Chapter Text
It is only a few weeks --less than a month-- until the end of the world.
Not that he knows that.
Instead, Jon is acutely aware that this moment he finds himself in is the first time that he and Martin have had idle since, well, everything. The chaos of the Archive, being spirited away off to Scotland to one of Daisy’s safehouses, the itch of busying themselves with unpacking their belongings in a cottage with barely any furniture, and then the time Jon spent picking over every square inch while Martin went down to the village to get food and check in with Basira.
He was happy-- well, perhaps not happy. Suspicious? Cautiously optimistic? Well, he had found nothing. No bugs, no spiderwebs aside from some dusty cobwebs he cleaned out for good measure, no loose floorboards with secrets squirreled away inside, no odd smells, no mysterious stains… Nothing to suggest that there was anything hiding here in wait for them. No signs of trouble.
No, just the slowly dawning realization that after all the running it had taken to get here, they are, for the moment, safe. Together. Alone, with no pressing emergency to barge in and interrupt them.
Martin is talking about cows.
“--adorable. A whole herd of them on the side of the road,” Martin is saying, one corner of his mouth quirked up in a weak, fleeting sort of smile. Like his face is having trouble remembering how to do it. (He’d smiled, in the Lonely. I see you. But that was a desperate thing, a deep breath after being on the cusp of drowning.) When is the last time he’s really seen Martin smile?
God, he’d missed him.
“I really loved you, you know?”
He’d known. He’d… figured it out.
But does he still--
He stops himself. Forces himself not to wonder too hard. He wants to find out for himself, and Knowing... The Knowing would just make that gnawing in the back of his mind that much worse, that hollow feeling he can only compare to hunger. He doesn’t have any statements, there’s only the village.
He can’t.
“Jon?”
Jon makes a quiet sound, catching himself, his focus snapping back as he rubs his forehead and adjusts his glasses. “Hm?”
Martin looks at him, that corner of his mouth twitching again. “Were you even listening?”
“I-- Yes. Cows. Adorable cows,” he states firmly, clearing his throat.
Worrying his lower lip between his teeth, studying him, Martin lets out a soft sigh. Disappointment. “I wish it could just appreciate a nice story about cows, you know?”
“Not spooky enough, I’m afraid.”
“You’d think maybe it might want something different once in a while. Change things up?”
“Even with a pleasant story, I wouldn’t want to-- You’d be stuck, forever, every night, the same dream--”
Martin laughs. It’s bitter. “I’m sure it would be better than the nightmares I’m having now.”
Silence falls between them, uncomfortable. Jon looks away.
“You should come see them,” Martin says.
Jon’s eyes dart back to his, brow pinching together. “Your nightmares?”
“No, the cows.” That weak half-smile is back. A little wobbly, perhaps, but finding its footing.
“Oh! Right, of course. I--” His mind reaches for an excuse, a reason to stay inside and hide, a gut reaction before he can even consider. But that smile threatens to buckle. “Yes. You’re right.”
“A-are you sure? Jon, if you don’t feel up for it--”
“I want to see them,” he insists, and then, to cement the point, he takes a chance and reaches out and rests his hand on Martin’s arm. Right on his forearm-- Martin was fiddling with a seam on his jacket, and he stills at the contact. “How far are they?”
A smile. A real smile. Jon is smiling back, he can’t help it. He doesn’t want to. (He’s allowed this, this moment, here, with Martin, with cows.) “Not far,” Martin says, in a tone that’s clearly meant to be reassuring. Eager to please, as if he was the one that has anything to make up for.
It feels wrong. As though just accepting this nice thing Martin wants to do for him is some kind of favor. He supposes it says something about all the times he’d rebuffed Martin’s offerings in the past.
He should do something nice for Martin. Something actually nice. Especially because he doesn’t say a word when Jon slips the tape recorder into his bag before they go. Just in case. He just takes his scarred hand and gives it a tight, firm squeeze, as if to remind himself that they’re both really there.
---
The cows are just as promised. Jon is glad that he went, not only because Scottish Highland cattle are fluffy, fantastic creatures, but because afterwards it seems like some of the tension has leaked out of Martin. Not very much, but enough, and Jon can tell it’s because Martin was watching him. Checking on him. Seeking the answer to some sort of question. Whatever it was, it must have been good enough.
Jon must be good enough.
He offers to help with dinner but Martin just tells him to rest, as if they both didn’t look as though they hadn’t slept for at least a week. Jon tries to protest but Martin makes an offhand comment about only being able to meet so many of his dietary requirements with the Archives locked down by the police. Chastened, he accepts Martin’s suggestion to take it easy for now. The least he can do is to do as he’s told, and not give him any more reason to worry.
Jon is the one to suggest sleeping in the same bed. The cottage has two bedrooms upstairs, but... He doesn't want to be alone. He doesn't want Martin to be alone. Not right now.
It takes Martin a moment to find his voice, but he agrees.
When they agree that it’s time for bed, they go together, but leave a sliver of space between them. An unsure space full of unanswered questions. Neither of them acknowledge it as they close their eyes.
It's quiet. But not silent. It's dark. But not too dark. They’re exhausted. But they can't sleep.
After an uncertain amount of time, Martin murmurs out into the dark. "Thank you, for bringing me back."
