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Going to bed that night is different for Martin: Jon can tell.
Up until now, he hasn’t been able to put a finger on exactly why he hasn’t wanted to tell Martin that he isn’t sleeping, but he thinks this is probably it. Because now, it’s a little strained. There are precious few sweet things left for Jon in the world as it stands, and watching Martin slip off to sleep had been one of the last. Martin usually gets at least a solid half an hour’s rest before the nightmares start, and looking at his face before the storms of his dreams begin – smooth and untroubled, almost like they could be anywhere else, just two normal people sharing a bed – it feels restful for Jon, in a way he can no longer access through sleep.
But Martin seems self-conscious about it, now. He settles down with his back to Jon; his shoulders are hunched and he’s far away enough that Jon couldn’t comfortably sling an arm over him if he tried. Which he hasn’t, he realises, not in longer than he cares to think about.
Unsettled, Jon pulls at Martin’s shoulder. When Martin turns over, he rests a hand against the side of his neck, which is smooth and soft and concerningly chill to touch. Martin relaxes into it, just a bit, which is reassuring; but he’s still keeping his distance, which isn’t.
When he leans in to kiss Martin, heart thumping, he tries very hard not to think about how long it’s been since he’s done that, either; the last time he reached out for anything that wasn’t instigated by Martin. Even the last time Martin did anything for him that wasn’t rooted in desperately, tragically, trying to make him feel better. Or, worse; the last time Jon did anything to make Martin feel better - anything at all.
When Jon pulls back, Martin keeps his eyes closed for just an extra few seconds, and a little tremor crosses his face. There’s a stubborn crease hovering between his brows that he seems to take a real effort in pushing away. When he opens his eyes it’s almost like it was never there at all, but it’s not replaced by any emotion whatsoever. At Jon’s little frown he gives a small, tight smile: one that doesn’t quite manage to reach his eyes.
It’s like that a lot with Martin recently – as much as recently means anything these days – like Martin is constantly in the middle of carefully constructing the exact right version of himself to push Jon towards feeling better, in a way that Jon hasn’t really been paying enough attention to realise until right now. And he doesn’t know why now, why this, that strikes him so hard: it’s not like it’s news that Martin isn’t okay, because Jon isn’t okay and the whole world isn’t okay, so it’s less of an assumption than a solid, continual fact at this point.
But all things considered, Martin seems to have been dealing with it well. That’s what Jon has thought, at least, when he’s spared a thought to it; especially compared to Jon. Martin’s dealing with it, he tells himself, and then he looks at the way Martin’s arms are tightly crossed over himself, and how measured and empty his tone is nowadays even in the middle of the worst of Jon’s panics and despondencies. He thinks about you’re supposed to look, when you’re touched by someone who loves you. Happy. Comforted.
Martin is dealing with it, he tells himself again. He’s doing better than me, at least.
“Martin?” he says, just in case.
Martin tilts his head, looks at him steadily.
“Yes?” he says, and he sounds genuinely amiable in a way that shouldn’t be setting a pit in Jon’s stomach.
Jon props himself up onto one elbow, and tries very hard to figure out the best way to put everything he wants to say into words.
“I’m worried about you,” he admits, which seems as good a place to start as any.
“Why?” Martin says, in the same steady tone of voice. There is, however, an unmistakable hollowness under his voice that makes Jon begin to think that he is very, very right to have put everything aside to start to worry.
“Are you – alright?” Jon says, and muffles a wince at how inadequate that sounds. Of course he’s not, because nothing is, and he’s expecting Martin to say so, but instead –
“I’m fine, Jon,” says Martin, and his voice is so suffused with poorly-concealed tiredness Jon doesn’t know how the words escaped his mouth. “Why?”
“Because – Martin, I told you I loved you today and you didn’t even react,” Jon says gently, and he doesn’t know what he was expecting himself to say, but it wasn’t that – something he didn’t even realise has been eating at him until he hears himself speaking the words, in much the same way he didn’t realise he was going to confess that to Martin until he was already saying it.
In response, Martin immediately takes a soft, swooping breath. It doesn’t matter that it’s almost quiet enough to be inaudible: Jon still feels it like a punch to the gut, even if he doesn’t know exactly what it means.
“It wasn’t what I would have expected, I suppose. And I know maybe it wasn’t the way or the time that you wanted,” Jon tries to recover, knowing how stupid and inane it sounds even as he says it, “and I’m not – I’m not saying you needed to react in any way, I just – would have wanted that to be something for you. It meant something for me to say, at least.”
Martin’s expression is solid stone again, and he won’t meet Jon’s eyes.
“It didn’t mean nothing,” he responds, evenly. “It’s just – in the context of our conversation, I didn’t think that that was something you were really focusing on. In the moment, I mean. So I didn’t think it was something that I should – focus on.”
