Work Text:
Martin.
It’s always Martin, isn’t it.
He hums in these places. Martin now and Martin then. Martin here. Martin, in his soft, worn sweaters, thinning at the elbows from where he rubs them raw on dusty countertops. Martin, in his tasteless pineapple-patterned socks, toes piano tinkering, because he’s nervous - "Of what?", "Of everything, Jon! How could you not be nervous of everything at this point? Bloody everything!" - and he’s right; he’s always right. Right about the sad stash of toilet paper in the cupboard not lasting a week, right about food portions and sleep cycles, and thunderstorms coming in even when the sky seems clear. Because even though it’s insufferable, Martin is always right. There’s a rightness to him, a wholeness maybe. Something operative and grown in all the ways you need to be in a world Jon has long forgotten to be a part of. And he’s…nice. Irritatingly so. Nice talk to and nice to be around when the talking gets hard. Martin, who, for whatever inexplicable reason, is inexplicably nice to look at, to think of when Jon’s staring at a blank wall waiting for him to come back from running errands. He’s nice to wake up to.
Martin, who needs a haircut but refuses to let Jon anywhere near him with the rusty scissors he found in the mouldy cabinet under the sink. Martin, who still looks like he might cry every time Jon so much as tells him the pasta he made that night was good. Tears pricking there and that smile so wide his big cheeks go chunky and red and tender - and on more occasion than one, Jon has thought of what it might feel like to bite them. Just a little. Just a munch. Put his mouth on them, the left, then the right. Those freckles there, the hook-shaped scar down his right cheekbone Jon has wondered about more times than he would like to admit. Playground accident? A haywire frisbee at the park? A turbulent bike-fall?
Martin. Christ.
Martin, in his muddy hiking boots and folded up trousers (the left pant leg is always folded a little too high and Jon’s not sure if it’s on purpose or not, but he likes the way it makes him look, just a little lopsided, scrambled, scuffed off the ground like he doesn’t know where to or how come but he stands there, as big and sturdy as a tree trunk - and Jon wishes his arms were long enough to wrap around him twice, three times). Martin, standing by the rundown fence that keeps the cows from the soaked dirt roads. Martin’s windblown hair, cheeks nipped rosy-ripe by the unforgiving Scottish cold. The bright fanning of lashes, unbearably long and unbearably nice to look at too. Everything about Martin - Martinmartinmartinmartin - is unbearably nice to look at.
Insufferably, unacceptably.
And sometimes Jon swears it tears these things apart, inside and everywhere, these things he used to like whole but can’t anymore, not for the life of him; he likes them like this, frazzled and slapdash and flung apart, flung back together. And sometimes, Christ, sometimes when Martin looks at him, and his face - his insufferably-unacceptably-nice-to-look-at face - does this thing, this thing like all the lights turning on, walls tipped over, doors and windows flung open, this thing like the earth falling. Everything about him yawning so impossibly wide Jon could fit into him a hundred times over.
When Martin looks at him like that...
"What are you thinking?"
Jon blinks, shapes and colours fusing back together, the world rolling in slowly. And there - always burrowed into the very tender centre of it all - Martin looks at him from the opposite end of the sofa, book in hand, the light of the fireplace glazing him murky-warm. Jon swallows, shoves his fingers under his glasses and rubs at his eyes.
"Just thinking…" he says. He sounds as exhausted as he feels. Basira’s doing the best she can, but the limited amount of statements she’s sent hasn’t been cutting it lately. Jon does everything he can not to think about how hungry he is.
Martin snorts. Even his snorts are unacceptable. "About?" he says, cocking a brow. His face is flushed, a thin band of sweat slicked beneath his hairline. He’s the one insisting on keeping the cabin warm at all times. Jon doesn’t like how clammy it makes his hands. But he likes the things it does to Martin’s cheeks. Martin’s everything. Fucking unacceptable.
"About?" Martin repeats.
"Things."
