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He isn’t three steps out of the room before Jon reaches for his arm. A simple touch, hesitant, but it serves its purpose of stopping Martin in his tracks. Jon reaching out to him always has that effect, but he still aims for nonchalance when he glances over his shoulder. “What’s up?”
Jon’s onto an idea; Martin can see it in the way his eyes hold that spark of curiosity. Just like he can tell it’s something Jon finds awkward, because his gaze doesn’t linger, and he’s already gotten flush just from making the move to stop Martin. So to say his interest is piqued is a little bit of an understatement. “Jon?”
“Er– um.” Jon drops his hand back to his side, and smooths his palm along the hem of his shirt. “I was just thinking, you could– you should stay.”
He blinks. The confusion doesn’t clear as his eyes dart about the tiny one and a half room cabin. There’s literally nowhere for him to go. He doesn’t even want to. “Well, yeah. I’m just going to change for bed?” He jerks his thumb towards the tiny bathroom, barely big enough for the shower and loo, and then smiles, tentatively, trying to figure Jon out. Because it’s something. “I’ll be right back.”
“No, er–” Jon’s floundering. “That. You should– could you– here?”
He blinks again. He’s definitely hearing, but he isn’t understanding. “What? Change out here?”
“Yes,” Jon says quickly, relieved. “I’d like to–” watch. The word comes unbidden in Martin’s mind, and he feels the heat flare beneath his own skin. “… know you,” Jon continues softly, and Martin has to swallow the lump in his throat.
“Oh,” he says, a bit pathetically. The embarrassment hits tenfold, as Jon smiles nervously, hesitant but genuine, and Martin realizes with delayed recognition that that means undressing. in front of Jon. which is Jon’s point. They’re using undressing as a form of intimacy. And Martin’s fine without sex, of course he is, pressuring Jon into something he’s not comfortable with would literally be becoming the monsters they’re trying to escape from; he respects that, and Jon, too much to be fussed over a shag. (He’s managed well enough on his own, anyway.) And it’s not like he wouldn’t have been naked for that, too, but he’d always imagined they’d turn the lights off and– oh, focus!
All of his body insecurities, come back to haunt him.
“We don’t have to,” Jon says quickly, like he senses something. Maybe he does. “If you’re not comfortable, of course–”
“Sure,” Martin interrupts. He doesn’t let Jon run with second-guessing himself. Jon asks for so very few things to begin with, so something as simple as this… something as second nature as changing into pajamas. Jon’s been so very accommodating to him, and Martin… he’s embarrassed, but he wants to do it. “It’s… a little embarrassing,” he admits. “But I, um. Think that’s probably normal? In, uh, relationships.” Because that’s what they are now: in a relationship. “But I wouldn’t do it if I was uncomfortable uncomfortable,” he adds quickly. “I want to.”
Which is a lie inasmuch as he doesn’t want to almost as much as he does, and he’s terrified almost as much as he is thrilled, but he stands by what he’s said. He thinks nerves are normal for the first time. Even if it isn’t the quote-unquote first time. It’s close enough, for them.
Now it’s Jon turn to say “oh,” like he’s surprised Martin’s agreed. “That’s… great, Martin. Thank you.”
He always manages to sound so formal. Martin breathes a laugh, the anxiety tingling beneath his bones. “You haven’t seen anything yet,” he says before he can stop himself, and then winces afterwards. Out loud self-deprecation isn’t nice.
“You’ll be lovely,” Jon says immediately, but it isn’t in a defensive (reflexive) way and Martin keeps burning hotter.
“Um– right,” he manages. “I’m just going to, er, brush my teeth first? Get ready for bed.” Because if they’re doing whatever they’re doing, he’d like to be able to crawl right into bed afterwards regardless.
“Sure.”
Martin goes, and brushes his teeth and splashes water on his face for the nerves, to cool the heat beneath his skin. He should have… he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. He’s overthinking this. Christ, okay. Okay, Martin Blackwood, you’re going to go out and take your clothes off for your boyfriend. Easy peasy. Simple as pie.
Fuck, alright. One more splash of cold water against his cheeks and he turns to nudge the bathroom door open with his shoulder with something as close to resolve as he can get right now.
