loficharm | Crash Course

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Crash Course

January 22nd, 2022

"How does that feel?"

Martin had not intended to snoop. He'd expressly intended not to, in fact, in a way that had taken some conscious effort. With John needing to go to work for a few hours — needing to record Statements, as he'd sheepishly implied — Martin knew the temptation would be stronger than ever. His curiosity about his life here, their life together, is almost overwhelming at times. But just because this is all technically his doesn't mean he has any right to it, really.

He'd assured John he'd be fine, that he'd find some way to occupy himself. He'd thought perhaps he might read, or poke around on this universe's odd simulacrum of YouTube. He should've anticipated it would be harder than that, and he has a hard time believing that John wasn't fully aware of the possibility. So in a way, being left alone in the flat might almost be tacit approval of his own urge to search it.

He'd decided to clean, instead. Something active, helpful, allowing him exploration in a limited capacity. It had worked, too. Until the bedroom. Until the box under the bed, specifically. Filled with tapes, just like the ones they'd used at the Institute, with labels in John's handwriting, proclaiming them to be... innocuous things. Personal things. He'd picked up one off the top of the pile. Christmas, it said. Simple. Straightforward. He'd noticed the cassette player, sitting there on the bedside table, had glanced at it suspiciously, almost sure it hadn't been there before. He should've just put it back. He should not have slotted the tape into the player, and he should not be listening to it now.

But that is what he's doing, perched on the edge of the bed, the player clutched tight in his hands as he stares down at it, tape spooling away as his own voice grits out a response to John's question amid some layers of rustling fabric and creaking wood. "Jesus Christ, John," he says.

There's a moment where there's nothing but his own audibly labored breathing, and the slight shifting of what can only be this very mattress; and then John says, in a voice quite unlike anything Martin's heard from him before: "Well, now you've gone a bit quiet. I suppose we'll have to do something about that."

This is not some sort of idle little recording made during a Christmas party, or anything remotely related to Christmas at all besides the date. This is private. It is incredibly, unutterably private, and he should not be listening to it. He should shut this tape off and put it back and pretend he never found it; better still, he should own up to having found it, apologize, and go from there. But even as his face reddens and his heart rate skyrockets, as he listens to his own gasps and moans and evident struggling, he cannot bring himself to interrupt it. He sits, swamped in mortified fascination, and he lets it play on.

"Going somewhere?" John asks, and Martin very nearly gasps just hearing his voice pitched that low, laced with a sort of playful authority. As agonizing as it is listening to himself, especially in such intense vulnerability, it is intoxicating hearing John like this. He finds himself desperately trying to piece together the details. It's clear he's been... restrained somehow. Was he tied up? Is he the sort of person who asks for that? And is John the sort of person who does it?

He's only barely begun to work this out when his recorded self lets out such a sharp, sudden yelp that he jolts and nearly drops the player. Christ, what was that, what the hell did John do? He listens for any clue, but there's nothing, no words exchanged between them, just an oddly protracted moment of silence and shaky breathing and then another cry, so intense and raw that it's almost distressing. Martin has... he's always been noisy, but he knows he's never made a noise like that before.

"Mister Blackwood," John says, silky and amused, sending a shiver down Martin's spine, "you've been holding out on me. Or did you not know?" He's still doing it, whatever it is, drawing a constant stream of frantic whines and murmurs out of the other him. "Is this a shock to you as well?"

Is what a shock? What is he doing? What the hell is he doing?!

Martin can't fucking figure it out. He keeps listening, growing both increasingly uncomfortable and uncomfortably aroused as John keeps... investigating whatever this is, and there's never any clarity given. What exchanges do occur are unspecific, providing only more confusing evidence: that whatever this is, it does seem like a surprise, and that it's so good he's beside himself, swearing and begging for more. Even without knowing the details, Martin knows he's never had sex like this before, but he doesn't think a lack of experience is at fault for his bewilderment. He cannot picture it. If John were just... touching him, it wouldn't be so bloody novel. He's talking often enough that he's not using his mouth. What is it?

And then John asks if this is all it takes, and Martin nearly drops the tape player again, or rather nearly throws it across the room. The following confirmation that yes, he was tied up, barely registers. The idea that this, whatever it is, could be enough to finish the job but they hadn't ever thought to try it, is completely baffling. And yet it seems like an idea they were both keen to pursue. It keeps going like that for what feels like forever, and he keeps listening, rapt and distantly horrified with himself. The only clue that ever comes as to what any of it was is just his own one-word request: Harder, which could refer to literally anything. The sweeter moments — when he stops to ask if John is okay, resulting in gentle reassurance somewhat like what he's experienced himself — are overshadowed by more questions: why wouldn't John be okay? Is this strenuous? Is it...

