Chapter Text
There are two bedrooms in the safehouse, and two beds.
For a moment, Jon considers asking to share, but decides against it with a wince. “I really loved you,” Martin had told him. Loved. Past tense. And Martin doesn’t exactly have a lot of choices right now in terms of company; it would be cruel to demand he play at feelings he no longer has just to make Jon happy.
For a moment, Martin considers asking to share. But he dismisses the idea with a shake of his head. Jon has already done so much for him. Martin isn’t about to ask for more, especially not when it’s something he doesn’t really need. He has his right mind back, and he has Jon’s friendship. That should be enough for him. It’ll have to be.
And so it goes.
Jon wouldn’t call himself a romantic. Whether or not he is one despite that is—well, neither here nor there, really, since it’s not like he’s in the habit of analyzing his own softer feelings (when they crop up) even for his own benefit, much less anyone else’s. But he has read his fair share of period romances, and enjoyed them enough that some bits stuck with him even years later. The point is, the significance of the fact that he’s running off to Scotland with a man he’s madly in love with is not lost on him.
(Actually, that particular historical tidbit was only relevant for people under the age of twenty-one, when it was relevant at all, pipes up the helpful corner of his brain which got him labeled first a prodigy and later a pedant. Recently it’s taken to supplying information he’s not sure he ever knew in the first place. Like now. There were actually a number of villages where elopements were common, not just Gretna Green—)
Jon groans, stands up from the sofa, and begins pacing the length of the small cabin, casting about for a distraction. He wishes Martin would come back from his walk.
It wouldn’t help with the main problem, of course. Jon is keenly aware that the moment Martin gets back, he’ll go from wishing Martin was in the cabin to wishing he was in the same room, and then to wishing he was in the same half of the room, and then to wishing he was on the same half of the raggedy sofa, and so on. It never ends.
Sometimes, Jon wonders what it would take to satiate the yawning, aching hunger that has made a home for itself just underneath his skin. Maybe, if he spends enough time trying to appease it, it will—not go away, he supposes. Hurt less?
But it would be the work of years for Jon to deserve that much attention, to earn that many smiles, that many casual touches. And while Jon can’t conceive of a better way to spend—well, the rest of his life, honestly—he also can’t imagine that Martin will put up with him for that long. It’s probably really awkward for him. Here they are, playing house together: Martin, and the man who loves him so dearly that he was able to rescue them both from a dimension of eternal loneliness, despite the fact that Martin doesn’t love him back anymore.
Jon sighs and leans his forehead against the front door. He wishes he was strong enough to give Martin more space, to repay his kindness with something other than starved greed. But even after everything, Martin is still so kind, so warm, and Jon has been out in the cold so very long, and thinking about being parted from this last comfort—the one good thing left in his whole life—makes Jon feel like he’s dying. So he carefully rations the affection he’s offered, and counts his lucky stars over and over that Martin isn’t sick of him yet.
Martin dithers at the fork in the road. He knows which way he wants to go: he wants to turn down the narrow dirt track that leads back home—that leads back to the cabin, the cabin, he has to remember, it’s not his home—but that’s exactly why he should continue on, delay returning by another half hour or so.
Jon won’t say anything, of course, won’t criticize, won’t scold. He might even put on a smile when Martin opens the door, or ask solicitously how his walk was. But Martin can tell it’s a front. He’s seen the careful distance Jon always puts between them; he’s felt that distance every time Jon touches him, so reluctantly, so lightly, that Martin could almost mistake him for a ghost. Which is funny, really, in a sad kind of way, because out of the two of them, the one who’s more likely to actually become a ghost is—
Martin groans and shakes his head, as if to dislodge the thought from the inside of his skull. He’s not going to give in to the Lonely again, not ever. He can remember with sickening clarity how it felt to look at Jon and feel nothing at all, and he’d rather not repeat the experience, thanks. It doesn’t matter that nothing will ever come of it. His feelings for Jon are his. If they change over time, wax or wane or turn into something entirely new, then so be it, but nothing and no one can steal them from him again.
He’ll walk to the old fencepost about a quarter mile down the road and then head back, he decides. Hopefully Jon will have had enough of a break from him by then that he’ll be able to stand the clinging and the doting and the generally overbearing nature for another day. And so Martin will be able to stay close to him.
And if it hurts sometimes, that Jon is never going to want him back, well… it doesn’t matter, does it? The important thing is that Martin cares about him. The rest is—superfluous. And besides, Martin has plenty of practice at not getting what he wants. He’s an old hand at it by now.
Jon wonders, sometimes, if Martin will ever fall in love again, with somebody else. He hopes he will.