"Things," he says. He snaps his book closed and smacks it on Jon’s suitcase they’ve been using as an impromptu coffee table. "Right. Remember that conversation we had about, you know, the whole —" he tapers off, swinging his hands through the air.
Jon sighs. "Feelings? Yes. How could I have forgotten your hour-long monologue about the horrendous repercussions of emotional constipation."
"Okay, right, okay — First of all, I gave you plenty of space to chime in — which you didn’t because you were too busy trying to force-feed that stray —"
"Patty willingly ate out of my hand. A very consensual exchange."
"Patty? Really?"
"Perfectly feasible cat name."
"Your definition of perfectly feasible cat names is alarming." Martin groans, eyes closed, fingers massaging his temples. He huffs. "Here you go again…changing topics."
"I wasn’t the one who accused me of force-feeding a cat."
"You ran after her with the whole entire salami. Salami that I - by the way - drove one hour into town for because you were so sick of cottage cheese!"
Jon shoves his glasses up his face and into his hair, rubbing at his eyes with both hands now. "The whole world’s sick of cottage cheese," he mumbles.
"It’s lovely!"
"It’s appalling."
Martin stops, blinks. He inhales. And it’s the quiet that rushes in, far too thick and far too muggy, and Jon knows that when it feels like this, Martin’s worry is pulling him down by the shoulders. It’s a living thing. Jon swears he can see it sometimes, the looming heft of it hooked into Martin’s body like crow’s feet.
"Talk to me," Martin says, whispers it between the crackle-snap of the fire. The hum of desperation, like a fist around Jon’s collar, pulling him close, jostling him. Talk to me.
And when Martin sounds like this, Jon says what he never fails to hate himself for: "It’s nothing you need to worry about."
Martin falls back into the couch, kneading his fingers into the hem of his sweater. His thumbs pokes out of the threadbare mesh. "That’s what you always say. And all I ever do is — " A shaky inhale. A hand flung through the air. "Worry more," he says. "I just — I worry more."
"I don’t want you to. You need to know that’s the last thing I’d ever — That’s —" Jon stops, realizing how ridiculous he sounds. The thick gunk of worry clumping at the edges of Martin’s face. It makes it look heavier. Jon imagines himself scrubbing it off with wire wool.
"Well, it’s been pretty difficult figuring out what you want, Jon." With a defeated sigh, Martin gets up. He grabs his mug of tea on the suitcase, next to Jon’s. Probably cold by now. He was far too invested in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to take a sip.
Jon takes a deep inhale and leans back against the bumpy sofa, watching Martin shuffle into the kitchen, spine bowed heavily over the sink as he pours the tea down the drain and washes his mug. The squeak of the faucet when he twists it, the gurgling of the pipes in the water-stain-speckled walls.
Frankenstein, Jon thinks. Of all things. How fitting.
Because there he is, Martin, all hands and arms and legs and feet that work. The niceness and the rightness of him, telling Jon to eat a little more, rest a little more, to take a walk when even he can tell his brain is steaming. Martin, who throws a blanket over Jon’s shoulders when he falls asleep on the sofa after another statement. Martin, who smiles at every cow they pass, at the grumpy, raisin-faced shopkeeper in town, who hands out smalltalk to strangers like church fliers.
And then Jon, all patched up, hands for feet, and feet for hands, knowing full well there’s a whole angry world out there armed with pitchforks and torches - just waiting for him to realize that things like this are temporary: grubby fireplaces and squeaky faucets and sofas that lean too far to the left, the kind that looks impossibly wrong without a cow-befriending, chummy-smalltalk-wielding someone curled against the other end of it.
Martin’s shoulders roll slowly while he reaches for the dishrag and dries his mug. He sets both aside, lays his hands on the countertop. Breathing. The fire spits. Somewhere out in the hills, a dog barks.
