Archive of Our Own

Martin manages to furtively shove his trousers down to his thighs and jerk himself off in under five frantic, desperate minutes. He flushes the paper towels he’d made sure to come into and thoroughly washes his hands, and is back at his desk before Tim and Sasha even get back to the Archives with Diane’s ‘good tongs’. He’s never had to shamefully masturbate at work before, even if the thought may have entered his mind once or twice in the past, so this is a new low that he hoped that he’d never actually see. But that hard on was not going to go away until he gave it some attention, he had been able to tell that much, and he’d just about die if either Tim or Sasha noticed it. It’s already more than enough that Jon did.

God, Jon noticed his boner. He sat on it. He knows that Martin got an erection from Jon sitting in his lap and meowing like a cat. 

Martin hates that he had to discover that part of himself like that. That it was there for him to discover at all, really. He’s got enough inconvenient fantasies as it is without adding an absurd, mortifying new fetish on top of it. But the worst part, the worst part of it, is that now Jon knows about it too. He knows that Martin liked it, that he’s a pervert, that he’s a degenerate. That Jon in a collar is what gets Martin going. 

He’s only halfway through the work day. He has to stay here for another four hours, at least. He desperately wants to retreat to his flat and then come back the next day and act like nothing happened, but-- Jon isn’t leaving, and he’s the one that wore the damned artefact. It feels wrong to go home early, when Jon isn’t doing it. He wishes that he had a private office of his own, where he could close the door and not have to make eye contact with anyone else for the rest of the day. 

Martin has no such reprieve, though. Eventually, Tim and Sasha get back, and they remove the collar together, using the ‘buddy system protocol’ as Sasha calls it. 

“See the letter tacked on at the end there?” she says, indicating the red Artefact Storage tag attached to the collar. Martin never had to learn that department's filing method, so he honestly has no idea what the string of random numbers and letters is supposed to mean. “When an artefact’s been sorted into the X category, that means that you can’t be left alone with it. That’s probably what happened to Jon.” 

“Right,” Martin says, studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone and also trying not to think about that moment where he’d almost unthinkingly put the collar on, in front of everyone. “Good to know.” 

“I wonder what he was doing up there in the first place,” Sasha says thoughtfully, carefully picking up the collar with a pair of tongs that are at least half a meter long, while wearing thick, leather gloves. “Containment breaches are supposed to be recorded, so he’s going to have to fill out a form explaining what happened.” 

“Maybe, uh, it can wait until tomorrow,” Tim says diplomatically, casting a glance at Jon’s firmly closed office door. 

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Sasha says dismissively. “Kelly doesn’t really care about punctuality, so long as it gets done eventually.” 

Martin wonders if he’s going to have to fill out a form, to write some sort of report of what happened. He prays to god that that won’t be necessary. He doesn’t think that he’d actually be able to bring himself to tell the whole truth. The fact that Jon purred isn’t essential information, is it? 

Tim and Sasha spirit the collar away, and they come back with, thankfully, only one set of forms. Sasha goes into Jon’s office to leave them with him to fill out at his leisure, and Martin tries not to strain his ears to hear Jon’s voice, to try and figure out just what exactly he’s feeling just from the tone of his voice. Is he embarrassed? Oh, Martin can’t imagine that he isn’t. Upset? Probably. Angry? Well… he hadn’t snapped at Martin earlier-- had thanked him, even, with a painfully awkward sincerity, which Martin hadn’t been totally able to process at the time just from how hideously uncomfortably and horny he felt. But maybe he’s changed his mind. Maybe he thinks Martin dragged it out for too long, that he was slower than he needed to be with taking off the collar. That he’d enjoyed it too much. 

He had enjoyed it too much, because he shouldn’t have enjoyed it all, even a little bit. It had been insanely stressful and confusing and embarrassing, but-- well, he just jacked off to it, so. He can’t really say that some part of him hadn’t enjoyed it. Clearly, he had. But he really, really hadn’t been trying to drag the whole situation out longer than necessary. He hadn’t! Not on purpose. He’d been trying to be cautious, to do it right-- could he have done it quicker? Probably, maybe--

“How… was he?” Tim asks, and Martin startles as he remembers that he’s not the only person in the room. He looks towards Tim’s desk, where Tim is leaning towards Martin with his eyebrows raised. 

“What?” Martin asks dumbly. 

“I mean, did something happen? What did the collar do to him? Did he try to bite you or something?” 

--Oh. Relief breaks over him as he realizes that Tim isn’t morbidly asking for details, doesn’t think that Martin took the opportunity to do something. He just doesn’t know what the collar does to people, exactly. He can process the worried furrow to his brow, now that he looks for it. That’s fair. Most artefacts are… more violent than the collar was. 

“He-- he just got… confused,” Martin says, trying to figure out a way to explain what had happened which won’t be, well. Cruel to Jon. He doesn’t want to humiliate him. It’s not his fault the collar made him think that he was an overly affectionate cat. “He didn’t really understand what I was saying? So-- so I had to take it off for him which… was difficult. He, um, didn’t realize that it needed to go off.” 

“He fought against you?” 

He’d pushed his head into Martin’s hand for scritches and pets. 

“Sort of?” 

Martin is saved from having to explain himself further when Sasha comes back into the room, closing Jon’s office door behind her. 

“A statement giver gave him a haunted doll earlier, and he was there to drop it off!” she declares triumphantly. “Mystery solved.” 

“Oof,” Tim says, which, yeah. They get about five ‘haunted dolls’ a year. Potential artefacts are supposed to be handed directly to Artefact Storage for processing and research as well, but of course the general public doesn’t really read the pamphlets all that thoroughly. The statement giver shouldn’t have given Jon the doll in the first place, but Jon should have called Artefact Storage and had them retrieve it afterwards. That’s the official policy. But Martin can see why he decided to just take it himself. It’s a hassle and an interruption to have Artefact Storage stomp over in hazmat suits into your office and carefully and cautiously remove a potentially supernatural object. So he’d taken the probably totally mundane doll up to Artefact Storage, had been left alone in there at some point and… 

And he’d eventually ended up meowing in Martin’s lap. That has to sting. 

Martin takes a moment to be relieved that nothing worse managed to get to Jon during that time, though. 

… He doubts that Jon is in a place to properly appreciate that sentiment. Martin’s just going to go ahead and keep that one to himself. 

Martin ducks his head and tries to focus on his work and avoid any inconvenient thoughts like I’m never going to live this down and he looked so cute. He’s going to put this behind him, stop dwelling over it, stop talking about it, thinking about it. It was just one weird thing that happened during one weird morning, and it’s never going to happen again, and it was a freak accident anyways, and it doesn’t mean anything, and he needs to stop obsessing over it and just act like everything’s normal because if he does then eventually things will be normal again. It’s fine. It wasn’t a big deal, really, if you think about it! No one got hurt, nothing permanent happened, just-- it was just a bit embarrassing. That’s all. 

Jon sat on his erection. 

It’s a long four hours. 

Five hours later, when Martin comes home, he discovers the actual worst part of this whole thing: he now has crystal clear actual for real memories of Jonathan Sims, local hot asshole boss, sitting in his lap. He knows the warmth of him, the weight of him, the pressure of him against his cock. He has that forbidden knowledge now whether or not anyone involved likes or wants it, and it’s never ever going to leave. It is etched into his memory like an epitaph on a tombstone. It’s so much more than some hazy, indistinct fantasy about Jon on his knees or bending over for him. It’s real. It happened. 

Turns out, jacking off to something that actually happened somehow makes him feel dirtier than just touching himself to an unrealistic fantasy. Way dirtier. 

Doesn’t stop him from doing it for a third time before he goes to bed though, does it? 

Jon shuts himself away in his office to go and die of sheer embarrassment. He stays when he wants to go and get himself something to drink, and he stays when he wants to go and find a relevant file for the statement that he’s reading, and he stays until he’s absolutely certain that everyone else down in the Archives has already left. 

He really, really does not have it in himself to look at any of them right now and act like he has dignity, authority, or professionalism. Least of all Martin. 

God, Martin. He’d thrown himself at him. Plopped himself down in his lap as if of course he belonged there, it wasn’t even in question. He’d made an absolute fool of himself. He’d meowed and purred and demanded affection-- affection from Martin-- he’d outright hissed at him at some point too, hadn’t he? He remembers Martin’s voice, high pitched and anxious, almost frantic, as he talked to him. He hadn’t paid any of his words any note at the time, unable to comprehend them. He must have made him feel so uncomfortable. 

Compulsively, the memory of that-- that stiffness that could only be one thing pressed up against the back of his thigh rises up in his mind. 

Well, that-- that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Jon had been wriggling around in his lap like someone restlessly adjusting pillows until they found the most comfortable possible position to sleep. The-- the stimulation-- of course Martin had become… erect. That’s what happens, when you touch someone’s-- 

For god’s sake, Jon had given him an erection. That’s definitely sexual harassment, isn’t it? That’s definitely over the line, inappropriate, wrong. He hadn’t been in his right mind when it had happened, but-- that doesn’t mean that it hadn’t happened. Guilt and shame and horror makes him feel hot and tight and small. 

Unwillingly, the thought comes to him that things had been so much easier when he’d thought that he was a cat. 

He shakes his head harshly at himself. He had not enjoyed it. He hadn’t. It had been horrible and humiliating and uncomfortable for everyone involved, and potentially dangerous too. So what if he’d felt happy and relaxed and content at the time? He’d been wrong. He’d been tricked, controlled, altered. It doesn’t count. It’s not like Jon would feel that way if he crawled into Martin’s lap now. 

In a vivid little flash, Jon imagines doing just that. Would Martin automatically move to steady Jon again, his hand going to the small of his back? Would he-- 

“Stop that,” Jon hisses to his empty office, his face hot, mortified at himself. He abruptly gets up from his desk and gathers up his things. It’s time to go home. 

He tries not to think about how strangely bare his neck feels. How the pressure of the collar pulled snug and fast around his neck had felt grounding and natural and comforting instead of wrong and suffocating. 

Trickery. It was just a trick, like that cursed knife in Artefact Storage that makes the feeling of being cut by it feel deliriously, addictively good. That hadn’t been Jon that had enjoyed being collared, sitting in Martin's lap, being pet while he felt safe and beloved-- it was just a trick. Not him. Of course not. He’s not… he could never be like that. So loose and pliant and openly affectionate and sweet-- that’s not him. No one would ever describe him that way. 

He storms out of his office, his walk a fast, efficient clip, and he refuses to turn his head to look at Martin’s desk, his chair, where Jon had-- where the embarrassment had happened. That’s all it was. An embarrassment. 

The pang he feels in his chest is not longing. 

Martin’s plan to act like nothing happened is being sabotaged. And it’s not even by him, is the thing. Sure, he can’t get the image of how good Jon looks in a collar out of his head, and sure, he’s gone back to masturbating as much as he did back when he was a teenager in the throes of hormones, but those are all things he can hide, and hopefully eventually even repress. But other people? That, he can’t control. 

Martin’s doing a good job of pretending like everything’s normal. He can smile and avoid the topic like a professional. He comes in at nine and leaves at five, he performs his tasks to the best of his ability, and he brings his own packed lunches since it’s cheaper than going to the bodega a block away, and he makes tea for everyone at least once a day. 

Everything would be fine if everyone else would just follow his lead. Tim was a bit awkward the next day, Sasha clearly itching to ask questions, but that was to be expected. After a day or two of Martin acting like it wasn’t a big deal, they’d both internalize that and move on as well. But Jon. Jon is not acting like it wasn’t a big deal, Jon is not acting normal, Jon is not pretending like nothing happened. 

Martin believes that he’s trying. He can see that he’s trying. He hasn’t brought it up in conversation a single time, after all. But that doesn’t erase the fact that he’s very pointedly not looking at Martin every time he tells him to do something, every time he thanks him for bringing tea. It doesn’t stop the fact that sometimes, when Martin comes into his office and forgets to knock or the two of them end up in the kitchenette at the same time or Martin’s just existing in a place that Jon hadn’t expected for him to be, Jon jumps like a startled cat. 

