#idk if there's a unifying scottish honeymoon tag on here

[ombreblossom]

speaking words unspoken

This is my gift for @bluejayblueskies for the 2021 @tma-valentines-exchange! I hope you like it!

AO3 link is located in the source :)

Summary: They're a week and some change into their stay at Daisy's safe house, and Martin is still having some trouble with the Lonely. Jon picks up on this and tries to make things better. And he does! In his way, but not before some miscommunication and exhaustion waylay his efforts (about 6.5K words)

The grocery store is awfully busy for a small town nestled in the heart of the Scottish Highlands. Residents of the village wander among a haphazard collection of shelves ranging from middling height to impossibly tall. There seems to be little rhyme or reason for where items are placed from aisle to aisle, forcing Martin to have to search around in order to find anything, increasing the number of people he inadvertently bumps into.

If Martin gave it any more than a cursory thought, he'd come to the conclusion that it's not entirely unexpected, the nearest Tesco many tens of kilometers away and only a smattering of towns in between.

Martin isn’t really in a position to have that cursory thought, though, as freshly escaped from the Lonely as he was. Nervous energy thrums along his skin, speeding his movements and making him quick to avert his eyes in the infrequent event someone meets them. Most people still easily pass their gaze over him, as if he were merely a wisp of tepid air lazily making its way across the store room—a left-over effect of his association with the One Alone. Martin doesn't mind so much the lack of attention paid to him, but he can't help but feel an uncomfortable pressure against his skin when other people are near.

He can't even be near Jon sometimes, not without the pressure overwhelming him, and doesn’t that just smart.

Martin resolved to brave the thick, after-work crowd for this, though, “this” being gathering the supplies needed for a relaxing night in Daisy’s safehouse following a rushed and terrified flight from London and everything that had happened with Peter and Eli-Jonah, Not!Sasha, and the hunters. They weren’t on holiday, Martin had to keep reminding himself. They weren’t on holiday, but he was probably the happiest he’s been in years, and he wants to celebrate that. With Jon. 

With Jon. What a concept. He was elsewhere in the store, continuing an extended effort of picking up things they'd conceivably need for the long term. Just in case. Martin’s trying to not examine his shaky optimism too closely, but he is in love, and it's impossible to not consider his current position beside Jon as anything but a miracle.

Ah, there’s finally some room in the sweets aisle. Flanked on either side by various baking paraphernalia, Martin enters the aisle and heads straight for a small section of colorfully-wrapped bar chocolate. Not that Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London likes sweet chocolate—goodness, no. Or sweets at all for that matter. At least not things he classified as “obnoxiously sweet,” an ambiguous term if Martin had ever heard one. Over time, Martin has come to understand it to mean barely sweet, like an echo of sweetness that had once been present and is no longer. He's never said as much, but Jon likes his sweets like he likes his tea: oversteeped to the point of bitterness with the barest hint of sugar and the slightest bit of added color from milk. 

And Jon does this unbearably adorable thing where he breaks the bar up into smaller pieces, not even according to the pre-set perforations, mind you, and nibbles on the thing for hours at a time, either to savor the flavor (which Martin cannot possibly fathom) or because Jon is a lying liar who lies about liking bitterness to that degree, and this is the one thing he has managed to successfully lie to anybody about.

It’s probably the former, but Martin would be delighted to find out it’s the latter.

So, he gladly picks up a couple of ninety-percent dark chocolate bars for Jon and turns them over in his hand, feeling the rough texture of the plain, if colorful, wrapping paper surrounding them. Martin does his best to dodge around other shoppers who've entered the aisle, picking up some granulated sugar, flour, baking soda and powder, and cinnamon for banana bread (his personal favorite). It stirs feelings in his chest that Jon had bought bananas several days ago with the (if not explicit, then quite obvious in hindsight) intent to let them over-ripen. Martin starts to head toward the cashier with the rest of his items when he feels a cool hand slip into his, interlacing their fingers together.