No, really, he tells himself. He does. Back when they’d been—friends, he supposes, proper friends, friends who got lunch together and talked about everything and nothing in between working, back before everything had gotten messed up entirely beyond repair—Martin had seemed so lively, so happy to spend time with him. Jon had chalked it up to his general pleasant, friendly nature at the time. But knowing what he does now, well…
He knows both of them well enough to realize that Martin must be the sort of person to enjoy being in love. The poetry, the eagerness to spend time together, the patience it must have taken to sit through Jon making an ass of himself at every possible opportunity… he must have thought it was all worth it, somehow. And Jon knows he himself is no prize. So it must have been the feeling itself that he’d really liked.
Martin deserves this, Jon tells himself sternly. He deserves every good thing in the world. Jon loves him, and wants him to be happy, no matter what form that happiness takes; ergo, he wants Martin to fall in love with someone who will not treat him like absolute garbage for the first year of their acquaintance and then proceed to take him for granted right up until he’s not there anymore. And then Jon can move in next door and live by himself (with maybe a cat or two, but definitely not another person, he’d just resent them for not being Martin and that wouldn’t be fair to anyone); they can be friends and visit each other for lunch sometimes, and afterwards Martin will go back home to his husband who isn’t Jon and oh god, oh Christ, Jon is throwing the most pathetic pity party in human history.
He attempts to banish the idea to the back of his mind where it can’t slip out and upset or embarrass him, but it keeps creeping back at odd moments. Martin will be holding something with his left hand, and Jon will imagine a glint of metal on his finger, and then have to go hide in another room until the white-hot jealousy fades enough for him to behave like a human being again.
(Jon realizes, of course, that he’s making more than a few assumptions here. That Martin would be interested in building a serious relationship with someone new; that he’d want to get married; that he’d choose to wear a ring. But as long as he’s already having self-pitying fantasies about someone else’s hypothetical future marriage, he might as well imagine it however he wants.)
Jon groans and rubs his eyes harder than he’d ever dared before he’d lost the ability to truly hurt himself. Stars burst across his vision, and he lets his head fall back against the wall with a low thunk as he waits for them to fade. If he could just think about something, anything, else—
“Jon?”
Oh no.
“Jon, I thought I heard—did you hit your head? Or—or maybe you just dropped something, sorry, I’ll just—” There’s a shuffling of feet from the other side of the door. “Can you just—let me know you’re all right, and then I’ll leave you alone, okay?”
“I’m fine,” says Jon. Or, rather, tries to say. His throat aches from holding back (pathetic, pathetic) tears, so what actually comes out is a coughing fit.
He’s vaguely aware of more sound, and movement near him, but when he regains his breath, he’s surprised to see Martin kneeling on the floor beside him, face a mask of worry. “Are you all right?” asks Martin, before Jon has a chance to speak. “What happened?”
“I’m fine,” Jon croaks, rubbing at his aching ribs. Internally, he winces. It’s obvious that he’d been crying, and he can tell from the way the wrinkles on Martin’s brow deepen that Martin has noticed. “I just—I needed a minute. I didn’t hurt my head, I promise.”
“Are you sure?” asks Martin, but he shakes his head before Jon can answer. “No, sorry, I don’t mean to fuss, I just—it was loud, that’s all. Do you—I could get you a glass of water?”
A prickle of heat creeps up Jon’s cheeks, and with it comes a rush of gratitude that Martin isn’t asking what he was crying over. “I’ll get one myself, but thank you,” he says, and attempts to push himself up off the floor.
Unsuccessfully. His legs have gone to sleep. Martin catches him and helps him upright, and Jon leans greedily into his big, warm arms. He already hugged Martin twice this morning, so he shouldn’t really be indulging again before lunchtime, but it’s always okay if Martin starts it. And—okay, maybe this wasn’t exactly intended as a hug at first, but Jon is only so strong, and it only lasts a few seconds, so it’s fine.
Martin wraps an arm around Jon’s waist as they walk to the kitchen, which seems uncharacteristically affectionate, until Jon realizes Martin probably thinks he’s about to fall over without the support, and a thread of guilt curls up in the pit of his stomach. He pulls away as they cross the threshold, and fetches the water himself.
Martin leans against the counter next to the sink. (Jon, as usual, wishes he were standing closer.) He doesn’t stare, but he does glance at Jon and then away a few times in rapid succession, hands twisting anxiously in front of his belly. “Did I… do something?” he asks eventually, in a small voice. “Say something?”
“What?”
