Chapter Text
There's a drop of milky tea crawling its way down the side of Martin's mug. He must have overfilled it, not quite enough to slosh over the edge of the porcelain, but enough that even setting the mug down gently displaced a few drops. Jon watches it creep down towards the coaster, then it's eventual splatter onto the table when Martin picks up his mug and it gets shaken free. Jon wraps his fingers around his own mug, relishing the warmth beneath his boney fingers. It's still too hot for his tastes.
"What's up?" Martin asks, and Jon's eyes snap off his target. "You were staring into nothing again."
"Just lost in thought." Jon says.
"Anything interesting?" Martin asks.
'Not really' is the correct answer, but there has been something on Jon's mind. For a while now. He waits just long enough for Martin to rap his nails pointedly on the table. It’s not a sound Jon particularly likes. Sets his teeth on edge.
"I think I've mentioned before that I'm into the idea of rape roleplay. Or well, forced sex. Is that too much for you?" Jon says.
Martin shakes his head. "I like the idea. It's how much I like the idea that makes me feel…"
"Don't feel guilty about it," Jon says, "it's a more common kink than you think."
"I still don't like the idea of being someone who can get off on raping somebody." Martin says.
It's bizarre Martin can even begin to think he's such a person. He is, beyond anything else, an earnest people pleaser, which is about as far from a rapist as it's possible to get. Besides, Martin appears to be well versed enough in BDSM to know that having a fetish does not translate into a desire to act upon it outside of the boundaries of kink.
"It wouldn't be like a real rape. There wouldn't be the fear it needs there." Jon says. "It's about you controlling me, making me do things that I absolutely want to do, but you're forcing me to do them and then I don't have to feel guilty for wanting them."
"Do you often feel guilty about wanting sex?" Martin asks.
"Sometimes." Jon says. He takes a sip of his tea. It's an acceptable temperature now. "During my childhood and for most of my teenage years, society viewed me as female. And young women are taught some fucked up things about expressing themselves sexually. Those lessons stuck, even if I don't identify as female. The way a lot of people pedestalize ace people as these saints devoid of lust really didn't help there either."
Sometimes, Jon doesn't feel like he's ace enough. It's stupid. He knows it's stupid. But when people have the impression that asexuals never have sex, they can’t possibly know what it is to want, and that their relationship with their genitals is strictly sterile, well…
It's easy to slip into that route of logic even though Jon knows his sexuality is perfectly valid as he normally expresses it.
Martin considers for a moment. "I can't say I've ever thought about that. Or how it would relate to this sort of thing."
"We've already done a lot of things with skewed power dynamics, things where you tie me up and tease me until I beg you to fuck me. This just takes it in a different direction." Jon says.
"I don't think I need much convincing." Martin smiles. It's still a little timid.
'I didn't think so." Jon replies. "It's been a hard limit with my previous partners, but I want to try it. I mean, I don't know if I…"
There's no guarantee he'll enjoy the fantasy outside of his own head is what Jon means. It's unlikely that will be the case though. There's some solid trial and error that shows that Jon gets off best when he's struggling against where Martin has pinned him down.
Besides, there's so many ways in which this isn't okay, in which it's breaking taboos. God, he shouldn't be fetishizing something so traumatic, something that really happened to him! It should make Jon feel sick, but it doesn't.
"It's okay for you to want this too." Martin says, and he waits for Jon's shy smile before continuing. "I think we'll need to talk this through quite carefully so that we don't bump too hard against anyone's boundaries."
Jon lets out a long breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He takes another sip of tea, lets the taste of it wash the guilt out of his mouth.
"A lot of it is stuff we've done before." Jon says. "I want you to tie me up, although I won't go easy into it this time. I don't mind you getting rough with me though. I'll tell you no and I'll struggle, but you don't stop unless one of us safewords."
"I like it when we do stuff like that." Martin says. "Can you elaborate on the getting rough with you part?"
"Manhandling me and forcing me into restraints is good. So is hitting me a bit, but not hard enough to bruise. I like the shock of it in the moment more than the actual pain. And my clothes. One time you…" Jon makes a gesture with his hands, a sort of tearing motion.