“Hey,” Jon begins, a soft warmth in his voice, “Did you get everything we needed?” Jon rubs his thumb in light, rhythmic circles onto his own, and it takes everything Martin has in him to not instinctively pull his hand out of Jon’s gentle hold. It feels nice—Jon feels nice—but it's very nearly too much right now. He hates this, hates constantly putting Jon in a position where he has to somehow intuit Martin’s feelings because not even Martin himself quite understands what exactly sets off the chain reaction of fear and pressure and too many people and the roaring—

There’s suddenly nothing but air around his hand, and Martin misses Jon’s solid presence acutely as much as he found it altogether too much. He doesn’t want to look over at Jon to see his placating smile, the one Martin imagined Jon wore as he all but dragged the both of them through King’s Cross station to barely make it on time for the soonest train to Inverness. That same smile that Martin watched Jon affect as he took on the bulk of the dusting and washing that needed to be done upon arrival at Daisy’s safe house. The same smile that Martin woke up to every morning, knowing that Jon had very likely spent several hours just sitting in their bed waiting for Martin to wake up to make sure he didn’t do so alone. 

Martin looks anyway and isn’t surprised to see the smile in question.

If Martin had to describe it, he’d say it conveyed a sense of loss, of mourning, of wanting to protect what remained of a previous whole. It’s an implicit acknowledgement of the pieces of Martin that have been irreparably warped by the Lonely and an acknowledgement that Martin had already lost much to mundane loneliness long before Peter took advantage of his grief and recruited him in waylaying the Extinction.

He never wants to see that smile again, and so he looks away.

“Is there anything else we still need to get, Martin?” Jon rephrases and, after a long beat, continues, “Why don’t I finish up here and we can meet up in a few moments at the bookshop?” The bookshop that Martin knows that Jon knows is likely deserted at this time in the late afternoon, not too long before the elderly shopkeep, Fiona, closes her doors in anticipation of beginning her own nightly rituals. “I’m almost finished with the books we brought from London, and last time we were there—”

“Jon—” Martin sighs while Jon continues.

“—you mentioned Discworld, and it occurred to me that I have somehow managed to avoid reading any Pratchett, despite reading what I can only imagine was nearly every book left at all the second-hand bookshops in and around Bournemouth. Did you know—”

Jon keeps going with tidbits of what he knows of Terry Pratchett, which is an awful lot considering he just admitted to having not read anything by the man. Martin missed this, listening to Jon talk about anything and everything. He dare not interrupt him, even with everyone walking around them. He also refuses to throw Jon’s gift of distraction back at his face.

Color rises in Jon’s cheeks and his brows furrow when he presumably realizes he’s been talking for a while. “My point is I don’t mind finishing up here. Really, I don’t.” Jon’s trying to help. He’s trying to help, damn it, he repeats to himself. Lord knows that all Jon has ever done is try to help, in his way. Martin’s the one who can’t go five seconds without his fear around other people flaring out of control. Jon shouldn’t have to go it alone to preserve his comfort.

Martin takes some deep, steadying breaths. Jon waits patiently for him, his free hand fidgeting unobtrusively. 

“No, I'm good," he asserts, threading his words with as much certainty he can manage, and decides then and there that it is so. "I have everything we need for dinner tonight here and a couple extra things, too." He waggles his eyebrows a little at this. "I assume that you're over here because you've finished getting the essentials."

Every time Jon laughs is an exercise in appreciating opposing extremes. His eyes close as if he can’t bear to look at the object of his amusement any longer, and the corners of those eyes crinkle in the prettiest way, taking the breath right out of Martin’s body when it happens. And he holds his hand in front of his mouth like his laughter is something to be smothered, never to see the light of day, the reasons for which Martin can't be certain, but he suspects he wouldn't like them. "Indeed. And a few extra indulgences," Jon teases, winking. Winking! Does Jon wink? Clearly he does, but this is new information, a treasure trove hidden among stormy seas. “I picked up some sausage; sausage always adds an extra depth of flavor to this sort of thing.”

Laughing lightly, Martin says, "Let's get going, then. We have an extremely full evening of relaxation ahead of us."

"Since when do you find cooking relaxing, Mr. Microwave Meals?"