Pink blooms across Martin’s cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. “It’s just—you left in sort of a hurry? Which is fine, of course!” he adds hastily, hands twisting faster. “I was just—is there something I could do, or, or not do, so that you wouldn’t be upset? I don’t want to…” He opens and closes his mouth a few times. “I don’t want to upset you,” he finishes, the rosy color spreading down his neck.
“You didn’t upset me,” Jon hastens to tell him, as soon as he’s sure he won’t be interrupting. “It wasn’t anything you did, I promise.” It’s even mostly true.
“Then—” Martin bites his lip. “Do you want to talk about—whatever it is? Maybe I can help?” Jon hesitates a moment too long, and Martin looks down, shoulders hunching. “Sorry. Never mind, I—”
“No!” says Jon, too loud. Martin flinches, and the guilt surges. “I—I would talk about it, it’s just…”
“None of my business,” Martin mumbles.
“I just don’t know if I can explain it,” says Jon, choosing his words slowly and carefully. “And it’s probably not something you could—it wouldn’t be fair to you, to ask you to fix what’s gotten into me.” The memory of Martin’s voice, distant and echoing, drifts through his mind, and he winces. “It’s my own damn fault anyway.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. And you’ll never know if I can help if you don’t ask me,” says Martin firmly, and then looks surprised at his own daring. Jon can’t help a little twitch of a smile, and Martin’s face relaxes in response. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, of course,” he continues. “But I—I’m here for you, you know? I don’t want you to feel like—like you have to hide when you’re upset.”
Warmth and more guilt chase each other through Jon’s veins. He wants—well, what he really wants is for Martin to want him. To be assured that every day that passes doesn’t, in fact, bring him closer to the day that Martin will be looking at someone else, talking to someone else, hanging around the house doing nothing with someone else. But it would be unfair and preposterous to demand that Martin promise never to leave, never to find someone else he’d rather spend his life with. It wouldn’t be a fair demand even if Martin were in love with him—Jon swallows hard, blinking a few times—and given that Jon’s feelings are so completely unrequited, it’s an unthinkable thing to ask.
“Thank you,” says Jon. “It’s very kind of you to offer. And I don’t—I don’t mean that sarcastically. You’re far more generous than I deserve.”
“Jon—”
“But,” says Jon hastily, “I really—I couldn’t ask this of you. It wouldn’t—it’s not the sort of thing I could ask you to do.”
“Try me,” says Martin, followed immediately by, “No, sorry, I said I’d back off, sorry. Just—if you change your mind?”
“I know where to find you,” says Jon, with a faint chuckle.
Martin bites his lip, and then, cautiously, holds his arms out. Jon doesn’t waste a second before pitching forward into his chest. He doesn’t even have to feel guilty about this one.
The problem with trying to tell himself that his feelings for Jon are a good thing, Martin reflects, is that he’s working against a couple decades’ worth of calcified habit. Trying to get himself to believe that the little thrill that goes through him every time Jon says something funny, or smiles, or stands in a sunbeam with that one particular look on his face, the one that makes him look dignified and academic (Martin does not have a type), or turns out to be surprisingly knowledgeable about some esoteric topic (Martin does not have a type), or, best and worst of all, every rare occasion that he wraps his arms around Martin from the side and sighs —
It’s hard to tell himself that that feeling is a good thing, when he’s so used to it being inconvenient at best and unwanted and/or inappropriate at worst. He’s been scolding himself for wasting time on crushes in general and his crush on Jon in particular for long enough that it’s become second nature. Now that said crush has turned into the actual love of his life—now that said love is what’s stopping him from dying (or, worse, turning into another Peter)—suddenly it’s a fight with himself every time he’s reminded of it.
It would be easier, probably, if he could talk to Jon about it. If he could have Jon tell him that it’s okay, that he doesn’t mind, that it’s not wrong or bad for Martin to daydream, to dote. That he’s not hurting anything by spending time fantasizing instead of working.
But he’s not about to ask. Jon has already done so much for him; Martin wouldn’t have been able to find his way out of the Lonely if Jon hadn’t reminded him how to want to escape. The very least Martin can do is take care of his unrequited feelings where Jon doesn’t have to be subjected to them.
And there he goes again. Where Jon doesn’t have to deal with the awkwardness inherent to their situation, Martin silently corrects himself. He can have his feelings all he likes; it’s bothering Jon that he can’t do.
