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“I’m home,” Jon calls quietly, locking the door behind him and placing his keys into the bowl. As he pulls off his coat, the back of his neck prickles. He pauses, and shudders as he feels the faint pressure of a cold hand at the nape of his neck. The feeling travels across his shoulder and down his arm, caressing his hand before dissipating. He can hear a faint chuckle from the living room, and rolls his eyes. He places his coat on a hanger beside the keys.
“You could at least wait until I had my coat off.” He winces as he bends down to undo his shoe laces after spending a whole day hunched over a computer. Once they’re safely stashed on the shoe rack, he pads into the main living area of his studio flat. “You’re like a cat, skulking about the place,” he mutters, glaring at the tape recorder humming away on the coffee table.
“Or one could say like a ghost? ” Says the tape recorder dryly, the static crackling with mischief.
Jon sighs disapprovingly, but he can’t quite stop the corners of his mouth twitching up into a smile as he says, “Yes, well that goes without saying, Jonah .” He wanders over to the kitchen and clicks the kettle on. He then jolts when he feels a pair of ghostly cold hands grab at his waist. The tape recorder crackles, and a freezing cold breath hits the back of Jon’s neck. Cold energy rushes through Jon's nerves as if he’d just stepped into an ice cold shower. “A warning would be nice. You’re freezing,” he barks. Over his shoulder he glares at the vague area of empty kitchen behind him, where he estimates Jonah would be. He doesn’t pull away.
“Ah, but what would be the fun in that?” The smirk in Jonah’s voice is audible, even through the static of the old speaker. Jon rubs his hands together, trying to get some warmth back in his fingertips. He wishes that he could lean back, rest against Jonah’s chest, and feels a pang that he can’t touch his partner back. There’s a cold exhale of breath against his cheek; Jonah’s approximation of a kiss.
The kettle finishes boiling. Jon takes that as his cue to disappear into the bedroom and change out of his suit. He closes the door behind him out of habit. Logically he knows Jonah’s seen him change many times, but he’s never gotten completely comfortable with the idea of anyone seeing him wearing anything less than a t-shirt and jogging bottoms.
He hands his well-worn blazer up on a hanger and stashes it back in the wardrobe. It’s a habit his grandmother had instilled in him in his school days, when she’d firmly told him that she would not be paying for a replacement if he destroyed his school blazer. He shrugs out of his shirt, and tugs on an old hoodie in its place. Jonah hates it, which could be because he knows that it was a gift from Georgie in their uni days, or simply because it’s not fancy enough for a man whose idea of ‘casual’ involves tailored clothing. The hoodie is utterly falling apart, and the soft inside fleece has turned vaguely solid, but Jon refuses to part with it.
Once he’s changed, he walks back to the kitchen, and pours himself a cup of tea, putting in considerably more sugar than he knows he ought to. He never used to have milk in it - not due to taste, but because he always forgot to buy more when it ran out or didn’t drink it fast enough before it expired. Now, Jonah, having very little else to do besides spy on their neighbours, keeps a thorough mental list of what food Jon has, and what needs eating by when.
Sometimes, Jon finds it stifling. Jonah will remind him when to eat or drink or rest or make a phone call one too many times in a day, and Jon will snap at him that he’s not a child. But more often than not, there’s something Jon finds very comforting about having someone there to look out for him.
Jon curls up on the sofa with his cup of tea, and takes a sip. He gazes at the portrait of Jonah which is propped up by the wall. Over the past six months, he’s memorised every stroke of paint, so that he can picture Jonah when he closes his eyes. It’s a handsome painting, if rather pretentious by Jon’s standards. In it, Jonah sits, one arm resting on a table and the other holding a book. Surrounding him are books and strange trinkets, with thick curtain fabric behind him. His shoulders are back, and he holds his head with an air of confidence. His grey eyes burn bright and intense through the canvas.
It was completed and sent to Jonah mere months before his death at the institute’s newly opened London location, which had then closed not long after.
“How was your day?” Jonah asks. Jon shrugs, looking away from the portrait to the papers and books scattered over the table.
“Uneventful, in all honesty. Yours?”
“The same. Mrs Jones in 3B is having an affair.”
“Hm. Well good for her I suppose.” They lapse into a comfortable silence, and Jon pulls open the book he’d left on the table that morning. He’d meant to take it with him to work to read during his lunch break, but it had slipped his mind whilst he was getting ready that morning.
“Read to me?” Jonah implores. Jon sighs.
“I’m not sure how you’ll enjoy it, but I find it interesting.” He’s long been an adult but still can’t shake that reflexive need to defend his interests. Jonah hums noncommittally, so Jon takes another sip of his tea and begins reading out loud. It’s a nonfiction book, not much thicker than his thumb. It takes Jon a while to adjust whilst reading out loud, but soon he finds himself thoroughly immersed in the recounting of the mass trespass of Kinder Scout. He forgets that he is speaking, even as he continues to do so.
He reads for the better part of an hour, under the watchful eyes of Jonah’s painting. By the time he finishes his chapter, the remaining half a mug of his tea has gone lukewarm. He downs it, then stands up to make dinner.