"Since it's a safe activity that we can do together now that we're away from the Institute of Terror, Mr. Will Subsist on Granola Bars and Spite For Days at a Time If Left to His Own Devices."

Jon looks thoughtful suddenly. "Safe. Now there’s a concept," Jon says with no small amount of incredulity.

Martin pauses. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Jon?” Martin goes cold at the thought that Jon might have seen something and not told him.

“What? Oh, no. It’s just…” He trails off, his gaze drifting upward toward the ceiling. “This, being here—with you—is probably the safest I’ve felt in a long time. It-it almost doesn’t feel real. Like any little thing I do or neglect to do could potentially burst this bubble of happiness I’ve all of the sudden found myself in.” 

It’s moments like these that Martin might actually be willing to believe that Jon is in his early 40s, the age he’d be now if the ridiculous lie he told about his age when they all started in the archives had been true. The pressing weights of repeated trauma, responsibility, and regret age his features considerably, and it hurts to look at. Martin wants so badly to smooth away the lines that seem to have taken up permanent residence between Jon’s brows however he can.

Martin ventures that he’s calm enough now to at least comfort Jon, if not enough to accept any for himself. He grabs the same hand that grasped his own minutes before and just. Holds it. Jon goes taught, like a newly-strung bow, words of reassurance waiting on Jon’s lips, that no, it’s okay, Martin, you don’t have to do this.

Well, too bad. Martin wants to do this, the Lonely’s lingering influence on him be damned. Martin draws Jon’s hand up to his lips and presses a kiss onto his knuckles. Jon gasps quietly, eyes wide. His grey-streaked dark hair is slipping out of its loose braid, whether from Jon playing with it in idle moments or from the wind that is altogether too often present in the Highlands, Martin couldn’t say, but the image endears him to Martin all the same.

“Well, take it from someone who’s spent a lot of the last year feeling not-quite-real: this is real, Jon. We’re here and safe, at least for now,” Martin assures him, grinning. “Let’s go pay for this stuff, yeah? And let’s go home.” Jon, momentarily speechless, simply nods his assent.

They’re able to leave the store with their purchases eventually and decide to make their way to Fiona’s bookshop anyway, picking up a few volumes while they’re there: a collection of Robin Robertson’s poetry for Martin and a geographical history of the Scottish Highlands and Terry Pratchett’s Guards, Guards for Jon to chew through. And neither of them would dare leave without giving Maggie, the resident feline guardian, some well-earned scritches. “It takes an awful lot of energy to mind an entire bookshop, after all,” Jon says every time they visit, all the while accumulating what could only amount to an unhealthy amount of cat hair—so much so that Martin’s started to find it laying about in the safe house. Jon doesn’t seem to mind it and says it reminds him of living with The Admiral.

It’s a decent walk back to the safe house. They started late enough in the day that the sun is already beginning to sink below the horizon, so they end up leaving after giving Maggie far fewer scritches than any of them would have preferred. Jon rebuffs Martin’s offer to carry all of their purchases, stubbornly hanging onto their books and his share of the groceries. This is becoming a familiar game to them, one that tends to escalate to silly, frantic grabbing for the others’ bags and eventually devolves into giggles and light shoulder bumping. Today, Martin manages to relieve Jon of his groceries, opening up one of Jon’s hands for holding, which Martin promptly attempts to take.

Jon turns his head to him and gives him a look that practically asks in his stead, “Are you sure this is okay?” The likewise unsaid “I don’t want to hurt you” bounces back and forth between them, and Martin answers by interlacing their hands and giving Jon’s a squeeze in hopes that it will quell the worry that’s carved into the lines of Jon’s face.

It does, and the contented sigh Jon makes is one of the loveliest sounds he’s heard. They continue their trek home, the route long and winding.

Not too much later, though, Martin notices something...off about Jon. He notices in increments almost minute winces when Jon steps on the leg Prentiss' worms ravaged, more frequent bumps into him that had nothing to do with showing affection but allowing Martin to take some of his weight for a moment, and some far-away looks.