Of course, it’s not always easy to tell what does and doesn’t count as bothering Jon. Despite his assurances to the contrary, Martin isn’t totally sure that he’s not the cause of whatever it is that makes Jon occasionally excuse himself to go have a cry alone in the smaller, dingier of the two bedrooms in the cottage, the one he insisted on taking over Martin’s protests that he should have the bigger one with the better mattress. (Martin also isn’t sure that Jon didn’t hurt himself, the time he’d heard a loud thump through the thin walls. He hadn’t looked hurt, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything, not with what Jon had told him about his uncanny ability to heal quickly from injuries.)
Martin wishes so dearly that he didn’t have to worry about coming on too strong. Sometimes it feels like he’s so in love that he could burst, that his body—large and unwieldy as it is—is too small to contain the full expanse of what he feels. He’s been trying to funnel that energy into regaining his old passion for poetry, with mixed results. Sometimes it helps to get his feelings down on paper. Sometimes the bubbly rush of excitement metamorphoses into frustration when the words just won’t come.
Sometimes, the words come just fine, but he ends up melancholy, sick with longing to share his thoughts with something other than a sheet of paper. Paper’s not a very good listener. It never interrupts, but it also doesn’t understand.
Once or twice, Martin tries to write something he could share with Jon. Most of what he’s been interested in writing of late has been romantic, verging on soppy, and is therefore out for multiple reasons, but every now and then, he’s managed a halfway decent verse about something other than his haunted, lovely muse. However, while he used to be able to manage to write about more than just love, now nothing else ever seems to coalesce; everything eventually turns into an inconvenient metaphor. Rolling thunder becomes a deep voice. Deep water turns into dark eyes. Honey turns to sweetened breath which in turn becomes a kiss; the city of London becomes a man who never seems to sleep; the moon is a face, as scarred as it is beautiful. (Martin tears that last one up. It feels weird to write poetry about Jon’s scars without asking permission first.)
Everything reminds me of you, Martin writes. The world is a mirror. No. The world is a broken mirror / It reflects you in a thousand different ways, but none as perfect / As the original. Better. Maybe he can make something of it.
Not like it makes a difference, whether or not I can, he catches himself thinking, and groans, snapping his notebook shut. It doesn’t matter whether or not he ever gets a chance to share his poetry, he tells himself sternly. It should be enough that it exists, that he cared enough to write it down, no matter what anyone else thinks. (Or, rather, doesn’t think). He’s always written for himself and himself alone, so why—
His thoughts are interrupted by soft footsteps, and he turns to see Jon padding up behind him, looking concerned. Ah. “I’m fine,” says Martin, and gestures vaguely at his notebook. “Just—frustrated. It’s not as easy as it used to be.”
Jon’s face smooths out, but he doesn’t leave; instead, he drifts to the other side of the little round table and rests his hand on the back of the other chair. “Would it help to—to bounce ideas off someone else? I’d be happy to listen. That is, if you have anything you’d want to share?”
He looks so nervous and shy that Martin almost agrees without paying attention to what he’s saying. Luckily, his brain hasn’t turned completely to lovesick goo. “What, you’d listen to me recite my own poetry?” he asks. “My very amateur poetry? I don’t think that would be a pleasant experience for either of us.” He chuckles nervously.
Jon, to Martin’s flattered delight and sheer terror, remains serious. “I’d like it if you wrote it,” he says. “Did you know, the word amateur comes from the Latin word for ‘lover’? As in, it’s something you do because you love it, not for material gain.” He glances up at Martin’s face, then away. “I’d be honored if you wanted to share your amateur poetry.”
Oh god oh no what is Martin supposed to do with this— “But my pride, Jon,” he protests, trying to sound joking instead of actually concerned. “How am I going to compare with all the poets you read at Oxford?”
Jon scowls. “I wasn’t in—I didn’t know any of them. I didn’t care what they had to say, but I care what you do.” Then he sighs. “I don’t mean to pry. I just thought I’d offer, if you wanted to… if you wanted a more lively ear than…” He gestures weakly at the notebook.
Desperate for something to break the silence, Martin says, “It’s true, paper’s not a very good listener.” Then he winces, sure Jon won’t get it, that he’ll look totally blank, that he’ll ask Martin to explain the not-very-funny joke. But Jon laughs instead, his smile making little wrinkles form on the bridge of his nose, and the tension dissipates like oppressive summer heat before a breeze. “I’ve been trying to write something I could show to you,” says Martin, emboldened by his response. “Without feeling like I was embarrassing myself, I mean. I haven’t managed it yet, but… I’ll let you know?”
“Thank you,” says Jon softly. “I—I’m flattered, I— thank you.” He looks at Martin with the sweetest smile Martin’s ever seen, and adds, “I’m excited to hear it,” apparently completely unaware of the sheer power of his own words and general presence. Martin sits there, dazed, as Jon drifts back into the other room.