--No, not like a cat. Like a startled human man. Yes. 

Everything would go back to normal if they just acted like it already is, but Jon is the most conspicuous liar on earth. No one is falling for it. And in turn, it’s making Martin’s ‘everything is normal and fine’ act seem weird and fake in comparison. 

“Jon, I’ve got the--” he says, holding up the specific file Jon had asked for… several days ago, to be honest. It takes a while to find anything in this mess. 

Jon flinches at the sound of his voice, and his hand ends up knocking over a mug of tea left on his desk. He jumps out of his chair and swears as tea spills across his desk, rushing to pick up papers before they become too ruined. 

“Oh, shit,” Martin says, and runs to the kitchenette and grabs a wad of paper towels. “Tea spill!” he explains to a curious Tim and Sasha as he rushes past them, back into the office. 

By the time he comes back, most of the papers are laid out on the floor and Jon is ineffectually trying to stem the tea tide on his desk with the sleeve of his jacket. 

“Oh, don’t do that,” Martin scolds, gently pushing Jon aside to wipe up the worst of it. He hands Jon some of the paper towels. “Here, dab at the papers, it might help some.” 

Things between them really are different now, considering that Jon doesn’t immediately lash out at Martin for this, scolding him for not knocking and startling him, as if the door hadn’t already been open. Instead, he just takes the paper towels and hurriedly kneels at the floor, dabbing worriedly at the papers, trying to dry them without tearing them. 

Things continue like that for a few minutes, until Martin surmises that they’ve done as much damage control as is possible for the moment. He looks down at the mess of tea stained papers laid out neatly on the floor, the wad of wet paper towels crumpled up in Jon’s hands and on the desk. Right. This is starting to get ridiculous. 

Martin walks over to the door and closes it. 

“Ah--” Jon says. 

“Can we just talk about it already?” Martin demands, bulldozing over whatever Jon was supposed to say. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it, had wanted to act like it never happened-- but Jon’s being so obviously uncomfortable about it that not talking about it feels weird. Weird and bad. Martin really hopes that just talking about it will fix this. Make Jon less… skittish. 

“Talk about what?” Jon immediately says, too quickly. 

Martin gives him an unimpressed look. “Jon. You know what.” 

Jon squirms uncomfortably underneath Martin’s gaze for a moment, before setting his jaw belligerently. 

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he says curtly. 

“Are you sure?” Martin asks. “Because you just startled like I shouted ‘boo’ at you. I feel like I have to be careful not to give you a heart attack.” 

“You just caught me off guard,” he says shiftily. 

“I never used to catch you off guard like that before.” 

“Well, that is-- that’s because, I,” Jon stammers, clearly floundering for a way to argue himself out of that one. He has his arms crossed low, his stance tight and defensive. Martin realizes how far away he’s standing from him, even in this small, cramped office. 

Guilt pangs hard and sharp in his chest. It’s not like Jon’s being unreasonable for acting really obviously uncomfortable around Martin-- that whole thing had been weird, and embarrassing, and Jon sat on his boner. Can’t forget that last bit. Of course he doesn’t want to talk to Martin, much less be alone in the same room as him. Martin should probably just do his best to avoid him-- except they work in the same four person department, so that’s not exactly doable. 

They have to find a solution. It’s not like Martin can just ask to be transferred-- he’d already considered that, after he’d been here for over a month and Jon was only growing to dislike him more instead of letting up. He’d decided not to in the end. He really couldn’t afford to draw Elias Bouchard’s personal attention to him, and he also couldn’t give up the extra money he got from being an Archival Assistant instead of a librarian. He’s finally been able to move into a flat that doesn’t have a mold problem thanks to the pay bump, and he really, really doesn’t want to give that up. Those reasons are still there. 

“Look,” Martin says. “I’m sorry.” 

He hadn’t put the collar on Jon, and he’d done his best to get it off when he realized what it was doing to him. But Jon had felt how it had made Martin feel to have him purring in his lap. He hadn’t meant to do that either, but he should definitely, definitely apologize for it. 

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Jon says stiffly, which is the first time Martin’s ever heard that from him. Not that he ever demands or asks for apologies from Martin, but he certainly never assures him that they aren’t needed when Martin makes them. He mostly just acts like they’re annoyances, excuses, when what Martin should be doing is staying out of his way and not doing whatever it is that he’s apologizing for in the first place. 

Martin dearly wants to argue that there is something to apologize for, but he physically, literally cannot say the words I’m sorry about my erection without dying on the spot. 

“Well,” he says, refocusing on his goal, the priority, “does that mean that this can just be water under the bridge? Jon, I promise I don’t think-- what happened hasn’t changed the way I think about you, okay? I’m not going to tell anyone about what happened either, so you don’t have to worry about that. I won’t even ever bring it up with you again, if you don’t want to. We can forget it ever happened.” 

He’s trying to make Jon act normal around him again. That’s why he closed the door, why he’s having this talk with him. Not that the way Jon normally acts around him is pleasant, but at least it doesn’t come with a heaping dose of guilt on Martin’s part. 

A weird, unhappy look flickers across Jon’s face. Can he tell that Martin was, at least a little bit, lying? About the part where he claimed that he doesn’t think differently of him. He’d already been having the occasional guilty, stupid, embarrassing sex fantasy about him before all of this, but it’s happening a lot more often now, and it involves way more stuff like Jon wearing a collar and nothing else, giving Martin’s cock adorable little kitten licks while Martin runs his hand through his hair approvingly. 

He feels his face go hot. Goddamnit, can’t he keep his mind away from those tracks for five minutes? At least while he’s talking to Jon? Please? If he gets a boner right now then he’s going to die. 

“... Sure,” Jon says after a very long, nerve wracking beat of silence. He sounds deeply reluctant, grudging. Martin has no idea what that’s supposed to mean. Jon had not exactly seemed enthusiastic to talk about it earlier, and now he doesn’t seem happy to just forget it entirely either. 

Martin doesn’t know how to make Jon happy. What else is new? 

… It had been so easy to make him happy when he’d been collared. All he’d wanted was scritches, attention and affection, and it had made him so blissfully happy that his eyes rolled back in his head when Martin gave it to him. 

--Fuck, he’s still doing it. He should leave while he’s still ahead. 

“Great,” Martin says, and, “glad we had this talk!” 

He’s not certain he is glad that they had this talk. It felt weird. It hadn’t gone the way he thought it would. But it had to be done, and now it’s done, so. He leaves. 

There’s an uncomfortable ache in Jon’s chest, like he’s got a large, deep bruise there. He catches himself rubbing at the back of his neck three times while he works, like it’s too bare, too exposed, and yanks his hand away angry and embarrassed and scalded each time. 

He hates how… hurt he feels by Martin apologizing. By his offer to forget what happened. It’s irrational. He should want this. He should be relieved. 

But he’s hurt instead. Stupid. 

He tries to focus on his work. He blinks eyes that feel hot and gritty with sleep deprivation, the lids heavy like gravity is focusing on them, trying to push them closed and make them stay that way. It’s a feeling that he’s used to fighting off. His head faintly pounds with a growing headache. Hunger claws distantly at his stomach, and he could stop and try to find something to eat, but he doesn’t want to stop. He’s barely making progress as it is. It’ll get worse if he takes a break. He needs to make more progress, he let himself get far too distracted with the whole-- artefact thing. He needs to catch up. 

His chest won’t stop aching with absurd hurt. 

He had felt so safe and content, when he’d been a cat. There had been no stress, no worry, no looming pressure of a responsibility so heavy that he can’t possibly carry it, that it's only a matter of time before he drops it and it crashes onto the ground, creating a mess that everyone will see, that everyone will know that he made. He had simply… wanted things, and then immediately asked for or taken what he wanted. He had seen Martin, and the urge to sit on him, to be near him, had casually drifted into his head. He had sat down on him, without even questioning where the urge came from, why he would want such a thing, where it came from, if it was proper. He had wanted for Martin to make him feel good and loved and pleased, and so he’d meowed insistently and impatiently pushed his head into his hands, as if it were a given that Martin should give him what he wants, should pamper and adore him. 

And he had. Pampered him, that is. Jon had been given everything that he wanted. 

--It’s not like Martin had wanted to do that, though. He’d just been doing what he had to do to get the collar off of Jon. It had been entirely practical. 

Jon takes off his glasses and presses the heels of his hands into his closed eyes until he sees spots in the darkness. He’s being weird about this. Ridiculous. He’s acting maudlin when he’s alone, and high strung when he’s in Martin’s presence. It’s almost like he misses thinking that he was nothing more than a cat, which is utterly preposterous. Why would he do such a thing? 

It’s just-- he just-- he has the comparison now. He’s been throwing himself at this new position for weeks now, working late until he falls asleep at his desk so often that he went and bought a cot to hide away in document storage, skipping lunch and forgetting breakfast, glaring down at old pencil written statements and haphazard notes until his vision blurs and his temples ache, stress always steadily gnawing away at him like a rat on drywall. He’s been so tired for so long that it’s faded away into the background. The stress has become a simple fact of life, something to take for granted, something to try and ignore so he can focus on getting work done. 

And then he’d put that blasted collar on, and for a few wonderful moments all of that stress and exhaustion had simply dropped away. He hadn’t even remembered it to be relieved at its absence. It hadn’t touched him. Why would it? A cat doesn’t have responsibilities or duties or obligations. No one expects anything from a cat. All it needs to do is exist, and it's adored for it. A cat is for sitting in laps and receiving love and affection, and that is all. 

Jon had become used to the stress. He’d reached a balance, even if it was a miserable balance that slowly grated and grinded away at him. And now that’s gone, because he’s been reminded of what it’s like to not feel that way. For a few moments, he’d had utter contentment. And he can’t stop remembering it and missing it and wanting it, more than anything else in the world. 

The fact that all of it has become associated with Martin Blackwood and his surprisingly warm, kind hands in his mind is really just the cherry on top. 

… So, that’s all. It’s not that Jon enjoyed being a cat, certainly not. He just… 

“Damn it,” Jon swears to himself quietly. “Damn it to hell.” 

Jon comes to the bitter conclusion that he had in fact enjoyed being a cat, and he actually does miss it. He spends a few days mostly just sulking about this fact. And then he starts doing research. 

The internet is a vast, dangerous, disgusting cesspit, and he’s never been particularly technologically adept either. His initial forays are tentative and cautious. 

He knows that some people wear chokers, for fashion. He’s been to uni and he does live in London, thank you. He’s not blind. People sometimes acts like its a crime that he even knows about the existence of certain things, like drugs or memes or whatever, as if he’s a senile grandfather that doesn’t know how to turn on a computer or watch television. 

He searches for pictures of chokers, looks at them. All of the pictures have women wearing them. They’re sometimes made of cloth, sometimes made of interlocking chains of metal, almost looking like a necklace more than anything else. And some of them are made of leather. Some of them are almost indistinguishable from collars, sized properly for a human's throat. If people wear things like that casually, just as a fashion statement, then-- then it can’t be that bad that Jon wants one, right? Even if it’s not quite what he-- 

And then he almost accidentally finds a website that just openly sells ‘human adult sized collars, to show your favorite pet that they belong to you!’ 

Jon slams his laptop closed immediately after he reads that, and doesn’t try to do any more research on the topic for the next three days. 

And then he looks at every single collar they own. He’s not prepared for just how many there are, and how different they all are. There are collars in every single color of the rainbow, including ones that are just rainbow patterned. There are ones in soft pastel colors and bright, clashing neon, there are ones with leopard print and ones covered in plastic jewels and sharp spikes and silver and golden bells. There are cow themed ones, with fuzzy black and white cow print and big bells on them. It somehow hadn’t occurred to him that people would want to pretend to be animals besides cats or dogs. Well, it hadn’t really occurred to him that people would want to be cats or dogs either, until very recently. He… hasn’t explored kink, very much. 