Jon rolls onto his side, facing Martin. He can make out the shape of his face turned towards him, a shadowy blur without his glasses. "I couldn't leave you, Martin. I told you I wanted to get out together. I meant it."
"I-I know. I'm sorry. That-- that day, I couldn't--"
"It's alright, you needed to--"
"I love you, Jon." The words leave him in a rush.
He is silent. He doubts, even though he doesn’t want to. "You don't have to… I'm not…” Jon pauses, does his best to collect the words he needs to say. They hurt, leaving him. “Whoever you fell in love with, I don't know if I'm still him. You don't need to stand by what you said in the Lonely for my sake. You'd used the past tense, I didn't assume..."
"... God, you are such a thick idiot!” he exclaims, with a fervor --almost anger-- that startles Jon. “I love you! Finding out you'd woken up-- I'd been ready to die! I took that job for Peter Lukas because I thought, maybe, it would be a noble way to die, but then you were alive and I had a-a reason to… I don't know if I would have managed to trick him if it weren't for you. Knowing that I could protect you from him."
He doesn't know what to say. It’s quite a lot, all at once, things he’s suspected or known on a factual level --that Martin cares for him-- but hadn’t felt, not like this. It's not until he tries to breathe that he realizes his throat is thick with tears.
"Oh, Jon," Martin says, because he can hear it, the wet sound.
It’s here, in the tiny bit of peace in the cottage, in this bedroom --this bed-- they’d chosen to share, the dam finally breaks. "I hated not being able to help you. I was scared. If it weren't for me--"
"Don't. Please don't."
"I would kill him again, for you. To save you.” It’s a ragged pause, a shaky inhalation and a tired, bitter laugh. “Does that make me more monstrous?"
"I love you." He says again. Soft. Martin brushes his arm, gently, as though he might break, the first bridging of the gap between them and it isn’t enough. Suddenly Jon needs so much more.
With a pathetic sound that might have embarrassed him if he’d had enough dignity left to care, Jon takes hold of Martin’s shoulder and drags himself closer, into an embrace that was there, waiting for him. Jon clings to him, burying his face into Martin's neck. "Don't you dare," he manages to choke out. "Not again. Together, next time."
He laughs. It’s a little wet now, too. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather there not be a next time."
"Martin." Petulant. Muffled in the lack of space between them.
"I promise. Together."
"I can't lose you. Not again." He holds tighter. "Martin, I--"
Jon pulls his head back, opening bleary eyes to try and see him through the dark, and their noses brush against one another. A soft graze, damp with tears, and Jon, for a moment, wonders if Martin is just as much a mess as he is. Weeks worth of everything just coming down around his ears all at once, wrenching it all out of him like plucked bones.
"I want to kiss you so badly," Martin breathes, in a tone that suggests he might not even realize he's said it out loud.
"Then do it." Jon isn’t sure if it comes out as a demand, or a challenge, or a plea. All of those. None. Maybe it’s just as simple as permission.
He does. It's rough and needy, and Jon reciprocates in kind. Every ounce of fear he'd felt for Martin, all the pain of rejection, all the loneliness he'd borne when everyone had pushed him away the moment he'd come out of that damned coma more of a monster than he’d been when he fell into it. It had felt like just desserts for how he'd behaved, but it all comes out in this desperate, longing kiss.
It had hurt, more than he thought it would, when even Martin --who had never doubted him!-- had pushed him away. Trusting that he was doing the right thing, that it had all been part of a plan, had been half honest trust on Jon’s part and half… desperation. He’d needed to believe that what was happening wasn’t real.
This is real.
Martin is the first to break away, and for a moment Jon thinks that he’s laughing. But he’s crying. He’s shaking and he’s crying, and when Jon reaches up to cup his face and ask him if he’s alright, Martin takes his hand and kisses his palm.
“I-I’m fine. I just feel so terrible,” Martin says, another laughing sob bubbling to the surface, “for feeling so happy. There’s so many reasons not to be happy.”
“Be happy,” Jon says. His palm is against Martin’s cheek now, smudging tears. “Right now, nothing else matters. Pretend, if you have to. Just… Be happy.”
He laughs, pressing his forehead against Jon’s. “You make me happy, Jon. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted… this.”
“Well, I have some idea.” He somehow manages to sound a little smug. He’s never too far from smug, so it isn’t much of a journey.
“Oh, I doubt that.”
“Hm.”
“Are you happy?”
“I…” There’s a beat of silence as he considers this. “Yes. Right now, I really am.” The realization surprises him, just a little.
Martin chuckles, then sighs, fond. They lay there in silence for a moment, wrapped in each other, foreheads pressed against one another in the dark. Then Martin angles his head slightly, noses brushing, bringing their mouths in line for a kiss. Then he stops.
“Is-- is this okay?” Martin asks.
Jon answers the question with a brief, gentle kiss, first to his lips and then to his cheek. Melting against him, Martin presses into them like a cat. He’d be like putty in Jon’s hands, if that’s what he wanted.
“Get some sleep,” he says, tucking his nose beneath Martin’s jaw. “I’ll still be here in the morning.”
Martin gathers him closer, as if to physically make sure of it, and eventually sleep finds them both.