Oh, god, he’s done it now. Now he has to write something else or he’ll be disappointing Jon. He can’t show him the love poetry, for obvious reasons. What’s the least romantic thing he can think of?
Wait, no, bad idea, he can think of plenty of things that aren’t romantic and he doesn’t want to write poetry about any of them, especially not poetry he’s going to show to Jon. He takes a deep breath, trying to wrestle his mind back from where it’s running in circles and screaming.
He can do this. He just has to stay calm. And maybe, if he can finally show something to Jon, then he might be able to get this sudden desire for external attention out of his system. Probably. Hopefully. He’s almost completely certain it won’t totally backfire.
And so it goes.
Some days are good: Jon manages to stay in the present where Martin’s future romantic prospects can’t upset him, and doesn’t let the persistent, unnatural hunger get to him. Some days are bad: Jon has to hide himself away for more bouts of ridiculous self-pity; Martin sits propped up listlessly in his bed, cold all over, and whispers that he’s scared he’s drifting away again, while Jon flutters uselessly, petrified that one wrong word will doom him; they both wake, screaming, from nightmares. Some days aren’t particularly good or bad: Martin will be out walking, and Jon will miss him from across the hills; he’ll come back to the cabin, and Jon will miss him from across the room; they’ll go to bed, and Jon will miss him from across the hallway, wishing that he hadn’t made such a spectacular mess of things, that he could invite himself into the comfort of Martin’s arms whenever he pleased, rather than carefully counting out his embraces, loath to overstep the bounds of Martin’s generosity.
Wishing, he thinks crossly as he digs a second pair of socks out of his suitcase in the dead of night, that he could sleep in a warm bed instead of one that’s too big for his poor circulation to heat effectively.
He curls up in a fetal position, knees pressed so tight to his chest that he knows he’d wake up with bruises if he were still entirely human. He and Martin have both taken to sleeping with their bedroom doors open; from this angle, he can’t see Martin’s head and shoulders, only the round shape of his body, curled up under the blankets just like Jon. Jon knows that Martin’s own view would be similar, if he were awake.
But the lights are off, so Martin is probably asleep. And even if he were awake, he probably wouldn’t be able to see Jon in the gloom. Jon isn’t sure whether his uncanny night vision is a side benefit of choosing to become the Archivist, or an aftereffect of his trip to Ny-Ålesund; he hadn’t noticed it until several months after the latter, but hadn’t managed to pinpoint when it had changed in retrospect. In either case, using it to reassure himself that Martin is still there and hasn’t vanished into thin air is probably not the intended use, but, well, Jon will take his comforts where he can get them.
But even as he breathes in time with Martin, letting the slow rhythm settle his mind, a familiar self-loathing begins to seep into his thoughts. He’s using his monster powers to spy on Martin while he sleeps. That’s got to be a new low, even for him. Jon rolls over towards the wall, disgusted with himself, determined to reach unconsciousness without behaving like an utter creep.
He still can’t sleep, though. He misses Martin. (He always misses Martin.) He’s not actually any further away, but being unable to look at him makes the scant meters separating them feel like miles.
I have to learn to do this sometime, Jon thinks grimly, gripping his own shoulders tighter. Someday he’ll be further then two open doors away. As usual, the thought is accompanied by a surge of pain.
Jon closes his eyes and waits for sleep to come. The faster he can drift off, the faster he can wake up and have the awful ordeal of his nightmares over with for another night. It’s almost a pity he won’t see Martin in his dreams. He thinks, idly, as he teeters on the edge of sleep, that it might be nice to dream about Martin, someday, if the two of them ever get out of this mess. If such a thing were even still possible for Jon.
It’s that thought that does it. That, and the sudden, awful realization that even if Martin were to get free of the Institute, he would still be trapped. Jon had taken his statement, had done to Martin what he’d done to all those poor people whose only mistake had been being in the same room as Jon when he was hungry, and now, breaking free of the Institute will doom Martin to being trapped in his flat with Prentiss at the door every single night for the rest of his life.
Christ. No wonder Martin doesn’t love him anymore. It’s a wonder anyone ever had in the first place.
Martin wakes with a panicked yelp, and spends a few seconds blinking and disoriented in utter darkness before remembering where he is. Right. Of course Jon hadn’t just left him behind in the Lonely. They’re—friends, at the very least, even if they’re not anything else, and Jon wouldn’t just abandon him like that. He wishes his subconscious would get the memo, though. He’s been having the same nightmare all week.
