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They walk in the front door and Jon goes down on his knees like they've been cut from under him. They'll bruise. His head hangs forward, and Martin reaches down and, with a fingertip, traces the moon-sliver of flushed skin at the nape of his neck, between his rumpled shirt collar and the ends of his hair. It prickles beneath his touch. "All right," Martin says, gentle, a little startled. "Go and get it. But you're, um, you're going to have to actually ask for what you want, you know."
"I know," Jon says tiredly, and crawls.
Tim is dozing in the bedroom with the television left on but muted, his skin wan in its flickering light. Jon pauses by the big bed and looks at him for a moment with the kind of fondness he'd never let the other man actually see while awake.
"He asleep?" asks Martin softly from the doorway.
"Yes," says Jon.
"Nope," says Tim, pillow-muffled. Opens one eye. Martin gives a soundless little snicker, just air, and crosses to him, shedding clothes as he goes. Jacket, shoes, shirt. It's distracting, and Jon pauses in pulling the toy box out from under the bed to watch this domestic little strip show. He will never, he thinks, not ever, tire of seeing them like this: relaxed and ordinary in the shared spaces they've carved out of Jon's formerly lonely life.
The toy box isn't an actual box, and nothing in it is really a toy except in the sense that people in fetish circles call their kink "play". Jon unzips the sports bag and goes through it with the usual careful deliberation he extends to this duty.
"How hard," he asks, and Martin looks over from where he's saying hello to Tim with long, earnest kisses.
"Well," he says lightly, "Er, I suppose that's ... how hard do you need?"
"Hard," says Jon, with emphasis, and then, because he finds it easier to retreat into the bureaucracy of kink rather than talking dirty, relies heavily on shorthand they've established in earlier discussions: "8 or 9." On their loosely defined ten point scale. Tim mutters jesus, Jon softly.
"It's all right. He's had a difficult day," Martin explains, fingers playing idly in the trail of hair on Tim's abdomen where he's pushed his t-shirt up. "Sure," he tells Jon. "If that's what you need." And they both watch as Jon pulls out what he wants: the flogger first, and then the switch; handcuffs; spreader; cock ring; gag.
"Might sit this one out then, if you don't mind," Tim admits. "Not sure I'm quite up to impact play."
"You'll watch," Martin tells him, watching his face, tone mild. Martin is sweet, and anxious, and affectionate, and absolutely in charge of both of them, when it comes to this. Tim smiles.
"I'll watch," he agrees. "Jon likes that anyway."
"Jon likes everything," Martin replies, with a pleased little glance to where Jon is flushing and trying not to respond to the two of them just talking about them like he isn't there. Like he can't hear their conversation, the sound of Martin's hand slipping into Tim's boxers, skin on skin, Tim's soft grunt. "D'you pick up milk?"
Tim laughs breathlessly, head falling back. "You're unbelievable sometimes. Yeah, I got us milk. Paid some bills. This is the worst dirty talk I've ever experienced."
"I could make it worse?" Martin smiles, still stroking him. "I could tell you about our day."
"That bad?" Tim asks, and he's keeping it light but can't mask his sudden concern. He might not work with them anymore (and is a lot happier for it) but he knows what it's like, at the Magnus Institute.
Martin's blithe attitude flickers a moment, and it's obvious that yes, that bad. "I um, actually, I don't want to even think about it?" he admits, and Tim curls up and kisses him, kisses it better.
"Go see to your Archivist," he instructs, low, even if it's terribly difficult to lose the reassuring steadiness of Martin's hand. He replaces it with his own, just gentling his erection, sitting further up in the bed so he can watch Martin cross to Jon.
Jon has laid out and prepared everything they need, from the lubricant to a towel for afterwards. He's also naked, all the ugly armor of his work outfit stripped away, leaving only skin. Sometimes Martin does these little preparations, or asks Tim, especially if he's planning a surprise, but mostly Jon prefers to do them himself, quieting his thoughts with organization, stretching some invisible muscle of service. Beholding taught him that there can be worship in the little details, the repetitive and boring tasks of work can be reverent. Elias with his spreadsheets; Rosie with her filing; Jon wetting a washcloth in the sink, hot water on his hands. It will have cooled to lukewarm by they need it, but for now the flush of blood reddening his fingers feels good.
When he's ready, Jon kneels on the carpet, head down, and Martin takes a moment just to drink that in. He can't imagine he will ever get tired of seeing Jon's body: the translucent pale of his skin at the vulnerable places, wrists and neck and inner elbows; the way he holds his spine, as though he is staying upright beneath a great weight pressing down from above; his soft hair and dark, dark lashes; the way he can fold neatly into himself, origami. It used to make Martin feel too-huge and awkward, how beautiful Jon is beneath all those layers of disdain and sweater vests, but not any more. Now he feels centered, certain in what Jon wants, in who he himself is, in one of those things perfectly meeting the needs of the other.