Martin doesn’t quite have the shape of it until they’re talking about something or other, something simple, easy, meaningless in the grand, cosmic scheme of things, and Jon stumbles. He tries to laugh it off, but there's something not quite right about Jon's laughter this time. The way he bounces his shoulders in suppressed mirth is subdued—sluggish, even. An increasingly concerning picture paints itself in Martin’s mind.

A long, hard look at Jon forces him to confront the deep, dark circles under his eyes set against skin uncomfortably grey, nearly all traces of flush gone from his face, a stark contrast to earlier in the day.

How had he missed this? Maybe he’s been more absent than he thought. He’ll have to keep a close eye on Jon throughout the evening, maybe shepard him to bed if he seems to get any worse.

Only a sliver of the sun remains visible above the horizon when they arrive at the safe house, casting a soft orange glow over the vast grassy spread of the Highlands. Martin pays the sight little mind, though, all of his focus intent on the man in front of him currently unlocking their front door, and he can’t not notice how long it takes for Jon to insert the key into the locking mechanism.

As they’re putting away their groceries, visions of Jon doing the very same thing by himself play in his mind’s eye. He’s only able to summon disconnected images of the first several days of their....could he call it an elopement? Their not-so-great escape from the Archives? He recalls Jon preparing meals for them, bundling up to leave the safe house for groceries, washing their clothes in a small, foot-powered washing machine and later hanging them up on a clothesline outside to dry. Martin also recalls Jon bringing him overly-steeped tea and an old crocheted blanket when all he could do was sit on Daisy’s ancient green corduroy sofa and stare into the void in front of him, the sounds of lapping waves Coming ever closer.

All the while wearing that damnable smile. Shame pools within Martin, shame that Jon had had to take up so much responsibility recently and that Martin can’t say how well Jon’s been sleeping or taking care of his own needs in the meantime. If today is anything to go on, Martin supposes the answer to both of those questions is likely “no.”

“Martin, could you turn on the lights? We’re losing daylight fast.” Jon has a balancing hand on the countertop and is putting their dry and canned food items. Martin does as he’s asked, bathing the entire kitchen and living area in warm light. Martin walks back toward the kitchen area and is greeted with a “thank you” and a kiss. He could get used to this, used to feeling loved and appreciated.

“Is something bothering you, Martin?”

He looks at Jon, concern writ large on his still ashen face and eyes boring into him. Concern has no place being there right now. If anyone has any right to be concerned at the moment, it’s Martin.

“What? No. Why do you ask?”

“You’ve just been awfully quiet since we got home, and after what happened at the store, it’s not surprising that you might still be feeling...off.”

Projection, much? Martin wants to say but has the wherewithal to hold it back. “I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking. Jon. I’m all right.”

Jon eyes him up and down, and after seemingly not finding what he’s looking for, nods once and smiles (again with the smile...) once more. “All right. You’ll tell me if something’s bothering you, though, won’t you?” 

“Yeah, Jon, of course I will.” And he intends to mean it.

“Good,” Jon says and walks over to where Daisy keeps her cooking vessels, grabs her Dutch oven, and places it on the stovetop.

“Why don’t I be your line chef today, Jon, and you work the stovetop? You’re much better at the actual cooking part than I am.” 

“Mmm. There’s a lot of prep work that goes into this and not a whole lot of actual cooking, so let me help you,” he says, shakily opening a couple drawers in search of a suitable chef’s knife. 

“You sure? You’re looking a little peaky over there,” he replies without meaning to and curses his loose tongue.

Jon pauses midway through grabbing one of Daisy’s old wooden cutting boards and blinks slowly. “Oh…. Yes, I’m sure. What do you mean, looking ‘peaky’?”

“It’s just,” Martin starts, collecting the fennel seed, basil, rosemary, and the rest of the spices they needed for their meat sauce and a bowl to mix them in. Too late to not approach the subject now. “You’re exhausted, Jon. You spent most of our walk home either tripping over air or leaning on me for support.” He had wanted to be subtle, but subtlety is no longer on the cards.