He and Jon don’t keep the ancient lamps on at night, and there aren’t any other buildings near, so the only light is from the night sky. It must be near a new moon, too. When he and Jon had stepped out of the Lonely and onto the streets of London, the moon had been full in the sky above them, bright even amid all the light pollution, and it’s been about two weeks since then. So, although he knows that Jon is lying only a short distance away, he can’t actually see him.
Which is unfortunate. Martin makes a point of going to bed early, partially because it encourages Jon to actually sleep, but also because it means it’s usually still light enough that he can just barely make out the small lump of Jon’s body under the covers in the other room. If he can’t see that Jon is still there while he drifts off, the dreams are worse. He doesn’t always have nightmares again after waking in the middle of the night, but when he does, they tend to be the worst of the bunch.
It’s too cold to get out of bed, but Martin stretches under the covers before curling up again. He can’t see Jon, but sometimes it helps to listen to his breathing. Not always—Jon had mentioned once that he doesn’t really need to breathe anymore, and sometimes his room is dead silent at night—but Martin’s found that focusing on his own breaths can also be soothing.
In, hold for a moment, out. Martin can feel his heartbeat slowing in response, finally settling into something approaching normal after his nightmare. He focuses on quieting himself as much as possible, and strains his ears for the faintest hint of noise from the next room.
For a few minutes, there’s nothing. But when Martin has just about resigned himself to falling asleep to silence again, he hears a faint noise, like a hiccup, and frowns sleepily. There’s another long pause, then a cascade of tiny exhales.
Martin puzzles over the sounds for a moment, and then ice trickles down his spine. He switches on his bedside lamp, shielding his eyes from the sudden brilliance. The noises stop instantly, and through the open doorway, Martin can see the bundle of blankets that is Jon twitch.
Even through his thickest pair of socks, the floor is cold enough to hurt. Martin ignores it as he pads, shivering slightly, to Jon’s doorway.
“Jon?” he calls out softly. The blankets don’t move. “Jon, I thought I heard—were you crying?”
“No,” says Jon, in a clogged and tear-choked voice. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? You sound—”
“I’m fine,” says Jon, more forcefully. “Just a—just a nightmare. Please leave me alone.” The blanket lump contracts in on itself even more, and Jon adds in a gentler tone, “Go back to sleep.”
Martin’s stomach drops into his feet. “Jon—”
“Please,” says Jon, oblivious to Martin’s sudden worry. “I’ll be fine, I promise—”
“No, Jon, what’s that on your pillow?”
“What?” Jon flinches upright immediately, scooting away from the head of the bed. Without his hair in the way, both of them can clearly see the rusty red streaks along the bottom edge of the pillowcase.
Martin’s stomach churns. “Jon, are you hurt?” Involuntarily, he takes a step into the room.
“I don’t… think so?” says Jon, sounding baffled. He lets the blankets drop from his shoulders, and Martin gasps softly at the blood staining the loose, stretched-out back neckline of his sleep shirt. There’s a set of four deep, evenly-spaced scratches on each of his shoulders, already mostly scabbed over, right where his hands had been resting. The tips of his fingernails are stained red-brown as well. “Oh.”
“Did you do that in your sleep?” asks Martin. Is it possible that one of the Institute’s many enemies has figured out how to attack them via dreams? Distantly, Martin realizes that he’s panicking. He doesn’t know what to do with his own hands. The sight of the blood is turning his stomach, and he wants to take the soiled shirt and linens and wash them, but there aren’t spare blankets and he can’t exactly undress Jon without making things supremely awkward. He wants to take Jon’s hands so that he can’t scratch himself up even more, but that would probably spread the blood around even more. Plus, it would still be awkward to suddenly go up and hold Jon’s hands, even with the excuse. And besides, he doesn’t even know why Jon is hurt. “What happened?”
Jon mumbles something.
“What?”
“I wasn’t asleep, I just—didn’t notice what I was doing,” says Jon. He goes to fold his hands contritely in his lap, but then grimaces and holds them away from his body. “Damn. The linens, I didn’t mean to—to dirty them up so soon after you washed them. I can—”
“Jon, I don’t care about the bloody linens! Are you all right?”
Jon, perplexingly, snorts. “I’m all right, I think,” he says hastily, before Martin can freak out any further. “I just—the bloody linens.”
Martin stares at him blankly until the words connect in his mind, and then he shakes his head, half exasperated, half still afraid. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
Jon’s face falls slightly. “I don’t think so,” he says, stretching experimentally. “I was just—I was cold, and I don’t always… notice, anymore, when I get minor injuries like this.” He sighs and begins untangling his legs from the covers. “They don’t bother me as much as they used to.”
