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There’s no warning of Jon’s heat. No applications chiming reminders on Jon’s phone, no mysterious new linens appearing in the flat, nothing at all from Jon himself except a lower appetite and fatigue. Those are both normal enough for Jon: Martin is first made aware of Jon’s heat by waking up with a feverish omega clinging to him.
At the time, he doesn’t think about anything except calling in sick and how best to get Jon through it. That's quite enough to deal with.
They didn’t intentionally move in together. It just sort of happened.
Admittedly Martin did ask Jon to never leave, but they were both still high on pheromones at the time. Now, Jon sleeps at Martin’s every night. His toothbrush lives on Martin’s bathroom counter. His clothes are taking space in Martin’s closet.
It might be advisable to actually have a conversation about it, since Martin’s flat was cramped for one and it’s positively claustrophobic for two, and Jon’s is bigger and nicer.
If they talk about it, though, it’s possible Jon will realize what’s been happening and run away so fast Martin never sees him again. He can’t risk it.
Jon rarely bothers to make breakfast; when shifts allow, Martin makes it for both of them, and he tries to leave snacks in the fridge for Jon to eat at other times. (Martin is remembering, now, that he quite likes cooking, when there is a sufficiently appreciative audience.)
Some mornings, though, Jon ignores them.
“In a hurry?” Martin asks him as he gets dressed and sets towards the door with not a glance in the direction of the kitchen.
It takes Jon a moment to answer. When he does, he speaks slowly and deliberately, careful not to slur. “If I go to the kitchen, I’ll forget where I was going next and stand there for twenty minutes like an idiot.”
Martin’s heart squeezes painfully. “Wait here,” he says. The muffins he made will last well enough in Jon’s bag. He goes to the kitchen, packs a couple, and hands them to Jon. “There you go. Breakfast.”
Jon looks absolutely gobsmacked. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“It was no trouble,” Martin says, closing Jon’s fingers around the top of the bag. “Off you go, then. Work waits for no man.”
Later that day, Martin gets a call from Jon’s workplace. One of Jon’s coworkers loads him into a scent-proof cab, and Martin finishes his shift in a hurry, heart racing all the way home.
He’s aware enough, then, to realize his own flat has precious little nesting material. He has a brief vision of his jumpers puddled on the floor, Jon cosily settled among them.
When Martin reaches the flat, he finds Jon sat on a kitchen chair, shivering. “Oh, sweetheart,” Martin says before his brain has time to catch up with his mouth. “Here, let’s go to bed.” Jon follows with alacrity.
If Jon won’t use a tracker app, Martin’s not above doing it himself.
He takes it out of his pocket during a work break, when it chimes cheerfully. One week till heat! it says. Time to stock up and ask your alpha to be available.
Martin will talk to Tim about his shift schedule later. For now, he pulls up the app’s list of heat essentials: food and water, mostly, and a few discreet toys “in case your alpha’s not around”, and a service which supplies blankets and pillows on a rush order if there aren’t enough for a proper nest.
The service is incredibly overpriced, of course, as is everything that has a “Heat suitable!” sticker on. Martin doesn’t know much, but he’s heard the omegas at work grumble about that. Anything comfortable and machine washable will do.
Martin’s flat does not have an overabundance of linens of any kind. He goes into the shops on his way home.
Martin staggers inside the flat, shoving the door closed with his foot. From the living room, he hears Jon call his name, concerned. “Come help me get this,” Martin calls back from under a mound of pillows and blankets.
He may have gone overboard.
Jon quickly comes to assist. Once all the pillows and blankets are squared away - with many making a new residence on the sofa - he asks, “Redecorating?”
“Yeah.” It seems like the easiest path, the one least likely to drive Jon away. “Thought the house could use a cosy touch.”
Jon rubs the satin hem of a blanket. “Very cosy,” he agrees.
Martin has to choke down a shout of triumph.
Jon’s next heat finds him curled up in their bed, only wrapped in the one blanket he sleeps with.
Martin, gone stupid with heat, asks, “Don’t you want a nest?”
Jon stares up at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes. His scent takes on an edge of distress.
Martin kisses his forehead and bundles him close, trying to warm Jon with his own body as much as he can.
After, Martin goes about making tea while they wait for dinner to be delivered. Few people are up for cooking post-heat, and with Jon’s help buying groceries, they can afford to splurge rather than scavenge the meager contents of their refrigerator.
Martin tries to keep up the usual light-hearted chatter even as his thoughts go in circles. He’s pretty sure Jon liked the texture of the blankets. Maybe he hadn’t realized what Martin bought them for?
Well, of course he didn’t. Martin as much as said these were for decoration. Stupid past him.
Jon blinks up at him from the dining table, swaddled in his blanket. Martin puts the cup down and says, “You know you can use the blankets, right?”
Jon blinks some more.
“The ones I bought,” Martin elaborates, feeling more foolish by the minute. “You can nest in them, if you want.”
“Oh,” Jon says, looking down. “Thank you.” He does not sound pleased.
