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He should've known better, was the thing.
And, well...maybe he did.
Maybe, like everything else at this point, he just didn't particularly care.
The walls of the tub were hard, the ceramic floor pressing against his tailbone in a way that hurt even with the slight cushion of the water, and he felt just a little, just a little, nostalgic. He'd never say what for, wouldn't even think it too loud, because Jon was one room over and he would not be happy to hear about the bleeding ichor of comfort that ran down his spine at the thought of -
Of.
Well.
He felt a little like laughing, quiet and manic.
He breathed in, just enough to mark it off his checklist, and...held. Just a few seconds, just a test. Just a sliver of something he'd been so close to being consumed by, that he still woke up and saw the back of its teeth, when the world got a little too quiet. In his mind, the sounds echoed back at him in warbling, fuzzy patterns that he knew better than his own heartbeat. The light was dim, sharp, wet and glistening against the back of those salt-stained teeth, blinding -
This, though, this was...peaceful.
Despite the slight pain (that didn't really stop, but only shifted to his hip as he resituated), ((and despite the odd juxtaposition of light and mundane life around him)) (((the life)), this was almost enough.
Just enough.
...Too much, maybe, all at once. If he was honest with himself.
Jon quite liked when he was honest, these days.
But...it was fine, and this was fine, and he -
He forced in another breath, lungs aching just the tiniest bit, beginning to burn as he mimicked himself, just pulled back a little, to one of those countless days he never thought he'd see the end of.
He was alright. Honestly.
And as long as he held onto that, this...this wouldn't harm anything. He just couldn't be too loud. Couldn't think too loud, even, about the specifics of it, because god forbid the Beholding channel its spooky little voyeur eyes in on his precious alone time and warn Jon. God forbid it delved in to his one shred of comfort, and sucked the marrow of trepidation and well-rotted fear right out of the undertow.
He wasn't scared.
He wasn't.
He'd have to be scared, though, for it to bother. And he wasn't. Not really. Not scared enough of being caught, and that meant it was fine.
No, he'd learned how to shut that off a long time ago, blurring it under the low level hum of numbness and electricity, that bled from cell to cell just under the surface of his skin. He'd learned how to pull the haze around just enough that, when the pain came, he was already past it. He'd learned how to predict, how to react, how to brace himself for impacts that never really came, but settled in with all their damage, regardless, eventually.
He'd...have to be scared for it to bother anyone.
And he wasn't, so it was fine.
This was, was fine.
The water was getting just a little too high, and he absentmindedly reached for the handle, slowing its trickle. It was nearly overflowing, at this point, but...
The temperature was uneven, the warm water near the faucet mingling in an odd sort of way with the older, settled body that surrounded the rest of him. He could still feel the tub. It still hurt.
It was a stupid idea, but gods knew they both had plenty of those, and so far only...only few of them had gotten them killed. Ha. They bad a pretty good track record, all things considered.
He shifted again, watching the way the water lapped dangerously close to going over the edge, and cursed the constricting walls of the tub and his own corporeal, unwieldy body. He focused his gaze on the tile alongside the shower. Followed the pipe, its brackets half rusted and entirely untrustworthy for anything more than a show, until he reached the shower head. There was nothing special about it. It just had a little bit more detail, a little more function, a little more use to it than the bare, yellowed tiles, with all their ancient grout and little nicks and scrapes.
The water was getting cold, all through, now, but he shouldn't have minded. He didn't mind. Never mind that it was still just barely running, with the temperature cranked as high as it could go. No matter if it couldn't have been more than a moment since he'd turned it mostly off, had begun to let the ambient chill settle in, through all of it. No matter if it didn't make sense, without any spooky reason, for the water to suddenly feel so cold.
No.
He didn't bother wondering if it was something he should worry about. If he didn't fear it, it wasn't. Why would it matter why the water went icy, even, as long as he'd drained it out, dried off, put on a tired, comfortable smile by the time he had to go back out there and face Jon?
Why would it matter at all?
He...didn't want to go back out, honestly. Didn't want to even think about that. Didn't want to move at all, or feel the discomforting smoothness of the ceramic against his skin, or hear the gentle lap of the water moving as he did, all wrong.
It didn't taste like salt, but it did have a hint of rust, when he licked his lips, dry and cracked as they were.
