, or Tim. “Jus’… jus’ need’d a break,” he says.

His eyes are narrowed to the smallest slits against the light, but he still sees Elias’s eyebrows lift.

“So I see,” Elias says. He seems very tall, standing over Jon like this, and for some reason Jon feels obscurely afraid.

“I…” He swallows again, forces words up through his cringing vocal cords. “I’ll jus’ be getting on now.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Elias says jovially as Jon tugs his legs out from under the duvet and reaches for the corner of the break room table to pull himself to his feet.

“Mm.” Jon is standing up now, but only just. He leans on the corner of the table, face ducked down towards the floor in the somewhat forlorn hope of hiding how dreadful he feels. He tries to take deep, slow breaths, but even this makes his throat hurt. His eyes are screwed shut and he’s only just managing to stay steady.

All right, he can do this. He can. All he has to do is get to his office. It’s not that far.

“I took the opportunity of having a quick look round when I came down just now,” Elias goes on cheerfully. “I must say, I’m surprised at how little progress you’ve made. There are four of you, after all. Are your assistants not up to the task, Jon?”

Jon can’t quite summon up the energy for anger, but he feels a sort of sludgy, grim misery which is all pointed in Elias’s direction.

“They’re fine,” he says, the loudest he’s said anything in quite a while. “They’re good.”

Elias takes a step closer to him, and Jon can’t shrink away because he still needs to lean on the table. If only his head would stop spinning, just for a moment.

“Even Martin?” Elias says, his voice silky smooth.

“Esp…” Jon licks his lips and swallows. Lifts his head, through the swinging of the room, to meet Elias’s eyes for a moment. He hates looking people in the eyes even when he’s feeling well, but for this? “Especially Martin,” he croaks belligerently.

“If you say so,” Elias says. There’s an unpleasantly satisfied smile on his face, like a cat that’s got the cream. Jon isn’t quite sure what the cream is in this scenario, but it’s probably related to him being stressed and miserable. When he’s well, all he ever wants is to impress Elias, to be told he’s doing well, but now… for some reason, he finds himself thinking of Martin before he went to sleep, telling him that he did well just because he made it to the break room. Martin is nice and Elias is a bastard.

“I know you’re doing your best, Jon,” Elias says, contriving to convey with nothing more than his tone and the tilt of his head that he strongly doubts Jon is doing anything close to his best, “And I certainly don’t want to place undue pressure on you, but, well, perhaps it’s my own fault. Perhaps I haven’t made it clear enough to you just how important this work is. I must admit that coming in here to see you…” He waves a condemnatory hand at the duvet and the sofa. “I’m a little concerned that you aren’t taking your new responsibilities seriously, Jon.”

Jon swallows again and gingerly moves away from the table. He stays upright, which feels like a bit of a miracle right now. Spots dance in front of his eyes. He ignores them.

“Jus’ been a bit under the weather,” he says. His voice is back to being a dry, weak rasp. “’S all. Feeling better now, so I’ll… I’ll get going. Stay late to make up f’r it.”

The lights snap off. The relief of it is so immediate that Jon sways on his feet. Although that might just be the dizziness. He throws his hand out and finds the table again, leans thankfully against it.

“Actually,” a light, calm voice says. “You’re going to lie back down, Jon, and Elias, you’re going to leave him the hell alone.”

Jon couldn’t stop himself from looking towards the door if he tried. It’s Martin standing there. Of course it is, that was Martin’s voice. He’s only lit by the light coming in from the corridor. It glints off his reddish-brown hair, making him look like he has a golden, glowing halo. Jon gazes at him, all the words he might have tried to utter flown from his mind.

“Martin,” Elias says, swinging round. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard what I said,” Martin says. He looks like an angel. Either that or Jon has a higher fever than he’d realised. Maybe both.

“This is none of your business, Martin,” Elias says. There’s a sharp, threatening note in his voice that Jon doesn’t like.

“Yeah, it is my business,” Martin says. “Jon’s too ill to work today. He won’t be coming in tomorrow, either. We’ll see about after the weekend.”

“I would have thought,” Elias says, somehow managing to look menacing despite being several inches shorter than Martin, “That a man with your qualifications would know when to keep his mouth shut.”

For a moment there’s silence. Jon accidentally moves his head, and the room spins. He shuts his eyes.

Then Martin says, with a slight quaver in his voice, “I do know when to keep my mouth shut, Elias, and it’s not now. Look at him! He can barely stand upright and you’re trying to make him feel bad for taking a rest! He’s been working hours of overtime, trying to get this place in order, and I guess we know why now, don’t we? Did you know that sometimes he sleeps here? That’s not okay, and it’s not going to happen any more.”

Jon listens in horror. What is Martin saying? They’ll both be given the sack for this. He tries to summon up the words to stop him.

“Martin,” Elias says dangerously.

“So right now,” Martin says, ignoring him completely, his voice strengthening. “Jon’s going to lie back down, and we’re all going to leave at five, and Jon is going to take as much time off as he needs to make a full recovery, and after this he’s going to work proper hours. We’ll get the archives sorted, but we’ll do it right. Understand?”

Jon opens his eyes again as Martin comes to the end of his speech, and is astonished to see Elias just standing there, staring.

“Well said,” Sasha’s voice says, and Jon shifts his eyes slowly across to the door. Martin has moved a little way into the room, and Tim and Sasha are now sharing the doorway. They both look angry.

“Yep,” Tim says. His arms are folded and he’s actually managing to out-loom Elias, which is no mean feat. “We all agree with what Martin said.”

“I see,” Elias says. His voice is cool, showing no sign of inner turmoil. He probably hasn’t got any. He turns back to Jon, who has to fight not to shrink away from him. “I hope you feel better soon, Jon.”

He waits a moment, but if he’s expecting Jon to thank him, he’ll be standing there a while. Jon seems to have forgotten how to form words. He just stares at Elias, and after a moment, Elias turns neatly on his heel and sails serenely out of the break room.

Immediately, Martin is at Jon’s side, that strong, comforting arm wrapping around him. Jon lets his eyes fall shut and sags against him. Now that Elias is gone, he finds that he’s shaking all over, unable to stop himself. Hot, sticky tears leak out from between his closed eyelids and trickle down his cheeks. He tries to keep from sniffling into Martin’s jumper.

“Okay, it’s okay,” Martin says. “Come on, back onto the sofa. There we go.”

Jon lets Martin manoeuvre him until he’s lying down again, the duvet swaddling him. Even with his eyes shut, he feels like he’s being spun round and round on an enormous plate. He feels Martin start to pull his hands away and, without thinking about it, feels across the duvet to grab his arm, hold him still. Then he realises what he’s done and releases Martin’s arm quickly, fumbling to tuck his arms under the duvet before they can betray him by doing anything else embarrassing. He’s always been clingy when he gets ill. Gran hated it, even when he was little. Nobody likes being clung to.

“Sorry,” he croaks.

But Martin just says, “Oh, hey, that’s okay, I wasn’t going anywhere. You can…”

Jon still doesn’t feel unspinny enough to open his eyes and check Martin’s face, so, quite slowly, so that Martin can change his mind if he wants to, he pulls his arms back out again. Martin doesn’t wait for him to find his arm. Instead, he takes Jon’s hand. Takes it just like that, like it’s nothing, like it’s something they do every day. His hand is cooler than Jon’s, which Jon is sure is sweaty and disgusting, although Martin is kind enough not to mention the fact, and his fingers wrap, gently but firmly, around Jon’s, and it feels wonderful. Jon’s eyes start leaking again.

“Look,” Sasha says. She sounds much closer than he’d expected. Jon risks opening his eyes a minute crack. He can’t see much detail because his eyes are blurry from all the… the leaking, but he realises that Sasha has sat down on the chair closest to the sofa he’s lying on, while Tim is perched beside her on the break room table. Sasha goes on. “It’s after half four already, and I’m pretty sure Elias wouldn’t complain if we set fire to the archives after what just happened, so what do you say we call it a day and get Jon home?”

This suggestion is enthusiastically agreed to by Tim and Martin without anyone taking the slightest notice of Jon’s admittedly feeble protestations. It’s not as though he actually wants to stay. Especially not on his own. Especially not on his own in a building that still has Elias in it.

He listens to the other three bustling around, getting their things, putting coats on, checking with him what he needs and fetching it, and lets Tim help him on with his coat while Martin wraps a warm scarf gently around his neck. Jon is almost sure he wasn’t wearing a scarf when he came in this morning, but he’s exhausted and his throat hurts so much that he doesn’t question it. And then he’s being guided out of the break room, eyes shut against the inevitable whirling of the world around him, up the stairs, which is awful, and across the car park to Tim’s car. By the time they get there, Jon is so dizzy that Martin is practically carrying him while Jon just holds on for dear life.

In the car, he leans his head against the window and lets the tears trickle miserably down his his face. Hopefully they aren’t visible in the dim light of the winter evening. The others are talking quietly, but he doesn’t listen, just concentrates on trying to stay as still as possible so that his head can settle.