And then there are the words. Words, printed on the tags and along the outside of the collar, or even embroidered on the inside, like a secret pressed close and snug against skin. Every single one of these words is something that people wanted to wear around their necks. It’s a long, long list. He sees collars with words like brat, whore, slut, bad toy, master’s good boy, yes sir, mine, bitch, sub, wench, mommy’s favorite, daddy’s princess, sissy, beast, puppy, kitten, baby girl, owned, queen, carrot cake, missy cow, good girl, adorable, kiss me, bunny, fluffy, cutie, adorable, sunshine, angel, pumpkin, baby doll, wife, mistress’s property, belongs to INSERT NAME HERE, and mittens. There’s even one that just states the… collar-wearer’s pronouns. 

It’s a little bit overwhelming. He tries to think of what he would want to wear around his neck, if any of these feel right to him. Some of them make a little longing pang go off in his chest, others he doesn’t understand the appeal of at all. In the end though… well, it should have his name on it, shouldn’t it? It’s a collar. It’s the only thing that makes sense to him. 

It’s a site for custom designed collars, each one of them unique to every customer. He mulls for a long, long time over what he’d like for it to look like, if he were to get it. That’s all he’s doing. He’s just considering it, just as a thought exercise. He’s not really going to buy a collar. He’s just curious. 

The collar from Artefact storage-- it had been pastel pink and silver, with a small bell attached to it. It would be strange of him to recreate that collar. Disturbing and weird and just-- he’s not going to. He won’t use those colors. He dithers over what colors he will use for an unreasonable amount of time, until he eventually just goes with a fine black leather, with plain steel for the metal. 

… It looks too forbidding like that. Too firm, too tough. Which is what he’s usually going for, but this isn’t work attire, it’s a collar for a cat. Biting his lip, he quickly changes the color to a soft purple with golden metal, JON printed on a round little circle dangling from the collar. He measures the size and width of his neck, puts in the numbers into the site. Enters his credit card information. Receives a confirmation email that it will arrive at his address within a few weeks in a discreet box. 

It takes him a while to remember that it was just supposed to be a hypothetical. 

Jon is acting… jittery. That’s the best way to describe it, Martin thinks. If he thought that Jon was acting weird and jumpy before, god. He’d thought that his promise, his apology, it would help make things better. Did it somehow just make it worse instead? How? Why? 

He’s acting weird in a different way from before. Sometimes he’ll act normal around Martin. Except, no, not exactly. Jon’s normal when he’s around Martin is ‘snippy and impatient.’ He should be sighing whenever Martin asks a stupid question, and unsubtly rolling his eyes whenever Martin says that no, he doesn’t have that ready for him yet, he’s going to need a bit more time. Now, that bite is just… missing. He’s not nice or friendly, exactly, but he’s not constantly radiating his dislike for Martin every time they talk. Which, compared to how he used to be, is practically nice and friendly for Jon. 

He’ll act like that around Martin sometimes. For a few brief moments here and there, like he’s forgetting himself. And then he’ll visibly tense or start as he seems to remember that he’s talking to Martin, and he’ll go sharp and hostile for no apparent reason. It’s different from the way he used to be sharp and hostile, though. It’s bigger, more-- more… more forced and theatrical. Like he’s caught himself accidentally being decent to Martin, and he’s overcompensating to make up for it. 

It’s so weird. Martin doesn’t even know how to feel about it. Exasperated, he guesses. It’s not quite as hurtful and tiring and frustrating as Jon being mean to him just because he genuinely dislikes him, but it’s a lot dumber. It’s like Jon’s gotten to a point where he thinks that he shouldn’t get along with Martin because he already hasn’t been getting along with him. 

“Tried to convince him to take a week off,” Tim says apologetically one day after Martin gets back from his lunch break. “No dice.” 

Martin doesn’t know why Tim’s saying this to him, like he’s failed to fulfill some sort of favor for him. He doesn’t remember asking him to do something like that, or even Tim saying that he was going to. 

“Well, yeah,” he says, settling down at his own desk. “He’s not even taking most weekends off, I don’t see how you could convince him to take a whole week off.” 

“I think you’d have to break both of his legs to manage that, and even then…” Sasha chimes in. 

“Plenty of people take a few days off after a run in with an artefact! There’s literally a standard form for it,” Tim complains. 

“This is the guy who called to ask us to fetch him some work to do when he had to stay home with the flu last year,” Sasha says. 

“Wow,” Martin says. “He stayed home?” 

“After Marlene ordered him to, sure.” 

“He just-- he’s being such a-- arrgh,” Tim says, and pantomimes strangling a throat in the air, an exaggerated snarl on his face. 

Martin blinks, surprised, while Sasha just laughs. It’s true, Jon is being a real arrgh, but Tim and Sasha don’t really tend to have to deal with Jon’s ‘argghness’ too much. That’s sort of Martin’s unofficial, unwanted and unasked for duty. 

“Has he been… bothering you?” Martin asks, searching for the most diplomatic way to phrase himself. Snapping at you over nothing is a bit too blunt, probably. 

“It’s not that small of a basement,” Tim says. “Okay, well, it is cavernous, but we’re all more or less camped out in the same corner of it. Point is, we can hear it when he lectures you like the meanest nun in the convent.” 

“He’s been going overboard lately,” Sasha agrees. “I know that he’s embarrassed, but that sort of thing is just going to happen sometimes if you work in a building that’s chock full of supernatural artefacts. He needs to get over it.” 

“Oh,” Martin says, his voice tilting upwards an octave in genuine surprise. He… the idea that Tim and Sasha are mad at Jon for him is-- he hadn’t considered it, before. He kind of figured that they thought of it in a ‘better him than us’ sort of way. They haven’t really said anything about it before now, after all. Although, he supposes Jon has been getting a bit more extreme lately. Or at least, he’s been getting louder. Much harder to ignore. He doesn’t know how to feel about this. 

Very, very self conscious, he supposes. 

“He’s really not been that bad,” he says, the ridiculous urge to defend Jon rising up from him like bile for seemingly no reason, even though Tim and Sasha are just pointing out a fact, and it’s kind of nice that they’re acknowledging that it’s a thing, and that they don’t like it. 

“Are you kidding me!” Tim says. “It’s like he was at an eight before, and then someone twisted the knob up to eleven.” 

“You don’t need to defend him,” Sasha points out. “He is being an ass.” 

“I-- yeah-- well, not that much of an ass. No, really! It’s actually not that bad? I-- I mean, it is annoying, but it’s also just so obviously because he’s just… trying to save face or something, you know? It’s almost not even personal.” A part of him can’t help but feel sorry for Jon, really. He looks so uncomfortable sometimes. Unhappy. 

For the hundredth time, the vivid memory of Jon sprawled out looking very, very comfortable and happy in his lap flashes through his mind, like his brain is trying to push him towards a solution that is just so obvious and so perfect, and he’s being such a dummy for not using it. 

Martin’s brain is an asshole, and doesn’t know what the hell it's talking about. 

“There are better ways to save face,” Tim insists. “Like taking a week off and then acting like it never happened when he gets back, for example.” 

“Maybe you can convince him if you promise to bring him a steady supply of work, during,” Sasha suggests. “Or seduce him with your wiles. Either or.” 

“At this point, I’m willing to try anything,” Tim says, but he grins a bit as he says it. 

Martin gives a nervous little laugh at that, adjusting to the idea that Tim and Sasha are actually bothered by this whole thing like dipping his toe into a lake of cold water. It’s weird and unexpected, and not as easy or familiar as them just not caring or paying attention at all, but-- nice. It’s kind of nice, actually. That they care about him, at least a bit, in some way. Annoyed at Jon on his behalf. 

Not that he wants for them to be mad at Jon. What would be best if Jon stopped doing annoying, infuriating, stressful stuff in the first place. That would be great. 

And while he’s at it, he could win the lottery, his mum could answer the phone when he calls, and Jon might want to cuddle up to him again sometime soon, this time willingly. 

God, he’s ridiculous. He shouldn’t want that so much. No matter how pretty Jon is, no matter how viscerally satisfying it had been to see him melt underneath his hands. Jon doesn’t even like him, much less want something like that. 

“You could try blackmailing him,” Martin suggests, trying to distract himself. 

“Martin!” Tim cries, delighted. “I am scandalized!” 

“Oh, if committing crimes is on the table then we suddenly have a lot more options,” Sasha says playfully, and then they spend far longer than their lunch break arguing over more and more ridiculous ways to get Jon to take some time off work to get his head on straight. 

It’s the first time that Martin’s had fun at work in a while. It’s really, really nice. 

Jon tries his best to act normal at work, around the others. He thinks that he’s managing well enough. No one’s asked him any questions, at any rate, although Tim won’t stop badgering him about taking a vacation of all things, as if he has the time for something like that. There is a mountain of work ahead of him, and if he goes around taking breaks every time he feels a little bit tired, he’s never going to get to the end of it. That, and he’s fairly certain that if he didn’t have his job to currently distract him then he’d lose his mind with restless impatience. 

In completely unrelated news, according to package tracking, his-- the collar is somewhere in London right now. Not in his mailbox, mind you. Just in the city itself. 

Why the hell hadn’t he sprung for express shipping. He cannot believe himself. 

He wonders if he can trace down the package’s exact position if he can’t just… meet it halfway. If he has his ID on him to prove his identity as the owner, it should be fine, shouldn’t it? And if not then, well, he could just grab it, couldn’t he? 

There’s a vague notion in the back of his head that he perhaps shouldn’t do this, that it could get him in a ridiculous amount of trouble when he could just wait a day or two more instead. He’s waited weeks already, a little bit longer shouldn’t break him. 

But it’s so close. 

The notion that this is all just out of some sense of morbid, academic curiosity has, at some point in the last two weeks, quietly eroded and collapsed entirely underneath the weight of Jon’s restless eagerness. He is curious, but there’s nothing objective or disgusted about it. He burns to know if he could possibly recapture that feeling of peace and contentment, and if wearing a collar might be any at all help in doing so. He wants to know. 

He doesn’t want for anyone else to know, though. That is entirely out of the question. Certain things are simply meant to be private. Childhood traumas, embarrassing memories, vulnerable moments-- and new, strange… fetishes? He doesn’t want to get fucked while he meows or anything like that, so he’s not even sure if this applies, if it counts. He just knows that he can’t stop thinking about it. 

This is why it’s very, very important that he not act too… soft towards Martin. It would be awfully suspicious if he just suddenly warmed up to him out of nowhere, right after the whole-- collar incident. And that is the problem, he has warmed up to him. It’s not as if Martin has somehow miraculously stopped making mistakes at work, just-- it doesn’t grate at Jon as much, now. It’s hard to get mad at him, when the first thing he thinks of whenever he sees him is how nice and lovely his hands are. 

God, what a stupid thing to like someone for. What a weird thing to like someone for. He’s not being objective or rational. He’s not being reasonable. He can’t be so obvious. He can’t let himself be overly nice to Martin. If he does, the man might realize that Jon has the terrible, persistent desire to be petted by him. 

He really has to work on detangling that whole strangely euphoric experience of being reduced and simplified until he was nothing more than an uncomplicated, happy cat from Martin as a person. 

Jon does, in the end, try to track down the package’s exact location. He does, in the end, not manage this. Perhaps Sasha could, but if he asks her for help then she will certainly go out of her way to find out what the package contains in the first place, and then-- no. That’s unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable. 

Spurned and left with no other options, Jon is forced to responsibly wait out the remaining days and hours left until the package arrives, like a mature adult. It’s awful. He tries his best to distract himself with work, to lose himself in it until the hours all smear into each other in one long blur that’s never long enough for how much work he needs to do, but. For once, it’s very, very hard to get to that point. 

“Are you okay, Jon?” Martin asks concernedly once, when he drops off a mug of tea in Jon’s office. “You look a bit, um… tired.” 

“Hm? I’m alright,” Jon says distractedly, absentmindedly accepting the tea. He is tired, but no more than he ever is, so it technically doesn’t count. 