They're good for each other. That gets him through the harder bits.
"You okay?" he asks first, going down on one knee and taking Jon's chin in hand to peer into his face. "You good to start?" And then, because it's been one of those days, because he has to ask: "If you're just, just punishing yourself, Jon, we're not doing this, I won't be used like that."
Jon meets his eyes then, sharp, a little alarmed. "That's not what this is. I promise. I'd simply prefer to get out of my damn head a while."
"Hm." Martin pretends to think about it, even though he's relieved. "Okay. But. I'm not completely sure I believe you? Might be you have to beg for me." His eyes sparkle, and Jon scoffs, low in his throat.
"Right. Of course." He sounds so resigned that from the bed, Tim laughs — and Jon flushes, looks over, then away. He's still getting used to that aspect, the third person, someone to look after and to look after the two of them. It's easier when they're both there, on him, Jon in the middle of something that flows back and forth between Tim and Martin. Tim just watching makes his ears feel hot. Leaves him self-conscious, aware of his graying hair, his scars, the fact that his cock is already interest-plump when Martin hasn't actually touched him. "Um," says Jon, thinking too much.
Martin pulls his hair, sudden and sharp, snapping him back to the now. "Well?"
"Oh, I— do you—" Fuck. He looks up at Martin, who looks back.
"Told you, didn't I? We're not doing anything else until you beg me for it," he says clearly, certain enough that the usual stutter of hesitancy in his voice is gone. "And I don't like to tell you twice."
It's good. Makes Jon feel less like he's the only one into this, the shame giving way slowly, millimetre by millimetre, with each low confident note of Martin's voice and each sharp tug at his hair. "Please."
"Please what, Jon?"
"I'd like you to hurt me, please, Martin."
(The first time Jon had called him sir Martin hadn't been able to stop laughing — "Martin's fine," he'd promised through breathless giggles. "I'll be able to hear when you mean it respectfully and when you don't.")
"Mm," Martin says, lips pursed like he's not sure that's really good enough. "I'll allow it. For now. C'mon, up, then." He tugs Jon's hair until Jon stands, and then kisses him, kisses him, kisses him, fingers still a tight fist tugging just to make Jon wince and the other on his chest. Martin devours his mouth with the needy hungriness he always has, like he has to get all his affection in fast before what he loves is taken away. The first time they kissed it was the most wanted Jon's ever felt just through physical contact, but he gets a little more assured every time. Maybe starting to trust that Jon's his now, that Jon's here to stay.
Once he's claimed every inch of Jon's mouth, though, they begin. Gag first — he hates to muffle all of Jon's pretty noises but on the other hand there's nothing crueller than taking away an Archivist's ability to speak. They have ways to communicate despite that, hand signals and hummed tunes for safewords. But something about the leather against his teeth as Martin does up the buckle at the back always makes Jon more vulnerable, loosens something in him. So: gag first.
"Good?" Martin checks, and when he gets an affirmative noise, bends Jon tenderly over the bed and affixes the spreader bar, the cuffs, binding him with the ease of familiarity, capable hands and fond touches. A competence here that he hasn't found the capacity for in most other places. He checks tightness, blood flow, and then when Jon's arms are cuffed behind him, tugs them up just to let him feel the strain in his shoulders, make him whimper a little. "That's it, That's it," murmurs Martin, pressing a knee over his bare ass to keep him in place and lifting the long line of his arms higher, until the whimper turns to muffled pain-noises.
"Doing great, boss," Tim commentates lazily from the head of the bed, and Jon makes a disgruntled sound which they both know is him trying to remind Tim that he's not Tim's boss anymore, as he always does. Tim and Martin share a look, chuckle.
"No cock ring," Martin tells him, easing his arms back down. "You can hold off on your own, can't you? Hold off until I say?" Jon groans, eyes closing, but then nods his affirmative. "Good boy." The praise is gentle, genuine, and it feels like sinking into a warm bath. Martin dips and kisses his wrists, his shoulderblades, the back of his neck, honey-sweet.
"You're such a sap," Tim says, fond.
"Just appreciating what's mine," Martin responds, and feels the way that thrums all through Jon.
Martin flogs him first, just a warm-up, a rhythmic drumming over the skin of Jon's thighs and ass until the blood flushes all that pale skin bright pink. Jon makes low, happy noises at each strike as the sensitivity builds, until he can no longer feel each individual tail and it's all just a steady aching throb in time with his heart. Sometimes Martin drags the knotted leather across his skin. Sometimes when he brings the flogger down it hits the crease where the spreader leaves him open and exposed, and Jon thinks about getting fucked and groans. He's hard against the blankets. There's no pain.
Then Martin swaps to the switch.
"Fuck," Jon exclaims behind the gag, the word clear as day even completely muffled. Just one stripe, ringing a sharp line across his lifted ass.