He doesn’t realise he’s fallen asleep yet again until he’s startled awake by a blast of cold air and the window he’s still leaning against being pulled away from him.

“Sorry, sorry,” Tim says, steadying him with hands on his shoulders. “Can you undo your seatbelt?”

“Mm.” Jon fumbles for it and manages to open it. Tim catches it before it can snap back, and draws it away from Jon carefully.

“I’ve had to park a bit of a way away, since I’m going to be here until tomorrow,” Tim says. “It’s maybe ten minutes’ walk. Do you think you can make it?”

Jon really isn’t sure, but he doesn’t have much choice, so he says, “Mm,” again and lets Tim help him out of the car.

He quickly loses track of where they are or how long they’ve been walking, just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other until Tim pauses to let them both into Jon’s building and then again inside the lift. And then, finally, they’re in Jon’s flat and the door is closed behind them and Tim is helping Jon lie down on the sofa and kneeling beside him to untie his shoelaces.

“You don’ have to do that,” Jon croaks.

“I know,” Tim says, not stopping. He eases Jon’s left shoe off and then does the same with his right. “There we go. How are you feeling?”

“Better be’ng here,” Jon says. It’s not altogether a lie. If nothing else, at least he can quite easily navigate his flat while keeping his eyes mostly closed.

“Good,” Tim says. His hand comes out and strokes Jon’s hair out of his face, like Martin did earlier. It feels just as nice, even though his fingers aren’t as cool as Martin’s. He lingers a moment, stroking over Jon’s cheek, and Jon feels his eyes start to leak again. Tim’s fingers pull away, and Jon feels a pang at the loss. “Sorry,” Tim says. “Wasn’t thinking. I’m going to make you a cup of tea, okay? Hopefully it’ll be soothing for your throat.”

Jon squints his eyes open to find Tim’s face, which, since he’s still kneeling on the floor right in front of Jon, isn’t very difficult. There’s a worried little frown on his face as he looks at Jon. Jon wishes he’d keep touching him. It’s so nice, so soothing, so comforting. But he’s never known how to ask for things he wants, so he just says,

“’M all righ’ now, you don’ have to stay.”

Tim’s face softens into a small smile. “I wondered how much of what we said you’d actually taken in. You did agree, but maybe you don’t remember. I’m staying with you overnight, yeah? To make sure you’re okay.”

“Oh.” Jon doesn’t remember that at all, but he’d been pretty out of it in the car. The motion hadn’t been good for his head and he’d spent most of the time he’d been awake trying not to whimper out loud from how bad it had felt. “You don’ have to,” he says.

It’s not that he doesn’t want Tim to stay. He does, actually, very much. It’s just that accepting help is terrifying and feels like jumping off something very high when you don’t know what’s waiting for you at the bottom, even when it’s someone he’s sort of friends with, like Tim. And he… he can’t help thinking about Gran. When he’d been little, even though he knew it annoyed her, he’d never been able to stop himself from whining for her when he was ill, desperate to be held, to feel safe and close to someone. Loved. He wants to do the same thing now, but he’s an adult and has too much self control.

Only, he doesn’t need to whine for Tim. Tim’s already promising to stay with him.

“Well, maybe I don’t have to, but I want to,” Tim says. “Also, Martin would kill me if I just hopped in my car and went home after I promised faithfully I’d take care of you.” He gets to his feet. “I’ll be back in a few with that tea.”

The hot tea is easier to swallow than the cold water Jon was drinking earlier. Tim makes several cups of it throughout the evening, and makes him eat some soup, too, although Jon can’t manage more than three mouthfuls of the buttered bread Tim tries to get him to eat with it. He goes to bed early after promising Tim that he’ll call for him – or call his phone – if he needs anything, anything at all. What he really wants is for Tim to stay with him while he sleeps and hold him, but even the thought of asking for that gives him the shudders.

He wakes up several times during the night, throat burning, eyes sticky, but he doesn’t call Tim. Tim is snoring gently on the sofa in the living room, and Jon can’t bring himself to disturb him. Anyway, it’s not as though there’s much Tim could do that Jon can’t do for himself. He forces water down his throat and then curls up again, eyes squeezed shut, willing himself to fall back asleep.

Despite all this, Jon has been hoping that by the time he wakes up in the morning, having had a quite respectable number of hours of sleep, he’ll be feeling better.

He doesn’t.

His throat feels like there’s molten lava running down it. Or maybe up it. His ears hurt, his head hurts, it hurts to breathe. And when he sits up, the world swoops and soars around him, and he has to shut his eyes with a groan. But he’s desperate for the toilet, so he can’t just lie down again. Instead, keeping his eyes shut and leaning against the walls for balance, he fumbles his way to the bathroom, where he goes to the toilet and washes his hands and then, since he’s already there, even manages to brush his teeth, which feels like a bit of a triumph. He wishes he could shower, too, he feels disgusting, but even he’s sensible enough to know that that would be courting disaster.

By the time he shuffles his way back out of the bathroom, he feels even worse than he did just after waking up. He’s just brushed away some wetness from his leaking eyes when a shadow falls over him in the narrow little hallway.

“Hey,” Tim says. “I heard you in the bathroom, thought I’d come and see how you’re doing.”

“’M all right,” Jon says. It is… remarkably painful. He can’t remember the last time something hurt this much.

“Yeah,” Tim says. “I can see you’re feeling great from the way you’re holding yourself up on the wall and can barely speak. Let’s get you back to bed. I’ll make you some breakfast and then we’ll get you dressed so I can take you down to the doctor’s, okay?”

“Don’ need the doctor,” Jon says.

“I’m sorry, mate, but you absolutely do,” Tim says. “I know you don’t like going, but we need to get you checked out. Sasha’s sent me the details of a walk-in centre that’s open this morning, and I’ll come in with you and everything if you like. Come on, lean on me, back to bed for now. There’s still a bit before we need to leave.”

“’S just a sore throat, Tim,” Jon says, as Tim helps him back to his bedroom. “Doctor won’ do anything.”

“You’re probably right, but we’re going to be on the safe side anyway,” Tim tells him firmly. He gets Jon lying down again and sits down on the bed beside him. “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Um.” Jon tries to remember what he’s got in his fridge. When did he last go shopping?

“I nipped down to the corner shop earlier and bought a few things,” Tim adds. “Some cereal. Milk, bread, eggs. I could scramble some eggs for you, they probably wouldn’t be too hard to eat. How does that sound?”

“All right,” Jon agrees. It’s easier to do whatever Tim tells him than think, at the moment.

“Grand.” Tim gets up. “I’ll be back in a few, then.”

It takes a while and makes his eyes leak with pain again, but Jon manages to get most of the eggs down. Then he screws his hair up into a bun and dresses, although Tim has to tie his shoelaces for him, since he’s unable to bend to do it himself. It’s only once they’re in the car on the way to the walk-in centre that Jon’s tired, addled brain realises that it’s Friday.

“Aren’t you s’posed to be at work?” he says to Tim.

Tim looks at him, amused, while they wait at a zebra crossing. “And leave you on your own like this? Not a chance.”

Jon shuts his eyes again as Tim pulls away from the zebra crossing. “Could’ve waited ‘til the end of the day.”

“Nah.” Tim’s voice stays light, but Jon can tell he means exactly what he’s saying. “You can barely eat or drink, which is pretty concerning, and there’s no way you’re managing to get to the doctor’s on your own like this. I can go in once you’re back home, if you’re up to being on your own, but until then you’re stuck with me, I’m afraid.”

That makes Jon feel bad. “’M not stuck,” he says. “Like it when you’re here.”

“Thanks, boss,” Tim says, and Jon can hear the smile in his voice. It makes him smile too, a bit, even though he feels so awful.

He feels much, much worse by the time they eventually get home again, complete with a diagnosis of peritonsillar abscess, a large bottle of lurid pink liquid antibiotics, and strict instructions to take them every four hours and to go to A&E if his symptoms get worse or haven’t started improving after forty-eight hours. Tim deposits him on the sofa and gives him his first dose of antibiotics and some painkillers, then covers Jon with a blanket and tells him to try to get some sleep while Tim makes lunch.

Jon isn’t sure exactly how long he dozes for, but when he wakes up, Tim is talking quietly somewhere nearby.

“Quinsy,” he’s saying. “Q-U-I-N—yeah, that’s the one.” A pause. “I know, but he cried when the doctor suggested admitting him to hospital, so… yeah. Yeah. We picked the antibiotics up from Boots on the way home and he’s had the first dose, but I think we’re going to have to stay over a couple more nights to make sure he takes them. He’s really out of it.”

“I’m fine,” Jon croaks, vaguely indignant.

Tim appears in the doorway. “Hey, Jon, you’re awake,” he says. “I’d better go now, Sash. See you later.” He sticks his phone in his pocket and sits in the armchair opposite where Jon’s head is, so that he can see him without needing to sit up. “That was Sasha, she and Martin are going to pop to the supermarket after work and stock up on supplies for you. Do you feel like you can eat something? You haven’t got a lot of food in, but I found some soup in your freezer. It won’t take long to heat up in the microwave.”