He’s in a better mood than usual after a relaxed evening, so he decides to actually cook from scratch rather than make beans on toast again. It’s not that he’s a bad cook (Jon actually thinks he’s quite good at it) but more that it feels like a waste of time when he’s busy. Still, he’s looking forward to actually eating something proper for dinner, he thinks as he chops his vegetables.
Soon the kitchen is filled with the familiar smell of onions and garlic frying in the pan. He’s got the radio on in the background, and whilst Jonah doesn’t speak much, Jon can feel his gaze on the back of his neck like a comfort blanket.
It’s funny how much things change, Jon muses as he eats his dinner whilst Jonah points out inaccuracies in whatever period piece BBC iPlayer had suggested they watch.
Less than a year ago, he’d been a paranoid wreck. He probably should have realised that the low rent for a studio apartment in Chelsea was too good to be true. However, Jon needed somewhere to sleep besides his ex’s sofa, so he hadn’t realised the unusually high tenant turnover rate before he’d already signed a contract and moved into the place. He’d woken up in the night to a quiet hissing emanating from the floor. Terrified it was a gas leak and still half asleep, Jon had pulled up a loose floorboard, and discovered a tape recorder and a dozen or so loose cassettes.
He’d nearly had a heart attack when Jonah had started speaking to him.
For their one year anniversary, Jon purchases the oldest TV he can get his hands on without completely breaking the bank. He has to collect it in person, and has a hell of a time getting it back to his flat on London’s public transport. He briefly considers calling in a favour with one of his few friends who owns a car in London, but knows they’d all ask too many questions. It’s been hard enough to keep Tim and Sasha away from poking around his flat as is.
By the time he’s dragged it from the lift, through his flat and gotten the damn thing plugged into the wall, the back of Jon’s shirt is sticking to his body with sweat. His arms are sore, but he’s smiling.
“I got you an anniversary present,” he announces slightly breathlessly.
“Oh?” Jonah’s voice echoes through the tape recorder. Jon nods, and turns the TV on. The grey static lights up the dim living room. He scrambles to sit cross-legged in front of it. He crosses his fingers. There is always a chance that this could go horribly wrong if the technology isn’t old enough and Jonah accidentally explodes Jon’s flat. Still, Jon can’t help but lean in close.
Against the static background, a figure enters the frame. Jon stops breathing.
In his mind, it has been hard to imagine Jonah’s face beyond the strict, self assured expression of his portrait. The man in front of Jon now is smiling so wide that there are lines under his eyes and on his cheeks and Jon can't help but think about how handsome he is.
“It’s good to see you, Jon,” he says softly. His voice comes out clear through the TV speakers, then echoes through the tape recorder. Jon’s eyes are burning slightly, and he blinks away tears.
“Likewise,” he murmurs. Jonah huffs in amusement. It’s a sound that Jon has heard a thousand times but now he can see the smirk that accompanies it. The left side of Jonah’s mouth curls up, a glance at the mischievous boy Jonah told tales about, who got into all sorts of trouble during his own time at university. Jon has never wanted to kiss him more.
Jon’s fingertips trace along Jonah’s cheekbones, then his lips, through the screen. The gentle buzz of static feels warm under his hand. Jonah reaches his own hand out towards the screen and Jon feels the familiar sensation of a cold, ghostly hand along his jaw. The cold is icy in his now damp shirt but he can’t bring himself to care - can’t bring himself to look away.
“I love you,” he blurts out. Jonah’s grin softens, and he’s staring at Jon with an intensity in his grey eyes.
“And I you.”
Jonah starts appearing in Jon’s dreams not long after that. The first night that he’s there ( really there, not just in Jon’s imagination), Jonah hugs him tight and won’t let go. Jon doesn’t know how long it’s been since someone just… held him. He buries his face in Jonah’s chest, pressing against the soft fabric of his soft waistcoat. Jonah’s chest rises and falls beneath him. It seems he’s doing it more out of habit than anything, because Jon hears a distinct lack of a heart beat. Jonah peppers kisses along Jon’s forehead and into his hair. One of his hands rests over the nape of Jon’s neck, his thumb stroking the ridges of his spine. As utterly cliché as it is, it is the best night sleep Jon’s had in years.
His whole home becomes shaped around Jonah. His portrait is now proudly hung on the wall where the living room mirror Jon had used a total of three times had once hung. The whole flat quietly hums with the combined sound of the TV and tape recorder static, and the radio Jon leaves playing for Jonah in the daytime. In one corner is a stack of boxes which, like the painting, Jonah had asked Jon to retrieve from the building’s storeroom basement. They’re full of old letters and papers from Jonah’s life. Jon hasn’t read any of them yet, but every time he sees them he itches to.
Jon’s life falls into a simple rhythm. He goes to work in the mornings, waves off his coworkers’ offers to come out for drinks in the afternoon, and comes home to his flat. He reads or works or watches something on his laptop, then has dinner - all under Jonah’s watchful eye. He tells his partner about his day, and whilst he washes up Jonah gossips about the other residents in the building. And then, at the end of a long day, they hold one another in his dreams and Jonah presses kisses to his mouth.