Considering this for a moment, Jon’s eyebrows scrunch up in a way that Martin finds so endearing and opens a nearby cupboard to take out a couple onions and a bulb of garlic. “Sure, I’m a little tired,” he concedes, “but we have all evening to relax. I’d like nothing more than to cook with you, Martin.”

He should’ve known Jon was a sap. The signs were all there. “Well, how could I say ‘no’ to that?” He says and means it, though worry continues to percolate in the back of his mind.

“You can’t, and you know it.” Jon teases.

They go about preparing their meat sauce, Martin double- and triple-checking each measurement before pouring the appropriate amount of each spice into the mixing bowl and Jon dicing onions. 

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?” 

“Chop onions without tearing up and cursing your hubris that ‘this time will be different’?”

Chuckling softly, Jon apparently thinks better of sliding his hand down his face before answering, pivoting to the most level deadpan Martin thinks he’s ever heard from him, “It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that I spent years perfecting my abilities. Training with the best of the best to strengthen my tears ducts to such a degree that they are, quite literally, incapable of passing tears from my lacrimal glands to my eyes.”

Martin raises a dark eyebrow, amusement in his voice as he replies, “You should probably see a doctor about that, you know.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he draws out. “The real answer, of course, is my grandmother devoted a lot of her time to making sure I could at least cook according to a recipe along with providing some general rules of thumb. I chopped many an onion in search of culinary adequacy. Never progressed much past following recipes, though. Ask me to create something from scratch, and you’ll witness a horror the likes of which has never been seen before.”

“Just out of curiosity, which fear do you think takes credit for culinary disasters?”

“Probably depends on the nature of the disaster, honestly, but…. Hmm. Maybe Corruption? Or Flesh, maybe? Either way, it doesn’t bear thinking about, especially not while we’re preparing to eat ourselves.” 

While Martin is rummaging through the fridge in search of where Jon put the ground beef and sausage, he hears a hiss coming from Jon's direction. 

Martin whips his head over to where Jon's been dicing onions and his heart clenches at the sight of deep red blossoming over the wooden cutting board.

"Jon! What happened? You're bleeding," He says, stating the obvious, feeling like his throat is closing up behind his words. "Where are you bleeding from?" Martin crosses the room in record time, places a hand in Jon's shoulder and surveys the area in front of him.

Blood leaks sluggishly from a cut on Jon's middle finger. A splatter of crimson on the knife Jon has been using clues Martin in to what happened. "Jon, just stay right there, okay? I'll go grab the first-aid kit. I’m sure there’s some kind of antiseptic or disinfectant in there. I’ll be right back!”

Jon opens his mouth to say something, but Martin’s already gone, heading for the cabinet under the bathroom sink, head abuzz with worry and heart hammering in his chest.

When Martin returns, Jon’s running his hand beneath the running tap and blood trails down into the sink in pink rivulets. Jon glances at him, the same exhaustion that stared back at him when Jon and the rest left for Great Yarmouth on his face, a combination of physical exhaustion and the culmination of several months of emotional upheaval, of bitterly contemplating his own humanity and his role in Elias’ inscrutable plans.

“There’s no need to worry about the first-aid kit, Martin. Didn’t you hear? I heal, ah, preternaturally fast these days. See?” Jon holds up his hand to Martin, and, much to Martin’s surprise, the seeping cut on Jon’s finger is completely gone, no trace even of a faint scar. 

“I...I didn’t know, Jon,” he almost whispers. “How long has this been going on?”

“Since I—since I woke up. From the coma.”

Martin mouths an “oh” and considers what this means in the context of what knows about Jon’s actions while he’d been working for Peter. It’s almost sadder that Jon ventured into Ny Alesund knowing that he couldn’t be permanently harmed—or into the coffin, for that matter. Walking into extreme danger knowing that he’d likely bring pain on himself but he’d almost certainly live despite it—”self-destructive” was even more accurate than Martin had imagined at the time Daisy said it.

Martin heaves a tension-relieving breath and hopes it doesn’t sound like a sigh. Making Jon feel guilty about something he can’t exactly help isn’t something he wants to do tonight. Or ever. “Why don’t I go put this back, then, and let’s pick up where we left off. I’ll take over the solemn duty of chopping onions if you start preparing the beef and sausage.”