Holy shit, is it actually working?

He sits there, sweating, turned on, and appalled as he listens to himself achieve an orgasm the like of which he knows he's never felt. It sounds... it sounds like it was incredible. He couldn't shut up the entire time. Christ, the whole building must know what they get up to.

He asks to be untied, and John sheepishly tells him Happy Christmas, and Martin finally forces himself to stop the tape. He's not going to find out what happened here and he shouldn't know to wonder. This wasn't his. He has no business wondering, committing such a towering invasion of privacy.

...Why didn't it sound like John was getting anything out of this, apart from his own amusement? He almost considers resuming playback, but instead he rather aggressively ejects the tape, returns it to the box and returns the box beneath the bed. The tape player he sets back on the bedside table, nervously, like it might somehow give him up. Then he slumps over, his head in his hands.

"Fuck," he mutters, and shifts uneasily. He's hard, and he needs to not be. He could just deal with it in the loo, he probably even has time for a shower — John will surely be back soon, but a shower is innocent enough — but even that feels like a gross impropriety. He has no right to any of this, erection fucking included.

It takes some time just sitting there, but he wills himself to calm down. Mostly, at least. Enough that he can get up, shaky but no longer... encumbered. He needs to find something to do, something productive, something to pull him away from all this. Something helpful, like he set out to do.

Laundry. He can do laundry. The hamper's nearly full, especially with John having made up the bed for him with new sheets that first night. Which felt ridiculous at the time, but may have been necessary, in retrospect. He feels bad about it either way. Laundry is tedious, slow, and requires some physical effort. It will help.

He pokes around until he finds detergent and some of Darrow's unfamiliar coins, not sure what he'll need, but multiple trips wouldn't be the end of the world. Fortunately the laundry room is easy enough to find. He lugs everything down to a rather dismal little room in the basement, cracked concrete floor and peeling walls, lights that flicker occasionally. The machines don't appear to require money, which is nice, at least. He loads up the washer, takes his time figuring out the right setting, and turns it on. Then he stands there for a moment, staring at it, listening to the mechanical churn. It's comforting, in a way. He is still overheated, his heart still pounding too fast, his face probably still flushed. But he's calming down by degrees. Maybe he can just... ask about this. Maybe he can find a way to ask that won't make him want to walk directly into the sea.

He's about to head back upstairs when the lights flicker again, more dramatically this time, and he stills, looking up at them with slight trepidation. He's not sure why. Work has made him paranoid, he supposes. Jane Prentiss made him justifiably paranoid. There was something off about the lights just now, and...

And is he imagining it, or is there some sort of low tone, somewhere beneath the washing machine? Like a drone or a hum, or... whispers?

The lights flicker again and his gaze darts back to the washing machine, drawn by some nebulous sense that there is something out of place, settling abruptly on the tape player that, this time, he knows to 100% certainty was not there before. It's on, recording, and he stares at it, a cold dread pooling in his gut, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. He feels, suddenly, intensely sure that he doesn't want to turn around. That he won't like what he sees if he does. He should just get out of here, get back upstairs to the relative safety of the flat.

But instead, perhaps inevitably, he does turn around. There's something on the wall that he's pretty sure also wasn't there before, a sort of spidering crack in it, with something moving underneath. He can barely see it; it's barely perceptible, but it's there. Movement in those awful black lines, like ink flowing behind the plaster. Like moving shadows.

He's not sure why, but he takes a hesitating step forward. Cursed by curiosity, in more ways than one today. He just wants to get a better look, to try and see what's making that weird sense of movement. Maybe it's... somehow, something normal and reasonable, and if he can just get a look—

There is someone else there.

He doesn't know how he didn't see them before, standing in the corner, shadowed but very present in his periphery. He jolts, just barely biting back a shriek as he looks at them more directly, except there's no one there after all. He stands there, breathing heavily and feeling like an idiot. Christ, he was sure... well, at least the whole situation has him spooked enough now that he has no intention of staying. Fuck this, he thinks, and he pivots on his heel with every intention of hurrying out and back up the stairs.