Jon’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, already in his pajamas. He already had been, wearing one of Martin’s sweaters that had been pilfered from the laundry one particularly chilly afternoon and never returned. It falls to mid-thigh on him, and he’s taken to only wearing boxers underneath to sleep in, and Martin thinks it’s the cutest thing. He’s so small, and cold all the time as autumn tries its hardest to push over them–
“Alright?” Jon asks, as Martin realizes he’s been staring.
“Yep,” he says, and fiddles with the hem of his sweater as he steps over to the bed. “Minty fresh!”
Jon smiles like that wasn’t what he’d been talking about, and Martin knows it wasn’t. But he’s talking to fill the silence, nervous again in ways he hasn’t had the mental strength to be in a… long time. A bit like his old self, before all of this had gone down. He doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. So many things have changed.
One thing hasn’t, though. He smiles back at Jon, and pulls his sweater up and over his head. It’s a non-production, that, because he’s wearing the button-down below it, but it gives a sense of action and– and Jon’s already watching him. Of course he is.
He swallows, and goes to gather his pajamas from where they end up, thrown atop his half-unpacked bag every morning. And then, because he can’t stop himself from chatting, states what’s probably already obvious. “I have a lot of freckles.”
“Yes?”
And because he can’t stop himself– “And stretch marks.”
“And?”
He’s just trying to prepare him and he knows it, trying to soften a blow that probably won’t even register with Jon since he sounds so nonplussed as is it. “I don’t know,” Martin murmurs. The lettering is faded on the old t-shirt beneath his hands. He scratches a nail over one of those letters and takes a deep breath. “Just a thought.”
“Right. And I’m covered in worm scars,” Jon says, matter of fact. “Just a thought.” He barely has time to breathe out in what might have been a laugh before Jon continues. “Martin, if you don’t want to–”
“I do,” he interrupts quickly, and starts fumbling at buttons. “I do, I’m just– I’m just nervous. Like I said.” And insecure. He doesn’t say that out loud. He isn’t searching for pity, and he doesn’t want false reassurances. “Like, doing something fun but being nervous the first time. Like flying. Or getting on a roller coaster.”
Jon’s eyes are fixed on Martin’s fingers, down to the fourth button now. “I’ve never been on one.”
Martin tries not to falter. “I mean. I’m not, usually, either. I kinda…” He gestures vaguely. “Throw up.”
“Here’s to hoping I don’t make you throw up, then.”
That does make him laugh, a startled noise that Jon looks surprised and then pleased at. Just subtly, in his way, but Martin knows. He knows Jon. He’d like to think he does, anyway. He likes to hope he’ll get the chance to know him better, in ways both inconsequential and intimate.
“I think we’re good on that front,” he replies, and uses the distracted momentum to shrug his shirt off his shoulders and let it drop haphazard to the floor.
He knows there’s bigger things to worry about, especially these days. When they’re literally trying to avoid the end of all things, maybe still an extinction, but… what he wouldn’t give for confidence. Pulling off his body the way Tim had always been able to, even after Prentiss had attacked the Institute. But he’s always been living with that insecurity, long before the Institute and long before falling in love with Jon.
He is tall; ergo, he ought to be lanky, or at least trim. But he never had been. Not that there hadn’t been an attempt made. There had. He’d gotten serious about it, briefly, back in his teens. Lost a few kilos, even, but it had made the stretch marks even more obvious and hadn’t much helped the problem of him looking in the mirror. Then his mom had gotten sick and his dad had left and… he’d had bigger priorities, and no time to linger in front of the mirror anyway. He’d had so many things to worry about with other people, he hadn’t really had time to focus on himself. Which was… fine. He’d started young, in that regard.
And then it wasn’t like working in the archives was the most active job, normally, if you, you know, weren’t running from corrupted bugs or all-seeing bosses, not to mention that extended stay in the Institute where he’d practically lived off of takeaway for months. So he’s definitely, well– he– hates to throw around the word fat but fluffy has never really felt like a compliment to him, either–
Jon’s voice catches him in the middle of his self-flaggation, and reins him back in. “Do they get worse in the sun?” he asks, and Martin’s so startled by such a normal question that all he can do is gape, and try to parse out the meaning of the words.
“What?”
“Your freckles.” He gestures vaguely.