“Yeah, that might be for the best,” Jon concedes too easily. 

The room is quiet after that. Not much sound ever permeates the safe house’s walls, trees and hills absorbing much of the ambient noises of the surrounding area before they even get to their cottage. And they’ve both gone silent, the only sounds filling the room the sharp thuds of a knife hitting wood and the squelching of ground meat. 

By time Martin’s done dicing one onion to replace the one Jon bled on and an extra onion that the recipe didn’t call for because “onions are flavor vehicles, Martin,” or so Jon claims, Jon’s still mixing the beef and sausage together.

“H-hey, Jon, I think you’ve mixed those pretty thoroughly, don’t you?”

“Mmm.” He stills, hands still submerged in the mixture.

“Jon?”

Jon blinks slowly, head and gaze drawing downward, like he no longer has the will or strength to work against gravity.

Martin reaches out a hand to shake him out of his stupor but thinks better of it. Has he somehow lost more color in his cheeks? “Jon, I think you should maybe go lay down or at least sit down.” Nothing. “I’d love to hear you talk about Discworld if you’re not ready to lay down yet.”

This seems to break him out of whatever daze he’d fallen into. “Oh. Ah, yes. Right. I understand. I’ll, um, just go.”

What is there to understand, Martin wonders as Jon turns back to the sink and runs water and soap along his hands, movements almost comically slow if not for how worrying they are and the frenetic energy that usually accompanies Jon completely missing.

Martin reaches out a supporting hand, intending to grasp Jon’s upper arm. “The bedroom’s awfully far away; let’s get you to the sofa, and I’ll bring over some tea and blankets, yeah?” 

With energy summoned from the aether, Jon leaps out of the way of his hand, throwing himself boldly against the lip of the countertop with a cry. “No. No. That’s all-that’s all right. I can get there by myself,” he says, chest heaving and the trembling Martin noticed more pronounced than even a moment ago.

“Jon, love, you’re not in any condition to be doing anything by yourself. In the most affectionate way possible, you look like you feel awful right now. Please let me help.” Martin’s unable to keep the pleading out of his voice.

Jon looks—Looks?—looks at him, eyes wide, almost bulging, fear and a host of other emotions dancing wildly in them. “No, n-no. You don’t have to…. Please, don’t. I didn’t want this.”

“Don’t what, Jon? What didn’t you want?”

“This. I didn’t want this.”

“Um. I don’t really understand, Jon, but let’s talk about it over on the sofa. We’ll be more comfortable there.” Martin takes a small step forward, palms of his hands facing forward in a gesture of openness and safety. This time when Jon leaps backward, he slips. Martin’s not close enough to grab onto him, and a split second later, the deafening crack of Jon’s head hitting the wood floor fills the room and clamps a vice around Martin’s heart. 

Too shaken to yell his name, he bounds over to where Jon lies still and slides into a sitting position beside him. All Martin can see for a terrifying, desolate moment is Jon in that familiar adjustable hospital bed, crisp, undisturbed white sheets carefully arranged over top of him, attached to various monitors that have been silenced to not alert staff of his absent heartbeat and non-existent oxygenation levels.

“Jon. Jon. Come on. Don’t do this to me. Jon, do something—say something if you can. Please, don’t….” Should he move Jon at this point? Martin remembers from a rudimentary first-aid class he took when his mother’s worsening condition started to accelerate that you shouldn’t move people with suspected head or neck injuries without first stabilizing them, but they had nothing like that here. And there was still some question as to how far his healing ability really extended.

He has to be okay. Without giving the action any thought, Martin gently places a hand atop Jon’s chest to check for breathing. They’re shallow breaths, but his chest does rise and sink in a slow rhythm, and Martin lets out the breath he’d been unconsciously holding.

“Love?” He near whispers, as if Jon were merely asleep. “Come back to me.” He brushes away some of the fly-away hairs that have fallen onto his face. That is when Jon begins to stir.