“It’s just-- uh, is that important?” 

“What?” Jon asks, his attention drifting away from the papers on his desk like he’s rising to the surface of a lake after having lingered at the bottom for a long, long time. Martin’s question is confusing enough that Jon can’t answer it while barely paying attention. 

Martin points at Jon’s hands, which is when he realizes that he’s been slowly and methodically ripping a piece of paper to shreds for the last few minutes. He stares in surprise and confusion at his own hands for a long moment, before he scrambles to get a good look at the shreds. 

“--It’s just a page of my own notes,” he realizes with a profound relief. It’s very good that he hadn’t been actually fidgeting something important into confetti pieces. 

“Oh, good,” Martin says, sounding sincere about it. “You-- you didn’t notice that you were doing it?” 

Jon opens his mouth to answer, and then remembers that he’s not supposed to let Martin know that he’s developed some sort of strange fixation with his hands, his lap, and he’s being far too chummy with him right now. 

“Of course I did,” he says as sharply as he can manage, bristling to try and cover up the temporary weakness. “I’m sorry, did you want something, Martin?” 

Martin doesn’t flinch or wince at his tone. He just looks at Jon for a long moment in a way that makes him want to fidget and look away, but he forces himself to level a steady glare at him instead. 

“... No,” Martin finally says. “Sorry for bothering you.” 

And he leaves. Jon breathes a sigh of relief after the door clicks shut. 

Martin hadn’t noticed anything. Definitely. 

For all that he’s been impatiently waiting for the package to arrive, the moment that he finally has it in his hands he… doesn’t truly know how to proceed. 

The dyed purple leather of the collar is a bit stiff in his hands, but he knows that it will soften and go supple with time and use. The golden name tag is new and shiny, catching the light. It makes his mouth go dry just to hold it. He sits at his couch, the packaging torn to shreds on his coffee table. He’s just come home from work-- it’s the first time in a long while that he’s left the Institute for the day before the sky started to darken. He was too eager for this, unable to focus on anything else, distracted. And now he doesn’t know what to do. 

Well. It’s a collar. He should put it on, shouldn’t he? 

Moving slowly he removes his sweater vest, and then unbuttons the top three buttons of his shirt. He’d unbuttoned his shirt some to better reveal his throat and give that cursed collar access back then too, but he can’t even remember the movements from how absentminded they had been. He’d never made the conscious decision to do any of it. This is different. It’s all terribly, nerve wrackingly deliberate. He almost wishes that someone else could do this part for him. That another person’s hands--broad, gentle hands--would collar him. 

No. He’s being ridiculous. That’s not necessary. He can do this himself. 

He puts the collar on. It’s difficult, cinching it closed at the back of his neck blindly by touch alone, the movements unfamiliar to him. The metal of the name tag resting against his clavicle is cold, attention grabbing. But it will warm up with time. Finally, he tentatively moves his hands away. The collar doesn’t slip off, but holds firmly. He swallows once, experimentally. He can feel the collar as he does so, so incredibly aware of the snug pressure of it, but he doesn’t choke. It’s not too tight. 

His mind doesn’t fuzz at the edges or quietly drop away into something smaller and simpler, the way it had with the cursed collar. Of course not. This is just-- it’s just leather and metal. It won’t do anything to his mind. It won’t change him. 

Disappointment spreads across his tongue like he’s bitten into something rotten, and he’s almost surprised by it. Disappointment? What, had he really thought that he could just-- just turn his brain off by putting something around his throat? No, that’s silly. He’s being silly. 

He touches the collar, fiddles with the name tag. What had he thought would happen? What had he been hoping for? 

Well… he’d been hoping for a repeat from earlier, clearly. To be able to make all of the stress and tension go away, just for a moment. But that hadn’t been because of a collar, it had been because of a cursed collar. An artefact. And those are not toys to play with. He can’t wear it again. 

Maybe this is all a failed experiment. Maybe he’s been foolish, has wasted time and money and focus on a pipedream. It’s a good thing that no one found out about this, that no one else is here to see him put on a collar like he thinks he’s a cat. He’s embarrassed himself in front of no one but his own self. 

… But he’s done research. Research that he’d had to take frequent breaks from, his face hot and his heart hammering, but research nonetheless. ‘Kittyspace’ some had called it, ‘subspace’ more often. That they could get themselves into an almost mindless state of being, with the right circumstances. They’d play along, and eventually they’d stop thinking and worrying so much, and just be. Utterly present in the here and now, instead of fretting about the past and future. It almost sounded like a sort of meditation to him. 

Jon was never able to make meditation work for him. Too much sitting still and not doing anything. 

He really, really wants this, though. Typical, that there had been no simple how-to, no easy trick for getting there. Just… play along. Lean into it. What does that even mean? 

He leans back on the couch, takes a deep breath. He feels the collar as he inhales, as he stretches his neck. 

“M-- meow,” he makes himself say. He immediately feels his face go hot and scrunch up with embarrassment, his hands gripping his knees tightly. An adult, a grown man, wearing a collar and meowing to himself in his empty flat-- how much more ridiculous could he be acting? 

He imagines taking the collar off, of washing his hands of this whole ordeal. 

He doesn’t want to. 

“Meow,” he makes himself say again, not stammering this time, even as his face continues to burn. It sounds too deep. He’s saying it like it’s a word, that’s the problem. He’s supposed to be a cat, so he should meow it. It’s a noise, not a word. 

“Meow,” he tries again, lighter, softer. It’s a better impression. 

He’s slightly uncomfortable where he’s sitting, and he tries to follow that impulse without ignoring it or trying to analyze it. A cat wouldn’t do either of those things. If a cat is uncomfortable, it simply moves. He shifts, and ends up curling up on the couch. Focus on the present. Stay here in this moment, and nowhere else. Be a simple creature. 

He meows to himself again, and rubs his face against the couch because it’s soft, because he likes the pressure. He closes his eyes and tries to sink into this feeling. He’s so tired. It’d be nice to take a nap right where he is. 

It’s cold though. Would be better with a blanket. Would be better curled up against someone else. He opens his eyes, looks around. There’s no one else here. 

He gets up from the couch and paces through each room. There’s no one else in any of them. He meows, and no one comes. The flat is completely empty, and he’s all alone. There’s no one to cuddle or pet him, to be warm and soft and gentle, to take care of him and love him. Not even another cat. 

The thought strikes him sharply, vividly, as if it isn’t a simple background matter of fact thing about his life, something that he’s used to. Something that makes perfect sense, given who he is, what he’s like. Of course no one else is here. Why does that suddenly feel important? 

He just… stands there for a moment, and feels irrationaly and profoundly abandoned.  

There’s something lodged in the back of his throat, and he clears his throat, trying to get rid of it, and he remembers that he’s wearing a collar. A collar that he bought for himself, in secret, because no one would ever buy a collar for him, would lay a claim to him like that, like he’s a precious, beloved pet. The language on the site, it had talked like of course he was buying it for someone else. He abruptly feels absolutely pathetic for doing this. Not that he hadn’t been embarrassed and furtive before but-- but now he feels worse. 

He wishes that he hadn’t done this. He reaches up to take the collar off, and it takes minutes with how his hands are shaking. Why are his hands shaking? Why does he feel so upset? Nothing even happened. Everything just-- it’s like he let his walls down for a moment, made himself be soft and vulnerable and open, and now everything that he shrugs off on a daily basis is suddenly hitting him hard and brutal. He sees his empty flat every single day, and now it suddenly makes him want to cry. This was a bad idea. What a singularly bad idea. 

He gets the collar off and lets it drop to the floor. He doesn’t pick it back up. 

It takes Jon hours to stop feeling fragile and scattered and so damned upset. By the time he feels settled again, he’s fuming at himself. What the hell had that been? Where had it come from? 

He’d just put a collar on and meowed to himself. Embarrassing, yes. Stupid, yes. Upsetting? It shouldn’t be. And yet he is very, very upset. He can’t remember the last time he felt that deeply wounded. 

It shouldn’t have been that way. Either nothing should’ve happened at all, or he should’ve approached something like that perfect bliss he had the last time he’d been collared. That was where he’d thought it was going. Because he had managed to capture a frame of mind for a moment there that was similar to the way he had been the first time, he can recognize that now. It wasn’t perfect or complete, of course. It had been a sort of careful balancing act, trying to keep himself relaxed and in the moment, to not think. He hadn’t ever really lost himself. He’s not sure that that was really ‘subspace’, but it had worked. Until it abruptly hadn’t. 

He’d felt so fucking lonely. Like no one loved him in the world. Which is-- it’s true, technically. No, literally. It’s literally true. He knows that. He knows that. It’s fine. 

Last time, being a simple creature had allowed him to feel so blissfully content and happy. This time, it had suckerpunched him in the face with his own loneliness. What was the difference? Was it the artefact, or-- 

--or Martin. Because, because before he’d spotted Martin and crawled into his lap, well-- he hadn’t been purring. He hadn’t been melting, boneless and pleased. He’d just been… wandering around, wondering where everyone was. His memories of that point are a bit dim, with how large and vivid and distracting the memories of being in Martin’s lap was but-- but maybe that’s the point. 

It’s not being a simple cat that had made him happy. It had been being a beloved pet that had made him happy. Presumptuously settling himself down in Martin’s lap like it was his rightful place, and Martin just accepting that, not pushing or shoving him off. Demanding affection, and being given it. Martin had been kind to him, and that was what had made Jon feel safe and loved. 

It had been Martin who had made him feel so good. The artefact had only let him enjoy it. 

“Well,” Jon says to himself, scowling up at his bedroom ceiling in consternation, “that’s not good at all.” 

Quietly ordering a collar online without having to talk to a single other person about it is one thing. Involving a whole other person-- a person that can look down on him, be disgusted by him, mock him, reject him-- Jon has been mocked and looked down on before, and it will doubtlessly happen again. He works for the Magnus Institute for heaven's sake. They’re not exactly a respected institution. He doesn’t even get on with most of his coworkers either, for that matter. He’s used to it. He knows how to snap back. 

But he’d felt so shockingly vulnerable back then, when he’d-- right after, during-- he just has a bad feeling that if anyone were to push him away in that moment, he wouldn’t be able to repress the hurt. 

He hunted down any and all records they had on the collar, after it happened. The one from Artefact Storage. It had originally ended up in the hands of a woman who bought it in a small boutique that she wasn’t able to find again later, because she thought that it would go well with her halloween costume. ‘Slutty cat but, like, with actual effort put into it’, according to her. 

She’d put it on as soon as she came home, despite not planning to. Her boyfriend had come home eventually. He’d initially thought that she was playing some strange prank, and after a while decided to lock her in her bedroom. Hours after that, when she still wasn’t letting up, he called the hospital, for lack of a better idea of what to do. The hospital staff eventually took the collar off her, not as an attempted solution, but just because they were putting her in scrubs. From there, the collar eventually ended up in the hands of the Institute. 

Her boyfriend hadn’t hit her or attacked her. But he had, apparently, shouted various things at her. Called her a freak, insane, creepy. That she wasn’t being funny, that he’d break up with her if she didn’t stop. He’d gotten very angry, very frustrated. It had probably just been masking fear and confusion, but it had frightened her at the time. She hadn’t understood why he was being so loud, so hostile. 

That had been her boyfriend. Someone who was supposed to love her and take care of her. Martin hadn’t acted like that. Jon would’ve understood if he had, but he… hadn’t. He’d been incredibly confused at the start, but he’d never raised his voice at him. He’d never gotten aggressive. He had been soft, and kind, and gentle. He’d taken care of Jon. Made him feel safe and loved. Jon knows that not everyone would’ve reacted that way. He has it on paper. He’s not sure if he would’ve reacted that way. 

Jon can’t shake the damned idea of wanting to get back to some form of that earlier state. Jon needs a second person to do this. Jon does not want to trust a stranger to do this. He’s done research. He knows that there are-- forums for stuff like this. Chatrooms and sites, places where he could try roleplaying it online, maybe arrange meetings in real life. He doesn’t want to. He wants someone that he knows will be kind to him. He wants Martin. 

