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They were in the corner booth of the cafe, and Jon was having a panic attack.
This wasn't all too uncommon, these days. He's had an average of one a day since their arrival at Daisy's safehouse. He felt ridiculous every time he had them, because the whole point of being all the way out here was that he was supposed to be safe. Martin always reminded him that he's probably got plenty of leftover anxiety from, well, everything, and that's a perfectly valid reason to be on edge. Regardless, panic happens, and it feels terrible, and it's happening now.
The only reason Jon knows it's panic is because Martin's hand is on his thigh, rubbing slowly, trying to calm him down. Every other aspect of it just feels like the world's ending. His heart is taking turns standing still and thudding at a frantic pace, breathing is a far-off memory, and whispers of death and dirt and burning and filth are tearing at his mind and - suddenly there's a voice that's foreign, but familiar. It takes Jon a while to realize that it's coming from somewhere outside his own head.
"Hey, Jon. Earth to Jon."
It's Martin. His hand has moved up to Jon's shoulder now, gentle, as if he doesn't want to break him. He looks into Jon's eyes, unfocused and far away. "Can you do something for me?"
Jon mumbles a vague acknowledgement.
"Okay, look around the room and tell me what you see."
It's a grounding strategy. Jon remembers it from several, mostly failed attempts to get therapy throughout his life. They're not great memories, and Jon's stubbornness toward authority figures of his past almost gets the best of him, but his obligation to indulge Martin prevails. He looks around the dingy cafe. It's poorly lit and the few windows only show a gray sky.
"Mmn. Clouds. Dead light bulbs."
The hand on his shoulder gives an encouraging pat.
"...Tables, someone -" Jon lasers in on a woman sitting at a table near the center of the cafe.
She had an encounter with the Spiral two weeks ago and tried to tell her friends but they didn't believe her.
A waiter casually strolls out from the kitchen with a mug and a warm expression.
His grandmother was a victim of the Corruption's attack on her care home three years ago.
His eyes dart to a sad-looking potted plant in the far corner from where he and Martin are sitting. There are spiders nesting in the drying branches. The soil was gathered just after a landslide caused by the Buried.
Jon's stopped saying what he sees out loud at this point. The hand on his shoulder has migrated to his face, and he's shaking, and the hand is shaking, and the hand is shaking him, and Martin's voice is back, hissing in that way one's voice is when they're trying to to be quiet but just want to yell. Jon can't hear the words, but the world comes back into focus starting with Martin's worried face. He shakes his head and coughs, trying to shake off the dread.
"I...I'm sorry. Looking probably isn't the best for me right now. I...I see too much, now."
Martin's sharp concern softens, deepening with relief at Jon finally re-entering reality. "I can see that."
One of them chuckles awkwardly, but it's unclear who.
"Alright," Martin says, taking Jon's chin in his hand again, pulling down in a motion that's more of a gesture than an action. "Look at just me, then. What do you see?"
There are tears drying on Jon's face, though he doesn't know when they fell. "I see...that your tag is sticking out of your shirt."
Martin flushes and scrambles to stick the tag back in, but quickly turns back to Jon, who's now staring intently at his neck.
"You've got four freckles arranged in a perfect square. And your beard is getting a bit scruffy. You need a trim."
Martin rubs his neck and Jon feels the instant chill down his spine of regretting something he's said. Martin's just trying to help him, and all he can think to do is criticize. Typical.
Martin doesn't look upset, though, just thoughtful. "I suppose I do need a trim. Doubt Daisy's got anything for that in the house, though. We have to go shopping anyway."
For a moment there's just the ambient noise of the cafe, plates and mugs clinking against silverware and tables. Jon's still staring at Martin, but he doesn't know where to look or what to do. Martin saves him with that honey-sweet look of adoration that gets cast over his face whenever Jon's being cute by his standards.
"Go on, what else do you see?"
"I see...a coat that's not yours. Where did you get that?"
"Oh, it was in the closet at the safehouse."
"And you just put it on?"
"Well, I didn't have time to grab any of my own, and I was cold!"
The friendly bickering was the final piece in pulling Jon out of his panicked haze, it seemed. The world was no longer tearing at the seams. The server comes out with their breakfast and they eat in relative silence, occasionally catching each other's eye when one would look up from the meal.
Jon is the one to speak first. "Thank you for the, er grounding, but...why did you ask me to look at you specifically?"
Martin, despite all his eagerness to help earlier, seems reluctant to answer. "This is gonna sound weird."
"You just helped me out of a panic attack where I was Seeing horrors in literally everything in this room. I think weird is just a part of our lives now."
Martin chuckles at that, and it gives him the momentum to say what he's thinking. "After being stuck in the Lonely, I...well, no. This was happening before the Lonely. But it got worse after it, for sure. See, I dissociate. A lot. Like, I can't tell if I'm real or not, or if anyone's seeing me, or if I'm...alone. And you...you help. You can see me, even when I can't. It's nice."
Jon isn't sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't a heartfelt admission of vulnerability. They're both growing, it seems.
"I'm glad I could help you. And you helped me. We make a good pair." Martin flushes a deep pink at that, and Jon realizes too late what he's implied. "I -- I mean, we're two people, that's a pair. A pair is two." Jon stops before he can stutter his way into another unfortunate phrasing.
They still haven't given a name to their...relationship. Neither one wants to be the first to call the other "boyfriend," and that's such a silly term anyway. Partner, perhaps. Partner would do.
Words don't matter, anyways, when Martin's warm hand closes over Jon's cold one laying flat on the table. Yes, this will do.