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Martin has always been strong.
Not speaking so much in a physical sense—though he isn’t lacking there either, considering how much he constantly fights to be gentle in every movement, every moment—but as a sort of… group touchstone, maybe. An emotional constant, one that others can reach to and lean on when they need it. When friends, partners, acquaintances, even coworkers he barely knows are in need, he’s always there. And he is strong.
It’s never that he dislikes showing his own emotions, necessarily? Nothing about him thinking that showing them makes him weak—certainly not about him not feeling them. It’s always more of a matter of him stepping back, assessing the situation, and determining without fail that other people need that support more, just now. And then making that choice again, and again, because who is he to deny someone that help?
It’s the small things that get him in the end.
That’s how the saying goes, isn’t it? The straw that breaks the camel’s back? Consider Martin the camel, then: carrying more and more weight, refusing to show strain until the moment something becomes too much, no matter how small it seems. In his case, he takes care to ensure that he always breaks privately; there, he mends it as best as he can and moves on. Picks up the weight from before, grits his teeth, and adds more, because he is strong.
When Jon is gone, Martin finds himself carrying more weight than he ever has before. It’s a struggle to even get out of bed, let alone act as any sort of rock. God forbid he add weight to the pile—but he does. He does, because he knows that those left need something. Anything, really. And maybe they’re not close—and they were never really close to begin with, if he’s being fair—but he still offers. And sometimes, maybe, someone might take him up on it.
He gets used to the weight, after a time. Starts adjusting, holding it differently. Tucking it away, further from others’ view of him, further even from his own view of himself—maybe, he thinks vainly, time and time again, maybe if it’s hidden enough it will help.
And then Jon comes back, and things get messy again.
He’s grown accustomed to tucking the burdens away, be they others’ or his own; now he begins to tuck more and more of himself away, as well. Relegates himself entirely to Elias’s old office, devotes his time to figuring out Peter’s scheme and what might be hiding below the totally altruistic surface. He doesn’t really venture down to the Archives any more, and on the rare occasion he truly can’t avoid it it’s easy enough to go unnoticed, pushing himself so far away that he’s barely even present any longer.
As time passes, he stops noticing the weight he’s held up for so long. Maybe he dropped some of it along the way, or maybe it, like so many difficult things, is becoming easier to ignore with the help of the Lonely.
Regardless, Martin finds himself strangely grateful.
When Jon Sees him in the Lonely, when he makes Martin See him as well, Martin bends.
After so many months resolute, disconnected and numb, the weight and the sensations and the feelings slam into him with more force that he’s felt in a long, long time. He bends, yes, lets the lighter things slip out: relief and elation as Jon’s face appears before him, hope when the man he loves pulls him to his feet on a cold, grey beach. A bit of desperation tumbles through in the first few moments, though he squashes it with a practiced hand; if Jon notices, he seems to be more focused on getting out, getting safe, getting home, than commenting on it.
And that’s a good thing. Because Martin, despite what may have happened, is still strong. He is strong, and he will be there for Jon, and they’ll find their way home, wherever home may be.
“Home” ends up being an old-fashioned, slightly run-down cottage turned safe house somewhere in Scotland. Martin can’t say with absolute certainty where they are, which is maybe a good thing—the fewer people know, the better, he supposes. And with Jon able to Know the way there without any guidance—or even a sliver of instruction from Basira—the number of people aware of their exact location falls to two. Three, if they count Daisy. Four, if… well. It’s certainly naive, but Martin at least likes to pretend that Elias—Jonah—doesn’t Know where they are. Isn’t already Watching.
The safe house makes it surprisingly easy to live in that bliss. It’s small, yes, but cozy: the furniture is worn but not unloved, there’s a delightful fireplace that Martin goes to stoke immediately upon arriving, and the more questionable stashes they’ve found have proven of use, so far. As a sort of emergency backup measure, for the most part—though some of the knives might end up useful for more than just protection.
The bed situation is tricky to navigate for only a short while, with Martin and Jon each insisting that the other take the bed before exhaustion wins out and nightfall finds them side by side. The smile that spreads across Martin’s face then—lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling, listening to Jon breathe, low and slow and deep—feels more genuine than anything he’s felt in months.
They talk the next morning. About what’s been happening, about what’s happening now. About plans they’ve made and should be making. About what, exactly, their relationship is. Martin smiles through it all, the expression sometimes fading but never dropping; Jon is happy here, and he is happy here, and they’re both safe, and that’s really all he could ever dream of with everything that’s happened to them both. To all of them, really, though he doesn’t like to think about that too much. Doesn’t like to think about the people they left behind when they ran, really doesn’t like to think about Tim, or Sasha, or—
Things are good, for the first time in a painfully long while, and he just wants to live in it. For as long as he can.