Martin’s heart pounds. “You don’t like them?”
“I do! I do like them.” Jon swallows. “Um.”
That um does not portend anything good. “There’s something wrong with them, isn’t there,” Martin says.
“The blankets are fine, it’s me there’s something wrong with,” Jon says, and takes a sip from his tea. “Thank you,” he says, gesturing at it. “It’s very good.”
“What?” Martin says blankly.
“I said the tea is very--”
“I heard you,” Martin says. “Why would you say there’s something wrong with you? You’re wonderful.” The hammering of his heart has shifted into something lower and meaner. If he finds whoever told Jon there was something wrong with him, Martin’s going to give them a piece of his mind.
Jon rolls his eyes. “I can’t nest,” he says. “It’s not exactly a positive trait.”
“I don’t mind--”
“Maybe I do!” Jon only raises his voice slightly, still weak from heat, but it startles Martin into shutting up. “Do you think it’s nice? Do you think I like aching for something soft to sleep in, knowing all these nice blankets are just three steps away, and they may as well be on the moon?”
A silent moment falls. Jon huddles deeper into his blanket, and Martin wants to give him whole houses, an olympic swimming pool padded with soft, warm fabric.
“I’m sorry,” Martin says, finally, inadequately.
Jon shrugs. “Why? You didn’t make me like this.”
“My sympathies, then. Fuck.” Martin rakes his hand through his hair, shaking lightly. “No, you know what? I am sorry, for poking around like this at a sore subject. And for not helping more.”
“Short of making a nest for me, I don’t really see how you could,” Jon says, his voice irritable, but he bows his head to drink some more tea, and his expression mellows a bit.
“Suppose I couldn’t,” Martin says, a little slow as his head kicks into hyperdrive.
Surely there’s YouTube tutorials on how to build a nest. There’s YouTube tutorials on everything.
The ones Martin finds, however, feel very off the mark - younger, trendy-looking omegas talking about how they achieved their Instagram-ready nests, complete with handmade soft animals and fair-trade pillows. “Nesting is nothing to be ashamed of,” says one, whose video cuts off mid-stream to advertise a homeopathic remedy for heat sickness, “it’s a perfectly natural urge.”
As Martin tabs out of a video on a nest entirely made in shades of periwinkle, with fairy lights and a canopy, something in the recommended videos catches his eye.
The thumbnail features an alpha and omega pair who look to be in their eighties. The title says, Intimate accommodation: care for the elderly.
It turns out to be an ad. “As our bodies change, our hearts still yearn for closeness and warmth.” The pair from the thumbnail walk slowly in a field of wildflowers. “When you can’t do it for yourself, GoldenCare will do it for you.”
Martin turns painfully red, looking away from the screen. He doesn’t want Jon to think Martin thinks he’s - infirm, or anything. That Jon can’t take care of himself.
The fact of the matter, though, is that Jon can’t. Observably, there are acts Jon would like to perform that he can’t. The question is, how does Martin bring it up without either offending Jon or insinuating too much commitment? Most people don’t watch elder care videos to get ideas for a relationship they’re casual about.
Martin swallows and clicks one of the recommended videos, and another one.
He does come out with a vague idea of how to construct a nest: choose colours and textures the omega likes, which is a no-brainer. Machine washable only, similarly obvious, and Martin knew that already anyway.
The important part is how the omega feels about the nest, which Martin has no way of knowing without consulting Jon about it, which leads him into the question none of the videos answered: how to broach the subject. The videos either assumed the omega would be making their own nest or that the pair has been married for over a decade.
Martin is very close to just letting the whole idea go, but he can’t stop thinking about one video in particular: an elderly couple looking shyly at the camera, the alpha explaining how to make the nest just so for their partner’s comfort. They talk about crocheting by hand over the years the blankets their partner uses, how slowly she couldn’t arrange them to her satisfaction and they took over. She holds his hand, smiling - they said she finds speaking hard, now, too - but her grip does not falter.
It leaves him feeling shaken, in a good way, like flour being run through a sieve. He’s going to do this, even if he goes down in flames doing it.
Two days before the app says Jon’s heat is due, Martin sits him down and says, “I want to make some plans for your heat.”
Jon wrinkles his nose, adorable man that he is. “It’s a bit early to discuss, isn’t it? I just had one.”
“That was over three weeks ago.”
Jon frowns. “That can’t be.” He fishes out his phone, looking through his calendar. “I remember, because it was the day after Tim’s birthday, he said there must have been something in the cake….” His voice fades as he realizes that, in fact, happened three weeks ago. “Ah. What about it, then?”
“For one thing, you might want to take some time off work,” Martin says, “rather than leaving it till the last moment.” Jon nods stiffly. “But mostly I wanted to ask you about nesting.”
Well, if he wanted to make Jon hunch on himself and bristle, he’s now achieved that. Good job, Martin.
In for a penny, though… “I thought, uh, maybe I could help you. By, um. Making a nest for you?”
Jon blinks. “You can do that?”