This is, of course, terrible. It’s terrible in a lot of ways. He’s made a list. 

1. Jon is Martin’s boss. To ask him for a… vaguely sexual favour would be awfully inappropriate. 
2. Jon doesn’t like Martin. He knows that he doesn’t like Martin. You’re not supposed to do these sorts of things with people that you don’t like, that you aren’t even close to. 
3. Martin doesn’t like Jon. How possibly could he? Jon isn’t a likable person in general, and he’s aware that he’s been-- short, with Martin. That bridge is thoroughly burned, he is certain of it. 

No, no. He can’t ask Martin for something like this, that would be utterly ridiculous. He’s already humiliated himself in front of the man once, and at least then he had the excuse of the artefact. If he does it now, if he asks for it, with all of his faculties in his possession-- that’s going to be all him. How do you even ask for something like this? No, he can’t. It’s not possible. It’s just not. 

He wants to do this, but it will only work with a second person, and the only person he apparently wants to see him like that is Martin, and that’s not possible, so. So, he can’t have what he wants. He’s going to have to give up, let the idea go. It’s fine. That’s just being an adult. He’s had to do it before. Everyone does. 

Jon just has to make himself stop wanting this. He can do that. Of course he can. 

He can’t even bring himself to throw out the collar. 

“Jon,” Martin says. He’d knocked, and he’d called out before he came in, and now he’s trying to decide what to do because it turns out that Jon’s asleep. He’s slumped over his desk, his head resting on his crossed arms, his desk lamp still turned on, his glasses angled awkwardly on his nose like he’d thought that he’d just be putting his head down for a moment, nothing more. 

Usually, when Martin finds him like this, he leaves him be. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then it does. It’s terrible for his back to be sleeping like this, but he just gets so flustered once he realizes that he’s been caught sleeping at work, and by Martin of all people. And when Martin accidentally manages to fluster Jon, Jon gets snippy. It’s easier just to leave him be. He’ll wake up eventually. He probably needs the sleep anyways. 

But it’s at the very end of the work day, and Martin’s the last one in the Archives. He’s genuinely worried that if he leaves now, Jon might end up sleeping here through the night. 

“Jon,” he says again, and he doesn’t so much as stir. God, he’s really out, isn’t he? Making up his mind, he reaches out and gently shakes Jon’s shoulder. 

“Mmph?” Jon just barely moves his head a bit, squints one eye open. He looks like if Martin turned off the desk lamp and told him it was alright, he’d go right back to sleep without any fuss. The thought makes something strange happen inside of Martin’s chest. He tries to ignore it. 

“You fell asleep at your desk,” he says, and he can’t stop his voice from going soft and gentle, even though he’s trying to wake Jon up. “Maybe it’s time to go home, yeah?” 

“What… what time is it?” Jon asks groggily. 

“After five,” Martin says. It’s definitely concerning that Jon’s conking out that firmly at this hour, but when isn’t Jon concerning? “Which is after official work hours, you know. You can leave right now, and no one would have a problem with it.” 

Jon gives a jaw cracking yawn. “I just need to first finish… what was I doing?” 

Jon starts blearily going through the papers on his desk, clearly trying to remember what is oh so clearly urgent that he needs to put off going home even longer. 

Martin frowns. “I think it can wait.” 

“It can’t,” says Jon, and he absent mindedly presses up into Martin’s hand for a moment, which is when Martin realizes that he’d never taken his hand away after shaking him awake, and has instead started rubbing at his shoulder a bit and-- 

Martin snatches his hand away. Jon looks at him with confusion and blinks rapidly, and Martin thinks that he can see properly awake awareness finally starting to appear on his face. 

He had looked better half awake, soft and loose and not knowing that he’s supposed to be tense and unhappy around Martin. 

“And what are you still doing here?” Jon asks, pulling his bristly defensiveness around himself like a protective cloak. “It’s after five-- I would have expected you to already be out the door.” 

He says that like Martin’s never worked a day of overtime in his life. He supposes that by Jon’s standards, maybe he hasn’t. 

Martin looks down at Jon, who’s scowling up at him, dark bags underneath his eyes, his shoulders tense. He’s just going to go right back to work once Martin leaves. He’s not going to sleep well tonight, not enough. He’s going to be just as tired and prickly the next day as he is now, and the day after that. Martin’s going to catch him sleeping at his desk again, and he’s going to be snapped at again because Jon apparently just can’t handle this situation. It’s a weird situation, and no one should be expected to just gracefully accept it and move on, but-- there’s no other choice, is there? Jon can’t just keep going on like this. 

All at once, Martin is just completely done with this whole situation. 

“I’m going to be taking a week off work,” Martin says. 

Jon blinks at the sudden swerve the conversation has taken, the scowl knocked off his face for simple surprise. 

“What?” Jon asks. 

“I’d leave for longer but I don’t really have enough vacation days for that,” he says. “I’ll work until the end of this week, and then I’m not going to be here for a week after that, okay? So-- so you have to get all of his out of your system by the time I come back. It can be like a reset.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“You’re not… getting back to normal. I already tried talking to you about it, and you didn’t want to. I tried giving you time to get over it, and that didn’t work either. And you’re refusing to take any time off, so I guess I’m going to do it, so you’ll get a break from me. I’m-- I’m not going to quit or anything, so that’s the best you’re going to get from me.” 

It’ll be a relief to get a break from all of this, he supposes. It’s been kind of stressful. But god, he never knows what to do with himself on vacation. He can go and visit his mum, he supposes, but she never likes that-- 

“You are not going to take a week off because I’m-- you’re being preposterous!” Jon sits up straight in his chair as he talks, swelling with indignation. Only Jon would use a word like ‘preposterous’ without sounding like he’s trying to make a joke. Martin’s a bit surprised that Jon isn’t accepting the offer without an argument. He would’ve thought that he would jump at the chance to get rid of pesky, irritating Martin for a while. 

“Well I’m not going to just stand around while you’re all-- strung tight like a violin string, jumping out of your skin every time I startle you. How much sleep are you even getting?” 

“That’s not-- that’s none of your business.” 

“It kind of is though! Because it’s sort of my fault, isn’t it? I can’t just ignore it.” 

“It’s not your fault!” 

“Well-- I’m the one you’re uncomfortable around,” Martin says, even as something inside of him is knocked wobbly and off center at hearing Jon say ‘not your fault.’ Those are some words he’d never expected to hear from him. He’s not used to hearing them from anyone, really. 

“That-- even if that may be the case,” Jon says, clearly unhappy at having concede even that much, “that’s my own problem. It’s on me to get over myself.” 

That’s the closest Martin’s gotten so far to getting Jon to admitting that something’s wrong in the first place. Finally. 

“But you’re not managing that,” Martin goes on. He’s got momentum now, and he refuses to let it slow down, to stop for even a moment. He feels like if he does, Jon will clam right back up, and he won’t be able to pry him back open again. 

“It’s not that easy!” Jon says, like he has to defend himself, like Martin’s condemning him for not figuring this whole thing out faster. He’s not, he just-- he wants to help. “I thought I could just make myself stop thinking about it but I-- it’s hard.” 

“Then let me help,” Martin pleads. “What’s wrong? How can I help?” 

Jon’s eyes are very wide, his chest visibly rising and falling. He opens his mouth to say something-- closes it. Repeats the process a couple more times. 

“Don’t take a week off,” Jon says tightly, grabs his jacket from the back of his chair, and basically flees the premises. 

Jon tells himself that he had not just come within an inch of telling Martin to treat him like a kitten. 

He is a god awful liar. 

Something has to change. Martin’s right about that, he isn’t acting normal. And he’s getting even less work done now than he’d used to before this whole thing, and he hadn’t been making enough progress for his peace of mind even back then. It’s just-- hard. To act natural around Martin, when that memory keeps floating up to the top of his mind every time they interact. He feels so incredibly self conscious of every single inch of his skin that he feels like he forgets how to do everything-- where does he normally put his hands? What is his resting expression? Where does he look, for how long? It’s a goddamned nightmare. 

He thought that he could just tell himself that it’s never going to happen again, nothing even remotely like it, so he might as well just stop thinking about it-- but there’s some idiotic, inane part of himself that keeps going what if, what if, what if. 

What if Martin actually wanted to? What if he said yes? What if Jon came up with the perfect persuasive argument to convince Martin to let Jon put on a collar and be treated like a cat, and not think that he’s a creep or a weirdo or a freak or a pervert or a joke or-- 

There is no possible way that Martin would ever agree to something like that. But it is technically possible, and that seems to be all it takes for his mind to spin ahead with possibilities and speculation and maybes.  

What Jon needs to do is to find a way to rule it completely out of possibility. To make it a daydream as ridiculous as flying. 

One night, at approximately two in the morning, bent over paperwork spread across his kitchen table because he’s been better able to concentrate on work in a building that doesn’t contain Martin in it lately even though it's more inefficient, after two cups of coffee even though he hates coffee, Jon gets an absolutely brilliant, stupendous, fantastic idea that will fix absolutely everything: 

He’s going to get rejected. 

Jon had told him not to take the next week off. Martin’s not so sure if he should listen to him or not. He thinks it over for a while and comes to a decision. If Jon starts acting a little bit less… tense, and miserable, and tired and prickly and all ‘Jon turned up to eleven’, then he won’t do it. But if it’s just more of the same then, well, someone has to do something. 

He decides to just rip the band aid off and figure out which one it is straight away, and knocks at Jon’s door and checks in first thing in the morning. Tim and Sasha haven’t gotten in yet, which is good-- he’d feel sort of self conscious, beelining straight to Jon’s office with the two of them watching. Jon’s already in, of course. First one in, last one out, always. 

“Martin!” Jon says, and jumps straight to his feet as Martin opens the door. He stands there for a moment, his hands flailing slightly, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with them. He looks tired but-- not in the usual way that Martin’s gotten used to lately. He looks like he hasn’t slept properly in days, but has decided to try and even out the imbalance with lots and lots of caffeine. The bags under his eyes are dark, but his eyes are wide open. 

“Jon,” Martin replies automatically. “Are you… doing better?” 

“Yes,” Jon says firmly. Martin somehow doesn’t quite believe him. 

“That’s good,” he says anyways. “Do you um… want some tea?” 

It’ll be the one without caffeine in it, he decides wordlessly. 

“No,” Jon says, and then immediately, “yes. It doesn’t matter. I have something to say-- wait, no, it shouldn’t be while we’re at work. I have something to ask you after work, and you can say whatever you want in response, and it won’t affect our dynamic at work in the slightest, and we never have to think or speak about it again, but-- yes, I have something to ask you after work. How long is it until the work day is over?” 

“Um,” Martin says, caught flat flooded by the brief flood of words. “I-- I just came in? So eight hours.” 

“Oh, good lord,” Jon says, deflating like a kid told that he can’t have desert until after he eats his veggies. He sits back down in his chair, and waves at Martin in a limp shooing motion. “You can go. We’ll-- I’ll ask you after work. Yes.” 

“Are you sure that you can’t just ask me now?” Martin asks, because he’s honestly pretty curious now. 

“It would be inappropriate,” Jon says. “Power imbalance. You said you were making tea?” 

“... Right,” Martin says, and leaves to go and do just that. 

He… doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do in the face of this. Because Jon isn’t acting tense and miserable and tired and prickly, not exactly, but he’s not acting like his normal self either. Not at all. 

There’s nothing to do but wait and see what Jon has to ask him, he supposes. 

It’s going to be a long day. 

Jon sincerely wishes that he could’ve just asked Martin the second that he saw him-- or that he’d called him at two in the morning when he’d first had his brilliant idea. As it is, he loses count of how many times he decides that he’s not going to ask him, this was a terrible idea, what was he thinking-- and then he flips back around five minutes later after arguing with himself in circles. 