Still a little familiar. But he knew he wasn't bleeding.
That was a good thing, in some aspects. If the water had been salt tinged, maybe he'd have just a little harder of a time keeping it separate. Keeping it alright.
But no, it was just ever so slightly tainted with rust from old pipes, and there were no rocks to catch him when he washed up this time, and the walls were just smooth where he unwillingly touched them.
He'd really like to have been floating, instead. To have been suspended in the dark, crushing embrace of it, with nothing to grab onto, nothing to ground him. It would be simpler.
(His mind provided, very quietly, very vividly, the image of his hands fumbling against the smooth surface of that newly familiar ceramic, grasping for anything to pull himself back upright, but unable to - just pushing it a little too far, reaching his limits, and then Jon would -)
((No. No. No.
He knew what he was doing. He knew why it was a stupid idea, and that sort of...insulated it. Made it a little easier to keep in line. He knew, and so he was prepared. If only with spite and a little acrid bitterness in the back of his throat.
He wouldn't actually drown, because he never got what he wanted.
Ha.))
He focused in again on the showerhead, the details sharpening back in in a way that made him squint a little against it, and he...sank.
Just a bit, inch by inch.
It swallowed him easily, a tepid, almost chilly sort of weight that reached up around as he shifted, that clawed its way around his form and sang home. Home, in all the ways that mattered. He didn't bother closing his eyes, and the showerhead and musty old tiles faded into a sepia, metal-tinged blur after just a second.
It burned, keeping his eyes open. Not in a particularly pleasant way, honestly, but...well, he, he needed to not push too far.
He focused his gaze forward, pulling his limbs in around himself as much as he could, and let himself sink.
It should've been more terrifying than it was, but - even as the slight darkness came in as he went a little deeper, even as the shapes shifted and merged, even as his body ached at the odd, fucking pretzel-like position he was forcing himself into - it was almost nothing. In a pervasive, familiar sort of way, that sang to painkillers rather than freedom. Aching wounds with no bandages, but no blood, either.
Settling.
He could almost, ever so slightly, hear the tone of Jon's voice from the other room. Humming, or singing, or something else melodic and disjointed, moving with him as he ambled about the daily life. Footsteps, shifting, domestic noises.
Jon was...alive.
And so was he.
And that was, that was fine, but...
He let the water distort the sound, carry it through and disperse it, make it nothing but another meaningless mundane noise, amongst the few he was already ignoring.
Jon had screamed for him. The first time. He could remember it, in bits and pieces, but the tones fell flat. More imagined than real, although he knew that couldn't be the case - hell, Jon had cried over getting to hold his hand over breakfast, yesterday.
He wouldn't have called out Martin's name, screaming, and not had that desperate tone behind it.
Even if....even if it was a little easier to imagine that way. Made more sense, innately.
He pushed himself, though, focusing on the ache quickly building up in his lungs. Focused on the memory that was more insinuation than anything, more emotions borrowed and bandaged over, reflected back as -
Jon had been searching for him.
How long had he spent, wandering around on those beaches? How long, with his voice going raw - (because it had been, it had been. All gravelly and grated and battered, by the time he'd solidified) - and how much of that was Martin's fault?
He jolted a little, the movement unthought and instinctive, and he felt, distantly, his heart spasming unevenly.
Jon's voice had been desperate. Desperate. He'd walked into a hell he almost certainly knew he wasn't coming out of, and he'd screamed until his voice was raw, and that -
Well, ha, it didn't...it didn't make him feel much of anything. Actually.
Nothing beyond a little guilt, maybe, but that was so much a background of his life now that it hardly registered anymore.
No. Jon had come to save him, and Martin wasn't even sure if he'd felt anything beyond a vague flutter of annoyance in his chest at it.
It wasn't his fault, Jon would say, with that itching tone in his voice, that barely-held-back determination. It wasn't your fault. He hurt you. He made you like that.
He wasn't sure how kindly Jon would take to the fact that this wasn't exactly the first time in his life that he'd simply not cared.
Maybe it was the worst, and maybe he'd had ocean water still staining his lungs, and maybe that misty, foggy haze made it easier to not feel a thing. But it wasn't entirely why.
Peter had chosen him for a reason.