As their first full day at the safe house comes around, food becomes the highest-priority task for them to take care of. Martin plans to go into town later in the afternoon—maybe Jon will accompany him, maybe not (they haven’t quite made it to discussing his… feeding habits, and what they mean for life here)—but first, it’s necessary to take stock of what Daisy already has. There’s no way of knowing how long they’ll be staying, and so there’s no reason to ignore potential resources. Maybe Martin had upped his salary—as well as the rest of the Archives staff’s—considerably while acting as Peter’s assistant, but ideally he’ll be able to save a fair bit of that.
So, to the pantry it is.
The kitchen is a tiny thing, fitting in well with the rest of the house: the warm browns and creams feel inviting, and the galley layout is convenient if a touch claustrophobic. When Martin realizes how small the place actually is, he shoos Jon away, sending him off to see what other things Daisy keeps here. It’s a pleasant day, sunlight streaming through the window open above the sink, and there’s a lovely sense of peace as Martin goes about his task, methodical but quick, listening to the sounds of the wind outside and the creaking of the cabinets and the quiet, near-inaudible tones of Jon humming in the next room over.
He begins with the fridge and is unsurprised to find it bare; the freezer is in a similar state, save for an overflowing ice machine and a group of carefully wrapped parcels in one corner. Further examination confirms them to be various cuts of meat, with dates scrawled on each package in Daisy’s loose, looping script. From what Martin can tell, it hasn’t been quite as long since Daisy had last been here as they’d initially thought: the dates have passed, yes, but only by a few months. A year, then? Less time, if they’d been cooked, but Martin doesn’t particularly want to unwrap them to find out. For now, he pushes them back towards the corner, resolving to throw them out in the first outdoor bin he sees.
Preferably he can take care of them before Jon sees them, or Sees them (try as he might to avoid doing it, small things seem to slip through the cracks). The pang that hits Martin at the sight of Daisy’s handwriting is strange, not exactly familiar when thinking of her—but he knows how close she and Jon became after the coffin, he’d seen flashes of them spending time together before everything broke bad, and he doesn’t want to know how much seeing such a present, physical reminder of Daisy might affect Jon.
After a moment, he fumbles through the drawers, finds an old dishrag, and tucks it on top of the pile. The freezer shuts and Martin pushes the thought towards the back of his mind, to be dealt with later on.
He moves to assess the cabinets, keeping track of what all he finds there as he goes. It becomes apparent quite quickly that Daisy had a system to the organization of her kitchen: namely, to stack all pots, pans, mugs, dishes, and so on neatly in the lower cabinets, then shove everything nonperishable up above. And she’s actually amassed a pretty substantial amount of food here: rice, cans of soup, and ready meals abound, as well as one cabinet stuffed full of baking supplies and another housing a spice rack so well-stocked and intricate it makes Martin dizzy. It makes sense, he supposes, to stock up on staples and these sorts of food in a safe house—if the point is to go off the grid, as it were, it’s probably not a bad idea to avoid going to the store as much as is possible.
(He’s still going to go, of course, because he and Jon are both sorely in need of some comfort food and there are some things that a can of chicken noodle soup won’t quite cover.)
He’s smiling again as he opens the final cabinet, begins taking stock of what’s within. This seems to be the supply of canned fruits and vegetables, based on what labels Martin can see; he reaches in and starts to pull cans out, examining the labels and stacking them on the counter as a way to begin organizing. First are peas, then corn, next are pears and green beans, diced tomatoes and chickpeas and—
Peaches.
And suddenly the kitchen feels horribly familiar.
His hands are locked around the can, staring down at it, and more things assault his mind than take in at once. Jon screaming, Tim screaming, Sasha shrieking, twisting corridors and corpse after corpse and horrible terrible echoing laughter, dread pooling deep inside him when Jon goes missing again, countless hours in a cold hospital room, months more in a colder world, sand beneath his shoes as the water crashes around him—and throughout it all that awful, awful knocking.
He can breathe, a little, but he can’t move. Can only stand and stare at the label, shining orange and gold, and watch as a tear he barely feels hits dead center.
“Martin?”
The world comes flooding back, the can very nearly slipping out of his hands as he fumbles to set it on the counter. A hand slides over his and takes the can away, pushing it off towards the other stacks before moving again, landing on his shoulder and gently urging him to turn around. He does, though he keeps his head down; the tears are coming hot and fast and many, and he can hear the sounds he’s making, now. Shaky and erratic as he chokes on his own sobs, high-pitched and wobbling and weak.