He does not get much work done that day. He tries, he really does, but it is not a particularly impressive effort. But that’s good. Looking down at the sum total of progress he’s made over the course of the day and finding it to be absolutely dismal firms his resolve, and flips him back over to the correct position just in time. He can’t let this state of affairs continue. Something must change, and he has just the thing. 

He waits until the clock ticks over to five exactly, grabs his coat and bag, and leaves his office. He feels a bit like someone’s going to scold him for leaving as soon as he possibly could, when he’s the boss, but no one does. Sasha’s seems to be too wrapped up in her work to notice, and he heard Tim leave about five minutes earlier. The only one who seems to take note is Martin, which is-- well, that is ideal. Jon tries his best to give him a subtle and yet meaningful look, leaves the Archives, and proceeds to linger suspiciously on the street just outside of the Institute. He jitters and fidgets as he does, restless and awkward and impatient and so terribly eager to just get this over with already. He wonders if Martin caught Jon’s meaning. Was he too subtle? Should he send him a text message to make sure? Does he have Martin’s number? He thinks so, but he’s never really used it before, so for all he knows he put it in wrong the first time and-- 

Martin comes out of the building before Jon has the chance to second guess everything, which is great, because he’s already done far too much of that today. 

“Jon?” Martin asks cautiously, approaching him. “You said you had something you wanted to ask me?” 

“If you really want to help,” Jon says, and he’s just now realizing that he should’ve been rehearsing this moment today, planning how he’d say it, but it’s too late now, “then there is something you could do. You can feel free to say no, do not feel pressured to go along with it because I’m your boss, I will not hold it against you if you do.” 

“Okay?” Martin says, sounding terribly apprehensive. Jon grants that it sounds a bit like he’s gearing up to ask him to assist in a murder. 

“I bought a collar,” he says all in a rush. 

Martin’s expression had been wary but attentive before. Curious, waiting. It goes blank with surprise and incomprehension at that. Jon hurries to continue, to get all of the words out before Martin decides that he’s done with the conversation. 

“A-- a cat collar. Not like the artefact collar, it doesn’t have any supernatural origins. It was commissioned, and the site was very open about its sources. I decided to buy it after-- after the first one made me think I was a cat and I climbed into your lap and you pet me, because it felt surprisingly good and I wanted to see if it would feel good again, except I think it’ll only work if you’re a part of it too, if you’ll be there and pet me and call me a good kitten-- you didn’t call me that the first time, but I think that I would enjoy it, maybe, perhaps-- what you call me isn’t the important part, really, I just wanted to ask you if-- if you would do that? During our free time, not at work again, that would be very unprofessional. Do you--” 

“Yes,” Martin says. 

“--think that-- what?” Jon makes himself cut off the rambling tide of words, pent up for so long now, and just looks at Martin, trying to understand what he just said. 

“I said yes,” Martin says, and he looks just as surprised as Jon by what he’s saying. “I’ll-- do that. Whatever you want. Yeah. I can pet you and call you-- sure. Yes.” 

“Oh,” Jon says, feeling abruptly light headed. This isn’t the way it was supposed to go, he thinks distantly. They’re off script. “Are you sure?” 

“Yes,” Martin says emphatically. After a moment he nods, as if agreeing with himself. “I will do that.” 

“Okay,” Jon says, still not quite understanding where things went wrong. “Now?” 

“Um,” Martin says, voice going high pitched. “Tomorrow maybe?” 

“Yes! Sure, certainly. Tomorrow will work just fine.” 

“Okay,” says Martin. “Tomorrow, then.” 

“Yes,” Jon says, and nods stupidly. After a protracted moment, he angles his body slightly away, takes a slow step backwards. “I’ll just… go then. And see you at work tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow is a Saturday.” 

Jon blinks for a moment, not understanding, before he remembers that most people do in fact not work on Saturdays. 

“Right,” he says. “I’ll-- I’ll call you tomorrow then, and give you my address.” 

“Sounds great!” says Martin. 

“........ Goodbye,” says Jon, and turns around and walks away as quickly as he can. It belatedly occurs to him that he’s walking in the direct opposite direction from his flat, but it’s too late for that now. He’ll just have to take a circuitous route home. 

The inside of his head is a racing, chaotic storm right now, but there are two dominant thoughts fighting for supremacy which are: what the hell just happened and well, it’s too late to back out now. 

Martin panics. 

He must be dreaming. Except no, this is all far too consistent and linear to be a dream. Maybe he tripped and hit his head and he’s in a coma now. Maybe this is what comas are like. Or he got sick and he’s having a delirious fever dream, fueled by his ridiculous sex fantasies. 

Jon waiting until the work day is over and carefully making sure that Martin knows that he can say no before asking him if he could come over to his flat the next day to treat him like a cat isn’t how his fantasies usually start. He’s had a lot of them lately. Most of the time, his brain just skips the ridiculous, contrived scenario that explains why Jon is back in his lap in the first place entirely, going straight to the good part. Mostly because he’s really bad at coming up with reasons that make even a little bit of sense. It’s not realistic. It’s not possible. 

Except it happened and he panicked and he said yes without even thinking about it because in what universe wouldn’t he say yes and what is happening?  

Lately, one of the first things he does when he comes home is jerk himself off. Might as well get it over with, he knows he won’t be able to wrap his head around anything else until he gets it out of the way. Today, he slides to the floor as soon as he’s got the door closed behind him, puts his head on his knees, his hands in his hair, and groans “Why? How? Why? How?” 

No one miraculously appears in his empty flat to give him an answer. Of course not. Why should things suddenly start making sense? 

He’d thought that Jon hated it. That’s what all of this has been about, right? All of Jon’s jumpiness, him acting so weird all of the time, especially around Martin. Because an artefact made him humiliate himself, and he hated that Martin had seen him like that. 

‘It was good and I liked it.’ That was what Jon had said, wasn’t it? He thinks so, more or less. He’d been saying a lot of words, it had been hard to keep up with all of them, especially after it sunk in what Jon was asking of him. It was as absurd as some millionaire walking up to him and begging him for permission to give Martin thousands of pounds-- except in this scenario, the millionaire also thought that Martin was incompetent and annoying. 

Maybe what Jon hated so much is that he’d liked it at all. That Martin of all people could make him feel good. 

His heartbeat slows down. Yeah, that makes more sense. He can-- he can understand that. 

His phone buzzes. Any kind of phone calls or texts are rare-- it's usually either an update from the care home, or a telemarketer. He checks it reflexively. 

It’s Jon. The first text in their message history. It’s what must be Jon’s address, along with a time. 

Does that work for you?  

Martin’s thumbs move to reply. 

Works great :) 

He stares down at the screen. Using a smiley face on a confirmation text for-- it’s too late, he already sent it. 

It’s too late in general, really. It was already over when he said yes. No, it was over the very moment that he caved in and pet Jon’s head. This is all just inevitable, deserved payback for that one decision. 

It is the weirdest payback Martin has ever experienced in his life. 

Martin has made a terrible, terrible mistake. It’s the next day, he’s five minutes early, and he’s dithering in front of Jon’s apartment door like a useless lug. He should leave, before the door opens. He’ll say that he overslept, or forgot, or changed his mind, or got lost on his way here. Except that he asked Jon to buzz him up only moments ago. His palms are so, so incredibly sweaty, the plastic handles of the shopping bag digging into the meat of his palm as he grips it tightly. 

God, the bag. He’d bought it because he’d felt weird about bringing nothing but himself, like a rude dinner guest that didn’t bring a bottle of wine as a present. Except you don’t bring wine to this sort of thing, he thinks, but what the hell do you bring? He’d panicked. He’s made a mistake. He should at least get rid of the bag, it’s not too late for that, just find a bin or a window or anything-- 

The door opens. It’s too late. 

“Martin,” Jon says. He’s holding himself very stiffly, very professionally, but he’s wild eyed. It clashes weirdly with the rest of him, making him look a bit manic. “You’re early.” 

“Sorry?” Martin asks. The way Jon had said it, it sounded like a bad thing. 

“It was just an observation,” he says. After a beat, he holds the door open wider. “Come inside.” 

Martin does. He can’t help himself from looking over Jon’s flat, trying to fit the image of it with the man he works with. 

It has second hand, mostly outdated furniture, like he’d just inherited it from an elderly relative and decided to keep it instead of getting himself something he liked. There aren’t any pictures on the walls-- Martin wonders if the landlord threatened to keep the deposit if any nails got put in the walls, or if Jon just decided not to do that. The place isn’t clean, exactly, but it doesn’t feel messy or cluttered. Or lived in, for that matter. Something about the flat makes it clear that it's simply a place that Jon occupies when he’s not at work. And he’s at work, for the most part. There are some books, some files and papers and tapes-- he’s been bringing work home. Of course he has. 

“Nice place,” Martin says more out of polite obligation than anything else. His own place is a cramped shoebox with an unreliable boiler and a fire escape he wouldn’t trust with his life, but he’s done his best to try and make it feel a bit homey despite all of that. When he has the energy for it, anyways. It doesn’t look like it’s even occurred to Jon to try and make his own home comfortable. 

Jon frowns at him, like he’s not sure if Martin’s being sarcastic or not. Then, exactly as Martin had been hoping that he wouldn’t, he focuses on the bag in Martin’s hand. 

“You brought something?” he asks. 

Martin fights the urge to hide the bag behind his back. “It’s-- it’s nothing special.” 

“You didn’t have to,” Jon says, his eyes warily fixed on the bag. 

“I sure didn’t!” Martin agrees, and laughs nervously. “It’s not really necessary at all actually, in any way. We can just ignore it if you want to, pretend like I didn’t bring it.” 

That, unfortunately, sets off a spark of curiosity in Jon’s eyes. 

“What is it?” he asks, but he’s already reaching for the bag as he asks. Martin just barely stops himself from holding the bag up over his head where Jon wouldn’t be able to reach it. Instead, he watches as Jon grabs it from him helplessly. 

“I-- I wanted to bring something,” Martin says, rushing to defend himself, to explain the thought process that had somehow led him here. “And I didn’t know what, and you said you’d gotten yourself a collar, s-- so--” 

Jon pulls it out. It’s a cat toy. One of the ones where you wave a stick and a toy on a string jumps around for a cat to chase. He’d walked past a pet store on his way over here, and somehow he’d thought that that was a good idea for long enough for him to pull out his wallet and buy it. Oh god, Jon’s going to be insulted, what was he thinking-- 

“Oh,” Jon says, his eyebrows jumping up. Martin cringes. “I-- I used to have one of these.” 

Martin blinks, caught off guard. “Really? I-- I thought you’d never done this before?” 

“It was for my cat,” Jon says. “I used to have an actual cat.” 

Martin feels his face go hot. Stupid. “Right. Of course.” 

Jon waves the stick a bit, watching the toy at the end sway with the motion. His mouth twitches with-- with amusement? Martin thinks? 

“He never played with it,” Jon says fondly. “He wasn’t impressed.” 

Against all odds, it looks like Martin maybe didn’t completely mess this up right away. Jon doesn’t seem to have taken offense, anyways. 

“I’m sorry if that was weird,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck, giving Jon a tentative smile. “I’ve never really… this is a first for me. We can just put that away. I’ll take it back with me when I leave.” 

Jon hesitates. He holds the stick closer to his chest, instead of handing it back to Martin. “Well,” he says slowly. “We don’t necessarily need to immediately rule it out either.” 

Martin’s brain immediately supplies an image of Martin waving the stick, Jon on his knees on the floor chasing after the toy-- his mouth goes dry all at once. 

“O-- okay?” he says, his voice lilting up sharply an octave until it almost sounds like a question. 

Jon looks away, holding himself in a very dignified way. Like he’s embarrassed and poorly trying to hide it. 

“I’ve never done this before either,” he says. “Not counting the time with the artefact, of course. S-- so, maybe, we might use it, during. If it feels right.” 

“Right,” Martin agrees, feeling a bit lightheaded. “Only if it feels right.” 