“Don’t you think it matters to me that I care about you?” Jon says quietly, and Martin lets out a long breath.
“I think,” he says cautiously, like he’s choosing his words with care, “that it doesn’t really matter what I think, at the moment. There are bigger things at stake than how I’m feeling. You know that, Jon.”
Despite his words, Jon isn't can't tell whether Martin’s tone of admonishment is actually directed at Jon or at Martin himself.
“I don’t, actually,” he says. “Things at stake? The world - it’s already ended, Martin. What else could possibly happen?”
“You need to ask?” Martin says, and at last, there’s a barely audible tremble to his words that’s telling Jon how hard he’s working to keep his voice even. “Jon, I don’t – I don’t have anything else. Even before this – okay, I had my job, and my mum, and everyone at the Institute. But they’re all dead, and god, you know what a joke a job at the Archives turned out to be.
“So you’re the last thing I have left, and right now it’s basically just fifty-fifty whether I lose you to what’s in here,” he says, and he taps Jon’s temple, just next to his eyes, “or this,” he says, and he puts a hand over Jon’s heart. “So it doesn’t matter what I think or feel – I need to make sure you’re gonna be okay, or I won’t have anything left.”
“It doesn’t matter – of course it matters,” says Jon, horrified. “God. Martin. Did you really think I didn’t care what you were feeling about all this?”
Martin avoids his gaze.
“I’m not saying that,” he says, and the painfully reasonable tone in his voice is worse than any accusation could be. “And it’s not like I’ve been expecting you to – to pay attention. You’ve got a lot on your plate, Jon, I don’t blame you. We’re both trying to make the best of this situation. And I know I could be better too, I could be more patient. But I worry that if I don’t push you, I’m going to lose you.”
Jon shuts his eyes for a brief moment. He counts to five.
“Martin. Please. Stop talking about me,” he says. “Please stop being so reasonable. For ten minutes, God – please think about yourself. Just – talk to me. Tell me what’s happening with you.”
“I can’t,” says Martin, and despite the carefully constructed calmness of his tone, the distress under his voice is growing by the word. “Jon, one of us needs to be on an even keel if we’re gonna make it through this. We can’t both of us be – God, you know. So I really can’t.“
Jon tries very hard to fight down how stung he is by Martin’s words. Because after all, he isn’t wrong, even if Jon feels so much like he can’t help himself at the moment. How much it hurts, to be caught between the things he can’t control – having killed the world, his overwhelming senses of pain and panic, the looming weight of all his failures – and a whole mess of other things he can’t control – having no idea what to do, feeling so intensely like he needs Martin to be there for him.
But he can do better, he thinks. He can give more, try harder.
“Martin, I promise you,” he says, and the firmness of his tone is a pleasant surprise even to him, “I’m not going to shatter if you open up and talk to me. I’m really, truly sorry that I haven’t asked before – God, I really have been shit at this.”
“I mean, it’s not exactly a normal situation -“ Martin starts up defensively, but Jon holds up a hand.
“Don’t. That doesn’t matter, Martin,” he says. “What matters is that you’ve been going all this time trying to keep me going, and you haven’t gotten anything back for yourself. You never even really got a chance to tell me what the Lonely was like, and now this – it’s not fair to you.”
“To be honest, I kind of thought you could just Tell now. You know, after everything,” says Martin, a little mulishly, and Jon screws up his face.
“It’s not about me knowing,” he says, equal parts frustration and worry in his voice. “It’s about you feeling like you can tell me these things. I know I haven’t always been – around, I guess, or in a decent state to listen. But if I can, I don’t want you to keep feeling like you’re alone in this. And Martin, as far as I can make it, your feelings are your own to share – I mean, there’s enough going on out there that it drowns you out for me, and I hope I don’t have to tell you that I’m not going to go Looking. God, is – is that it? You thought I could See, and I just didn’t care?”
“Honestly,” Martin admits, “I hadn’t given it that much thought. I’ve mostly just been trying to – put out the fires, you know? Take care of you.”
Jon reaches out immediately at that, almost like he can’t help himself. He touches two fingers to the side of Martin’s face, Martin’s skin cold under his fingertips. He watches Martin turn into his hand, like a plant towards the sun, and wonders how long Martin’s been waiting for that kind of simple touch.
“Let me return the favour,” he says, quietly. “Please.”
“You… really wanna know how I’m feeling?” says Martin sceptically, his face screwing up under Jon’s hand, and Jon nods.
Martin takes a very deep breath. He splays one hand out over Jon’s chest.