“Jon? Jon!” Martin exclaims. For whatever mysterious reason, Jon is trying to wriggle away from him. “Don’t try to move yet. You hit your head pretty hard, and your healing isn’t immediate, Jon. Just stay put!” Jon wasn’t listening to him, still scrambling to move out of Martin’s reach.

That’s enough of that. Martin lays himself over Jon’s chest and holds him while he waits for him to calm down.

It takes some seconds, maybe a minute or two, but Jon does calm down eventually, becoming boneless in Martin’s arms.

“Hey,” Martin starts, “you with me, Jon?” 

Jon lifts a hand slowly, making a so-so gesture.

“Okay. How’s your head?”

He winces. “Hurts.”

Martin hmms. “Do you feel dizzy?”

Jon gives a minute shake of his head.

“Okay. I’m moving us to the sofa, then. And don’t try to protest,” Martin warns.

Martin gets half-way to his feet, slips his arms until Jon’s legs and back, and proceeds to pick them both up off the floor. In the short time it takes to cross the room, Jon nuzzles his head into Martin’s chest. The frustration and concern and worry Martin’s feeling subsides somewhat in the face of overwhelming affection for this man, and he hugs him just a little bit closer.

“Stay here; I’ll be right back,” Martin says as he lays Jon down gingerly onto the sofa. He puts their dinner ingredients back into the fridge for the time being and puts some water on for chamomile tea. His thoughts drift as he waits for the water to come to a boil and some more as he waits for the tea to steep. He glances at Jon every so often, who has rolled over onto his side while Martin’s been gone.

“Hey, you,” Martin says as he sits in front of Jon at the edge of the sofa, the mug of chamomile making a soft thunk on the table.

“Why are you doing all this, Martin?” Jon murmurs into the worn fabric underneath him, and Martin can’t tell if he was supposed to hear it or not.

“I’m not sure what you mean, Jon.”

“Why are you staying so close to me, touching me? Taking care of me?”

“I would have thought the answers to those questions were pretty obvious,” Martin says mildly, carding his fingers through Jon’s hair.

Jon’s silence says everything.

Martin exhales and then steels himself for a delicate conversation. “I love you, Jon. Have done for quite a while now. If there’s anything I can do to lessen your pain and discomfort, I want to do it.”

Jon clenches a fist and refuses to look at him. “I know that, Martin, in every way possible. But...” he stops, apparently to think. He sounds wrecked. Tabling this conversation for when Jon is feeling better might be a better idea, but it’s rare that Jon gets the gumption to speak openly about the things really bothering him, so Martin’s remains quiet. “Things haven’t been easy for you since…. Christ, for a long time, I think. Since Prentiss, at least. But since leaving the Lonely, you’ve been…. You go away for long periods of time, and it seems like you can’t handle people being around you, too.”

It occurs to Martin that they’ve never actually addressed any of this together, not their individual traumas, not their shared traumas, not this thing, these feelings, between them. They’ve been testing the waters, so to speak, bit by bit. Touches and soft barbs and sweet words pass between them unacknowledged but nevertheless heartfelt. But so much else has also remained unsaid in the interim, he now realizes. 

“And I get it. No one escapes one of the fears without being marked, and you’ve been marked thoroughly by the Lonely, Martin. It’s...it makes perfect sense that these things are happening, that you feel overwhelmed when people are near.”

He stops again, and Martin gives him ample time to gather his thoughts. Martin is still running his hand through silky salt and pepper strands when Jon lifts his head and looks up at him. His complexion still carries that worrying gray tint and his eyes are and cheeks shine with moisture.

It’s the darker green spot on the sofa where Jon had had his face pressed that really does Martin in, that causes him to throw caution to the wind

“Move back a little, Jon. Just a little, okay?” He says, low and soft. Jon mutters a “yeah” and does as he’s told. “Thanks, love. Now, hold still.”

Daisy’s sofa is by no means a large sofa, and Martin is by no means a small man, but he’ll make this work. He lays himself down beside Jon and works his arms around him, tucking himself into any space he can against him, the lines of their bodies almost completely flush with one another. His back is close enough to the edge that Martin constantly feels like he’s about to fall, but it’s worth it to have Jon in his arms like this. “I’m listening, whenever you’re ready to continue.”