“You don’ have to, Tim. I can…”

“Jon,” Tim says gently. “I mean this in the nicest, most loving way possible, but no, you can’t. You need help.”

Jon’s eyes start leaking again. He scrubs at them with his hand. “Sorry,” he manages to get out. “I don’… I don’t mean to.”

“It’s okay to need help, boss. None of us mind, yeah?”

That can’t be true. Tim’s been here since yesterday evening. He had to sleep on Jon’s sofa, which is all right as sofas go, but it’s hardly the nicest place to sleep. Especially with Tim’s long legs. And he’s taken Jon to the hospital and the pharmacy and he keeps on making him meals.

“’M sorry,” he says again, helplessly. Tim’s not wrong, is the problem. If he wasn’t here, Jon would probably have given up on the idea of eating altogether as too complicated, and as for going to the doctor’s, there’d have been no chance. He’ll just have to try to be as good a patient as he can, do everything he’s told and not be too clingy, though even now he wishes Tim would come over and give him a nice tight hug.

Tim shakes his head, but his mouth is quirking up at the corners. “No apologies, you daft man. I’ll go and get that soup ready.”

And he’s gone, leaving Jon to press his hands against his eyes and sniffle quietly into the cushion he’s using as a pillow.

Tim makes him eat all the soup, even though every mouthful hurts more than the previous one, and then starts something up on the television, volume low. Jon doesn’t think he’s watching it any more than Jon is, but at least this way it’s not the two of them sitting here in silence. And it’s a soothing sort of background burble that pulls Jon back to the present moment every time he jolts painfully awake from a doze.

“All right,” a voice says. It sounds like Sasha. Probably another dream. During one of his dozes he’d dreamed that she turned into a fox and curled up on his chest, gnawing pieces out of his throat. No prizes for guessing where that dream came from. “See you in the morning, then.”

“Bye, Tim!” another voice calls. Martin. Jon dreamed about him, too. He had a tiny pair of scissors and was cutting Jon’s whole neck very slowly to pieces. It was unsettling.

He blinks his eyes open. The curtains are drawn across the window and the room is only lit by a couple of lamps. Nobody’s in sight, but Jon hears his front door close, and then footsteps, and then Sasha and Martin are in the room. Jon’s brain feels like somebody’s taken it apart and put the pieces back together incorrectly. Every time he tries to slot a thought into place, it ends up somewhere completely different from where he expects.

“Y’re not Tim,” he says raspily.

Sasha grins. “Astute. We’re staying over with you tonight. Tim’s gone home to get a change of clothes and pack a weekend bag. He’ll be back tomorrow morning, don’t worry.”

He stares at her. “You… he… I… what?”

“You need help,” Sasha says simply. “We’re helping. I’m going to go and put this stuff away, back in a tick. No,” she adds, when Martin moves to help with the two bulging carrier bags she’s carrying. “You catch Jon up.”

Martin sits down in one of the armchairs. “I mean, Sasha basically said it already,” he says. “Tim’s going to sleep at his tonight and then come over again tomorrow morning. Sasha and I will make sure you take your meds overnight. Speaking of which, Tim said it’s time for your next dose.”

Jon watches him measure it out. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t understand why they’re all being so… like this. He’s a terrible patient, he knows. He cries and wants to be held and whines about how bad he’s feeling. It’s not fun for anybody. He tries to explain this to Martin, although without the part about being held, because that’s too embarrassing to confess even through his dizziness and misery. Martin just looks at him, amused.

“Jon, that’s just what being ill is like. You’re allowed to feel bad. Do you need help to sit up so you can take this?”

“No, I c’n…” He struggles upright. Martin waits until he’s more or less steady, then hands him the little beaker and, once he’s swallowed the liquid inside, a glass of water.

“How are you feeling?” he says as he takes the glass back from Jon.

“Tired,” Jon says. He’s slept so much, he doesn’t know how he can possibly still be tired, but he is.

Martin pats his shoulder gently. “All right, you lie down again, and we’ll wake you up when it’s time to have something to eat.”

“Okay.” Jon wishes Martin would stay sitting next to him. He could use Martin’s lap as a pillow, and it would be warm and soft and comforting. He wishes he knew how to ask for things like that. Not that Martin would say yes. Why would he? Jon’s never been kind to him. Jon’s a fool.

He dozes through most of the evening, waking up briefly to force some more soup down his throat and take his medicine, and, eventually, to fumble his way dizzily into his pyjamas and curl up under his duvet, still wishing Martin or Sasha or Tim were there too, to wrap Jon up in their arms and hold him safe and tight. Alone for the first time, he even lets himself shed a few tears over it. If Martin was ill, the other two would hug him, or if it were Tim or Sasha. But everybody thinks Jon is uncomfortable with being touched and is doing their best to respect that, even now when he needs so much help. For the dozenth time he curses his past self for being so jumpy when he first met Tim, and falls asleep with salty tears still leaking down his cheeks.

When he wakes, it’s from a deep sleep filled with confused dreams about his friends hugging him and then turning into monsters and tearing him apart, and for a moment he panics, flinching away from the warm hand that’s on his shoulder, shaking him gently. The hand pulls away, and it’s Sasha’s voice, worried and a bit rough from sleep, saying,

“Sorry, you weren’t waking up. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He rubs his fuzzy eyes and blinks a couple of times. The bedside light is on, illuminating her face in a gentle glow.

“You di’nt,” he croaks. “Nigh’mare.”

“Oh. Okay.” She smiles at him. “It’s time for your antibiotics, can you sit up?”

He manages it, but is hit by such a wave of dizziness that he finds himself whimpering with it. He digs his hands into the duvet and shuts his eyes.

“Do you want to lean against me?” Sasha says. “It might make it easier.”

She shifts closer to him, so close that he can feel her body heat, and he only has to lean a couple of inches before he’s resting against her. He tips his head carefully until it’s on her shoulder, his eyes still closed. She’s warm and sturdy, and her arm comes up around his shoulders, and finally someone’s holding him again. It’s such a relief that his eyes start leaking.

“Is this okay?” Sasha says quietly.

“’S good,” Jon says. He wants to beg her never to let go of him, but he’s afraid, even now even after all their kindness, that if he asks for too much they’ll pack up their things and leave him all alone.

“All right,” Sasha says. The arm around him squeezes briefly. “I’m going to put your antibiotics in your left hand, okay?”

“Mm.” Jon uncurls his fingers and a moment later the little beaker is placed into them, Sasha’s warm hand lingering carefully until she’s sure he’s got a good grip on it. He tips it into his mouth and swallows several times. The beaker is taken out of his hand and replaced with a glass of water, and he manages to take a few sips from that, too.

“There we go,” Sasha murmurs. “All done. Are you okay to lie down again?”

“Don’…” he says, and then stops himself.

“It’s okay,” Sasha says, misunderstanding him. “You’ll feel better once you’re lying down. I’ll help.” She does, and it feels so nice, but then he’s lying down and her hands move to pull the duvet up and tuck it around him, and she gets up. “Martin will come in a few hours with your next dose,” she says. “Sleep well, and remember you can call us if you need anything.”

His eyes are leaking again, but it’s dark enough that he thinks she might not have noticed. “Thank you,” he rasps.

She leans down a moment, right over him, and her lips brush his forehead. “Night,” she murmurs, and the light goes out and he hears her soft footsteps pad across the room and out through the door. He puts his hand up, almost wondering, to touch the place where she kissed him, makes himself memorise exactly how it felt in case she never does it again. He wants to remember for the rest of his life.

He doesn’t even realise that he’s falling asleep again until he feels himself being shaken awake again. He groans.

“Sorry,” Martin’s voice says, quiet and close beside him. “It’s time for your meds.”

Jon turns his face into the pillow. He feels awful, dizzy and sticky and sick. “Don’ wan’,” he mumbles.

“I know,” Martin says. “It won’t take a moment, okay? I’m going to help you sit up, and then you can go right back to sleep.” Jon feels an arm, warm and strong, slip under his shoulders, and he’s being lifted. He lets out an embarrassing whimper. “I know, I know,” Martin says again, but he doesn’t stop, just lifts Jon into a half sitting position, flopped against his chest, and holds him there. “There we go, you’re doing really well. Just drink this, yeah?”

He holds the little beaker up to Jon’s lips, though he doesn’t tilt it. Jon fumbles and takes it and drinks the stuff down, vaguely aware that it tastes vile but not really caring in among all his other misery.

“Well done, that’s great,” Martin says. He takes the sticky beaker away and helps Jon drink some water, then puts that back on the bedside table too. “All done. Do you want to lie down again?”

Jon gives another little groan. He feels horrible. His throat is burning and everything hurts, and he feels like the whole room is turning and turning and turning around him, but Martin is so soft and warm and he’s got his arm around Jon and every time he says something Jon can feel it reverberations of it through his body. He doesn’t want this to stop, not ever.