"It’s actually —" Jon clears his throat, tapping his knee with a finger. He tries again. "It’s not that hard to figure out what I want." He knows it’s nonsense, knows Martin knows it’s nonsense - except maybe he also knows that Jon has feet for hands, and that when it comes to the things that matter most, he’s a coward.
"Ah, yes, if only I had the right tools to saw your thick skull open and have a look." Martin smoothes his hands across the countertops, sighing, before he turns around.
Standing there, framed by the arch of the doorway, ruddy-cheeked and uneasy, the light hitting him in ways, he looks like something painted. He looks like something kept in a locket. His lopsided trouser legs. A twist of bright hair stuck to his forehead.
And - oh.
Oh.
Martin’s face does that thing.
Jon feels the earth start to fall.
Martin’s face does that thing because, maybe, impossibly, he knows Jon has feet for hands, knows he’s a coward in moments like these, with things like these, because saying things like these is taking off all his clothes and all his skin, grabbing one bone at a time to lay them out, stack his stomach on his lungs on his heart on his brain. Saying these things is saying everything. And there’s nowhere to start with everything - because there’s everywhere to.
Martin moves slowly, one foot sliding in front of the other as he pushes himself away from the counter and comes back into the living room. And it’s that face, and Jon knows tucked-deep that if this is the last thing he’ll ever bear witness to, there’s nothing he’d need to come back for.
"Martin." Jon mouthes it more than says it, feels it like a sigh or a secret, something that happens behind closed doors, in the dark. And in moments like these, it’s all Martin could ever be. Something to be felt, something to behold.
Martin’s careful when he finally reaches Jon, his eyes pin-balling across Jon’s face, almost like he’s checking in, wondering about how much he can get away with. When he’s close enough, right in front of Jon, their knees bump once, and Jon’s too busy feeling his stomach meet his throat because the earth’s still falling, and how could there possibly be space to think about anything else.
Swallowing, Jon stares up at him through his mop of hair. Martin there, soft and distorted, like someone put their hands on him, smudged him through.
And maybe it’s a moment of weakness or strength, or surrender perhaps, because what more is surrender than a strange, twisted concoction of both - and Jon takes a breath, far too intentional for him to remember how to do it right. He wants to hold it until he remembers he doesn’t have to. He lifts his hands, fingers lightly curled against his crinkled, scarred palms. A sad little offering. And Martin’s hands, smaller, as milky-smooth as the bark of a gumtree and more tender than they have the right to be. He lets them hover above Jon’s for a moment. And the heat there, so much of it it feels damp, so much of it Jon swears he could grab it, squeeze it like a sponge. He wonders if maybe it’s not Jon himself who’s making an offering at all. He blinks, looking up at Martin, all bare, all open. Waiting for me.
A drag of breath. Jon presses his hands up, his fingers uncurling to meet the gentle arcs of Martin’s gentle wrists, the skin there, unfathomably, unacceptably…perfect.
Pressure boils in him, big, and fuzzy, beating inside of his head, hard enough for him to wonder if Martin can see it. Jon’s eyes bulging, mouth open, cheeks swollen and flaring and, Can you see, can you see…Tell me you see.
Martin’s fingers do it first - because Martin does these things first; whole, right Martin - his fingers spiralling around Jon’s wrists like sailing knots, tight enough for every storm rolling in. You’d have to saw them apart. You’d have to kill them.
Martin above him, all warm, heaving breath, leans in closer until he’s curled over Jon. Lavender. It’s all he can think of, that horrid smell of lavender bar soap they’ve got stuck to the grimy rim of the bathtub. And somewhere tucked beneath it, a smell so inherently Martin, something as endearing as his crooked trouser legs, something that makes Jon sigh out loud, sigh from the bottom of himself, like something there has opened just for this and just for him. And Jon doesn’t know who pulls or pushes first, and Martin’s face coming closer, diving down so slowly. He’s as blurred as a planet, smoothed out, eyes swimming there, big, dipped. And his mouth. Martin’s mouth. Lips wispy, curled apart. And is this what it’s like to want. The thought of pulling someone so close they’re inside of you - to kiss them, to open your mouth and have them whole, reel them in and in. Feel them there, humming in all of your secret, unspeakable places.