Jon buries himself in Martin’s chest before picking up where he left off, prompting Martin to cup the back of his head and pull him in closer.

“You’ve borne the brunt of maintaining our relationship for so long, Martin, and now it’s my turn. I can take care of you when you’re far away, when you can’t be around people. I can do the shopping, I can cook. I can do all these things.

“And I can stay away when it’s too much for you to be around me.” He clenches the fist caught between them even harder. “I don’t want to be the cause of your pain, Martin. That’s the last thing I want.”

Martin considers all this for...several moments, really, and comes to an ugly conclusion.

“Jon...is this why you didn’t let me touch you earlier?”

A muffled “yes” reaches Martin’s ears, and his heart just breaks.

“We really should have a long conversation about this in the near future—preferably when you’re feeling better—but I want to say a couple things right now, if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course, Martin. I want to hear everything you have to say.”

Martin gives a little squeeze of gratitude and then continues, “For one, you’re right. There’s leftover stuff from the Lonely I’m dealing with right now, and sometimes it’s hard to be around anyone. And I hate it so much that ‘anyone’ sometimes includes you. From here on out, I’m going to try to tell you when I’m feeling this way, so you don’t have to try to guess. And if I’m reaching out to you, please trust me that I’m okay in that moment.”

“I do trust you, Martin. I trusted you to handle Peter. I trusted you to handle the Extinction. I’ll...do my best to trust you in this, too. I...I’m just deeply afraid of ruining this, ruining us.”

“Thank you. And I understand. I worry about that, too, but please also trust me when I say there’s not much that you could do that would ruin this.”

Nodding into Martin’s chest, Jon whispers, “I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask. And second, I want you to know that, as far as I’m concerned, you don’t need to feel like you need to make up for anything.” Jon is tensing up, preparing to protest—he can feel it. “No, I mean it. Our relationship isn’t transactional. You don’t have to meet every comfort I offer you with one of your own just for the sake of reciprocation. That’s not how it works. You’ve done so much for me Jon, just by being you. That’s not even including the Lonely and everything that’s happened after, though I’m grateful for all that, too. You’re already here for me in every way that matters. You don’t need to do anything more.”

Martin places a kiss on the crown of Jon’s head, and they just lie there, soaking in each other’s presence, previous evening plans all but forgotten. Martin thinks Jon dozes a little bit, the stress of the evening finally taking consciousness away from him, but he’s proven wrong when Jon speaks up once more, muffled slightly by Martin’s jumper.

“For the record, I love you, too. In case that needed to be said.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘need,’ necessarily, but I won’t lie and say I don’t like hearing it!”

“I see,” Jon croaks. The man needs to rest. “Well, I guess if you don’t need it, then I won’t bother saying it.”

“You’re insufferable, you know that?” He laughs and feels the smile on his face widen.

“I have an idea, yes.”

“Good. Now, drink your tea.”

Martin pushes himself away from Jon to give him some room to sit up and to get a good look at this face. His face isn’t covered in tears anymore (now probably absorbed by the fibers in his knitted jumper), but he looks positively exhausted, eyes lidded and face otherwise lax in an easy smile, not at all like the one he wears with the intent to soothe. Martin places the still warm cup of chamomile in Jon’s hand.

“Still feeling up for a little dinner?” He asks.

Jon hmms and replies, “Yeah, I could eat a little. Just give me a few minutes to—”

“Absolutely not, Jon. I’m going to make dinner while you take a nap here. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. A nap sounds wonderful.”

“Good. I’ll wake you up when everything’s finished.”

Martin starts to dislodge himself from Jon when Jon reaches up to kiss his cheek.

“Love you. And good luck.” Jon gives him possibly the most self-satisfied wink he’s seen before taking a sip of his tea.

It’s not terribly cold in the safe house with a fire going, but Martin lays Daisy’s crocheted blanket over Jon anyway, and starts taking everything back out for dinner.

It’s meat sauce—how hard could it be?