“Sorry, I’m not sure if that was a yes or not,” Martin says. “Is it okay if I help you lie down?”

Jon curls his fingers into Martin’s pyjama top. He thinks it’s a t-shirt. “Wan’ stay,” he gets out.

“Oh,” Martin says softly. His other arm wraps around Jon, too, and his hand starts stroking up and down Jon’s back. “Yeah, okay. Of course.”

Jon says, “Mm,” and turns his face into Martin’s chest, letting himself relax into the feeling of being held.

Once again, he’s only aware of having fallen asleep when he opens his eyes and finds that it’s morning. Light is shining weakly in through his window and traffic is rumbling away on the street below.

He still feels dreadful.

There are voices elsewhere in his flat, muted to almost nothing by the doors between them, but it’s nice to hear them, to know that Martin and Sasha are still here. He wonders what they’re doing, what they’re talking about, but he doesn’t really need to know. It’s enough to hear their voices and know that they’re there.

When he wakes up again, it’s to see the door being pushed open and Martin coming through. He smiles when he sees Jon blinking blearily up at him.

“Oh, hey, you’re awake,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

“Hurts,” Jon says.

“I know,” Martin says sympathetically. He puts something down on Jon’s bedside table and sits on the bed next to him. “It’s time for another dose. Ready?”

“No.” Jon makes a face, and Martin laughs a little.

“I know it’s horrible, but it’s this or go into hospital, I’m afraid.”

Jon starts to push himself into a sitting position, and once again, Martin’s arm slips around him and lifts him easily. Jon lets himself lean against him. He takes his antibiotics and drinks his water, then looks dubiously at the energy bar Martin hands him next.

“You need to eat,” Martin says firmly. “You don’t have to eat all of it, but even a few mouthfuls will help.”

And there’s something about the way he says it that makes Jon want to try, so he chokes down the whole bar even though it’s disgusting, harshly sweet with an unpleasant soft, gritty texture. His eyes are leaking again by the time he gets to the end of it, but Martin keeps his arm around him the whole time. Jon sniffles a little as Martin takes the wrapper away.

“Oh, Jon, I’m sorry,” he says. “You’re being so good, though. You’re a great patient.”

Jon feels his face do something wobbly and embarrassing. Tears spill down his cheeks. He can’t remember the last time someone called him good. He can’t remember the last time he felt like he was doing anything good. The last few months have been a nightmare, down in the archives. He’d been so excited about the position at first. He likes jobs that other people find boring and repetitive. He likes organising and filing and making things accessible. It was supposed to be his ideal job, but instead he’s ruined it all by being awful at it, by bullying Martin and pushing away Tim and Sasha. He hadn’t meant to, he’d just been anxious and stressed and trying not to take advantage of their friendship, but he’s messed everything up.

“Oh, hey,” Martin is saying. He’s got both arms round Jon now, is stroking his back soothingly, his voice vibrating through him. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

He’s being so kind, and Jon doesn’t deserve it. He gives a painful little hiccup and hides his face against Martin’s shoulder. Martin’s arms tighten around him. Jon has always liked being hugged a bit too tight. It took him years to learn that most people don’t like just being squeezed as hard as possible, but this is perfect, and even though he’s still crying, he can feel his body loosening and relaxing against Martin.

But at last he has to pull back. The tears have mostly dried, and Martin lets him go immediately.

“How are you doing?” he asks.

Jon shrugs and wipes his face with his sleeve. “Need the toilet,” he croaks. He’s been needing it for a while, actually, only he didn’t want to stop being held by Martin. But his bladder has been sending out painful little twinges for a couple of minutes now, so there’s really no other option.

“Oh!” Martin says. He gets up. “Yeah, of course. Do you need me to help you get there?”

Jon hesitates. He doesn’t technically need Martin to help him. He can lean on the walls and keep his eyes shut until he gets to the bathroom. It’s not very far. But he wants to accept the help. He wants to lean against Martin, to revel in the warmth and solid strength of him.

He says, “Um.” He swallows. It hurts. He can do this. “Would… you mind? Helping?”

“Of course not,” Martin says. He holds out his arm for Jon to take, and lets him lean on him as they cross the room and go to the bathroom. Jon feels dizzy in a whole different way from the way the room keeps spinning. He asked for help. He asked for help and Martin gave it, even though Jon could have managed without him. It feels good. Better than good.

He goes to the toilet and brushes his teeth, even manages to wash his face, though he reluctantly has to admit that he’s still far too dizzy to try showering. Martin meets him when he comes out and helps Jon into the living room, where he gets him settled on the sofa with some blankets.

Not long afterwards, Tim returns, and Jon feels tears rise to his eyes again. There’s no reason for Tim to come back, none at all. Two people are more than enough to take care of Jon, and Tim’s already done more than enough. But here he is, complete with more food, two remarkably fancy looking sleeping mats which make Jon wonder hazily which of Martin and Sasha didn’t have the sofa last night and how that person slept at all, and finally a large and quite hideous purple elephant stuffed toy, which he hands to Jon. There’s a long row of stitches across its tummy, where it’s obviously been torn and mended, and one of its eyes is missing. It’s a truly appalling colour. Jon holds it close to his chest, threadbare and stained as it is, and sniffles.

“Thought you could use a bit of extra comfort,” Tim says. “Her name’s Kay.”

“Sh’s nice,” Jon mumbles, holding Kay a little tighter and drifting back into sleep.

He ends up sleeping most of the day away, only waking when the others want him to eat or take more antibiotics, and then he sinks back into sleep again, sometimes lightly dozing with the comforting sound of their quiet conversations in his ears, sometimes descending into vicious little nightmares where they turn on him with teeth and claws and words and tear him into bloody pieces.

He wakes from one of these, gasping, to find that it’s fallen dark and the curtains are drawn. Martin is perched next to him on the edge of the sofa, and Tim and Sasha are somewhere nearby, he can hear their voices. Jon finds that he’s sobbing. He tries to stop, but it doesn’t work. Martin lays a big hand on his arm and rubs up and down it gently.

“It’s okay,” he says, handing Jon a tissue. “It’s okay.”

“’M sorry,” Jon manages to say. He scrubs at his eyes and moves Kay so that he doesn’t get tears on her.

“Hey, no, it’s okay to cry,” Martin says. “You cry as much as you need, yeah?”

Jon tries and fails to stifle another sob. It hurts more to try to swallow it down than to just let it come out, so he lets the next one hitch its way up his throat. He blows his nose into the tissue, and Martin takes it from him and hands him another, still rubbing Jon’s arm with the other hand. His kindness just makes the tears come faster. Jon soaks another tissue, and then a third. He’s so tired.

“Jon, would a hug help?” Martin says and Jon is finally too tired and miserable to try to pretend that he doesn’t want it.

“Yes please,” he says, his voice hoarse with tears and pain, although he thinks it might be hurting a bit less than before. Perhaps he’s getting better.

“All right,” Martin says. He moves to lift Jon as he’s done a few times now. “Up you come. There we go. I’ve got you.”

And he has. The room spins at just the wrong moment, but Jon still ends up held snugly against him, both of Martin’s arms wrapped tightly around him, his face resting against Martin’s soft jumpered shoulder and his hands, which he hadn’t quite managed to move in time, pinned in between their chests. Martin tightens his hold a little, and Jon feels himself relax as the world goes still around him. It feels so good to be held a bit too tight, his hands unable to move, Martin’s warm, soft self all around him. If he wriggled or said something Martin would let him go, of course, but in the privacy of his own mind he can pretend that he doesn’t have a choice, that all he can do is let himself be held until Martin decides to release him.

Martin doesn’t, not for what feels like a long time. Jon’s sniffles die away and his eyes stop their leaking, and Martin keeps holding him. Tim and Sasha’s voices continue to drift in from the kitchen. Jon lets his eyes fall shut and has almost fallen asleep again when Martin finally shifts.

“Sorry,” he says. He’s still holding Jon with one arm, but he’s moving around slightly. “It’s just, you still need to take this.”

Jon wiggles one arm free and takes the little cup with his antibiotics in it. He thinks swallowing it doesn’t hurt quite as much as did all the times before, but that might just be because he’s more relaxed than he’s been the other times. He even manages to swallow the painkillers Martin gives him afterwards with relative ease.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, and pushes his face back into Martin’s chest.

He thinks he can hear a smile in Martin’s voice when he says, “You’re welcome.” There are a couple more shifts as he puts the cup down and then gets both his arms back around Jon. Jon closes his eyes and lets himself feel safe.

He’s not sure how much time has passed when he starts to slowly drift back into consciousness. The lights have been turned down low, just his two lamps switched on, and the room feels very warm. After a while, he realises that it isn’t so much the room that’s warm as it is that Martin’s warm. Jon is still draped over him, a little more horizontal than before, but his face is still pressed against Martin’s jumper and at least one of Martin’s arms is still around him. Jon tries to blink his eyes open, but he’s still more than half asleep and his body won’t obey him, so he lies there, feeling Martin’s chest rise and fall slowly as he breathes, the little jolt of it when he laughs quietly, and then his voice, close above Jon.