Martin’s sailor-knot fingers unfurl and travel up Jon’s arms. And Jon’s hands - Christ, Jon’s fucking hands - not knowing where to go or what to do, what to feel for, grab hold of the only thing they can. Tightening around Martin’s forearm, the fuzz of his cardigan hot against Jon’s palms. Or maybe the heat is from Jon himself. He can’t tell anymore; everything feels mussed into one. Everything big and warm and surging. And his breath. He feels it in places he can’t explain - feels it in his feet, his palms, in the corner of the room. Feels it outside, howling with the wind.
Martin’s hands, soft as sighs, travelling up Jon’s neck, sliding against it like they’re smoothing him down. Until they find his jaw, thumbs digging into the edge of his cheeks. Martin cradles Jon’s head like it’s a baby, like something worth holding like this. And Jon feels his mouth reeling, gaping open, wanton, wanting to say things and not say a thing at all. Wanting, somehow, something without ever having known how to want in the first place. And, Christ, he wants. It’s spilling out of him how much he wants.
A blink and a swallow, and a breath so shallow it slips through all the cracks - Jon fists Martin’s forearms. He pulls. Martin’s mouth on his, wet and alien. Their teeth clack once. A sound there or a breath too loud.
Like this, Jon thinks and can’t stop thinking. To die like this.
Martin’s weight above him when his knees bump against his, sliding against Jon’s legs, the cushion of the sofa dipping when Martin slides into his lap. So much of him to hold. So much of him to have.
Martin’s fingers dig into his scalp, hard enough for Jon to feel the pinch of his nails. He wonders if he’ll feel them in an hour, in the morning, two days from now. Grooves from an ancient fossil, a thing given to him. The thought of his fingers tracing and tracing.
When Jon blinks his eyes open, Martin has stopped kissing him, and he’s right there, his face hovering so close it’s molten. Jon could shape him into anything at all. Smooth out his cheeks, wipe his eyes closed, spread his mouth so wide it eats his whole head.
He realizes too late he’s been making a sound, something ugly and gnarled, yanked from him, like the face a child makes before it cries. Martin’s brows curl, the tender worry of him up close. He slides his thumbs across Jon’s cheeks, leans forward and presses his mouth to Jon’s forehead. And he keeps it there, stays like likes. Letting go of Martin’s forearms, Jon slides his hands across his back, feels the slow tide of breath beneath his ribs, spine rolling in waves. He digs his fingers into the fuzz of his cardigan.
Martin’s mouth unlatches, migrates, meets Jon’s hairline, the top of his head, the edge of his face, his ear, the stretch of skin where his jaw meets his neck. There. Martin puts his mouth there. And there's no space left for Jon to tell him to stop. He’d let Martin unscrew him, rearrange every single piece, let him do every single thing. And that’s it, isn't it. Wanting someone so much you’ll give yourself over just to be had by them.
Martin stops at Jon’s neck. He buries his face there, breathing. In. Out.
"Don’t you dare think I’m letting you off the hook," Martin says. It’s quiet enough to sound hazy.
Jon's voice is frayed at the edges when he manages to open his mouth, "Wouldn’t dream of it."
They stay like this, moulded into each other. Hips stuck, legs stitched together, hands buried deep. Martin’s mouth against Jon’s neck, the slow stutter of his lashes with every breath.
"Martin?" Jon pulls him even closer. He presses his face into his hair, breathes in more of that lavender shampoo, and everything that is Martin, that has been Martin, and won’t ever seize to be.
"Hm?" A soft rumble.
Jon forgot what he wanted to say. Maybe he just wanted to take his name into his mouth. His name like this, after moments like these.
Martin. Martinmartinmartin.
It’s always you, isn’t it.