"Want to count for me?" Martin asks Tim, who is just jerking off now, one leg tucked under him as he works his hand over his cock. It started out luxurious, a little lazy, but now that Jon is pink and writhing he's putting more wrist into it.
"One," Tim responds with a sardonic little smile, and when Martin cracks the switch through the air again and it whistles as it falls: "Two."
Jon yelps.
By twenty, he's shriek-groaning, voice crackling with spit and desperation. Rutting into the bed even though the pain has softened him some, up on his toes, his hands white-knuckling each other. His ass is a pretty pattern of pinks and reds in gradient. Martin puts his instrument down, rolls his shoulder, catching his breath.
"You um, you okay?" he asks Jon, and Jon says Fuck you, more or something like it, from behind the gag, and he insistently makes the hand signal that means keep going, so even though he's nearing unintelligible now, Martin gets the gist. He slaps that well-disciplined ass with an open palm, experimental, and Jon whines.
"Jesus," Tim says, the vowels long and impressed. "You're good at that. Taking him apart. Maybe I'll let you have a go at me sometime."
"Oh?" Martin says, looks up from where he's examining the single welt that broke skin, thumbing the dampness of it and checking for blood. He blushes, which is ridiculous. "Yeah, sure, all right. Whenever you like. Do you want—"
"No," says Tim immediately, "I'm good." Gives himself a long, slow stroke, all eye contact. "I'm really good just, right here. Fuck, he's hot like this." Jon clearly hears, turns his face out of where it's pressed into the covers to look at Tim, flushed, pupils huge. Tim just smirks at him. "Yeah, you. Gorgeous. Love watching you be so good for Martin. Gonna look so good when I finish on your face."
Jon makes a high, soft noise and turns his face back into the mattress. Martin rubs his shoulder soothingly. "Gonna take your gag off," he informs Jon, doing so. It's a mess, all spit from helpless gasping.
"I want to come," he tells Martin, because even like this he can be a bit of a demanding prick, and then immediately remembers to modulate himself: "Please, Martin, please get me off."
Martin chuckles, and he looks charmingly surprised, as he always does, like he's not sure how he got this lucky. "Mm, please, is it?" he considers, slapping Jon's ass again just to hear him vocalize that feeling unmuffled. Jon growls and shakes. "Yeah," he decides. "All right. Not 'til I say, though."
He grabs Jon's hair and turns his head forcibly, wrenching it back, that exposed throat bobbing as Jon swallows wetly and looks at what Martin is directing him to: Tim kneeling, broad shoulders hunched forward in determination, forehead creased. His cock looks sore in his hand, bright and thick and ready to pop, and Martin says, "Open your mouth, sweetheart," so that Jon does. He's too far gone to feel absurd about it, tongue lolling, dark lashes fluttering low.
"Can I," asks Tim, and Martin doesn't wait for Jon to try and answer, just says, "Sure, whatever you like." Jon gives a little sob-groan, but if he has anything to say it's cut off by getting a cock in his mouth. Martin watches avidly, and his pleasure flush is as much arousal as simply seeing how much they both love it, watching these two take pleasure in each other.
"This," says Tim, "Is a much better use for his mouth than talking, if you ask me." Jon makes a disgruntled sound, spit-wet, but if he can take offense at that then he's far too coherent. Martin decides to do something about that.
It doesn't take much. The lube crackles as Martin presses into him, rough, two fingers, no particular warning. He's let go of Jon's hair, given him over for Tim to hold and fuck how he wants, the sounds of it just as loud as the ones Martin makes opening him up.
"Still loose from this morning," he murmurs, thumbing him like a meathook so Jon has to tip his hips up. "I should get you a plug. Then I wouldn't even need to do this much. You'd just be slick with come and lube all day, ready for me and Tim come evening."
It's hard to say if Jon likes that idea, since the noise he makes could be enthusiastic assent or it could be because Martin is milking his prostate with cruelly heavy presses. Tim though, Tim gives an approving noise. "Just when I thought I knew exactly how filthy you can be, you surprise me," he says.
"Oh," says Martin, all innocence over sin, "You have no idea. I should make Jon tell you about that time in Artifacts — that was when we realized, I think, how far he was willing to let me go." He watches as Tim bites his lip, wondering, visualizing. Thinking about the kind of things he knows are down there, the ways they could get Jon off. "Getting close?" he asks.
"God," is Tim's answer, all noisy breath. Martin smiles and gets his own cock out, gives it a long slow stroke so Tim can see, then presses into Jon.
"Race you," he says teasingly, and they're off.
Martin comes first, but only because Tim cheats, pulls himself out of Jon's mouth and says, "Look at him, working so hard for you. Say thank you."