“I thought you said they still hurt,” says Martin, unable to help an accusatory note from creeping into his voice.
“They do,” says Jon, wincing as his feet touch the cold floor. “But I have… sort of a lot of aches and pains, nowadays? So little things like this don’t always seem, well, important.”
Martin swallows back sudden tears at the resignation in his voice. The last thing Jon needs is to have to deal with Martin crying at him when he’s already tired and in pain. “Can I help you clean up?” he asks.
“You don’t have to,” Jon says hastily.
“Please?” says Martin. “It’s just—it’s going to be hard for you to see everything, let alone reach it without pulling on—on those. Besides, I want to help.”
“All right,” says Jon, and allows Martin to herd him into the bathroom and sit him down on the lip of the antique bathtub. Martin helps him remove the stained shirt, and sets it aside. The scratches are already mostly closed, so it’s hard to tell how bad they were; Martin is forced to admit to himself that Jon’s spooky healing does seem to come in handy sometimes (the fact that it created this particular mess notwithstanding.) He dampens a washcloth as soon as the water heats up enough, and gets to work.
Jon is quiet and very still while Martin wipes off the blood. Martin hopes he doesn’t mind how much Martin has to touch him for this; mindful of how sparing Jon has been with touch since they arrived in the cabin, he tries to stay as clinical as possible. It’s awful that he should be enjoying this—Jon is hurt— but Jon’s chilled, goosebumped skin feels so good under his hands that it’s nearly painful. It’s only with great difficulty that he retreats enough to allow Jon to wash his own hands in the sink, rather than taking the opportunity to dab them off with the washcloth as well.
“Thank you,” says Jon quietly, as Martin fills the sink with cold water and puts the dirty shirt in to soak.
“Of course,” says Martin, with a halfhearted smile. Then he sighs. “I don’t know what we’re going to do about the sheets.”
“We can just use the spares.”
“The spares are already on your bed, Jon.”
“So?”
“So, it’ll leave you with even fewer blankets, at least until we get another chance to do laundry,” says Martin.
“I’ll be fine,” says Jon stubbornly.
Martin just raises his eyebrows at him. Now that the initial panic is mostly out of his system, Jon’s stubbornness is back to being frustratingly endearing, rather than just frustrating.
“I won’t scratch myself again,” says Jon seriously. “I promise.”
“You’re right, you won’t,” says Martin. “Because you’re going to take one of the quilts.”
“I am not,” says Jon, affronted. “You shouldn’t have to be cold just because I was careless.”
“I’ll be fine,” says Martin.
Jon’s eyes narrow. “Are you sure you wouldn’t—” He cuts himself off and runs a hand through his hair. (Martin tries unsuccessfully not to wonder what it would feel like to run his own hand through Jon’s hair.) “I know it would probably be—awkward,” he says. “But—I just thought—if you don’t mind, we could… share space? For a little while?” He coughs, gaze sliding to the floor. “I know you don’t—we don’t have to touch, or even share blankets, or anything. But it would probably be warmer if we were at least—nearby. Right?” He glances up, looking surprisingly fragile.
“Well—yeah, that probably would help,” says Martin cautiously. “But Jon, you don’t have to—”
“I want to,” says Jon, expression intense. Then his eyes widen and a flush steals across his face. “Sorry, I just mean—I meant it would be easier, I—sorry. I’ll drop it.”
Martin feels as though he’s missed a step and lost his balance. “It’s all right with me,” he says, puzzled. “As long as you’re fine with that, I mean. Unless you… changed your mind?”
“I didn’t mean to—to make it weird,” Jon tells the floor, eyes closed, still blushing. “I know you don’t—you don’t want that from me.”
What? “What?” says Martin.
To Martin’s horror, Jon sniffles, and when he speaks, his voice is wobbly. “I know you’re not interested—shit. I should—I should go.”
Jon tries to push past Martin to the door of the bathroom, and before Martin can think better of it, he reaches out and catches Jon’s hand. Jon freezes, and Martin tries to drop his hand, but he doesn’t let go. “Jon, what’s going on? Go where? Did I say something?”
Jon shakes his head. “No,” he rasps. “I just—you shouldn’t have to deal with this.”
“With what?” Martin practically begs him, deeply concerned, still perplexed.
“With me,” Jon mutters bitterly. And with that, he lets go of Martin’s hand and vanishes into the dark depths of the cabin.
Martin doesn’t follow him, which Jon is grateful for. He curls up on the end of the sofa and shivers, head throbbing with exhaustion and embarrassment. Christ, he needs to learn to keep his damn mouth shut. What a mess. He catches himself starting to grab at his shoulders again, and transfers his hands safely to the sofa cushions. He doesn’t want to put that look on Martin’s face ever again.