"You want me to rip your clothes off?" Martin asks. He's smiling, all smug tomcat who got the cream and wears the milk mustache proudly.
"That was very hot." Jon says softly. "I liked it."
More than liked it. Got hot and squirmy at it, both at the physical level where ripping his clothes put pressure on his clit, and the symbolic level of Martin tearing away the last obstacle in his course to fucking Jon.
"I can do that." Martin says. "Anything else important to the scene?"
"I don't want you to use a condom." Jon says. "And I want you to come inside me."
"Are you sure about that?" Martin says after an uncomfortably long pause. "That's usually something you're totally against."
True, but it’s definitely on the softer end of his limits. I can be something Jon can get behind under the right circumstances and if he knows it’s going to happen. And these are certainly the right circumstances.
"You don't have to if you're not comfortable with it, but we're using other methods of birth control now. And none of my rapists ever used a condom, that much I remember."
"Wait, are you trying to recreate something that happened to you?" Martin asks. He looks concerned. "I'm not sure it's really my place to say it, but that doesn't sound exactly healthy."
Jon shakes his head no. "Forced sex fantasies are common, even among sexual assualt victims. Believe me, I did a lot of research trying to convince myself that I wasn't fucked up. There are things I'd like to reclaim from what happened, but I'm not looking to retraumatize myself here." He laughs humourlessly. "Besides, I have much fresher traumas to choose from. It's not like I'm asking you to tie me up and slather me in lotion here."
That would be…
Well there's nothing attractive Jon can see about that prospect. He doesn't really moisturise much anymore, damn the condition of his skin.
"I guess if you're sure about it…" Martin says. He doesn't sound sure about it.
"The fantasy is very far from the actual reality of being raped." Jon says. "Trust me, I know. I get a lot of the input about what I want you to do to me. A lot of the, well, sexy part is that I trust you to stop if it gets too much or if it does trigger me."
"But I don't know what your triggers are! I don't know what happened to you. Not that I expect you to tell me. I don't need to know any details if you don't want to give them, but without them I can't promise I won't do something you don't like."
"I don't mind telling you." Jon says. "Telling people can be cathartic. It's going to be a bit heavy though."
Martin wouldn't be the first person he's ever told. And he can live with Martin knowing, especially if it helps Martin to know.
And it might help Jon too. Yes, lancing a boil hurts and the pus is smelly and makes a mess as you drain it away, but that boil is going to stay red and raw until you do it. And they usually heal up fine after, so long as the open wound is treated right.
"You don't have to…" Martin says.
"I know you want to know."
Martin doesn't have a response, but his silence is telling.
"For what it's worth," Martin says after a while, "I'm sorry it happened."
Jon shakes his head. "I don't need you to be sorry for me." He says. "Sorry doesn't go back and stop it from happening. Your support is what I need now."
"I can support you." Martin says like if he says it firmly enough it will confirm that.
"I meant that literally right now." Jon says. "I don't think I can have this conversation sterilly from across the table from you."
Martin reaches across the table to take Jon's hands in his. His fingers are much warmer than Jon's own. They always seem to be.
Jon clutches back desperately.
"What do you need?" Martin asks.
"Will you hold me?" Jon says. "I don't think I can handle it if you reject me over this." He adds quietly.
There's a little bleeding part of his heart settled over the possibility that Martin may decide he's too much hassle once he knows the truth of Jon and will drop him to find someone with less baggage.
"I'm not going to reject you." Martin says. "Come cuddle with me on the couch."
Jon nods. He could sob in relief, but he holds the noise in. He follows Martin when he stands, lets Martin walk him over to the sofa. Martin doesn't drop Jon hands and when he sits down and Jon goes down with him.
Martin is comfortable. A good hugger. His arms encircle Jon and he feels safe within them, under the just-enough pressure Martin squeezes him with. It’s a pity the day is really too warm for a fuzzy blanket as well.
"Okay?" Martin asks when they're settled.