“Tim, we can’t do it now, not when he’s like this.”

“I meant when he wakes up, obviously,” Tim says, patient but amused.

“I’m with Tim.” That’s Sasha. “We’ve been dancing round it for ages, going back and forth on whether he’d want to or not, but we’ll never know unless we actually ask him. And at least he isn’t being all grumpy recluse at the moment.”

“Yeah, but only because he can barely stand upright!” Martin protests. Jon realises, sluggishly, that they must be talking about him. He should say something, tell them he’s awake, but he hasn’t quite remembered how to work his mouth yet.

“That’s probably a plus,” Tim says. He sounds like he’s grinning. “He can’t run away in embarrassment this way.”

What on earth are they planning to ask him? The curiosity burning in his mind finally tugs Jon back to full consciousness. He blinks against Martin’s chest.

“Come on, guys,” Martin protests. “We can’t do it tonight, Jon hardly knows his own name, let alone…”

“I know my name!” Jon rasps indignantly. “’S Jon.” He’s about to say more, but a yawn overtakes him instead.

“Jon, you’re awake!” Martin says, his voice going a bit shrill. “Er, how much of that did you hear?”

“You wan’ to ask me something,” Jon says. His voice is still a weak croak, but he’s sure, now, that it doesn’t hurt quite as much as it did before.

“Nothing right now,” Martin says, a stern note in his voice.

Tim sighs. “No, you’re right. It’s a conversation we should save until everybody’s in their right minds. Do you think you can eat something, Jon?”

“C’n try,” Jon says. He wants to push harder at the question of what they’re going to ask him, but he’s still so tired and he feels so nice like this, securely held in Martin’s arms. He doesn’t want to do anything to make him let go. And if the question is about something bad, like how awful a manager he is or why he hasn’t quit his job yet, he thinks he’s on Martin’s side and would rather wait to deal with it until he’s at least vaguely capable of thinking about complicated issues.

“All right,” Tim says. “We’ve made some casserole. Nice and soft, so hopefully it won’t be too difficult for you to eat.”

Jon feels his eyes start up their leaking again. “Thank you,” he mumbles. He still doesn’t understand why they’re being so nice to him, after the way he’s groused and grumbled and shut himself away from all of them. It must be because he’s ill, and he almost doesn’t want to get better if it means all the touching and gentleness will stop. He doesn’t want to go back to how things were before. This is better, so much better, despite the pain and dizziness and misery.

“You’re welcome,” Tim says, much closer suddenly. His hand lands on Jon’s shoulder and there’s a brief pressure on the top of Jon’s head, and then he’s gone. It takes Jon a moment to realise that Tim kissed him. His hand curls reflexively into Martin’s jumper and he tries not to sniffle audibly. He wishes Tim would kiss him all the time. He wishes they all would.

They won’t, though. Of course they won’t. Jon hasn’t earned that. He doesn’t deserve it. Especially not from Martin. Martin, who has his arms wrapped tightly around Jon, holding him safe and secure, giving him the comfort he’s been so desperate for for so long. Jon can’t bear it. He grasps Martin’s jumper in his hands and says,

“Martin?”

“Yeah? You all right?”

“’M sorry, Martin.”

“Oh, hey, no,” Martin says. His arms tighten briefly around Jon. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, okay? Everybody needs help when they’re ill.”

“Not that,” Jon croaks. “F’r everything. I’ve been horrible to you, ‘n’ you’ve… you’ve only ever been nice to me. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” There’s a pause. Jon can’t tell what Martin’s thinking from here, with his face still pressed against Martin’s chest. He should have waited until Martin wasn’t holding him any more, it occurs to him. “Look Jon,” Martin says. “That’s… um, I’m really glad you’ve said that, but maybe we should wait to talk about it until you’re feeling better, yeah? I’m pretty sure you’ve still got a fever, and…”

“Not saying it ‘cause I’ve got a fever,” Jon says. “Should’ve said it a long time ago, bu’ I was too scared. Too stupid.”

“Honestly, it’s fine,” Martin says. “It’s… yeah, it’s fine, Jon.”

“’S not,” Jon says, frustrated.

“It is. And… and anyway, this isn’t the time.”

“Martin.” That’s Sasha’s voice. He’d forgotten she was still in the room. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. He’s been horrible to Martin in front of Tim and Sasha, so there’s no reason he shouldn’t say he’s sorry in front of them, too. “Let him say what he needs to. I know how you feel about him, but he should apologise to you.”

“Sasha, look at him,” Martin says. “He’s…”

“I wan’ to sit up,” Jon interrupts.

“Oh, right, yeah, of course,” Martin says quickly. “Sorry. Here we go. Up you come.”

Jon shuts his eyes while Martin helps him manouevre to an upright position, slumped sideways against the back of the sofa. He sits for a moment to let his head settle and then opens his eyes and looks at Martin. Martin is looking right back at him, his forehead creased with concern. He’s lovely. Jon has been such a fool.

“’M not apologising because I’m sick,” he says, as firmly as he can with his voice all cracked and wispy. “I know what I’m saying. I’ve wanted to say it f’r a while. But you…” His throat has got very thick, and he has to pause to swallow painfully. “You’ve been so… so nice to me. All the time, not jus’ now, and I can’t… I can’t not say it any more. I’ve been awful. I’ve bullied you, and I’ve said your work was bad when it wasn’t, and when it was I haven’ helped you properly, just been mean, an’ I’m… I’m so sorry, Martin. I was scared and I thought you were…” It feels so stupid now, but he makes himself say it anyway. “Thought you were telling Elias about me at first, an’ when I r’lised you weren’t I couldn’t…” His eyes are prickling again. “Couldn’t make myself stop. Was scared and stupid and horrible, and I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

He wants to say more, but his throat is burning so badly by the end of his speech that the last few words come out barely audible. He blinks away the blurring in his eyes and looks anxiously at Martin, hoping he realises how serious he is about this. Martin’s face is flooded with pink, right up to the tips of his ears.

“Oh, Jon,” he says softly. “That’s okay.”

Jon shakes his head, then puts his hands up to it as the room spins sickly around him. “Ugh. It’s not,” he manages to say. “Don’ say that, Martin, I know it’s not okay. You never… never deserved any of it. Nobody should trea’ you like that. Shouldn’t treat anyone like that, but ‘specially you. You’re nice and kind and… and gentle and strong and good. People should only be nice to you.”

“Um,” Martin says, and then falls silent. Jon wishes he could look at him. Not that he’s ever been very good at knowing what someone’s thinking just from looking at their face, but at least it might give him a clue. But his head is still whirling, even with his eyes shut. Shaking his head was a terrible idea. The silence stretches on. Jon swallows painfully again.

“D’d I upset you?” he asks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Jus’ wanted to say sorry. And… and that I’ll be better.”

“No,” Martin says quickly. “I… no, Jon, no, you didn’t upset me. Um, I just… I didn’t expect you to…”

Ah. That makes sense. Of course Martin wouldn’t expect Jon to apologise. Why would he? He never has before. Jon feels sick with shame. And also with dizziness, but shame is definitely a contributing factor.

“Sorry,” he says again. “I do mean it. You’re… I like you. Like you a lot.”

“Oh,” Martin says. He’s still so close to Jon that he can feel the warmth of him along his left arm. “Well, I like you, too.”

Jon’s eyes are threatening to leak again. He presses his hands over them so that Martin won’t see. “You don’ have to say that,” he croaks. He isn’t going to be able to keep talking this much for long, but it’s important. “Don’ have to forgive me. Jus’ wanted you to know.”

“Of course I forgive you,” Martin says. Jon feels him shift beside him, and then Martin’s hand lands gently on his shoulder. “Jon, of course I do. It’s fine.” Sasha, still in the armchair opposite them, makes a small noise, and Martin huffs. “Okay, fine, it wasn’t fine. But I knew you were struggling, Jon. We all did. So I’m fine. It’s all forgiven. I’ve forgotten it already, okay?”

“Okay,” Jon echoes weakly. “Thank you.” He blinks away the incipient tears and then lowers his hands from his face. Martin might forget his behaviour, but Jon won’t. He won’t be like that again, no matter how stressed he gets. He won’t.

“Can I hug you?” Martin says.

“’F course,” Jon says. As though he would ever refuse a hug from Martin, after this.

It still feels a bit risky to try opening his eyes, so he waits until Martin’s arms slip around him and draw him in, and then wraps his own around the solid, warm bulk of Martin, pressing his face into his shoulder. A moment later, he feels the sofa dip behind him, and Sasha’s there too, one arm going around his middle, the other hand rubbing up and down his spine. One of them kisses his hair. He can’t tell which.

“It’s going to be better after this,” Sasha says from somewhere very close to his ear. “We’re going to help you more. Properly. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself.” Jon’s whole body is relaxing, despite himself. Nothing has ever felt quite as nice as this, sandwiched securely between them. He feels as though they’re shutting the rest of the world away from him, keeping him safe from it, sheltering him and guarding him from the stress and misery of work and Elias and everything else that makes him tense and nervy, snapping and growling at anyone who tries to come too close.