Martin shrugs. “I never tried, but I looked it up, and, um, I think I can suss out the basics? But of course I want you to say how you like it.”
The room fills up with expectant silence, until finally Jon says, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” Martin repeats. Because he’s never been able to make one. Of course. Why does Martin have to be so stupid? Wait, no, bad time for self recriminations. “Right. Um. Maybe… we could find out? Together?” He cringes at how cheesy he sounds.
“Alright,” Jon says, after a pause that seems to last forever. He raises a hand. “Just… don’t get your hopes too high. I will probably mess this up, some way or another.” He sounds resigned.
Martin resists the urge to ask how, exactly, Jon can mess up having a nest built for him. Jon will probably have an answer, and that’s not a conversation that would be helpful. “Let’s try. Okay?” He gets off the sofa.
At length, Jon nods. He takes Martin’s hand, and they go to the bedroom like that.
Martin takes out as many blankets as he can carry and arranges them on the bed to the best of his artistic talent. It’s not very much.
Jon gets on the bed, settling himself in the midst of the blankets, frowning slightly. “I like this,” he says, sounding surprised.
Martin refuses to let himself get waylaid by the rush of pleasure from Jon’s enjoyment. “Can I make it better?”
“More blankets,” Jon says, then hurriedly adds, “but this is fine, too!”
“More blankets would be better?”
Reluctantly, Jon nods.
By the time he’s satisfied, the bed is piled with every single blanket Martin owns, and most of the pillows. He can barely see Jon amidst the fabric: he’d given up on any semblance of artistry, since Jon clearly favors quantity over quality in this instance.
Jon wiggles around until there is some space in the center. He’s clutching a pillow to his chest.
Martin is torn between the urge to coo and the urge to go replace that pillow with his own body. “Can I join you?” he asks.
Jon stares at him like he’s grown eye stalks. “No, you may not come into the nest you made for me. How dare you. Of course you can join me, don’t be ridiculous.” He even abandons the pillow he’s cuddling to make more room for Martin.
Martin clambers into the clearing, sending a few pillows flying to the floor in the process. “One minute, I’ll get them.”
Jon grabs his shirt. “Leave them. Come here.”
What can Martin do but obey?
Like this, it’s tangible how close Jon’s heat is. Jon doesn’t smell aroused - he rarely is, outside of heat; instead, even better, he smells content. Happy, even, taking proprietary delight in the nest Martin made for him.
The rush of those words hits Martin harder than he’d have expected. He’d made this for Jon, this place where he can smell comfortable and safe and--
“Are you okay?” Jon says, concern sneaking into his scent.
Martin sniffles. “I’m fine. Just,” he allows himself a little sentimentality, “I’m so glad you’re here with me.”
Jon makes a strangled noise. “You don’t make any sense.”
Martin pokes him in the shoulder. “What? Why not?”
“You made me a nest!” With his one arm that isn’t pinned under Martin’s weight, Jon flails. “Why are you acting like you should be grateful to me for the privilege?”
“Because I am,” Martin says honestly. “Every day you’re here, that’s a day you could be somewhere else, and I’m glad you chose to be with me.”
The noise Jon makes at that is truly alarming. “Of course I’m here! Why on Earth would I rather be anywhere else?” He shuts his mouth in a suspicious hurry.
“People don’t usually go out of their way to spend time with me.” Martin winces at how whiny that is, but it’s true.
“Then they’re idiots,” Jon says, with such utter certainty that Martin has to squeeze him closer. “You built me a nest.”
“I piled blankets on a bed,” Martin points out. “Anyone could have done that.”
Softly, Jon says, “I couldn’t have. Not while in heat.” He shushes Martin’s attempt to apologize. “I appreciate it, alright? Even if it was easy for you. It must be easy for plenty of people, but nobody’s offered to do it for me before.”
“Then they’re idiots,” Martin says, because using Jon’s words is easier than coming up with his own. “You deserve so much more than that.”
Jon’s jaw sets mulishly. “Then you do, too. You deserve not to feel like you have to coddle me and pamper me or I’ll disappear.”
Martin’s about to say he does no such thing, rubs his toes against the blanket, and changes his argument to, “Maybe I like coddling you, did you think about that?”
“Maybe I like you,” Jon says. “Just you. Coddling or not.”
Fuck. How’s Martin meant to deal with that? “Alright,” he whispers. He buries his face in Jon’s throat to get a good whiff of the complicated human scent of him, alive with feelings and reactions.
“Make you a deal,” Jon says abruptly. “I’ll stop thinking you’re working too hard taking care of me if you stop acting like one wrong move will make me leave.”
Busted. Martin exhales. “No promises.”
Jon doesn’t let go that easily. “Promise to try.” He hesitates and shyly adds, “For me?”
“Fuck.” Martin closes his eyes. “Alright, I’ll promise to try.”
Jon squirms infinitesimally closer to him. “That’s what I like to hear.”
Martin could say the same for the smugness in Jon’s voice. He hugs him back, and they stay this way until it’s time to go make dinner.