"Yeah." Jon says.
He doesn't say anything more for a moment. Just takes a moment to breathe Martin's scent before they take a wander down a dark path.
"My grandmother kept me on a pretty long leash, but she did have some rules. There’s this stereotype that good desi girls focus on their education and don't date until they have a good job and settle down with a boy their family approves of. She was born in the forties and while there were lots of ways she wasn’t old fashioned, she did believe that mixing with boys would stop me from studying. So, when I was twelve, she told me I wasn't to get a boyfriend and that she'd kick me out of the house if I got pregnant before before I graduated from uni."
And helpfully implanted a life-long fear of pregnancy. She knew Jon still hung out with boys despite her warning, but so long as neither admitted it to the other, apparently that was okay.
"That's pretty…"
"It's more common than you think. And not just in my culture either, although I admit stereotypes are often born from somewhere." Jon says. "It just meant she didn't meet my boyfriend when I got one. We broke up fairly quickly. Never got beyond kissing. My teenage years were confusing. I knew something was wrong, but I hadn't figured out that I was ace or trans yet."
"I don't think I can imagine." Martin says.
Jon shakes his head against that. There's no easy comparison a cis or allo person can have for the way he experiences the world.
"I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself I was something I'm not. The second boy, the relationship couldn't exactly be considered platonic, but I didn't ever consider us more than friends. He thought we were dating, though, and soon most of our friends thought the same. We fooled around a bit, sure, but when he asked if I wanted to have sex, I told him no. He kept asking, though, over the next couple of weeks, up until a friend threw a party."
"I can already see this isn't going anywhere good." Martin says.
"Yeah. Funny that." Jon says, even if it's anything but. "Several of us had just turned sixteen - my birthday was just over a week before."
Martin's fingers tighten on Jon's arm. "Still okay?" Jon asks him.
"Yeah." He says and his fingers relax a bit. "I didn't think you were so young when it happened."
"Sixteen isn't that young. I wasn't a little kid."
It's old enough to know what sex was. Old enough to know that getting drunk with a boy who wanted to get into his pants was a bad idea. Just a pity that he didn't get to have a good experience with sex first.
"You were still a child!" Martin says.
"Then so was he. And I was a drunk child." Jon says. "The party was at a different friend's. Her parents weren't in that weekend. It wasn't a big thing, maybe twenty of us? We pitched in and got some older siblings to buy us alcohol. The boy - I'm not going to deign to give his name - kept getting me more to drink. I knew he was doing it, but I didn't keep track of how much he was getting me to drink and I didn’t realise how drunk I was getting. I don't remember much from later that night, but some friends told me I got to the point where I was only intermittently conscious, and he offered to take me upstairs and put me to bed. Neither of us came back down."
Martin rubs little circles on Jon's shoulder. Jon leans back against him a little more.
What the boy did still rankles, still stings. But it's the throb of an old scar, a proof of healing, rather than the sharp lance of an infected wound. Jon has moved forward in his life past this.
"I don't remember the act itself, and this was before camera phones really got popular, so there's no video or photo evidence that it happened. But I do remember the morning after." Waking up with his head splitting open, but also sore below where he'd never been before. "I think the worst part was the way his come just started to slide out of me when I stood up, that it had just been there inside me all night."
"That's why you don't like it when I come inside." Martin says.
"It's not the act itself, it's just I don't feel clean until it's out of me." Jon replies. "I went to the pharmacy, but you need to be seventeen to get the morning after pill without a prescription."
The pharmacist wasn't rude about Jon's age, or the medication he needed to take. If fact, she went out of her way to make sure Jon has access to the help he didn't know he sorely needed.
"And you were sixteen."
Jon nods. "They told me that sixteen was old enough to see a doctor without parental permission and gave me directions to a nearby sexual health clinic. They'd be able to give me the pill if I talked with a doctor. It wasn't until the doctor asked if I wanted a rape kit exam too that it even crossed my mind that I'd been assualted. I didn't end up getting one. I didn't want to report it."
"No offense Jon, but why the hell not?"