"I love you," says Jon instead, hoarse, eyes wet, tone a benediction. It's not clear which of them he's speaking to, but Martin comes anyway, startled — he'd meant to pull out, truly, to make a mess of that pretty skin, but his hips snap forward hard and stay there, trembling, pulsing hot and deep.
Tim ends up being the one who makes a mess: over Jon's face, his shoulders, in his hair. "Think I might have caught a bit of that one," Martin jokes from where he's slumped forward, palm leant hard in the small of Jon's back, their fingers tangled. Tim doesn't respond, just tips like a tree and sprawls out on the bed, trying to catch his breath — and maybe restart his heart.
Jon is noisy, now, that chocolate voice all wrecked, as he begs and gasps and groans. Tries to rub off on the sheets, tries to get more of Martin's cock before it goes soft inside him. Martin spanks him sharply for his troubles, and pulls out before Jon's clutching insides can get any more excruciating for his poor oversensitive dick. "When I say, Jon."
"Please," Jon manages in a voice like broken glass. "Please, anything, please."
"You'd do anything?" Martin asks in teasing clarification. "Or you'd take anything?" Jon doesn't seem to have an answer that isn't more begging, and Martin rubs his pink cheeks fondly. "Yeah," he decides. All right. Come for me."
He doesn't make any move to help, and Jon starts, "I—" in confusion, before apparently deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth and just rubbing off on the bed. It's difficult: the way he's bent and the spreader bar means he has barely any traction where his toes press into the carpet, and with his arms behind him he has to push his come-filthy face into the bed. His cuffed hands creep lower, straining awkwardly until he can get fingers into himself where he's still all slick. "Fuck," he swears harshly, sounding ruined. "Oh, fuck." His whole pale body bows, and it's a pretty sight.
At the end he barely even makes sound, just glottal grunts of air as his hips buck wildly and he trembles there on the edge, so close and so good, waiting for permission. Martin lets the moment hang in the air before: "You may," he says pleasantly, and Jon shudders and spills.
"Good boy," he soothes, looks up and catches Tim's eye: the man is drowsing, but not quite asleep. "My good boys."
Tim lifts a hand and gives him the finger. "Hope you're going to clean that up," he says, gesturing to Jon. "I am buggered."
"You're an arse," Martin grumbles, retaliatory, but this is an old squabble between them over far less enjoyable tasks. Martin is more than happy to look after Jon in the aftermath.
Buckle by buckle, key in lock, everything comes off, and Martin rubs tiger balm into sore shoulders and strained thighs, feeling Jon relax even further under his hands. He murmurs a drowsy something and Martin dips to kiss somewhere he hasn't yet smoothed the cream, then turns him over. His cleaning is gentle, even when he curls the damp cloth over Jon's cock and makes him whimper with the oversensitivity. But by the time he's wiped up all that come and sweat, Jon has come back to himself a little — not quite enough for shame, but enough to drink the water he's given and move up the bed on his own steam. Enough for conversation.
"Did I do okay?" Martin asks; he often needs a little reassurance after, especially when things get violently intense.
"Wonderfully," Jon assures him. "Though maybe next time, if we do my hands at my chest, you can take the flogger a little higher, without worrying about—"
"Oh, shoosh," Martin huffs, pinches his thigh. "You can put in your requests for corrections tomorrow, thanks. I just want to know if you had a good time."
Jon snorts and hauls himself up. "Come to bed, Martin," he says gruffly, and: "Shove over, Tim."
Tim shoves over, and once he's put the toys away and turned off the bedroom light, Martin sheds the last of his clothes in a messy jumble and allows Jon to convince him in between the soft, cool sheets. They wrap each other up, but — "You know Tim," Martin pipes up, "If you want—"
"No thanks," says Tim. "Not into all that post-coital snuggly stuff, you know that."
"I know," agrees Martin.
"And yet you always wake me up to tell me I can join in on the spooning."
"Every time," Martin agrees. Tim sighs, and finds his hand where it's draped over Jon's waist, brushed his fingers over Martin's fingers before linking them lightly together.
"Night, Martin. Night, Jon."
Martin grins into Jon's hair. Every time. "Night," he returns, settling further into the pillow.
"I did, by the way," comes Jon's low murmur; he always sounds a little ominous at this pitch, but Martin knows he's just sleepy. "Enjoy myself. Greatly. Thank you."
"Thank you," responds Martin with laughter in his voice. "Now go to sleep, we've got work again tomorrow."
"Mm." Jon is too relaxed to tense up. "Somehow doesn't seem so dire anymore."
"Good," says Martin, because that's the point. He allows himself, optimistically, to think that maybe his is sustainable after all. Not just he and Jon, but the three of them, careful of each other's scars, both visible and figurative. Giving each other a light in the darkness. Watching out for each other. Watching. He squeezes Jon tightly, kisses his forehead, and drifts off wondering why they don't take more statements about love.