Instead something lashes around his waist, catching him so sharply that he nearly chokes and topples over; there's nothing there, nothing he can see, but he can feel it, some sort of faint pressure twining around him, his legs, his arms, up to his chest. He tries to pull against it and it lifts him up off the floor with terrifying ease, holding him suspended for just a moment before it drags him back, slamming him to the wall. He gasps, winded, and looks down to see himself swathed in shadows, tendrils of intangible dark that are somehow, impossibly, holding him up, pinning him to the wall. The lights flicker violently, casting everything in a frenetic sort of stop motion. The noise is overwhelming now, like someone is whispering directly into his ear, not that he can make out a word of it. He struggles, his shoes scraping uselessly at the wall as he's pressed back against it like it wants to pull him inside somehow. And that isn't the only pressure exerted on him, neither the unyielding wall at his back nor the shadows weaving their way around him; there is also the overwhelming sense of some intense emotion, not quite malevolent but terrifying all the same. It feels... not even angry. Petty, which is almost worse.

"No—!" is the only cry he can muster once he's regained his breath, and only barely, as the response is immediate, another plume of darkness wrapping thickly around his mouth, muffling his voice so effectively he might as well be under water. He struggles harder, desperate and panicky and utterly ineffectual, and it just holds him there, motionless, like it's lying in wait.

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Christ, he hadn't known any of it? John does a swift mental review of his own explanation, wondering if he could've made it gentler, somehow. But he was already taking a great deal of care. Honestly, as far as any mortification goes, the damage was probably done once Martin listened to the tape — and he can't think of any practical way he might've prevented that. Their flat isn't rife with hiding places that wouldn't be stumbled upon by an intrepid tidier, and like hell was he about to bring the collection into work. Presuming he'd thought to do something about the box of bloody sex tapes to begin with, which, admittedly, hadn't crossed his mind.

Regardless, it's a lot for poor Martin to process. The smile John offers him is halfway to a sympathetic wince, and he shakes his head as he looks back to their tea. "You are having a hell of a day," he says as he finishes preparing their cups, hoping a little levity might help. He carries the tea over to the table, sets Martin's cup before him, and lingers by his chair long enough to give his shoulder a brief, gentle squeeze.

"You're handling it all better than I would, for what it's worth," he adds as he moves back over to his chair. "If our roles were reversed, I'd probably have hurled myself into the sea by now."

A sheepish chuckle turns to an outright laugh at John's own assessment of how he'd be handling this, and Martin briefly attempts to stifle his own amusement with a hand to his face, even though he's sure John meant it to be funny. Christ, he never knew how funny John was, it just keeps striking him over and over.

For all that he loves the stray touches John keeps bestowing on him, to his hair, that little squeeze at his shoulder, he feels a bit more grounded as he finds them both sat across from one another again. He pulls himself together and reaches out to fit his hands back around his cup, happy for the occupation.

"Can't even imagine," he says. "Me trying to explain any of this to you."

As a topic shift, it doesn't hold much appeal. There's too much room for it to skew from humorous to unfortunate, and there's more still holding very tight to his attention besides.

After a few moments, he lifts his tea and, holding it close and speaking over the rim, he says, "S-so how did that come about, exactly? Me... asking you to... well, Ask." He takes an immediate sip of tea as if bolstering, or perhaps rewarding himself for the curiosity.

John grins, always pleased to have earned a laugh from Martin, but especially so in the wake of anything awkward, embarrassing or otherwise difficult. It fades a little at Martin's remark, though: it's one thing to joke about what a nightmare a role reversal would have been, and another to give it any actual consideration. Christ, he would've been insufferable.

Fortunately, Martin changes the subject before John can get properly mired in hypotheticals. Or, rather, he draws them back to the original subject, and John quirks an eyebrow in faint surprise. It's not that Martin's curiosity is shocking, or even all that unexpected — he's had some unanticipated knowledge dumped into his lap, and if he hasn't given such proclivities much thought before now, then... perhaps he's taking an academic approach. But the pursuit of further details is still not what John was anticipating, and the details he's asking for are ones John isn't even sure he can provide.

"I'm not sure," he admits, fiddling with the handle of his cup. "I mean, it certainly took me by surprise. I think... I think it was something you'd been mulling over for a while, but had trouble putting into words." He shrugs, unwilling to speculate too much about what was going through Martin's head at the time. "You said you had something you wanted to ask me for, and then you... asked me to make it easier for you."

