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There's just one thing he can't stop thinking about. And maybe it's kind of silly, in the grand scheme of things. Everything that's happened, everything that could happen, and this is the only thought on his mind.
But it's easy to get stuck on the more minor details when it feels like the whole world is falling apart. In his case the whole world is falling apart. He supposes that makes it even easier, then.
And really, isn't it all sort of relative? Maybe this is minor, in comparison, but it doesn't feel minor, not to him. Quite the opposite, actually.
It's funny, really. How he has all this knowledge in his head now, so much that it should feel suffocating, and yet this is what makes him feel so off-kilter. He's some sort of supernatural being that feeds off the trauma of others and has the ability to Know almost anything he wants, but this is his undoing.
He's not sure what he expected being in love to feel like—what he expected being loved to feel like. He might have hazarded a guess, though, that it wouldn't feel so all-encompassing as this. That maybe it would take something of a backseat to the literal end of the world.
It doesn't. He thinks that surprises him less than it should.
But, well, they made it. They're safe, at least for now. They're together. Really, if you think about it, it's the perfect time and place.
There is one other thing, though. It's been bothering him a little.
I really loved you, you know.
It's not the past tense that's the issue. Jon may be stupid but he's not stupid. He knows that much was the Lonely's doing. He's not sure how he knows, but he does. It just feels...right.
He may have thought it was Knowing, capital K and everything, but it doesn't feel as sticky as all that usually does. It's not a dreadful feeling, doesn't weigh him down like Knowing should, doesn't make him feel sick to his stomach with knowledge that wasn't freely given.
No, he just...knows. All lowercase. The train runs late on Wednesdays, the second step up to the porch of the safehouse squeaks a little if you step smack in the middle of it, and Martin Blackwood loves him. Has for a while. Still does.
And knowing that isn't any different from knowing how to breathe. It's just there. There's no pulling, no strain, just the bone deep warmth that comes with the reflexive knowledge that the one you love loves you right back, without your ever even having to ask.
That's the thing, though. They haven't talked about it. It's been a week and a half of living together in strangely domestic cohabitation and neither of them has said a single word.
There are moments. When Martin passes off a cup of tea in the morning and their fingers brush together, lingering just a touch too long as the color rises in their cheeks. When Jon reaches out to steady Martin's hands in his own and Martin clutches back tight enough to bruise, his hold gentling after a while to twine their fingers together, changing the subject but refusing to let go even as his palms start sweating and he starts to shift a little nervously. When they awake in the morning, tangled up in each other and coughing at meager, stuttering excuses, hesitant smiles curling up at the corners of their lips as they drink in how absurd they're both being.
It's apt, then, that the conversation doesn't happen during any of these appropriately tender moments.
Instead, it goes like this:
They're sitting on opposite ends of the couch, not quite paying attention to the staticky sound of the old manual radio in the corner, still in their clothes from the day before as they adjust to the sleepy sounds of morning starting up outside. Something in the way Martin quietly says "okay" before getting off the couch with an exaggerated groan, always melodramatic about getting up early, leaves him stricken. Martin stops in the doorway to the ill-used kitchen, stretching one arm high above his head as he wipes the sleep from his eyes with a yawn, the hem of his shirt rising up just high enough to reveal the smallest peek of his soft belly underneath.
It tugs at him. Jon can't hold it in, then, for whatever reason. A week and a half of hopelessly obvious pining and objectively better timing, and this is when he decides to bring it up. In yesterday's wrinkled clothes, the taste of sleep in his mouth, lines creased into his cheek like some kind of incomprehensible map from where he'd had his face pressed into a pillow.
It's not glamorous in the slightest. Maybe that's why Jon suddenly feels like he's about to fall apart from the inside out if he doesn't say something about it right this second.
"Did you mean it?" he asks.
Martin startles a little at the sudden question, turning around with one arm still raised slightly above his head. "Mean what?"
Jon isn't sure why his skin feels like it's buzzing, why something deep inside his chest feels like it's rattling about. "What...you said." He can't get the words out, for some reason, feels foolish about it, like he's begging for validation. That's not it, not at all, because he knows already, as well as he knows when a proper storm is coming just by looking at the clouds, but some part of him feels embarrassed about the way he feels his heart pounding in his ears at the prospect of getting to hear it.
He asks again, trying to put enough meaning behind the words that Martin won't make him stutter his way through an explanation. "Did you mean it?"
The look in Martin's eyes softens then, even as a flush rises to his cheeks, burning the tips of his ears a startling shade of red. "Wasn't sure if you remembered that," he says.
It's not an answer, not a proper one, but Jon isn't so sure he has it in him to wait for a proper one, anyway.
"Of course I remembered it," he says, crossing the room to meet Martin in the doorway. "I remember everything you tell me." The last bit comes out without his conscious thought and he supposes it's a little cheesy, a little too honest. It's definitely more vulnerable than he had intended, but...well it is true. And anyway, the bright, pleased smile that lights up Martin's face is enough to keep Jon from getting too in his head about it.
Jon reaches, a bit hesitantly, for Martin's hand. Fingers link together with his own almost immediately, grip warm and solid. Anchoring.
The buzzing in Jon's skin settles at the contact and he steadies himself. "Martin—"
"I love you."
It's something of a rush, the way they end up both saying it in unison. It's also a little ridiculous how both of their eyes grow a fraction wider and matching grins spread across their faces. They're a little old to be so giddy about it, but if you asked Jon he thinks he'd say they probably deserve to be ridiculous about it, after everything.
It all narrows down to that one little moment, after that. Time seems like it's stopped and the only important thing in the entire world is the bit of contact that exists between them, the catch of Jon's breath in his throat as Martin moves slowly closer, stroking the backs of Jon's knuckles with his thumb and reducing the space between them to nearly nothing.
Jon supposes there are probably other things he could and should be preoccupied with at the moment but, well, it all sort of just pales in comparison, doesn't it? Besides, it would be rather rude of a potential doomsday to occur just then, anyway. They have the time.
Not a lot of it. But maybe just enough.