#they're stumbling through forging a relationship but they'll be ok

[wenttworth]

People who think the Scottish cottage only has one bed forget the inherent romanticism of choosing to share a bed.

Jon couldn’t sleep.

This, in and of itself, wasn’t strange. He often had bouts of what could-almost-but-not-quite be called insomnia. And everything that had happened today, the fog of the lonely which was still somewhere in the corners of his mind, it was no wonder.

But that wasn’t what was keeping his mind buzzing and skittering down endless pathways.

He sat up, ran a hand through his hair—God it was getting long, he’d have to do something about that—and glowered at the other side of the bed. It was empty, unfortunately. It was a double, easily big enough for Martin and him. As was the bed Martin was currently in, when he’d caught sight of it through the cracked door.

It was stupid really, a streak of almost high school embarrassment, stumbling through a goodnight and hoping Martin would suggest they ignore the other bed and just share, only realising once they had two doors and an entire hallway between them that Martin had been anxiously awaiting the same from him.

This thing between them, still nameless and small and fluttering, Jon was terrified for it. He knew his own love for Martin wouldn’t fade, but he’d found with Georgie that love alone wasn’t enough to stop the sourness creeping in.

They shouldn’t be apart. Martin had been alone for far too long, months and months of being taunted and fed on by Peter Lukas. His conversation with Jon was still a little more stilted than before, as if he’d lost the habit of talking freely.

But still, the thought of actually getting up, walking those few steps. Weirdly terrifying. Martin loved him, he’d known that for a few months even before his coma, but there was still a chance he would reject Jon, a part that was still urging him to return to the embrace of the Lonely.

The swooping pit of anticipation in his stomach was just a little too strong to be pleasant. Had he ever felt like this? With Georgie it had been pretty simple. The short list of boyfriends and girlfriends at uni—if they could even be called that—as well. But he’d never cared quite so much as he did right now, at the edge of a precipice and still unsure whether it was safe to throw himself off. What if Martin wasn’t waiting at the bottom?

He pushed back a groan, still staring between the empty space in the bed and the door, ignored the nervousness trilling through his nerves, got up to open the door in a sudden flash of bravery that he wasn’t going to let pass.

He almost yelped out loud when the door opened to reveal Martin, his hand raised to knock. They stared at each other for a short moment before Martin smiled sheepishly. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said.

He was an idiot. Of course Martin would want to be with him tonight of all nights. They’d both spent all those months alone and apart, Martin’s desperation when he’d grabbed Jon’s hand and refused to let go on the long train ride here had been evident even without dipping into his powers. Martin wasn’t an open book, far from it as he’d only recently realised, but he didn’t hide everything.

The anticipation in the pit of his stomach was warm now, a pleasant warmth. Everything was going to be okay.

“Kiss me,” he blurted out, and Martin’s cheeks coloured a dark red.

“Wh—Really?”

Even on his tiptoes, Jon wasn’t quite tall enough to kiss Martin of his own volition. He’d always need a complimentary duck of the head from Martin to succeed, and thankfully Martin figured that out around the same time as Jon did, and crashed their lips together much more clumsily than Jon was expecting, pulling a short laugh from Jon’s throat.

Martin’s hands went immediately to his hair as he kicked the door shut and Jon focused on pulling Martin back to the bed. He was just warm now, warm and no longer alone. Hopefully never alone again.

There was a brief pause as Jon managed to push Martin to sit on the edge of the bed so he could climb onto his lap. Martin’s hands went back to his hair, playing with the lengths, twisting the loose curls around his fingers. Ah, maybe he wouldn’t cut it, if Martin was so obviously enamoured by it. He smiled against Martin’s lips.

“What?” Martin whispered against his lips.

Jon pulled back a centimetre. “Do you like it this length?” he asked, pulling a strand from Martin’s fingers. He tugged at it and let it fall. It just reached the top of his shoulder blades now, though when he pulled it straight it only just cleared them.

“I like it any length,” Martin said, simple and honest.