"Right," Martin says a little too quickly, setting his cup back down but keeping his attention on it. "Yeah, that makes... sense."

And that could easily be that, were he capable of letting it go. Only he isn't. Each time he tries to direct his thoughts elsewhere, he strays back, craving more details, more information around which to build a picture of his future self. A very specific picture. He coughs and shifts in his seat, still, outwardly, intent upon his tea.

"To be honest, I... I'd never have known to think about it like that," he admits, wishing once again that he didn't blush so damn easy. "I mean, as a comfort thing, rather than..." He waves a hand, as if to encapsulate all known applications of consensual bondage, then pulls back inward, embarrassed. "But it makes sense," he mumbles.

John hums in agreement, a faint, perplexed line appearing between his brows. Martin's embarrassment is evident in both his slight squirming and his blush, belying the idea that his interest is merely academic. And yet, they're still talking about it. Martin is still, doggedly, talking about it: about his surprise over bondage's more comforting applications, and how much sense it makes.

Granted, John can certainly sympathize. Those comforting applications hadn't occurred to him, either — in no small part because his own experiences made it impossible for him to conceptualize 'being tied up' as a pleasant experience for himself — but they still made intellectual sense. He's been where Martin currently sits. The chief ostensible difference is that the first time they went through this, all the explanatory detail wasn't just for its own sake; it was inextricably linked to the request that John actually do it. Their mutual understanding was a prerequisite to moving forward with the idea.

Is that what Martin's edging towards?

John takes a slow sip of his tea, considering the prospect. He had joked about how quickly things were moving, and there is a point where he thinks he'd need to pump the proverbial brakes. Some of the time they took to get here feels arbitrary in retrospect, but some of it still feels necessary, and—and good. It wouldn't feel right to deprive Martin of the scenic route for the sake of hurrying them to a specific destination, to reenact what he heard on that tape as if everything that led up to it can be casually brushed aside. On the other hand, as far as non-sexual bondage is concerned, the time they took was mostly the time Martin took to work up the nerve to ask for it. If he were to ask for it now, a refusal would feel arbitrary, too.

If.

John sets down his cup, then leans forward slightly, his chin propped in his hand as he regards Martin with an air of calm curiosity that doesn't entirely mask the intensity of his interest. "Ask me," he says, soft and simple.

There is a long silence, during which Martin struggles to find a way out of the hole he's dug himself. He can't keep making asinine little remarks as though this is all a thought exercise. He can't keep hiding from his own reasons for pressing, and he certainly can't assume John won't be able to intuit them. And he can't — he won't put John on the spot like that. As if he has any right to presume that whatever his future, full self has, he might have also. It feels tacky, selfish, and shallow to have only just learned about this and already want to try it for himself. John might be willing to kiss him, to carry him through this journey with undue tenderness and care, but this... it's too much, and words like 'non-sexual' and 'comfort' only go so far toward making it feel less deviant.

But he's afraid that, now it's there, he won't be able to stop thinking about it. The experience in the basement still lingers on him, the terror and discomfort of being pinned and helpless; to imagine anything that strays close to that as being safe is... it feels like it should be impossible, but instead it's tantalizing. A recontextualization of that helplessness, not to make him feel useless and weak, but to make him feel protected and cared for. Possessed, as it were, by someone gentle, who would never hurt him.

Christ, it does make sense. None of this had yet occurred to him by the strictest possible definition, but he has always liked feeling a weight upon him, or a wall at his back, or arms around him, gripping tight. These sensations have been few and far between in his modest dating life so far, but he does think about them. He just never bothered to explore what it might mean, probably because any such exploration would involve looking into... kink and sexuality without wanting to then, to borrow John's phrase, hurl himself into the sea. It's nice to know he'll work that out in the future. Maybe that can be enough.

He's almost worked out how to change the subject without making a total botch of it, resolving to just brute force his way out of this new obsession if he has to, when John suddenly speaks. Martin looks up, startled by the break in silence and then by the intensity of John's bearing, his calm stare, the balance struck between indulgent and dead serious. It takes several seconds for the actual words and their meaning to register, and then Martin sits up ramrod straight, his eyebrows shooting up and his mouth dropping open as he stammers noiselessly. What?! he wants to ask. Are you sure? also. He doesn't quite have the wherewithal to say these things, which is probably for the best. John's composure is enough to answer the question of how sure he is. He wouldn't have thrown this proverbial gauntlet otherwise. It deserves a response; a serious one.