“Grub’s up!” Tim says. “Oh, wow, what happened? I can’t believe you guys started a cuddle pile without me!”

“Jon apologised to Martin,” Sasha says. “And properly, too. It was quite a good speech, actually.”

“Oh.” There’s a little clunk as Tim puts something down, and although there isn’t space for him to sit on the sofa with them, he bends down and gives Jon a soft, gentle little kiss on his temple. “Good for you, boss. I’m proud of you.”

“Don’ call me that,” Jon croaks, and immediately winces. This is why he shouldn’t try to have friends. However careful he is, he always ends up saying the wrong thing. “Sorry. ‘S fine.”

“No, hang on,” Tim says. “You don’t like it? I thought…”

“Guys, Jon should eat his dinner before it gets cold,” Martin interrupts. He pulls away from Jon, who reluctantly lets himself be released.

At least when he opens his eyes the world is fairly steady. He sits and lets the others rearrange themselves around him. Sasha stays where she is, and even keeps her arm around him when Tim puts the bowl of casserole in Jon’s lap, carefully arranged on a little tray to keep it steady. Martin gets up and heads for the bathroom, and Tim sits in the spot he’s vacated, close beside Jon, one hand resting on Jon’s knee, and part of Jon wants to just let his eyes fall closed again and drink in the sensations of Tim and Sasha and their gentle, casual touches. But the casserole smells wonderful and Jon’s stomach is letting him know that he’s actually ravenous. He starts eating.

His eyes are leaking again by the time he finishes. His throat doesn’t feel as dreadful as it has for the last two days, but eating still hurts horribly. Martin takes the armchair when he gets back from the bathroom, putting his feet up on Jon’s coffee table in a movement so natural and comfortable that Jon’s heart stutters when he sees it, strangely overcome by the sight of Martin so at home in his flat. Once Jon’s finished, Martin gets up and takes the empty bowl through to the kitchen.

“How are you feeling?” he asks Jon when he gets back.

He’s asked the question so many times that Jon is used to answering it now. He knows that Martin doesn’t want him to say that he’s fine or that Martin doesn’t need to stay if he doesn’t want to. He just… wants to know how Jon’s feeling.

“Bit better,” Jon says truthfully. “Throat isn’t as bad.”

“Good. You look a bit better. Not quite as close to death’s door as you have been anyway.”

“No hospital, then?” Sasha says. She brushes Jon’s hair away from his face and places the back of her hand to his forehead. “You still feel a bit warm.”

“I don’ wan’…” Jon starts, alarmed and feeling the easy, pathetic tears start up in his eyes again.

“No, it’s okay, I don’t think we’re going to need to,” Martin says quickly. “You’re still really ill, but you’re not quite as bad as you have been.”

“Remember, the doctor said we should take you in if you didn’t start getting better in two days?” Tim says.

Jon does vaguely remember this. Has it really been two days already? He seems to have lost all sense of time.

“But you’re not?” he says. He wants to make sure. The thought of having to go into hospital is terrifying to him. His mother died in a hospital. His father, too, although only after the accident. Not that he remembers either death, but the thought of it has always been a cold, dark shadow in his mind.

“No,” Martin says. He takes his feet off the coffee table and leans forward in the armchair, giving Jon a reassuring smile. “You’re getting better, so I don’t think we need to.”

“’Kay,” Jon says, his voice coming out high and wispy with relief. “Good.”

He leans against Sasha, who is closest and already has her arm around him, and lets his eyes close, exhausted from the effort of eating and the difficult conversation that preceded his meal. This time it’s Tim’s hand that starts rubbing his back, in soothing little circles that make Jon feel even more sleepy and relaxed, and soon the others’ soft voices are fading into the background, and he’s gone.

He wakes feeling strangely disorientated. He’s lying down, sort of, but there’s a peculiar rocking motion, as though he’s on a boat, or a…

“Thanks,” Martin’s voice says above him, very quiet. Jon feels himself being turned, unless that’s just the dizziness, and then shifted slightly, and realises all of a sudden that he’s being carried. He opens his eyes, and there’s Martin’s face, only just visible in the soft glow coming into his little hallway from an open door.

Martin carries Jon into his bedroom, where his bedside lamp is on and Sasha is pulling back the duvet. She steps back, and Martin puts Jon down carefully on the bed. Something tumbles off Jon’s lap and Jon, reflexively reaching for it, realises that it’s Kay the elephant. He wraps his arm around her.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Martin says, voice still hushed. “Sorry, we were trying to let you sleep.”

Jon, still not more than half awake, says, “Mm.”

Sasha laughs softly, while Martin draws the duvet up over Jon. “Go back to sleep,” she says. “We’ll wake you up when it’s time for your meds.”

“Anything you need before we leave you alone?” Martin says.

Jon wonders what they’d do if he asked them to stay and sleep in his bed with him. To fetch Tim and bring him, too. To hold him tight all night long. To never let him go. He doesn’t, of course, it would be a terrible idea for many reasons. He’s their manager, for heaven’s sake. Managers can’t go around asking their subordinates to cuddle them and kiss their hair and… no. Just no. Anyway, the three of them are all together, and even Jon, who is terrible at reading people, can tell how happy they are. They certainly don’t want their irritable, snappish boss trying to upset the balance of their relationship. They don’t even like him in that way. Which is fine. It’s fine.

“No, thank you,” he says, grateful that it’s dark enough in the room that neither Sasha nor Martin can see the way his eyes have started to leak again. One of them pats his arm gently.

“All right, sleep well, then,” Martin says.

“And call us if you need anything,” Sasha says.

“G’night,” he mumbles.

They don’t shut the door completely, presumably so that they can hear if he calls out with his voice instead of using his phone, and Jon can’t help but let it warm his heart a little. It really does seem as though they care about him, even if they don’t feel the same way about him as he does about them. He wonders again what it is that they’re planning to talk to him about. Most likely it’s something about him being a terrible manager. Which is an extremely valid and reasonable topic for them to want to raise with him, and would explain why they want to wait until he’s better to have the conversation. He hopes it will prove to be more along the lines of them having some solidly achievable goals for him to work towards, like being nice to Martin and not snapping at them, and not an ultimatum forcing him to resign his position. He doesn’t think it can be that, though. Surely they wouldn’t have been so kind to him if it was. Unless they think it’s for his own good. Maybe it would be. The only part of the job he’s actually good at is the sorting and organising, and even then Elias doesn’t seem to think he’s doing very well at it. Perhaps he should resign even if the others aren’t intending to issue an ultimatum.

But it can’t be anything too awful. It can’t. If it was, Martin wouldn’t have forgiven him so easily. They wouldn’t all keep hugging him. They wouldn’t be staying over with him to make sure he’s all right. Those things are all so far above and beyond the duties of archival assistants that trying to frame it as merely a work thing is laughable, even for Jon.

He hopes they’ll tell him whatever it is soon. He hates having important conversations looming over him with no idea of what they’re going to be about.

Jon falls asleep at last, only to find himself in a swirl of dark, anxious dreams where Martin laughs incredulously at the idea that he could possibly forgive Jon for his behaviour and Sasha tells him she’s fed up with his arrogance and stand-offishness and is quitting her job so that she doesn’t have to see his face ever again and Tim mocks him for thinking they were ever friends. He only manages to half drag himself out of them when Martin wakes him to give him his antibiotics, and barely wakes up at all when Tim comes in four hours after that to give him the next dose.

But somehow, despite all the miserable dreams and the desperate anxiety that simmers through his entire body each time he’s woken up, when his body finally decides that it’s done with sleeping and his mind that it’s finished with dreaming and he opens his eyes to a dingy, cold morning and the steady sound of rain drumming against his window, he finds that he’s feeling much better. His throat is still sore and swollen, but it’s no longer radiating pain through his entire head and chest. Even better, when he cautiously pushes himself into a sitting position, the world completely fails to spin and swoop around him. It wobbles a bit when he gives his head an experimental shake, but soon settles. When he stands up, he doesn’t even have to hold onto anything to keep himself upright.

He'd forgotten what an absolutely wonderful feeling that was.

Martin is just coming out of the bathroom when Jon pulls his bedroom door open. He’s fully dressed, but his cheeks are pink and his hair is still damp, and a waft of sweet smelling shower product follows him. He smiles at Jon.

“Hey, look at you walking all by yourself!” he says.

Jon, completely unexpectedly, finds himself smiling back, ducking his head a little as he feels his cheeks grow warm. Martin is just so lovely.

“I’m feeling much better,” he says, and then winces. His throat is improved, but not by much. He swallows and adds, “At least, the vertigo is. Throat not so much.”

“That’s great,” Martin says. “Tim said he’s going to make scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast if you want some.”

“Sounds nice,” Jon says. “’M going to shower first though, if that’s okay.”

“Oh, yeah, of course it is. If you shoot one of us a text when you come out, Tim can put the eggs on then. Sound good?”