(He couldn't breathe.)
Peter had chosen him for a reason, and he - he was a perfect fit. Desperate, and empty, and just a little bit selfish in all the right places.
(He couldn't fucking - his body moved without him, sharp and sudden, and he could hear more than feel as his hands reached for the rim of the tub, desperate. Grasping.)
He'd been perfect. And he'd still managed to fuck it up, because he was - because Jon was still -
Jon was -
(The surface was sharp, loud, and the motion of breaking it threw a not insignificant amount of water over the ledge, onto the floor. He couldn't care about it. He couldn't care about it.)
Jon was still alive.
Jon was still alive, and here Martin was, pretending to drown himself just enough in the bathroom of their half-idyllic little cottage, and he couldn't breathe.
And again, again, it was all his fault.
He would've laughed a little, if the sharp, gasping breaths he wasn't in charge of gave any room. His eyes were stinging, harsh, and he wondered if he'd ever even closed them. If that blur of tile and water-haze had ever been replaced by the back of his eyelids, or if the memories were just strong enough that it didn't matter.
This had been a stupid idea.
Maybe one of his worst, but only for the fact that now he was shivering, and he could feel the crying start without his permission, and there was water all over the floor. He watched it, tiredly, as a thin stream followed the line of the tiles, towards the door.
He wondered, very quietly, if Jon would notice. If he flooded it. If he went a little too far.
He wondered if he'd be too late, if Martin actually got the wherewithal to commit to his decisions, the whole way, for once.
...He wasn't going to put Jon through that, but the thought stung a little. Sharp. And vivid. And screaming.
Jon cared. Jon was alive. And he was shaking in the bathroom, in water that was definitely far cooler than it should've been, and he couldn't quite breathe right.
Y’know, maybe mostly because he'd just, just -
He couldn't put a name to it, not fully.
Jon was still singing, a quiet little thing with a swooping rhythm to it, and his heart felt a little like it was going to stutter out and stop completely.
...Very very carefully, limbs leaden, he flicked the drain stop up. Ignored the shaking in his hands and just watched the water drain, ever so slowly.
It got colder, as it did, and the stagnant, encompassing air of the cottage felt like another maw, closing in around his throat. A less familiar one. One he didn't know the shape of, but he knew the taste of its breath, the soft tones it carried when it hummed him to sleep.
It was fine, though.
He could...he could keep doing this.
He could keep...managing. It'd be fine.
He pushed himself to stand, limbs uncooperative enough that he wasn't entirely sure they were his own (stupid thought, ha), and stepped out. His foot met the soaked tile with a tiny little splash, and he suddenly felt a little like throwing up.
He was fine, though, and he was so fucking tired, and he just wanted to hug Jon or run away or scream or do anything that wasn't stay - but he was fine.
He was exhausted, and he needed to clean up his mess. That was what he did. Cleaned up. Hid. Made it alright.
The single towel he'd pulled from the linen cabinet was just barely enough to mop it all up, and it was completely drenched by the time the floor (and his body) were mostly dried.
Only gods knew what Jon would think if he had to use the bathroom before it dried the rest of the way. He was...he was a little too tired to think of an explanation. Grown men don't let the tub overflow for no good reason. He didn't have a good reason.
Maybe he'd just tell him if he asked, ha. See the look of horror, care, pain settle in on his face. See the proof, and then hear that fucking voice that always got so soft and desperate, now, around him, and he -
He wouldn't do that to Jon.
Even if he did want to feel, a little, just how much he cared.
There was something really fucked up about that, probably, but...
The floor was dry (ish), and he wasn't shaking nearly as badly anymore, and when he forced himself to look in the slightly fogged mirror above the sink, he looked...fine. Like he'd been crying, maybe, but not like -
Hm.
Like he'd been crying, maybe. That was all.
He rubbed a hand over his face, skin feeling just a little tacky and off.
...Maybe he'd get better at this, with time. If they had any. Maybe he could learn to be alive, and he wouldn't find comfort in the thought that he'd already tasted the end, knew just how soft it could be, even as it cut.
He focused in on Jon's idle humming through the wall, adjusted his shirt a bit, and put his head down.
He'd get used to it. He was good at that.
He smiled, just a little bitter, to himself, and pushed the door open.