They stand there for one long, awkward moment, before Jon clears his throat. 

“I’m going to get the collar,” he says. 

“Sure thing,” Martin squeaks. Now. It’s happening now? He’d come here for that express purpose, of course, agreed to it beforehand-- but it’s happening? Now? A part of him wants to stall for longer, make pointless small talk-- insist on making them both a cuppa first. But the longer they both stall, the tighter the tension is going to be drawn, the both of them thinking about the same thing. So maybe it is best to just get started already. 

It feels a bit like old memories of the gym class all going to the public pool once a year to make sure that everyone could at least float and do more than the doggy paddle, and being dared to jump from the highest springboard by the other kids. It had been so high up, the water so very far down. He hadn’t wanted to make himself jump. It would’ve been simple, easy, a band aid torn off all in one short motion-- but absolutely terrifying.  

He’d ended up climbing back down without jumping. That hadn’t felt great. 

Leaving now, without even trying, probably wouldn’t feel great either. He wants to at least try. 

Jon comes back as Martin’s making himself breathe in and out in a steady pattern. His eyes immediately zero in on the collar. Somehow, he had been expecting for it to look like the artefact collar, which is ridiculous now that he thinks about it. It’s purple. It doesn’t have a bell. It’s a different collar. 

Jon is holding a collar, and soon he’s going to be wearing it. Despite all of his nerves, excitement tangibly thrums through his veins at that thought. 

“Let’s-- let’s do this on the couch?” Jon says. It’s the most uncertain that Martin’s ever heard him sound. Something in him melts a bit at that. 

“Sounds great,” he says, and he sounds a bit breathless himself. 

They go to the couch. It’s nicer than Martin’s, even if that’s not a high bar. Jon fiddles with the collar for a moment, and Martin wonders if he should look away while Jon does this, would that help? 

“Would you mind putting it on for me?” Jon asks. 

“Yes,” Martin immediately blurts out as soon as Jon’s words sink in. “I mean-- no! No, I wouldn’t mind. Yeah, I can-- I can put the collar on for you, of course.” 

Jon holds the collar out to him. Martin accepts it, his heart beating fast and hard. Their hands brush during the exchange, and it’s stupid how he notices it. 

There’s a golden name tag dangling from the collar, three letters neatly printed on it. It’s got Jon’s name on it. Somehow, it’s the single cutest thing that Martin has ever seen in his whole life. Jon turns his back to Martin, and lifts his head slightly, baring his neck. Martin swallows heavily, and then reaches out to loop the collar around Jon’s throat. His hands brush against Jon’s throat and neck as he does. It feels absurdly intimate to do. Like-- like one of those movie scenes where a husband helps his wife put on a necklace that he just bought for her. 

God, this whole thing is frying Martin’s brain. He’s actively getting dumber with each passing moment. Hopefully, he will eventually recover one day. 

He clears his throat. “Too tight?” 

“No,” Jon says, his voice low and quiet. “It’s not too tight.” 

“Okay. That-- that’s good.” 

He lets go. Jon turns back around to face him. 

“You look great,” Martin says, and flushes when he realizes that he’d said that part out loud. Sure, Jon’s invited him over to put a collar on him and-- and other cat stuff, potentially, but is he supposed to say stuff like that? Is he allowed? He has no idea. This whole situation is so, so weird. 

He does look great though. Precious is another word he might use, but would rather bite his tongue than let escape. Jon in a collar is an image that is somehow incongruous in the best possible way. He’s never going to get over it. 

Jon touches the collar at his neck, and ducks his head slightly. He somehow manages to look pleased without letting himself smile. Flustered. 

“Thank you?” he says. 

“You’re welcome,” Martin says automatically, like he’s doing Jon some sort of favor here. Belatedly, he remembers that he is, in fact, doing Jon a favor. Jon’s the one who asked for it. That’s weird. That’s really, really weird. And incredible, and still hard to wrap his mind around. 

They’re just sitting here looking at each other. Honestly, Martin would be happy to just look at Jon like this for a long time, but they should probably be doing something, right? Right. Definitely. Probably. 

“So… what now?” Martin asks. 

Unasked for, his mind immediately flashes back to the hundred fantasies he’s had that start off with Jon in a collar and end up with Jon innocently rubbing his entire face against Martin’s hard cock through his trousers. Fuck, god, no. Jon hasn’t said anything about stuff like that. He just wants a repeat of what happened the first time. Martin needs to keep his pants on-- and his dick flacid, please. Things already feel fraught enough as it is without Martin ruining it with another boner. 

It’s only just now occurring to him that he’s definitely going to end up ruining this with another boner. Jon is wearing a collar, for fuck’s sake. It’s inevitable. God, why did he agree to this? 

Because he’s a horny idiot is why. 

And he wants to help Jon. That too. 

“Th-- the last time I tried this,” Jon says, shifting uncomfortably on the couch, his gaze skittering away from Martin. He touches his collar again, self consciously. “I managed to… lull myself into a certain headspace. Something similar to what I experienced with the artefact. I-- I suppose that I’ll try and go back to that, and then you’ll just… treat me like a cat for a while.” 

The last time I tried this. Jon’s worn that collar before, alone. Something about that fact is electrifying. 

“Okay,” Martin says. “Is… is there anything I can do to help to-- to get you into that… headspace? How did you do it the last time?” 

Jon’s skin is too dark to visibly flush, but the way he grimaces makes Martin confident that his face is probably hot to the touch right now. 

“I just have to focus on it,” Jon says firmly. 

“Got it. Okay.” 

Silence reigns for a long moment. Martin fidgets uncomfortably, wishing he could try and fill the oppressive silence with words-- but Jon is focusing. Martin shouldn’t distract him. 

Jon, for his part, doesn’t fidget at all. He is in fact sitting very, very stiffly and quietly. His posture is perfect, his back ramrod straight, his hands clasped in his lap. He’s frowning at the wall. He doesn’t look comfortable at all. Nothing like the way he’d been when he’d had the artefact on. Occasionally, he’ll sneak glances out of the corner of his eye at Martin. Martin wonders if he should stop staring, should look away while Jon’s figuring this part out for himself. 

For the first time, he really sees the way Jon is dressed. It hadn’t registered to him before, because he was dressed just the same way he always is. But that’s weird isn’t it? He’s dressed exactly the same way he always does when he heads into work. Nice trousers, a button up shirt only just unbuttoned enough to not get in the collar’s way, a sweater vest. He’s even wearing loafers. At his home. 

“Do you always dress like that?” Martin asks before he can stop himself. 

“What?” Jon asks, startling out of his heavy browed worries. He looks down at himself, as if he’s accidentally put on something ridiculous this morning and didn’t notice it until now. “What’s wrong with it?” 

“Just-- you’re dressed like you’re going to work, Jon. Do you always dress like that? Even on the weekends, even at home?” 

“Well-- no,” Jon says, looking a bit chagrined to be admitting this. “But you were coming over, and you’re my coworker, so-- it felt appropriate.” 

“Okaaay,” he says slowly, drawing the word out, his mind working. Jon looks so stiff, so uncomfortable. Self conscious. How is he supposed to unwind enough that he could possibly come close to the boneless, purring thing Martin had had in his lap the first time? 

“What?” Jon asks, peeved and defensive, an insecure note in his voice. 

“Nothing,” Martin says. “Just-- if, if you’re having trouble relaxing around me maybe… you could go and get changed? Into something more comfortable.” 

Martin realizes too late that he just told Jon to go and get changed into something more comfortable. He hopes that lighting might come and strike him down, even though he’s indoors and the weather is perfectly clear. 

Jon looks down at himself doubtfully. 

“I suppose I could do that,” he concedes reluctantly. 

If Jon can surrender himself to the mortifying ordeal of wearing a collar around Martin, Martin doesn’t see why he can’t put on some sweatpants too. 

“Great,” he says firmly. “Go and do that then. I’ll wait.” 

Jon leaves. While he’s gone, Martin does some thinking. 

When Jon comes back, he’s wearing a hoodie that looks terribly soft and just a little bit oversized, and a pair of comfortable looking trousers and socks. He’s still wearing the collar, Martin’s happy to note. 

Jon looks at the television screen, which Martin had managed to turn on while he was gone. 

“Was I gone long?” Jon asks, his brow furrowed. After having thought things through, Martin can now almost see the insecurities scrawled across his face. Is he bored? Does he not want to do this after all? 

It’s almost reassuring to see, honestly. Not that Martin wants for Jon to feel insecure. 

“I don’t think you can turn it on like a switch,” Martin says. “The headspace, I mean. Right?” 

“... Right. I know that I’m taking a while, but--” 

“But you’re not managing it. Because I’m here, right? You feel too self conscious to let go while I’m right here, waiting for you.” 

Jon looks away. “If you want to leave, then I of course won’t stop you.” 

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. Just-- there’s no rush, okay? We don’t have to sit in silence while you’re working on it. That puts a lot of pressure on you. I found this nature documentary and the narrator has a really nice voice. Come and sit down and watch it with me? Maybe it’ll help you unwind a bit.” 

Jon hesitates for a moment. Martin holds his breath. 

And then, terribly reminiscent of a skittish cat, Jon comes over and sits down on the couch. Martin breathes out. 

“I’ve already seen this one,” Jon says. 

“Oh. Are you fine with rewatching it?” 

“I suppose so. It is a good one.” 

A few minutes pass, as they watch deep sea fish swim across on the screen as the narrator describes their life cycle in a soothing voice. Martin watches Jon out of the corner of his eye. He’s still sitting with his back ramrod straight, his hands in his lap. Not quite there. 

It takes him a while to work up the courage for his next suggestion. 

“Maybe-- maybe it would help to… relax your posture a bit?” he says. He wishes he didn’t sound so uncertain. 

“I, ah, like this?” Jon leans back, letting his back touch the couch. Which is an improvement, but not exactly what Martin had in mind. 

“You could put your head in my lap,” he says, his face burning. “If-- if you’re fine with that, if you want to. I just thought that-- that maybe it might help you to just sort of-- sort of slide into it a bit more gradually, instead of just jumping right in.” 

“Oh,” Jon says, wide eyed. Martin thinks for sure that he’s about to turn the suggestion down-- maybe even call the whole idea off entirely, tell Martin to get out-- but then he ever so slowly and carefully lies down until his head is resting on Martin’s thigh. The pressure is too light-- Jon isn’t letting himself rest all of his weight on it. Martin lets it slide for now. Jon’s going to adjust eventually. After a few moments, Jon draws his legs up from the floor and curls them up on the couch. 

Martin determinedly watches dolphins jump on the screen. Soon, Jon’s head is fully resting in his lap, a firm, reassuring weight. 

He sets one hand on Jon’s head after about ten minutes. Jon doesn’t so much as twitch when it happens. He looks down to check that he hasn’t fallen asleep, but his eyes are open, if heavy lidded. Tentatively, he lightly scratches his nails across Jon’s scalp. Jon’s eyes flutter shut for a moment, and he gives a sigh like air slowly leaking out of a balloon. 

Martin’s heart melts at the sight. 

“Good kitty,” he says, remembering what Jon had said when he’d first asked Martin to do this. That he might like it if Martin-- called him certain things. His voice shakes as he says it, but Jon doesn’t frown and tell him to stop, so-- so Jon probably does like it. He takes a deep breath, and tries to make his next words sound steadier. “Who’s a good kitten? Is it you, Jon?” 

Jon turns his head into the pillow of Martin’s thigh and meows once, shy and muffled. Martin feels like his heart might just combust in his chest from how adorable it is. 

“It is,” he says, and the words come out as a loving coo. Jon doesn’t jump to his feet and shout at him for it. He stays right where he is, his head in Martin’s lap, collar around his throat. He looks absolutely lovely. “You’re such a good kitten, letting me pet you. You’re doing wonderfully.” 

He can’t believe that he’s actually saying these words. How is he saying these words? 

