Work Text:
It was the weekend, so Jon was sprawled on the couch; legs resting on Martin’s, and Martin’s little lap desk resting on those. His ears flicked a little at the rhythmic sound of whatever Martin’s current creation was, the chchch of the felting needle soothing. It hadn’t been when Martin first started—to many incidents of Martin letting out a sharp intake of breath due to the pain of jabbing himself with the needle. He hadn’t even planned to buy anything to protect his fingers, not wanting to waste the money till he was sure he liked it.
Jon had ordered some of course. It was his fault Martin had to pick up a new hobby. Martin had enjoyed knitting, but it wasn’t something he could do at home if Jon was around. As shameful as it was to admit, there was something about wiggling string that made him lose his mind, and after the second knitting project he’d irreparably tangled, Martin had opted to look into a different creative outlet for home. At Sasha’s suggestion he had picked up a cheap little felting kit, and made himself a wonky little cow, with legs that went flat out so he didn’t need to worry about it being knocked over.
Seeing Martin so proud of his cow made Jon fall a little more in love with him.
So it had become an easy routine that Jon would doze on Saturday and Martin would craft. When it got to evening Jon would make dinner and after Martin would brush out his tail as they watched whatever documentary or show caught their fancy. (It had been thrilling to find Martin liked watching documentaries just as much as he did, Jon could admit it.)
A rough purr rumbled as Martin took a break to twirl Jon’s tail around his fingers, lightly stroking the sensitive appendage. There was no one else Jon would allow to touch it—Elias had tried once, once, when Jon had recovered from the Leitner, and still had a scar on his cheek from how quickly Jon had put that impulse of his to rest.
But Martin was always gentle with Jon, be it rubbing his ears or stroking his tail or even just how comfortably he held him. Even brushing his hair and tail, something Jon had formally done without care, just ripping through tangles if there were any, had become a soothing ritual where Martin would brush out his hair and fur after a shower, easing out any knots and making Jon melt into a little puddle.
Monday came too fast, as it always did.
Jon sighed as he sipped his tea, looking over the statements that wouldn’t record digitally, and trying not to think about how he KNEW that before he even attempted it. “I suppose Enrique MacMillian’s . . . ?” he muttered to himself, trying to get the will to do any of the statements. Since the thing with Not-Sasha, he’d become more aware of how the statements seemed to affect him, and it was a bit of a concern. He knew he needed to talk to his assistants but he didn’t want to face it just yet.
Maybe he could put off one of these statements for another day actually. There was still an incredibly large pile of statements that WOULD record digitally he needed to get through.
Opening his drawer, he set the tape recorder inside it and closed it definitively, before switching on his laptop. He picked up the first statement on the digital pile, glancing at it as he waited for the computer to set up. He hadn’t read it yet—Sasha had done the research on it, but he could already tell it was fake just by the way it felt.
Clicking on the audio recording program, Jon took a breath before starting: “Statement of Shane Rubio, regarding a . . . ” Jon sighed audibly, and made a mental note to edit that out. “Werewolves in Birmingham. Statement given June 12, 2016. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.” His ear flicked and some part of him regretted forgoing a real statement, already sure this one would be painful. “Statement begins.
“I know this sounds crazy, but I wasn’t the only one who saw it. Me, Kip and Silvia were on a work trip, some training thing to learn the new voicemail system our company were switching to—we’re the IT team so we need to know how to make sure it works since there’s always a dozen people who won’t bother to learn.
“Anyways, after training we all went to get dinner and some drinks on the company dime like we normally do while on one of these training things. We got back to the hotel but Silvia wants to have a smoke before she comes in, and it’s late, so we decided to wait with her, just in case. Kip calls his husband while we wait with her and I’m just kinda scrolling twitter, catching up on some reality show drama when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I look up, thinking maybe someone was walking by to get to the hotel and I see in the trees this wolf.” Jon paused to take a deep breath through his nose, holding back the snide comment that was on the tip of his tongue. He could edit it out, but he still shouldn’t get in the habit of interrupting statements with commentary, even if this was clearly bullshit.
“Look, I know there aren’t supposed to be wolves in the UK, but this isn’t even a normal wolf. It’s huge. And it’s moving to stand. I slap Silvia’s arm and point and she goes ‘what the hell.’” Rubbing his temple, his ear flicked at the sound of the door opening but he didn’t look up, continuing to read the statement.
“That’s when I saw the other two wolves join it. Both just as big, both walking like a person. Fucking werewolves. Kip’s noticed too and he’s gaping, and all three of us slowly start moving towards the building because the wolves don’t seem to have noticed us.
“Then they started howling, and the three of us abandoned caution and ran for it. Made it to our rooms somehow. Silvia had her own but we all decided to share a room and keep the door barricaded just in case the werewolves caught our scent.
“Obviously we made it through the night. Called the front desk to warn them but they didn’t believe us.
“Weirdest part was Silvia checked, and there wasn’t even a full moon that night.”
“Statement ends.”
Jon let out a long audible groan of defeat, knowing he could edit it out. “To the shock of no one, we have no evidence of a werewolf in Birmingham. Sasha also discovered that, coincidently, a furry convention, ConFuzzled, was ongoing in Birmingham from May 27th to the 31st, which is when the ‘werewolves’ were sighted. I think we can safely assume that Mr. Rubio and his friends were significantly intoxicated and mistook people in fursuits for werewolves. Recording ends.”
Clicking the stop button, he looked up just in time to see Martin crack up. The sight of his boyfriend laughing eased Jon’s annoyance with the waste of time. “Something amusing Mr. Blackwood?”
“What, nooooo, nothing at all.” Martin was trying to stop his laughter, but was only somewhat successful. “Doing a day of discredited are you? Sounds rough.” Walking around Jon’s desk, Martin leaned in to kiss the top of his head. Jon was glad that Martin couldn’t see his cheeks flush at the action from where he was standing.
“Quite so. They are stacking up unfortunately, even with the three of you taking over some of the recording duties.” Jon wouldn’t let them touch any of the real statements, but had acquiesced to letting them dictate some of the clearly delusional ones as long as Tim made sure to edit out his laughter (or re-record it, in the case of the man being ‘stalked’ by ‘bulging eyed creatures’ that were obviously just frogs existing in places he went like when he walked by a pond).
“Well, I’ll leave you to it then.” Martin set the mug of catnip tea on Jon’s desk and then smiled. “But first, I have something for you.”
Jon had been reaching for the mug but paused, looking up at Martin curiously. “You do?”
Martin nodded and then set something on Jon’s laptop. It was a small felted cat, though it seemed to have more fibers sticking out of it than normal. It was also a bit of a different texture than the felting creations Martin usually made. He also couldn’t help but notice the coloring was . . . “Wait, Martin, what did you use to make this?”
“Welllllllll . . . ” Martin rocked on his feet a little, looking away as his cheeks started to color. “It seemed like such a shame to just toss all the fur that comes off your tail when I brush it, and we joked before how enough brushing and there could be another Jon so, um, ta-da?”
Jon’s ears flattened, staring at this other Jon. “That is not me.”
“Obviously, more like, your child? Jon Jr.”
“Martin.”
“Your emotional support Jon.”
“Why would I even need—”
“Made with love!”
Shit. Jon couldn’t well protest being given something made with love, though he didn’t have to like it outwardly. “Fine. This thing—”
“Jon Jr.”
“Thing can stay.”
Martin was grinning broadly and even though Jon was sure he had lost this argument he couldn’t be too upset about it. Waving Martin off, Jon took a long sip of his tea before beginning to work on editing the dictation. And if he turned Jon Jr. so he could see the screen while he did, that was no one’s business.