He forces himself to let go some of the tension in his shoulders, to relax by a few degrees, and sets his hands flat on the table to keep from his endless fidgeting. He meets John's eyes, searching, but not flinching from his gaze.

Ask me.

Is there a chance he doesn't mean what Martin thinks he means? He discards that thought almost immediately. Enough unspoken clarity has already passed between them to render that possibility negligible. John knows him better than he knows himself; this is the conclusion he's come to, while Martin struggled around it.

Ask me.

Should he decline? Should he pull back from this precipice as he had intended, so certain it was too much, too far? John is the one guiding the pace here, and his willingness to engage as far as he has already has been shocking enough. But he clearly doesn't regret it. And for all that he jokes about breaking the sound barrier, or worries about overstepping, he knows what he's doing and what his own limits are. Martin trusts him to know himself, and so he can trust — he must trust that this offer is not being made under any kind of duress. It is an offer, a hand reaching out for him to take, and he is the only arbiter of what happens next.

Ask me.

He wants to. God, he wants to. He's not sure he knows the words. He tries to speak, shaping the start of syllables with no voice behind them, no map of where to step. He wants this to be easier. In the kitchen, when they'd had a moment of mutual understanding, it was as simple as saying Please. He wants to retreat to that again, to just acquiesce without having to verbalize it. But it's not just an offer. He can't just accept it when it's not being freely given. It's a test: he has to ask, just like his other self did. It's not enough to want it; he has to be able to look it in the proverbial eye, and not shrink from the so-called deviance of it all.

Ask me.

His fingers curl on the table, as if looking for something to grip. He shuts his eyes briefly, draws a breath, lets it out. Opens his eyes again and looks at John, who looks back with all the patience in the world.

"C-could you... would you tie me up?" he asks, faltering and quiet and uttering the last three words too quickly, his eyes flickering over them but never breaking contact. Nervous and awkward, more than he would've liked. But he does ask.

The prompt shocks Martin to an almost comical degree: he appears to grow several inches as his spine straightens, and his mouth drops open for a beat or two before he begins to shape aborted syllables, soundless and without direction. Under different circumstances, it might be enough to make John question the accuracy of his own presumptions, or worry that he'd landed somewhere disastrously wide of the mark. But the question is not what Martin wants, nor is it what John is willing to offer him; neither of those things are currently in any doubt. The question is what Martin is willing to request, what he can embrace without embarrassment. Whether he can do the work that John cannot do for him.

So John waits, his gaze calm and steady, as Martin slowly, visibly pulls himself together. As he sets his hands palm-down on the table, as he searches John's face as if to make sure that he hasn't misjudged the implications. As his mouth shapes a few false starts. As he shuts his eyes and takes a steadying breath. As he meets John's gaze squarely, and finally gives voice to the question that's been needling at him since John handed him his second cup of tea.

"Yes," John answers without hesitation, recovering his cup and sitting back in his own chair. He needed Martin to ask, and he knew asking would be a challenge, but he has no desire to make Martin squirm just for the sake of it. (Not now, anyway. And not about this.) He starts to lift his cup, then pauses to clarify: "Just for comfort, that is. It isn't Christmas."

A soft breath gusts out of Martin when John's answer comes so quickly, as if the ordeal constituted some kind of physical effort. He's so caught up in the immediate aftershocks, feeling an acute mix of overwhelmed and relieved, that John's follow-up catches him wholly off guard.

"Wh—oh, Christ, of course," he sputters, flushing hot. "I wouldn't..." He wavers, not sure how to finish, somewhere between ask that of you and know what to do with all that. Eventually he just shrugs, sheepish, and finally allows himself to fidget with his tea as if making up for lost time.

"Comfort's what sounds good right now anyway," he murmurs, and takes a sip, chancing another glance up at John.

"Right," John says, both relieved and a little chagrined over how quickly Martin agrees with him. He doesn't quite regret the clarification — better to be sure that they both know precisely what they're agreeing to — but it's hard not to feel a bit ridiculous for obliquely questioning Martin's intentions. He takes a sheepish sip of tea, only lifting his gaze when Martin adds that it's comfort that currently appeals.

"I can imagine," he says, his tone a bit wry, but his expression softening. Martin has, as John recently noted, had a hell of a day. Considering the ordeal in the basement, specifically... if his memories were intact, this is probably what they'd be doing, anyway: intentionally overwriting an unpleasant experience with something better, much like they did the first time.