Jon swallowed against the lump forming in his throat. He could almost feel the love and affection rolling off him; how had there ever been a time he hadn’t seen Martin’s devotion. Or, worse, believe that it was a front for something much darker.

He didn’t deserve this man. The realisation hit him like a punch to the gut. Martin had always believed in him and supported him, either outwardly or from the shadows, had always treated him with a devotion that Jon had responded to with derision. And yet, they were still here. For now.

Jon pressed into another kiss, savouring how carefully Martin held him, how tentatively he deepened it, the groan Jon managed to coax from him with a particular movement of his tongue.

Martin shifted to start kissing the small scars that littered his neck, the bigger slash on his throat so deliberately that Jon wondered how long he’d thought about doing it.

He froze a little when Martin started to harden under him. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, really, with how Martin was kissing him. Sex was…okay. Sometimes. But definitely not right now. Kissing was good. Better than good. He waited for Martin to start insistently pulling at his clothes, when he’d have to decide if he should just lie there and let it happen or risk Martin reacting how…well, how people usually reacted.

It didn’t happen, though. Martin kissed him again, pulling him closer but nothing else. He didn’t try to get his hands under Jon’s clothes, didn’t try to rock into him. His hands stayed resolutely above Jon’s waist.

After a minute of Martin still hard under him, with no indication that he was going to do anything about it, or that he even noticed, curiosity got the better of Jon and he pulled away. “Are you okay?”

“Am I…? Yes? Why wouldn’t I be?” He sounded genuinely confused. Maybe he just liked really long foreplay?

Jon looked down pointedly, and Martin followed his gaze. “Did you want to…?” he trailed off, not able to finish the question.

“Did you?” Martin turned the question back on him.

Jon’s answer stuck in his throat. “I… not right now,” he said diplomatically.

Martin didn’t seem convinced, quiet as he stroked the arch of his cheek. “Maybe never,” Jon admitted, bracing against the rejection.

“Okay,” Martin said.

“Okay? But you’re… you’re hard.”

Martin laughed. “So are you, Jon.”

“Oh,” Jon said, mildly embarrassed as he checked.

“It’s not like I…miss sex or anything if I’m not having it,” he continued. “And anyway, tonight is not the right time even if you did want to.”

Jon chewed the inside of his lip. It wouldn’t take long for Elias—Jonah—to find them, frankly. Or any other of the entities that didn’t much care that he and Martin wanted a quiet life away from the monsters that should have just stayed in human imagination. He could already feel the vague hunger of the eye pushing him to discover, to pull all of Martin’s secrets from him by force. Vague memories were already spilling from the edges of Martin’s mind, and it only made him want more. Martin had so much to him, not just his experiences with the supernatural but his kindness and intelligence and determination, his desperation for love, the intense loneliness that had coloured his entire life. It would be so satisfying. “You’re right,” he said quietly, cutting off any connection between their minds he’d tried to forge on reflex.

Martin kissed the corner of his mouth, so gently and devotedly that Jon shivered. “I love you,” he said. Because it was true. Because he meant it now more than any other time he’d said it.

Martin stared at him, eyes wide and bright in the darkness. They’d forgotten to turn off the hallway light, and the warm yellow was reflecting off the brown of his eyes. “I love you, too,” he answered.

Jon couldn’t resist, then, to press their lips together again, in his exuberance pushing Martin so he was lying flat against the bed. His hands were trembling as he carded them through Jon’s hair—he definitely wasn’t cutting it—from where it had fallen like a curtain around them.

He managed to keep it up for a few more seconds, before a wave of tiredness hit him, and he had to pull away to hide a yawn against Martin’s shoulder. It didn’t work, as Martin laughed at him and poked his cheek. “Bed?” he asked.

Frankly, Jon was content to stay how he was, lying atop Martin, Martin’s strong arms around him, fingers defyingly gentle against his scalp. He melted against his softness, the steady beating of his heart. “We’re in bed,” he insisted.

“Blanket, then,” he amended.

It took a while for Jon to pull himself away the time it took to rearrange themselves more comfortably, but finally he was back against Martin’s chest, letting sleep overtake him.

 AND THEN THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER MKAY