“Very,” Jon rasps.

Martin smiles at him again. “All right, well, see you in a bit, then.”

Jon nods and slips past him into the bathroom. Showering isn’t quite as easy as he’d hoped, he gets dizzy when he has to bend down to reach anything, and by the time he gets out he’s feeling weak and shaky and has to lean on the walls again to get back to his bedroom, but it’s such a relief to feel clean that he can’t bring himself to care very much. Still, once he’s wobbled back, sent Martin a text, and opened a drawer to find some clothes, it feels too hard to get properly dressed. He pulls out a pair of leggings and a very old oversized hoodie that once belonged to Georgie and puts them on, then adds a pair of thick socks. That’s good enough.

Sasha’s the only one in the living room when he comes in, and she immediately jumps up and offers her arm to help him across to the sofa. Jon hesitates a moment, his resolve not to be too clingy piping up in the back of his mind, but she’s offering. He accepts, and is grateful for her support as he totters the last few feet and sinks down on the sofa. He really is feeling a lot better than yesterday, but he’s still dreadfully weak.

“Breakfast’ll be up in a few minutes,” Sasha tells him. “You sleep okay? Martin said you were feeling better.”

“Still tired,” Jon says. She’s sat down right next to him, so close that her arm is brushing against his, but he resists the urge to curl himself up against her. He can sit like a normal person. “Throat still feels bad. But not so dizzy. ‘S better.”

“Thank god for that,” Sasha says. Then she lifts her arm, and although she doesn’t put it round Jon’s shoulders immediately, she gives him a little smile and an eyebrow raise that are a clear invitation. This time Jon doesn’t hesitate. “We were really worried about you for a while there,” she goes on as she lets her arm settle around him. Jon tucks his feet up on the sofa and closes his eyes and rests against her.

He hopes they don’t want to talk about not wanting to be friends any more. Maybe they’ve realised how pathetically clingy he is, once he lets himself be, and have decided that they need to make it clear that this is only acceptable because he’s not well. He doesn’t know how he’ll bear being told he can’t do this again, now that he’s finally brought himself to let himself have it.

“He’s still really ill, Tim,” Martin’s voice drifts in from the kitchen. “I want to talk to him as much as you do, but…”

Tim’s voice cuts him off, but Jon can’t quite hear what he says. He feels himself tense up.

“No, you’re right,” Martin says. “I just… I want it to be perf…”

“Guys!” Sasha yells, making Jon jump. “We can hear you in there!” There’s a brief pause, and then she adds, still shouting, “Also, Tim’s right! Jon’s totally in his right mind, there’s no reason for us to put this off any longer!”

“What?” Jon croaks, wriggling out from under her arm and sitting up straight. “What is it? Is… is it… you know you don’t have to stay. I’m all right now, I’ll be fine on my own. I… I know I’ve been a lot. Too much. I…”

“Wow, Jon, hey,” Sasha says. She puts a hand on his back, rubbing it. “Take a breath, okay? It’s nothing like that. It’s… well, we should wait for Martin and Tim, but…”

“Here, here!” Tim says, striding into the room with two plates of scrambled eggs on toast, Martin on his heels with a third. “Food first, then we can talk.”

Jon doesn’t feel as though he can eat a thing with the anxiety fizzling away in his stomach, but the others are adamant, so he settles for getting his portion of eggs and toast down as quickly as possible. At least his throat’s a bit better today, even if it’s a long way from normal, and he finishes only a couple of minutes after the others do. He waits as patiently as he can while Tim takes away their plates, relieved when he doesn’t stop to do the washing up, just puts the plates in the sink and comes straight back into the living room.

With Martin and Sasha each sitting on one side of Jon, Tim doesn’t move to one of the armchairs. Instead, he takes a seat on the coffee table, so close to Jon that their knees are almost touching. It calms Jon a little. Surely he wouldn’t be so tactile, surely none of them would, if it was something really bad. Surely.

“Have I done something?” he asks. “Something else, I mean. Or… or I can apologise again, if…” He looks at Martin.

“No, no, no,” Martin says. He reaches for Jon’s free hand and gives it a little squeeze. “It’s nothing to apologise for. It’s…” He hesitates, his eyes darting between Tim and Sasha. “Um, so are we really…?”

“Go on,” Sasha urges him, and Tim nods, too.

“It’s time. Ask him.”

“Okay.” Martin’s face is starting to go pink. He gives Jon a nervous smile. “So, um, you know me and Tim and Sasha are… are together?”

Jon blinks. “Yes,” he says uncertainly.

“Right. Cool.” Martin swallows, glances again at Sasha, then Tim, and says, “We all like you. A lot. And if… if you feel the same way, we’d like to date you. Um, or it doesn’t have to be all of us. Just whoever you want. But we all want to.”

Jon stares at Martin. “I… what?”

“We want to be with you,” Martin says. “We’ve, um, been wanting to talk to you for a while, but it never ended up being a good time.”

It’s so different from what Jon had feared that he can’t quite seem to get his head round it.

“But I…” he says, and tails off, not sure what he’s even trying to say.

“You can say no,” Tim says. Jon finally pulls his eyes away from Martin’s flushed, earnest face to look at him. Tim’s expression is soft with a small smile. Jon’s liked him for almost two years now, ever since he realised Tim’s smiles and geniality weren’t some obscure joke or means of humiliating Jon, the awkward hug notwithstanding, and there have definitely been times when he’s thought Tim was flirting with him, but then, Tim flirts with practically everyone. “We won’t be upset.” His smile widens. “A bit disappointed, sure, but we’ll get over it. It won’t make things weird between us or anything. We’ll still be friends.”

Jon swallows, wincing slightly at the pain. He doesn’t want to say no. Of course he doesn’t. It’s Tim and Sasha and Martin. How could he ever want to say no to something that would bring him closer to them?

“And it’s fine if you want us to stop touching you again when you’re feeling better,” Sasha says from his other side. Jon turns again to meet her eyes. She’s looking at him seriously. Unlike with Tim and Martin, Jon and Sasha were friends almost from the first moment they’d met. Both sceptics, both prone to overwork, awkwardness, and getting far too invested in odd topics nobody else cares about, both enjoying a good argument about any of those topics. Jon knows how disappointed she was not to be offered the Head Archivist position herself, but she’s never resented him for it. “We just want you to be comfortable, whatever that looks like for you. Oh, and Tim will stop calling you boss.”

“I’ll stop doing that whether you want to be with us or not,” Tim says. “I really didn’t realise you didn’t like it, Jon. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Jon says, grasping onto the topic gratefully, because it’s far easier to address this one small thing than… everything else. “I don’ really mind.”

Tim frowns. “It sounded like you meant it when you said not to call you that yesterday.”

Jon ducks his head, embarrassed. “It just came out,” he mumbles. “Didn’t mean to say it.”

“Okay,” Tim says slowly. “But do you like it? Or would you be happier if I didn’t call you that?”

“I…” Jon twists his fingers together.

“Hey,” Tim says gently. His hands wrap around Jon’s, his thumbs smoothing over the backs of Jon’s knuckles. They’re warm, and the pressure soothes Jon immediately. “I thought it was a fun nickname, but it’s not fun if I’m the only one enjoying it, okay?”

“Okay,” Jon echoes. “Then I… I’d rather you didn’t.”

Tim’s hands squeeze his. “All right. I’ll stop. Thanks for telling me, Jon. I really appreciate it.” He smiles when Jon ventures a look up at his face, and then lifts their joined hands. “What about the touching thing? Is it because you’re sick?”

Apparently they’re digging into everything today. For a moment, Jon seriously considers pretending that he’s dizzy and feverish again and doesn’t know what he’s saying. Or taking the coward’s way out and saying that yes, it’s because he’s sick and once he’s well again he’ll be back to normal. Except that if he says that, he’ll have to say no to dating them because he doesn’t think he can handle dating them and not being touched by them, and the thought of not dating them makes him want to cry. Again.

“Jon?” Martin says. He’s frowning slightly. “You know it’s okay if you don’t want us to touch you when you’re feeling better, right? We still want to date you, we just… it’s important that we know what’s okay and what’s not.”

Damn, maybe Jon isn’t feeling as improved as he thought he was, because tears are starting to gather in his eyes. They’re being so gentle with him, so kind, so considerate. He wants to run away and shut himself up in his bedroom until they leave. He wants to cling to them and bask in it forever.

“I…” he manages to get out, and then has to stop when his voice threatens to tremble.

Sasha says, “We can talk about this another time if you’re not up for it now.”

“’S not that,” Jon says. He blinks a few times, trying not to let any of the wetness in his eyes fall, and then bites his lips. This is the point where he just has to say it, or resign himself to the fact that he’s never going to. He screws his eyes shut and blurts out, “I always want you to touch me.”

“While you’re sick?” Tim says. He sounds confused.

Jon, eyes still shut, shakes his head. He’s still holding tightly to Tim’s hands, as though they’re a lifeline. The others are quiet, waiting for him to explain.