Jon shivers underneath his hand though, so he decides to keep going. He feels like-- like the first time he’d managed to ride a bicycle without falling. Fast, floating, flying. Like he needs to just keep going without losing momentum. 

“You’re so pretty,” he says, and that can’t be allowed, but treating his boss like a precious, beloved cat isn’t allowed either, is impossible, and he’s doing that too. “Jon, you’re such a pretty cat. You deserve everything in the whole world.” 

Jon meows again, and Martin keeps petting him in reward. 

“Can you purr for me, Jon?” 

Jon hesitates for a moment-- and then he hums, like he’d done the first time. His eyes are squeezed shut as he does so. Martin wonders how deep under he is, how far away. Not as much as the artefact could do for him, clearly. He’d been completely unselfconscious then, utterly unaware that anything strange or out of place was happening. This is just-- pretending. Acting. Playing. Martin strokes a thumb across Jon’s cheekbone, and he feels the heat radiating from his face. He’s embarrassed. Embarrassed, and undeniably pleased at the same time. 

“Such a pretty kitty,” he coos. He strokes Jon’s stomach, and Jon turns to give him more access. Martin pulls Jon’s hoodie up, only enough to reveal his stomach-- he’s too thin, he can’t help but notice, his ribs standing out. Martin strokes Jon’s bare stomach, and Jon doesn’t even stop purring. 

“I should’ve brought some treats with me,” Martin muses out loud. Not actual cat food, of course, but something. Fruit or biscuits, anything. Help fill his belly up. “I could’ve hand fed you, just like you deserve. You deserve that, don’t you, Jon? To be pampered.” 

Jon shivers again, and belatedly meows. It’s an adorable sound. 

“You’re adorable,” Martin says roughly, because he can. Because that’s the sort of thing you say to a cat. “So cute and sweet and perfect. I want to spoil you.” 

He keeps stroking Jon’s stomach, his other hand going to caress Jon’s face, a thumb stroking across his cheekbone. Jon’s hands are held close to his chest, out of the way, and his eyes are open and dark, fixed on Martin’s face. The name tag on his collar catches the light, glinting. Martin realizes, in a heady giddy sort of way, that he doesn’t have to stop. He doesn’t have to get the collar off Jon as soon as possible. He can just keep going. He can dote on Jon as much as he wants. 

Impulsively, he leans down and presses a kiss to Jon’s forehead, because that’s what you do with the most wonderful, adorable, perfect cat in the world. After a moment, he freezes. Fuck, he’s gone too far, let himself get swept up in the moment, crossed a line-- 

Jon meows. 

Martin unfreezes. 

“... Good kitty,” he says again. “Letting me pet and kiss you like this-- you’re so good.” 

He goes on like that for a good long while, showering Jon’s adorable face with kisses between praise and scritches. Jon presses his face up into the kisses after a while, and it kills him. And then he looks to the side, where Jon had set the cat toy aside on a small cupboard by the couch. He bites his lip in indecision for a moment, and then reaches over and grabs it. He holds the stick up so that the toy dangles directly over where Jon is still resting his head in Martin’s lap. Martin jerks the stick a bit, making the toy bounce enticingly in the air. 

“Do--” He stops to lick his dry lips. “D’you want to play, kitty?” 

It’s a genuine question. If Jon turns away from it, Martin will give the cat toy up as a bad idea, and go back to the petting and the cooing instead. 

Jon blinks at the toy for a moment… and then he tentatively bats at it with one partially curled fist. Martin smiles, a pang of relief going off in his chest. He twitches the stick again, and the toy moves-- Jon bats at it again, his brow furrowing with concentration and determination. Martin wishes he could take pictures, he can’t stand how cute this is. 

“You like the toy I got for you, kitten?” he asks, his smile growing as Jon keeps trying to hit the thing. Jon meows. “I’m glad.” 

He plays with Jon for a long while, feeling indulgent and adoring. After a while, Jon manages to catch the toy, grasped between two partially curled fists. His expression is ridiculously triumphant. Martin tugs gently at the stick, but Jon refuses to surrender the toy. 

“Alright,” Martin says, unable to suppress the fond smile on his face. He lets go of the stick, and Jon keeps hold of the toy for now. “I guess playtime is over, then. Want to take a nap, kitty?” 

Jon blinks at him once, slowly, and then he turns over onto his side, his eyes closing. He hums, his way of purring. 

Martin is so hard it isn’t even funny. Arousal has been glowing persistently in the pit of his stomach for a long time now, like banked coal. Martin doesn’t even want to squirm needily, not exactly. It sort of feels good, the stretched out, neglected arousal. It’s a heat crawling underneath his skin, warming him up. If Jon scooches just a little bit further up, he’ll feel it. Martin practices what he’ll say if that happens. That cats don’t notice if their owner (oh Christ, Martin’s the owner in this scenario) happens to be turned on or not, that they don’t need to do anything if that happens. That they can just happily ignore erections, and it’s fine. 

Jon doesn’t scooch up. He doesn’t notice. That’s good. Martin doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable, make him feel like he should be doing anything besides what he’s doing. He just needs to lie there and accepts pets and praise and kisses and toys and adoration. That’s all he needs to do to be perfect. 

He strokes his hand across the length of Jon’s spine, repetitive, soothing motions. As he does so, Jon’s breathing deepens. Martin watches the documentary as much as he watches Jon, how soft and relaxed his face looks like this. 

It’s only as the credits are playing that Jon’s eyes flutter open from his peaceful doze. 

“You’re done napping, kitten?” 

Jon sits up. He blinks rapidly, his hair tousled from scritches, his eyes a bit bleary. He yawns, and rubs at his eyes. 

“Yes,” he says in his deep voice, and Martin almost startles that his answer wasn’t just a meow. 

“--Oh,” Martin says. “S-- sorry.” 

“What for?” Jon asks. He sounds like he’s just woken up from a deep sleep. He stretches, his spine audibly popping with the motion, and then gives Martin a happy, sleepy, satisfied smile. It sort of makes Martin’s heart skip a beat to see it. “That was… lovely. Exactly what I was hoping for.” 

“Oh,” Martin breathes. Jon’s never called him lovely before. No one has ever called him lovely before. “I’m-- I’m really happy that you liked it.” 

“I did. I… I hope that you weren’t too bored, Martin. We must have been going for over an hour…” 

Martin very carefully keeps himself from shifting, or moving, or anything that might call attention to the bump in his trousers. He’s wearing jeans, so it’s not obvious, but he knows from experience that it’s visible. 

“I wasn’t bored,” he says. “I-- I had fun too.” 

“You did?” Jon asks him. His brow furrows, concerned and doubtful, and he leans forwards. As he does so, his hand lands on the abandoned cat toy, forgotten on the couch during his nap. He looks down at it in surprise. In the process, he very, very unfortunately finally notices what’s happening in Martin’s… crotch area. “Oh.” 

Martin flushes hot and red, and tries to cover himself up with his hands. Jon is staring down at Martin’s hard on with wide, surprised eyes. 

“Please ignore it,” Martin groans, mortified. 

“You liked it,” Jon says blankly. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“No, it’s-- it’s fine. I’m… glad that you, ah, enjoyed yourself?” Jon says, finally tearing his eyes away from Martin’s lap. He sounds awfully awkward, but-- genuine? 

Jon, Martin can’t help but notice, is showing no signs of experiencing an erection. Not now, and not during. Whatever this does for him, it’s clearly not sexual. 

“I’m just going to leave,” Martin says. “And go and get swallowed up by a hole in the ground, maybe.” 

“Wait,” Jon says, reaching out and grabbing Martin’s arm when he gets up. Martin freezes. “Are you sure you want to go home with-- like that?” 

“It’s not really going away,” Martin says, flushed. He knows when an erection is there to stay until it’s been given attention, and this is one of those times. 

“Then go and use my bathroom,” Jon says. 

Martin-- can’t be understanding him right. He turns and stares at Jon. 

“If-- if you’d like,” Jon says. “You can… use my bathroom. I’m-- I’m fine with that.” 

Jon is telling Martin to go and jerk off in his bathroom. He has no idea what message to take away from that. 

Jon also let Martin kiss his face, and call him perfect and good and wonderful and adorable. He thinks that the lines of their relationship may have officially blurred. 

“Okay,” Martin squeaks, and then flees to the bathroom to desperately jerk himself off into a mindblowing orgasm. 

Jon tries not to overhear the noises Martin makes in the bathroom, even if they’re-- intriguing. He’d thought that Martin’s erection from the first time had been down to simple stimulation, nothing personal. This time he’d been trying to avoid rubbing against any-- unfortunate body parts. So the fact that Martin is hard this time as well-- that’s a pattern, isn’t it? 

He swears that he can still feel every single kiss that Martin rained down upon him, tingling across his skin. The tip of his nose, his cheek, his brow, the top of his head. 

He had just wanted to satisfy his curiosity. To be able to feel loose and relaxed, like he didn’t have a towering weight of responsibilities and expectations on his shoulders. He hadn’t expected for it all to feel so-- so tender. And intimate. He’d felt cared for, beloved and doted on. It’s been a long time since he’s felt like someone’s deeply cared for him. 

He sits and waits for Martin to-- to finish, and he thinks. When Martin comes out, he has clearly very carefully put himself back in order. Jon jumps to his feet as soon as he arrives. 

“Sorry about that, again,” Martin says. 

“It’s really no problem,” Jon says. “Really. I-- I don’t mind if you enjoy it differently than I do. Unless-- unless it bothers you?” 

“No!” Martin says. “It doesn’t bother me, definitely not. Just-- it doesn’t make you uncomfortable?” 

“Not if you take care of it yourself, at the end.” 

“I can do that. I can-- I can definitely do that. I’m kind of an expert, heh.” Martin pauses for a moment after that joke, a look of deep regret and agony briefly flashing across his face. 

Jon snorts, entirely without meaning to. 

“God,” Martin says, putting his face in his hands. Jon chuckles softly, amused, and he steps closer to him, erasing the awkward distance between them. “I shouldn’t be allowed to talk right after I’ve-- um. Y’know.” 

“Orgasmed,” Jon finishes for him. 

Martin flushes, taking his hands away. “Yeah.” 

“I really did enjoy myself,” Jon makes himself away. He was brave enough to ask Martin in the first place, even if he was riding a high of sleep deprivation, caffeine, and desperation at the time. He was brave enough to purr and meow and play with a cat toy in front of Martin. He’s brave enough to do this. “And if you liked it too, then-- then I’d be open to doing it again, sometime. Very open.” 

“... Oh,” Martin says, strangled. “Cool.” 

“Is that a yes?” 

“Yeah. Yes. Definitely. I’d love to do this again sometime, kitten.” A fraction of a second later after the word is out of Martin’s mouth, his eyes widen like he’s just uttered blasphemy in front of a nun. “--Shit, sorry. That-- that just slipped out, I didn’t mean to-- to call you that when you’re not--” 

“I don’t mind,” Jon says firmly. He doesn’t mind at all. He more than doesn’t mind, if he’s being honest with himself. It’s been a long time since anyone used pet names for him too. “So long as we’re alone, that is.” 

“Okay. Fuck. God. Sorry for swearing.” 

“I forgive you,” he says with a wry, crooked smile. A laugh bubbles up from Martin at that, which Jon is satisfied to see. 

“Christ, that was so-- um, really good, just to be clear.” 

“But a bit strange as well?” 

“Well… yeah. In a good way.” 

Strange in a good way. 

Jon can absolutely work with that. 

“Perhaps we should see each other tomorrow as well? For coffee or drinks?” He stops to grimace for a moment. “I don’t like coffee or alcohol, actually, but--” 

“Yes,” Martin immediately blurts out. “Yes, we should definitely see each other tomorrow. That sounds great.” 

“Good,” Jon says. 

And he gathers his courage, and presses a kiss to Martin’s cheek before he leaves. 

It’s only when Jon’s getting into bed that night that he realizes that he forgot to take his collar off after everything. While he hadn’t been paying attention, it has somehow grown terribly comfortable.