Of course, there was a significant span of time between their initial experimentation and the miserable incident that preceded it — a span that seems notable, now, if for no other reason than the fact that it allowed Martin to physically recover from the attack. But he was pinned to the basement wall barely an hour ago, and while he doesn't appear to have sustained any serious injuries, there's still decent odds that tying him up might aggravate something if they're not careful.

John continues to work on his tea, giving Martin an assessing look over the rim of his cup. "I suppose step one will be making sure you really aren't hurt after— after everything," he says, gesturing in the general direction of the basement stairwell. "How are you feeling? Any soreness?"

The questions probably shouldn't surprise him, but they do, prompting him to look back up like a startled rabbit. He thinks he probably would have made a bit of a fuss if he'd actually been hurt — or at least not just dismissed the initial question so quickly — but how sure is he of that, really? And how certain is he that he's not actually hurt, maybe in some way he hasn't even noticed yet?

"I — I don't think so?" He takes a moment to try and assess. "I mean, nothing major. My back absorbed it, and... well." He lifts a shoulder, averting his eyes in latent embarrassment. "I'm... you know. Absorbent."

John hmphs, soft and dubious. He doesn't think anything serious would've gone unnoticed for this long, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to concern himself with at all, Martin's ostensible 'absorbency' aside.

"I'd still like to check before we begin," he says. "Make sure there's nothing I need to be aware of, or work around." He pauses, belatedly remembering how long it took for Martin to spend more than a few fleeting moments without a shirt on in front of him, and then adds a gentler, "If that's all right." There's more than one way he might unintentionally make Martin uncomfortable, and the desire to avoid one doesn't necessarily excuse blundering straight into another.

Martin is set to agree, a little half-hearted but with no good reason not to, until John asks if it's all right, and he abruptly realizes this will mean taking off his shirt. That John will want to check, not just by feel, but by looking for bruising or anything else. Christ.

Well, John must have seen it all before, right? This must be ordinary for him normally. He's distantly aware that doesn't mean he should automatically be comfortable with it, or force himself to do it, and that's why John's giving him this out. But it feels so childish, especially after what he's just worked up the nerve to ask for. Christ, he can manage letting himself be seen on top of that.

"I-it's all right," he says softly, and takes a longer drink of tea, feeling like if he stalls any longer this will only get more difficult. He sets the cup back down and gives John a faint, warm smile, wanting to show he appreciates both the offer and the care, even as he says with slight self-deprecation, "I think I can handle it."

Asking was unquestionably the right thing to do, but the dryness of Martin's response serves as a reminder that, all things considered, taking off his shirt is probably a less fraught prospect than allowing himself to be tied up — at least at the rate things are currently going. John returns his smile across the table, then takes a final sip of his own tea before setting down his cup.

"Shall we, then?" he asks, getting to his feet and stretching before he starts to clear the takeout containers. "Best lighting is probably in the bathroom. And the first aid kit's in there on the off-chance that we've missed something shocking." Which doesn't seem likely, and he punctuates the word shocking by dumping the empty containers into the bin. But the bit about the lighting is true, and he thinks the mirror will prove to be another advantage. If Martin does feel a bit awkward about the examination, being able to keep an eye on the examiner might help.

Martin nods, getting up to follow John, smiling at his droll little flourish. In the comparatively enclosed space of the bathroom, he feels a little spike of anxiety, but not enough to completely stall him out. John's with him, a comforting presence beside him and in the mirror, and he swallows his nervousness as best he can, turning his focus to shucking off his jumper, unbuttoning his shirt, and finally discarding the undershirt beneath, piling it all as neatly as he can on the toilet. This many layers is normal for him but feels a bit comical under the circumstances, and he struggles not to rush with it.

"Okay," he says, trying not to look too closely at his own reflection, looking instead at John. With another faint grin he says, "Anything shocking?"

The number of layers Martin is wearing is encouraging in its own right — however roughly he may have been pushed against the wall, John doubts he'll have suffered any scuffs or scrapes through three layers, one of which is a decently thick jumper. Which is to say that no, there is nothing outright shocking when Martin's bare skin is finally revealed, and John briefly meets his gaze in the mirror, his own lips twitching into a smile.