Oh. Ouch.
A familiar shame curls within Jon.
"I knew it would get back to my grandmother and I thought she'd blame me. And he was just another teenager. Teens make-"
Jon stiffens as the knowledge floods into his head unbidden.
"What?" Martin asks.
"He didn't stop with me." Jon says starkly. "I was the first, but he's in prison now on three counts of rape." And about a dozen other went unreported. "If I'd said something…" Jon shakes his head. "No, I am not going to feel guilty about this."
"Still feeling alright?" Martin asks.
"I mean, I'm not okay by any stretch of the imagination, but I want to keep going. Is that alright?" Jon says.
"Sure." Martin replies. "If there is more."
"Yeah, uh, I've been raped twice." Jon says. "The second time was a whole lot worse, so brace yourself."
"You don't have to tell me." Martin says immediately. "Not if you don't want to."
"I want to though, if that's okay?" Jon waits for Martin to nod before continuing. "Good. It's like a Statement. I'm not sure if I even could stop now."
Jon takes a breath and steels himself for the next chapter in the abridged story of his life. The words flow from him with much greater ease than expected. Martin isn't having to needle or pull each word out through clenched teeth like Jon feared he might have to.
"The clinic sent me off with the morning after pill and a bunch of prescriptions to stop me from contracting any STDs. The fallout at school was not great. There were some rumours about that night floating around so…"
"Kids can be nasty." Martin says.
They can. And sometimes the things they say about you can linger for years. Can mill about your head like a relative who you struggle to get rid of at the end of a long visit. Can carry forward into future chapters of your life.
"I'm not ace because I was raped. I've always been this way." Jon says.
Not a direct link to Martin's comment, but Jon's heard that enough times. You wouldn't be ace if your first time was actually good. It's taken years, but Jon no longer believes that lie.
"Did you come out after that?" Martin asks.
"No. I still hadn't worked it out then. I figured I was trans a couple of months after I turned eighteen, but didn't begin to transition until after sixth form. I literally went to uni a new man and figured I was ace after a few months there."
Jon's throat is getting dry. He wishes he still had that cup of tea, but it's empty and the mugs are still over on the table. And getting a drink would involve getting out of Martin's embrace. He needs to be touched now. Needs Martin to subtly tell him there's nothing wrong with him, that he can still accept Jon now knowing this.
"I ended up getting quite active in the LGBT society at uni. Traditionally it had been quite a club for gay men, with lesbians making up most of the rest of the population. I became quite active setting up events for lesser known demographics. As an ace, biromantic, trans man, I fit into a lot of those groups. I met Georgie through the society in my second year and we started dating."
"It wasn't her, was it?" Martin looks aghast at the thought.
"No, God no," Jon says, "she just helped me get through the aftermath. We were together at the time it happened. Even these days, the LGBT community hasn’t exactly reached a consensus about who belongs, but it was even worse back then. And I was outspoken about being in several of the minority groups. I don't know if they came after me because I was ace or trans or what. It wasn't like the way I identified was a secret by any means."
"Corrective rape then?" Martin asks.
The words themselves leave a sour taste in Jon's mouth. He's never been able to say those words himself, even if he knows what the situation was.
Jon nods. "Invalidating the way I identify is another trigger because of that." More than just because of it, but...
"I think that's a trigger for most people, and it's not something I'd do to you." Martin says. “I’d only consider it if you specifically asked, which I know you’re not going to do.”
Jon nods. "They planned it. Apparently had been stalking me for a couple of weeks to learn my schedule, but I never noticed." Jon says. "They worked out that I often worked late at the library and walked back in the early morning. I was ambushed by a group of four of them around three AM. I'm a little fuzzy on the details. They beat me first and a bit after. I took a couple of blows to the head, and earned myself a nasty concussion. Then they took turns pinning me down while they raped me one by one." He says it nonchalantly, as if it wasn't one of the worst things he's ever been through, even after all the stuff at the Archives.