“Not because I’m not well. I… I want it all the time.” His voice is shaking, fading as he tries to speak through the painful lump in his throat. Tears are welling up in his eyes again. “All the time.”

“Oh, Jon,” Martin says softly from beside him. Someone’s hand is on his back, Sasha’s, he thinks, rubbing between his shoulder blades.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Tim says. “You seemed so uncomfortable when I touched you when we first knew each other, and relieved when I stopped, so I thought you didn’t want it.”

At least they just seem confused, not annoyed or laughing at him. Jon opens his eyes, although he keeps his head bent so that he doesn’t accidentally look any of them in the face.

“I was uncomfortable,” he says. His face is hot with mortification. Why didn’t he say something? Why is he always so bad at saying things? “I didn’t know you then, and… and it was all so unexpected. But after a while, once I got to know you and Sasha, I just wanted… but I… I didn’t know how to ask. And it didn’t seem to matter so much when we were in research. I wasn’t…” He has to stop and swallow again, and blink a bit. The tears are right on the edge of falling. The others wait patiently. When Jon thinks he’s got control of himself again, he says, voice quiet and strained, “I wasn’t so stressed. But then we all started in the archives and I… it was awful. I was awful. I kept pushing you away and I was horrible to Martin and I… I couldn’t seem to stop, and I couldn’t ask, not when I was being like that, so I’d just watch you all and… and wish it was me, and…”

The tears, without warning, spill over.

“Sorry,” Jon mutters, and pulls his hands away from Tim’s to scrub at his face.

“Can I hug you?” Martin says.

Jon nods. “Yes,” he says, his voice very small and still rather shaky. “Please.”

Martin’s arm wraps around him, pulling him close, and then Sasha and Tim are there too, their hands on his back, his arms, in his hair. There are several moments where nobody’s quite sure how to fit all four of them on the sofa together, and then, somehow, Jon ends up in Tim’s lap with his head resting against Martin’s shoulder and Sasha cradling his feet, her fingertips already dipping into his socks to stroke tiny circles over his ankles. Martin is carding through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp, and Tim is holding both his hands in one of his much bigger ones, the other rubbing up and down Jon’s arm. Jon lets his eyes fall shut, lets himself sink into the warm, golden, blissful feeling of it.

He's not sure how much time passes. He doesn’t much care. Every so often, they rearrange themselves and Jon lets himself be transferred from lap to lap, held secure in whichever pair of arms is around him at the moment. It’s while he’s in Sasha’s lap, her hands smoothing slowly up and down his sides, that she says,

“So what about the dating us thing?”

Jon blinks his eyes open. A little swirl of anxiety makes itself known. Sasha’s hands rest on his waist, Tim is looking at him, his attention bright and eager, and Martin’s hands have stilled where he’s been carefully plaiting Jon’s hair.

“Ah,” he says, ignoring the pain in his throat. “I… are you sure you want… I know I haven’t been very… very nice, since the transfer.”

Martin starts plaiting again, his hands gentle at the nape of Jon’s neck.

“We wouldn’t have asked if we didn’t want to,” he says. “And you haven’t been that bad.”

“Martin, I called you a useless ass on tape,” Jon croaks. “There’s no excuse for that.”

“Okay, yeah, that was bad,” Martin concedes, but he doesn’t stop plaiting. “But it was ages ago. You’ve been much kinder since then. And honestly, I’ve had worse bosses. At least you told me what I was doing wrong so I could get better.”

Jon twists around in Sasha’s lap, making Martin let go of his hair, and looks at his face. He’s smiling at Jon, cheeks faintly pink, one hand still resting on his shoulder.

“I mean it,” Martin says quietly. “Yeah, the first few weeks were pretty stressful, I’m not going to deny that, but we’ve had some good times since then, and I’m happy in the archives now. And I really like you. I’d like to be with you, if that’s something you want as well.”

He does mean it. It’s written all over his round, bespectacled face. Jon turns to Sasha and Tim.

“And… and you two…? I know I’ve been pushing you away.”

“You’ve been having a hard time, Jon,” Sasha says. “And sure, you could have handled it better, but if we’d realised how bad it was we’d have helped more. If we’d realised the way Elias was talking to you, we’d have done a lot more. Why didn’t you say something?”

“I… I mean, he’s only been telling me when I’ve not been doing a good job,” Jon says uncertainly. “Which is most of the time.”

“What?” Martin says. “No! He was trying to force you to keep working when you couldn’t even stand upright, Jon! There’s no world where that’s okay!”

“And he obviously knew you’ve been sleeping at work,” Sasha says. “Which, believe me, we are going to have stern words about.”

“But the work needs doing,” Jon says weakly. “Elias…”

“The work’s getting done,” Tim says. “You overworking yourself until you have a breakdown isn’t going to do anybody any good. It’s just work, Jon. It doesn’t matter how long it takes.”

Jon blinks. He’s never actually thought about it like that before. It is just work. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. The archives were practically unuseable for years before Elias promoted him. And they are making progress, even if it’s slow. Sasha and Martin have been working on the database, Tim’s been recording the statements that will go onto a computer, and Jon’s been recording the others and overseeing the organising. There’s still a terrifying amount of work to do, but… well, they’re right.

“I suppose so,” he says. “I… I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I’m not surprised, with Elias breathing down your neck all the time,” Tim says grimly.

“You’re paid to work nine ‘til five,” Sasha says.

“And you’d feel a lot better if that was what you actually worked,” Martin says. “I think you might be surprised.”

“Plus it would give you a lot more time for going on dates with us,” Sasha says brightly. Her hands start stroking up and down his sides again, and Jon feels his muscles relax without being told to. “I promise, it’s what we all want.”

“I don’t lend Kay the elephant out to just anyone, you know,” Tim says, fixing him with a mock-stern glare, and Jon snuffles a little laugh. “We really like you, Jon. We want to be with you.”

Jon still hesitates. It all feels too good, too perfect to be real. But Martin’s hands are back in his hair and Sasha is still stroking his sides and Tim has just reached up to brush a loose curl out of Jon’s face and he’s smiling, his expression so openly fond that it takes Jon’s breath away a little bit.

“All right,” he says, and if he’d thought Tim looked happy before, it’s nothing to the way his face lights up now.

“Seriously?” he says, his whole face one big, beaming smile. “All of us?”

“Yes.” Jon can feel his face flushing. He hadn’t expected quite so much delight. “All of you. I… I like you all, too. I’ve wanted… I’ve…” He gives another little quiet laugh, painful on his throat, but irrepressible. “I’ve been very stupid.”

“Nah, just stressed,” Tim says. “So, and I promise this is the final big question of the day, how do you feel about kissing?”

Jon’s face gets even hotter. “I, ah, I feel very good about kissing,” he confesses.

The words are barely out of his mouth before Sasha’s kissing him, her hand on his cheek to turn his face towards her, her lips soft and warm on his. When she pulls back, Jon hears himself let out a tiny, breathy sound that makes the heat flare in his cheeks again.

“You cheater!” Tim says indignantly. “I’m the one who asked!”

Sasha just shrugs and presses another kiss to Jon’s lips, and then one to his temple. “You snooze, you lose, Stoker.”

Tim laughs, and then he kisses Jon too, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him into his lap as he does. Jon goes willingly. It feels nice, to know that all he has to do is let them touch him, kiss him, move and manoeuvre him however they want. It feels safe. It feels right. Tim cradles his face in his hands and kisses him slowly and gently, at least until Martin pointedly clears his throat. The moment Tim looks at him with an eyebrow quirked, Martin is leaning in, one hand going to Jon’s waist, the other to the nape of his neck, and then he, too, is kissing Jon. Either Tim or Sasha has their hand back in his hair, and another hand is rubbing his back again. It feels like heaven.

It goes on for a long time, gentle, languid kisses, kind touches, Jon being moved from lap to lap, held and caressed, made to feel safe and cherished and loved, and it doesn’t stop until he starts to feel himself drooping with tiredness. They notice almost as soon as Jon himself does, which makes him feel safe and cherished all over again. Martin, whose lap he’s currently in, gently guides Jon to rest his head against his shoulder, and it’s only moments before Jon can feel himself starting to drift off.

When consciousness seeps back in, his head is pillowed on a plush thigh that can only be Martin’s, which means those must be Martin’s fingertips drifting slowly over his hairline. Sasha’s talking somewhere very close by, about some book she’s been reading, and Tim and Martin are responding.

Soon, Jon knows, they’ll wake him properly to give him his next dose of antibiotics. There will be meals and medication and, when bedtime comes around, a discussion about how many of them will fit in the bed with Jon. He hopes all, but his bed isn’t particularly large. In the morning, he’ll wake up in someone’s arms, and he already knows that when he goes back to work, he’ll only be allowed to do his official hours. His partners will be there to help and support him, and he can do the same for them.

But for now, he listens to Martin laughing quietly above him, Sasha’s voice rising as she explains something excitedly while Tim makes interested listening noises, and lets himself bask in the warmth of real happiness.