"Besides a shockingly adorable collection of freckles, you mean?" he replies with an arched eyebrow, before actually turning to focus on the question at hand. His hands itch to touch him, more for the pleasure of it than for the sake of rooting out injuries, but he limits his initial exam to a visual one, a focused furrow in his brow as he looks Martin over. There's no broken skin, and nothing he'd classify as an abrasion. But there are a few spots that look as if they might be bruising, or considering the possibility, and John hums, low and pensive.

"Might have the beginnings of a few bruises here," he says, lifting a hand and gently brushing a curled forefinger against the most noticeable of the lot. "Does it hurt at all when I do this?" He glances back up at Martin's reflection, his eyebrows ticking up in inquiry.

Martin blinks in surprise at the mention of his freckles, dimly aware of them but never having had such attention drawn to them; but before he can process that, John hums thoughtfully and reaches out to touch him.

A soft breath escapes through parted lips, but it's not in any way pained. He imagines if there is any bruising, John would really have to push to aggravate it. But his touch is light and gentle, and for a moment Martin can't even bring himself to answer the question; all he wants is more.

"N-no," he says eventually. "It's nice. You feel nice."

He blushes, meeting John's eyes in the mirror, then looking away quickly. "You like my freckles?" he says, quiet and sheepish. He wants to tell himself he's not fishing for compliments here, but that might not be true. It just feels so good to get them, particularly from John.

John ducks his head in a fruitless bid to hide his grin when Martin says he feels nice, then resolutely returns his attention to the nascent bruising. It would be easy to let himself get sidetracked by simple, sensual pleasures, but it would also feel a little unfair. They have a stated purpose that he doesn't want falling by the wayside, and beyond that, he's aware that 'simple' for him doesn't necessarily translate to 'simple' for Martin. Better to just gather the information he needs so they can carry on with things.

So, when Martin bashfully asks if John likes his freckles, John refrains from commenting on just how much self-restraint he's employing to keep from dropping to his knees and kissing them. "I love your freckles," he says instead, soft and matter-of-fact, a correction as much as a confession. Then, "I'm going to try pressing a bit harder, okay? Let me know if it changes anything." He doesn't need or intend to go digging his knuckle into a burgeoning bruise, but he does want to know if it'll stand up to the steady pressure of a rope.

Martin's blush only grows deeper at John's gentle correction, and he smiles around another soft gasp as John presses a little harder. "It's okay," he says after a moment of consideration. "I mean, might be a little sore tomorrow, but... for now, it's fine. Maybe just... start lower, I guess?"

Saying that, he realizes he has no idea what's actually in store for him, what configuration John intends to use. "I- I mean, I think it was mostly my upper back that absorbed it, so... you know." He shrugs, trying not to look at how much his blush is visibly spreading down his neck.

"Shouldn't be too hard to work around it," John agrees, relenting the pressure. He's still not entirely sure how they'll end up approaching things, but he at least has some ideas for what not to do. If Martin's upper back suffered the worst of it — and that is what the light bruising he can see so far suggests — then having Martin's hands behind his back is probably a bad idea.

Well, they can work those details out in a minute. For now, John briefly rests his hands on Martin's shoulders and presses a fond kiss to the back of his head. "Right, you can get dressed. I'll get the rope, and then we'll... figure out how exactly we want to arrange things."

Martin can't help a certain amount of diffidence when it comes to working out the arrangement, but it proves to be both less difficult and less awkward than he'd feared. It's fairly simple, in the end, most of John's suggestions aligning neatly with his own notions of what might feel good, and it isn't too arduous for them to arrive at an agreeable setup. So now he sits cross-legged on a the bed, his hands resting together in his lap so as to avoid any strain to his shoulders. John kneels beside him, unwinding the rope with a manner both casual and serious; focused, but not intimidatingly so. It surprises Martin a little, how natural it seems. He still feels a bit nervous, but not enough to outweigh the sort of eager curiosity that has grown up over the course of the afternoon.

"What'll you do?" he asks, moments before the rope touches him. "I mean... what do you normally do, when we do this?"

Feels a bit ridiculous he hasn't thought to ask this already, and now there's a small note of urgency in the question, a hasty desire to get it sorted before John begins in earnest.

"Me?" John asks, glancing up at Martin. A wry smile tugs at his lips. "Oh, I'll just leave you to it. I usually head to the nearest pub." His smile flashes into a grin for a moment, but then he sobers a bit; the question deserves a proper answer. "It varies," he continues, methodically measuring out a portion of rope. "Sometimes I'll put on some music, or read. But I stick close, so you can lean on me if you like. Usually I just end up playing with your hair." He has never been particularly good at dividing his focus, to his slight chagrin — he knows that Martin likes it when he effects a certain degree of casual indifference, but in this context, he's generally too inclined towards doting to pull it off. And now, with this being Martin's first ostensible time, he can't imagine even a playful approximation of ignoring him.