He offers no more detail than that. Martin doesn’t ask for a play-by-play, which is a good thing, because Jon really doesn’t want to give him one. Yes, Martin wants to know what to avoid, but…
Well he already knows what Jon likes in bed. Hopefully Jon isn’t reading the situation wrong and Martin just wants to know the sort of situations to avoid.
"God that's awful." Martin whispers.
Jon grimaces. "I just count myself lucky to still be alive because one of them wanted to toss me into the river and I doubt I would have survived."
Martin doesn't say anything in response to that, but Jon hears his sharp intake in breath. The arms around him tighten slightly as if in protection from the avoided drowning.
"The others talked him out of it. They left me there and I was found by an early morning jogger maybe an hour later? Long enough for me to get cold." Jon says. "I was lucky. A lot of people in my situation don't walk out of encounters like that alive."
"Did you report it?" Martin asks.
"I think the hospital staff did it for me?" Jon says. "The police were already there when I regained something resembling lucidity. I had a severe concussion and several broken bones. It was a severe enough crime that they had already decided to press charges."
"They can do that without asking you?" Martin asks. He sounds reasonably appalled.
"Apparently? Corpses don’t testify at murder trials, so if there’s enough evidence, they don’t need your statement. They pressed me into talking to the police and lawyers anyway - Georgie helped too. They can start proceedings without your consent, but they really need the victim to testify or the case normally gets dropped for insufficient evidence."
"I didn't know that was legal. Huh." Martin says.
"Neither did I. Anyway, two of the guys cut a deal in exchange for testifying against the others, who were identified as the ring leaders. The whole ordeal was mostly kept out of the news, but the stress of the trial was intense. I ended up retaking all of my exams that summer, and though Georgie supported me through all of it, I wasn't in the right headspace for a relationship at the end of it."
"Did you get any help afterwards?" Martin asks.
The lawyers had pretty much shoved the idea of counselling down Jon's throat. He didn't want to at first, but Georgie was there to add pressure as well. Looking back, Jon's glad for the help, for the extra layer of support. The trials were almost too much even with counselling.
"For a bit, yeah. I had to shop around. There's plenty of professionals out there that consider asexuality to be an illness and I had to jump ship on a few."
"That's it then?" Martin asks. "There's no more?"
"Wasn't that quite enough?" Jon says with force.
"Not like that or anything. I meant the story. I mean, I'm sorry this ever happ-"
"I've told you what I think about people feeling sorry for me. I’m a survivor, not a victim."
"Oh, God! I didn't mean- I'm-" Martin clamps his mouth shut before the dreadful word can escape. "And now I can't even apologise. What is this awful loop you've got me stuck into?"
"It happened. I'm mostly over it. I have a fetish that's going to have to be carefully considered before acting upon it."
"I don't mean anything bad, but I don't think you're in the right headspace to negotiate right now." Martin says.
Jon nods, his lips crunching into a little grimace. Martin is of course right. Dredging this stuff up has worsened his mood and arguably his mental state. Any scenes negotiated right now would be tainted with self-destructive behaviour. It's good of Martin to notice that, because Jon would just plough on ahead.
"And if we don't take your mind off it," Martin continues, "you're going to stew on it and get yourself into a feedback loop where you feel awful."
"Probably." Jon admits. "But what are you going to do about that?"
"We could go do something together. The day is still young." Martin says. "Can you exercise in a binder? I find exercise helps snap me out of negative thought spirals."
"Sounds hellish," Jon says, "but yes, though I'll probably need to take frequent breaks."
There's a binder he has that's a couple of sizes too big that's precisely for that purpose. Not that he really has much cause to use it because most of his exercise can be categorised as ‘running away from things that are trying to eat me’ and you don’t normally plan your day to involve that. Jon doesn't mind sweating through it- particularly as he considers it inferior to the binders which fit him better and get him more properly flat.
"Let's see what options we have in our local area." Martin says, and he picks up his phone for a quick search. "Oh- there's a trampoline park nearby." He says after a few moments.
How juvenile.
"That sounds silly." Jon says.
"Silly and exhilarating." Martin agrees. "Are you in?"