“Okay. So, I’m scared, all the time,” he starts, and already he’s dropped his gaze from Jon’s. “Of what’s out there, yeah, and whether or not we’ll be able to stop it, but also for you. If you’re just gonna stay cooped up in this room until the end of time, and what’s gonna happen if I can never get you out. And I hate listening to you blame yourself when I know it’s not your fault, but you’re just gonna keep on doing it anyway and nothing I say seems like it’s gonna change that. I want – I want you to hear me on that, just to trust me, but you never do. And it’s not like you’re the only one feeling guilty – God, if I’d never listened to Peter, if I’d never thought that I could foil his grand plan all on my own, if I’d never been so bloody stupid – you never would have had to have come after me into the Lonely, and maybe none of this would have happened.
“I wish we’d had more time together before all this happened, and I feel guilty for wishing that, because it’s nothing in comparison to the end of the world, but I just feel like after all the time I spent – we spent missing each other, we barely got anywhere in the end. God, I miss Tim and Sasha. I miss my mum, and I don’t know who I’m gonna be now I don’t have her to look after any more, and I think maybe that’s why I keep pushing this so hard, because I need to be useful and I need to fix things, but –“
He breaks off, breathing hard and fast.
“Okay, that’s enough,” he says, and he looks towards the ceiling. He lets out one long breath that’s a little like a gasp, a little like a sob. “Yeah, that’ll do, I think.”
Jon is staring at him, which he realises a few seconds into the silence is probably both unhelpful and rude.
“I’m sorry, Martin,” he says instead, quietly. “I’m so, so sorry. None of this is fair on you.”
“Yeah,” Martin says, scrubbing furiously at his eyes. “Yeah. But it’s not fair on anybody else in the world either, so I’m no different.”
Jon slides closer over the bed and tucks a knuckle under his chin, raises it until their faces are level. Martin still won’t look him in the eye, but he doesn’t shake him off the way Jon was worried he might. So hesitantly, Jon tugs him over to rest on top of him, tucking him into the curve of his side, sliding up a little so Martin can lay his head comfortably on his chest.
The relief that he feels when he hears Martin huff a little, comforted breath is almost strong enough to drown out everything still washing over him from outside. When he cautiously links up his fingers with Martin’s, Martin holds them out a little ways above them, fiddling with his hand absent-mindedly. The sense memory of them doing the same thing – the hands in the same bed, what feels like a lifetime ago; a golden afternoon, Jon napping dozily with Martin sprawled out over him, playing with his fingers – it almost sends him reeling, but he pushes it down.
“It is to me,” he says. “Even if you don’t think it matters to you, it does to me. And I’m sorry I made you carry it by yourself all this time.”
“It’s okay, it doesn’t matter-“ Martin starts, and Jon wants to throttle him almost as much as he wants to kiss him.
“It does,” he says instead, exasperated. “God, you’re impossible. Is this what it’s been like trying to talk to me this whole time? We’re in this together, Martin, and I am trying to do better. You deserve that.”
Martin lays his head back down on Jon’s chest, and finally, finally, Jon feels him relax.
“Okay,” Martin says, and the tremulous tone in his voice makes Jon think that he is purposefully trying to hide the expression on his face. “Message received.”
“I still think I need to be clear about something,” Jon says, and Martin looks back up at him. “Well, two things, I guess. Firstly, I have been – listening, I do hear you. And I mean what I say when I just need some time. It’s just going to take a little while to soak in. And not just our – situation. What you’ve been saying to me. I do need to hear it. But I’m not going to make you wait forever, Martin. There is an end point to –“ and when he gestures to himself, he makes sure to put as much grim humour into his smile as possible, “– this.”
Martin lets out a little, watery laugh. It is, as far as Jon’s concerned, a beautifully reassuring sound.
“The second thing,” he says quietly, emboldened, “is that as far as I’m aware, we are still – how did you put it? – getting somewhere. You aren’t the only one who feels that this, we – you – are the one good thing in all of this that’s still strong. So you don’t have to talk about you and me like we stopped the moment the change happened, Martin. I know there’s a lot happening at the moment, and I know I could be better about showing it - about helping you - but I still feel the same way about you that I did before. The – uh, even the end of the world didn’t change that.”
“You could, um. You could say it again, you know,” says Martin after a moment, his voice soft into Jon’s chest. He closes his eyes and pushes his forehead against Jon’s collarbone. “I’ll try to listen this time.”
“I love you,” Jon says to him earnestly, no hesitation. “And - I’m sorry, and I’m trying.”
“I know you are,” says Martin, a little sadly. “Honestly, I do. And I’m trying too.”
Jon reaches down and rests his free palm against the side of Martin’s face. He can feel the heat of his skin bleed out where it’s touching Martin’s, the colour and warmth returning to Martin’s cheek under his hand.
And when Martin turns his head and presses his lips into Jon’s palm, Jon feels the cold that he leaves like the ghost of a kiss. The warmth that Jon’s giving, in its place.
“I love you,” Jon says again – like a commitment, like a promise – and under his hand, Martin smiles.