“I’m sorry.” He doesn’t look, can’t look, rubs at his eyes as Jon places both hands, feather-light, on his face,
“Martin.”
“I,” he swallows, squeezing his eyes tighter and forcing out what words he can, trying to quell the tears, “I don’t even know what happened…”
“Martin, it’s okay.”
Jon’s hands are heavier now, more present; Martin feels one thumb rubbing at his temple, the other hand cradling his cheek. He has enough sense now to feel embarrassed, breaking like this—they’ve all been through so much, Jon most of all, and here he is, crumbling. Shaking apart because he picked up a goddamn can of fruit, unable to get a grip because apparently this is just too much for him to handle, now. Because he’s so used to the emptiness of the Lonely that he doesn’t know how to carry even his own weight any more.
He takes one breath, and another, painfully aware of Jon’s hands still on his face. Soon—too soon, his heart says, ever the traitor—he straightens up and blinks as hard as he can, hoping to stop the tears long enough to retreat somewhere private. He swallows, suddenly realizing how hard he’s been holding on to Jon’s arm and immediately loosening the grip—and finally he pulls his hand from his eyes, glasses falling back into place.
The light strikes him first, and he flinches for a moment—but then there’s Jon, staring up at him. Jon, still holding on to him. Jon, cozy and warm and with his hair tied up in a hot pink hair tie they’d found on the bathroom sink—looking at Martin with such open concern and genuine care on every part of his face.
Martin opens his mouth to speak but a sob escapes again, sending him back into the same fit from before—and suddenly Jon is holding him, pulling him into his arms and wrapping them tight around his waist. Martin’s arms loop around his shoulders and he cries, shaking and gasping as Jon murmurs something he can’t make out but appreciates nonetheless.
They stay like that, for a while. In the kitchen together. At some point Martin hears Jon crying too, and he holds him tighter in response; eventually, after something like hours, the kitchen is quiet again save for the humming of the fridge.
Martin lifts his head from Jon’s shoulder and looks at him, taking in the swollen eyes and shining cheeks as Jon drinks in what’s surely much of the same. After a moment he lets himself breathe, trying as best as he can to muster a smile.
“I’m… Thank you, Jon.”
“Are you alright?”
“Are you? ”
They both laugh a bit at that. “Alright” and “okay” have become far-flung fantasies at this point.
“But really, I…” Martin sighs again, takes a moment. “No. I’m not.” And God, that hurts him to say. “But I think—I think this helped, maybe. The…”
“The… holding?” Even with everything happening, Jon manages to look uncertain, even flustered, about it. And it’s so familiar, so endearing, that it does make Martin feel a bit lighter.
“...Yeah.” He pauses, thinks before he continues. “Maybe… maybe we could talk some more, too. About… everything.”
“Yes, I…” Jon’s eyes glance over him once again, and he bites his lip as he looks up at Martin. “I would like that, Martin.”
Martin nodes, closing his eyes and tilting his head forward so his forehead touches Jon’s. Again they pause, staying in the moment for as long as they possibly can.
Eventually they do break apart, slowly but surely picking up where they left off in their cataloguing (though Jon doesn’t leave the kitchen until Martin does). Neither of them feel quite up to the task of an involved meal, but together they compile a short list of what they need and Martin heads off to the store, Jon’s hand in his.
It’s a short trip, but Martin is grateful for it—grateful for the warmth of the sun almost as much as he is for the warmth of Jon beside him. They return without incident, throw a few things in a pot and call it a stew. Let it sit for a while as they find their places on the couch, Martin pressed between Jon’s back and the armrest. He’s not really ready to talk about everything, and he knows Jon knows this—just knows it, no Knowing involved—so they just exist in each other’s space, sometimes talking, sometimes not.
It’s nice.
Hours later, after the sun has set and dinner has finished, Jon insists on taking care of the dishes. He’s gone for a bit, Martin sitting before the crackling hearth and and listening to the quiet noises from the other room. Eventually Martin remembers the mug he still grips in his hand; the chill that first hits him when he stands is soon drowned out by the warmth of the fire.
Jon is just finishing up in the kitchen when he enters, wordlessly taking the mug and beginning to scrub it under the tap. Martin waits, leaning against the counter as he watches Jon work, watches his hands move and one constantly misbehaving chunk of hair fall forward into his face.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spots the corner of an orange and gold label in the bin.
Jon dries the mug and looks up at Martin with a small smile, holding out a hand.
Martin takes it and follows Jon out of the kitchen, both of their hands warm and alive and strong in the other’s.