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“Come on, humor me,” Martin cajoled.
Jon had refused already, but Martin wouldn't let it go. He could be so stubborn about the strangest things, like how stubborn he was about Jon. Martin had cheered up considerably after they had left the St. Bleedings Centre for Wellbeing, and was now pestering Jon with pointless what-if scenarios. Jon suspected he was doing this to keep his mind off the hospital and Breekon, which was understandable. Jon just wished he had chosen some other topic.
Martin was holding Jon’s hand, which made Jon a lot more susceptible to cheesy nonsense than he usually was.
He let out an exaggerated, deep sigh and thought about it for a second. Martin gave his unburned hand a playful squeeze. Jon squeezed back. The question Martin had asked him was not a difficult one at all. The problem was that he found his answer to be painfully lackluster.
“I don't know, a dinner?” He offered.
“That’s a boring answer,” Martin said, like Jon had guessed he would.
Despite himself, Jon bristled a little. The “If the world hadn’t turned into a hellish fearscape, what would our first date have been like?” question was deeply biased against boring people.
“If you’ve been entertaining any thoughts about me being anything but boring, you only have yourself to blame,” he said primly.
Martin laughed heartily at his misery, clearly delighted. His carefree good mood was rare and infectious, and Jon found a smile trying to force its way on his face. He had never been one to smile much, but Martin made it easy, even in a place like this. He still bit it down and fixed his face into a deeply disapproving glare, which incidentally was very close to his natural resting expression. Martin laughed again.
“No, no. Dinner is good,” he said placatingly, “I just want more details.”
As he thought about it, Jon brought his free hand to tap his chin. The fact neither of them particularly wanted to face was that if things had proceeded normally, they wouldn’t have ever got together. He chose to focus on something slightly more pleasant.
“I never went out much, nor had many opinions on food in general, so I would have asked you to pick the restaurant,” Jon said.
“And I would have deflected the responsibility and asked you to choose,” Martin said.
“Yes. I suppose we would have engaged in a lengthy and passive-aggressive back-and-forth of "no, you decide" before finally agreeing on a mediocre spot that was equally inconvenient for both of us.”
Martin hummed in agreement.
Opportunity presented itself to Jon. There was something he definitely would have wanted to tell Martin on that hypothetical first date, so he might as well say it now. Usually he found it tremendously difficult to come out to people he was interested in, but it was easy now. Such a thing was utterly irrelevant in the kind of context in which his and Martin’s relationship existed.
“The night would have ended with me drinking two glasses of wine in quick succession trying to gather the courage to tell you I’m asexual,” Jon said, and was quite proud of how casual he sounded.
Martin’s thumb had been tracing idle circles at the back of Jon’s hand as they spoke. Now it stilled. Martin didn’t detangle his hand from Jon’s, but it went limp in Jon’s hold. Jon hadn't been worried before, he hadn’t known that he should be. His brain was quick to remedy this oversight, and anxiety spiked deep within him. He had the unfortunate realisation that fear of coming out probably often fed the Eye. It took a lot of effort not to grasp Martin’s hand with all his feeble strength.
“Martin?” He asked, his voice more timid than he’d like it to be.
“Hm? Oh, don’t worry,” Martin said, though in all of human history, that phrase had never actually eased anyone's concerns.
What did help however, was that Martin had regained control of his hand and was very gently holding onto Jon’s again. It was comforting and helped him to believe Martin didn’t resent him. His reaction was still strange, and Jon looked up at Martin to find more clues to why this might've been. He found a curious, almost hesitant expression plastered on Martin’s face.
“Martin?” He asked again.
“It's just that you told me this before,” Martin said slowly.
Not many things were capable of surprising Jon anymore, but this managed to do that. He could feel his eyebrows doing something involuntary yet probably funny on his face.
“No, I didn’t,” he said reflexively.
Martin grimaced. He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. There was a chance Martin had listened to a tape with a bit of invasive yet ultimately harmless office gossip from way back when, and came to some, correct, conclusions. But Melanie telling Basira what Georgie in turn had told her wouldn’t really count as Jon telling Martin anything even if Martin had happened to hear that recording.
“I’m positive I’d remember telling you that,” Jon insisted.
Unless.
A terrible understanding, thankfully different from the kind of terrible understanding he usually felt, crept onto his mind. There was one possible moment where he might’ve told Martin anything, and wouldn’t remember about it anymore. The deeply apologetic expression on Martin’s face told him he was right. Martin was turning slightly pink.
“Sorry, Jon,” he said, “I completely forgot to tell you, but you told me that at Salesa’s.”
“Why did I do that?” Jon asked. Mikaele Salesa’s beautiful yet spider-infested hideout seemed like a strange place for any coming outs.
“I dunno, probably because it was the first time since Daisy’s cabin that we actually slept in a bed? Or slept at all, now that I think of it,” Martin suggested.
“Makes sense,” Jon agreed.
He could ask Martin for details, but for once his curiosity was fulfilled. It was nice to know he had trusted Martin with this before, and that it had gone well. He still felt a bit odd about it all. It was strange, having revealed something that important about himself and not remembering.
“Well, I’m glad that’s all settled,” he said, a bit stiffly.
Martin didn’t say anything. He lifted up his and Jon’s joined hands and kissed the back of Jon’s hand.