"Here, hold this," he says, giving Martin a portion of folded rope. "We'll do your wrists last, in case we end up having to reconfigure the rest of it." He thinks they can probably avoid Martin's shoulders, for the most part, but they'll have more freedom to muck around if he's not worried about Martin's wrists or feeling pressed for time. "Sound good?"

Martin laughs, soft and sheepish, set immediately at ease both by the joke and the actual answer. He nods, trying to look thoughtfully neutral and not too intrigued by the idea of John just playing with his hair, to limited success.

"Oh," he murmurs as he takes the rope he's offered. "Right, okay. Sounds good."

He sits up a little straighter, as if wanting to give John the cleanest possible canvas, so to speak. "I'm ready," he says.

John takes in Martin's careful, upright posture, and he can't help another smile. Maybe he can't completely banish the jitters, but the more he can do to set Martin at ease, the better. That, and the little swell of fondness he's feeling demands an immediate outlet. "Hang on," John murmurs, reaching up to turn Martin's head with a gentle touch to his chin, and then leaning in to press a soft, brief kiss to his lips. "Now I'm ready," he says, before sitting back and getting to work.

He always approaches this with methodical care, and today is no different. He pauses frequently while winding the rope around Martin's body, checking in to make sure everything's comfortable and making adjustments as needed. As he works his way up towards Martin's shoulders, he takes another beat. "Would you like pressure up here?" he asks, rubbing one hand in an illustrative arc along Martin's shoulder blades. "Or should we leave it?"

The tiniest little shiver of breath escapes through Martin's parted lips as John's fingers touch his chin and tilt his head for a fleeting, gentle kiss. He stares up at John in unchecked adoration, his eyes fluttering, and for a moment he sits unguarded enough that he could almost let himself slip, say the words that are clamoring to be said, a warmth spreading in his chest.

But not yet. It is easy to settle back into quiet concentration as John gets to work, winding the rope around him with slow, measured care. It is almost embarrassing, the way the lightest touch, the mere passage of rope around his body has his breath catching softly. How... pleasurable it actually is, whenever John pulls a loop tight, always checking his work with thoughtful diligence. Christ, it feels good, more than he could have anticipated, and at first he's afraid it might become too good, that this could veer into territory they are both set to avoid.

But in the end the sensation that rises above all others is not excitement or arousal, but calm. It is astonishingly comfortable, that evenly spaced pressure wrapped around him, holding him. It is... safe, and predictable, not some uncertain dangerous force, something with intentions and reflexes of its own, changeable and reactive. This is steady and stable, and it is so incredibly easy to just surrender himself to it, to John, that it's almost a surprise when John asks for his preference.

"Mmh," he hums as he gives the question due consideration. It's possible that going higher might exacerbate any possible bruising about his shoulders, but that feels like a distant concern, and right now he has an odd sense of imbalance, the pressure around his middle not at all unpleasant, but... incomplete. "I think it'd be nice," he says a bit shyly. "I'll be okay."

"Okay," John echoes, giving Martin's shoulder another little rub for the road before continuing to wind the rope around him. He isn't surprised by the answer, really. Leaving his shoulders out of it wouldn't have left things feeling outright insecure — John's bindings aren't too tight, but neither are they loose enough to be shrugged off easily — but he imagines it would've felt a little unfinished, like something was missing. He ends up running the rope across Martin's back and chest at 45-degree angles, securing his shoulders while also putting less pressure on his upper back. Then he ties off that end, leaving himself his usual quick-release loop, and moves back to Martin's wrists.

"Nearly there now," he murmurs, taking the remaining length of rope out of Martin's hands and using it to carefully bind his wrists together. He measured it well at the outset, leaving himself more than he strictly needed so he could add a few extra coils to the knot. The extra rope isn't actually holding him as much as it's just increasing the weight, and making things look impressive. If they were going for a different sort of mood, he might slyly suggest that there's no getting out of this one.

But for today, that can remain distantly implicit. "There we are," John says, letting the weight of Martin's bound hands rest in his own cradled palms, his thumbs sweeping over Martin's knuckles. "How does that feel?"

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