Distantly, Jon can hear Martin shuffling around at the end of the tiny hallway, where the doors to the two bedrooms are. Maybe he’ll go back to sleep. Maybe he’ll forget this whole humiliating encounter even happened.
Or maybe he didn’t know until just now how utterly head-over-heels Jon is for him. It’s not like they ever really discussed it, and while Jon is sure the nature of how he feels is blatantly obvious, Martin might not have realized just how far gone he is. Maybe he thought Jon was interested in him, but hadn’t realized that he was well past the initial infatuation and into the planning-the-rest-of-their-lives phase.
Maybe, now that he knows, he’ll put even more distance between them. Maybe the scraps of affection that have been keeping Jon sane for the past two weeks will dry up and he’ll have nothing.
Well. There’s the one and only good thing left in Jon’s life, gone up in smoke. Good job, he tells himself. Absolutely spectacular show. It’s not like you had literally anything else left to lose.
He’s just about settled in, ready to mope the rest of the night away alone on the sofa, when the lamp in the next room switches on. Jon stares with wide eyes as Martin approaches, wrapped in one of the blankets from his bed, the quilt he’d threatened to foist on Jon gathered up in one hand. Jon continues staring as Martin sits down next to him and begins delicately tucking the quilt around him.
It’s not until Martin settles back against the cushions and pulls his own blanket tighter that Jon finds his voice again. “What are you doing?” he asks hoarsely.
“You said you were cold,” says Martin, as though that explained everything. Jon just stares at him, once again too lost for words, and Martin sighs. “I’m starting to think that I’ve been mistaken about a few things.”
“Mistaken?”
“I thought,” says Martin, “that I was all right with the fact that you don’t want the same things I do. I thought I could just—just brush it off and get on with my life, that it wasn’t a big deal. But it is. And—and maybe you and I don’t want the same things, and if that’s true, then—then I’ll get over it somehow. But first I’m going to be proper heartbroken over it, and not try and pretend I’m not.” He takes a deep breath. Jon, unable to form words, just keeps staring. “And I’m also starting to think I was wrong about you not wanting—well. Me. I was so sure that you were the one who was putting up with—with my messy, unwanted feelings. But the way you were talking, just now… I was wrong, wasn’t I? You were thinking the same thing I was.”
“What are you saying?” Jon whispers.
“I love you,” says Martin. He shifts in his seat and swallows. “I thought—this whole time, I thought you knew. I thought it was obvious.”
“But you said—” Jon’s throat aches. He coughs to clear it. “You said you really loved me. Loved. Not—not—”
“But I followed you out,” Martin says softly. “Did you really think I would have been able to leave that place, if I didn’t still care?”
“I thought it was me,” Jon mumbles. “I figured—it was enough that someone, that I, loved you. As long as you knew that—and as long as you still thought of me as a, a friend, at least—I thought that’s all it would take. I didn’t—I wasn’t sure you’d still want me, after everything I’d done. In fact, I was sure you wouldn’t.”
“Everything you’d done?” says Martin, eyes gleaming wetly in the lamp-light. “Jon. I was already in love with you before you walked straight into—into the closest thing there is to literal hell— to wager your own life on the chance you could save mine.” He laughs gently, barely above a breath. “There’s really not a whole lot you could do that would make me stop wanting you.”
There’s a strange roaring in Jon’s ears, and his pulse thunders in his chest. If not for the fact that his dreams have been exactly the same every single night for over a year, he’d think he was dreaming. He’s still not entirely convinced he’s not.
Martin is saying something. Jon forces himself to tune back in.
“Was I mistaken?” he asks anxiously. “Do… do you…?”
“If you’re asking if I love you, the answer is yes,” Jon chokes out. The residual panic, the lingering conviction that admitting the truth will ruin everything, makes every word a struggle. He squeezes his eyes shut, feeling yet more tears drip down his face.
Something deliciously warm brushes against his cheek. Jon opens his eyes to see that Martin has freed one arm from his blanket cocoon and is stroking the tears from Jon’s cheek with his thumb. He’s smiling through his own tears. “Well, that’s good, then,” he says. “Would be unfortunate if I said all that for nothing.”
Even afterwards, Jon isn’t sure whether what followed was laughter or more crying. Not that it really matters, he reflects, safely wrapped up in Martin’s arms, a kiss lingering on each eyelid and warmth flooding all the way to his toes. What really matters is that for the first time, the very first time since he woke up to find that everything had gone wrong, Martin is right here, and Jon doesn’t miss him any longer.