“Oh.” It’s so simple it nearly knocks the breath out of him. He feels weak in the knees, and then pathetic again. “Um. I mean, yeah? I don’t… I can’t really do sun for very long, anyway? Even with sunscreen. But they do, get darker.”
“Georgie always complained.” Jon stops, and then makes a face. “Sorry, was that– maybe I shouldn’t be mentioning–”
“It’s fine,” Martin says quickly. He’d… like to say that he’s not really a jealous person, but then he thinks that he is; it’s just that Jon had told him about Georgie and Melanie and… well, Jon’s ex seems like a long way off, here in Scotland, in their own corner of the world. It’s just about the only thing he’s got going for him, right now: that he isn’t comparing himself to her. Now if she was standing here naked next to him, then that would be a different story, but that would be all kinds of weird, and he’s spiraling himself out of control here again. “I didn’t know she had freckles.”
“A bit. Not like you.”
He laughs a little, a little bitter. “Yeah, well… can’t help my genes.”
“Oh, that– I didn’t mean that as an insult, Martin–”
“What?” He realizes how that had sounded, now. “Oh! I was– I was just joking? Sorta?”
“Oh,” Jon echoes. He looks at Martin for a moment longer, eyes on his, and then moving to a cluster of freckles on his shoulder, and then down, past the abs he doesn’t have, and the weight he carries at his waist. Then Jon looks back up, sheepish, and laughs. A breath of air, a gentle kind of amusement that Martin’s only heard from him in these past couple of weeks, soft and warm. Like fresh-baked cookies or blankets out of the dryer. Like any of the most comforting things he can think of in life. The things he wants to cherish. And he does cherish Jon. More than he can say. “Christ, Martin, we’re awful at this.”
And he laughs, too. It’s like some stupid spell is broken; he tightens his grip on his pajamas and starts to slip the shirt on. Jon had asked him to change here, not to give him a show. Martin doesn’t think he could right now, and he isn’t sure Jon would want him to, anyway. So that’s for later, and he’s starting to shiver a little even though the wood-burning stove usually keeps the cabin toasty warm at night.
Jon notices. Of course he does, eyes on him up ‘til the moment the familiar, worn fabric settles loose around his torso again. Jon slides from the bed, steps forward, and smooths the creases in Martin’s shirt. “How are we so awful?” he murmurs, but there’s still amusement in his eyes that Martin drinks in as much as he does the gentle touch at the front of his shirt.
Martin doesn’t want to ruin the moment– God, he doesn’t– but he thinks he has to say what he says next. “It’s not easy to be normal anymore,” he admits quietly.
Jon’s smile does get a little more sad, but it doesn’t disappear completely. “I know,” he says softly, instead, and then stretches up to kiss Martin on the lips.
That’s nice, too. It’s something that Jon never seems to be able to figure out, kissing; it’s always a touch awkward, and he never seems to know what to do with his hands for the few seconds before Martin responds and takes over. So Martin does, reaches out to hold onto Jon’s fingers and curve his palm around the side of his neck, gentle touches and careful movements as always. Just holding onto him, because it’s been a rough few weeks… months. Longer than that.
“Jon…”
Jon rests his hand at Martin’s jaw, his cheek, and Martin feels himself going all fluttery again. “Hm?”
“You…” He appreciates the attempt at comfort. He really, really does. “You don’t have to–”
“I want to,” Jon interrupts against his mouth. “I wouldn’t do it if I were uncomfortable uncomfortable.”
Damn him, throwing his words back at him. Martin smiles against his lips, acquiesces, and kisses him for a moment longer. Then he squeezes his fingers, and pulls back. “Right, good. Er, we could, uh, continue, in bed, in a second? If you want? Or cuddle? But I–”
“– need to finish changing,” Jon concludes. “Yes, right. Sorry.” He clears his throat, and steps back. “Now I’m being the distraction.”
You’re pretty good at that, Martin doesn’t say, because Jon doesn’t normally notice when he’s being a distraction, and anyway, he’s got other things to do. Like taking off his trousers.
Right. He reaches down for the button of his jeans, and tries not to make a production out of that, either. He doesn’t want to work himself back into that cycle of embarrassment. He’s just glad he actually wears pants, unlike Tim, who never seemed to have had, and God, he still hates that he knows that, even though he misses the simple days of torn trousers or the occasional (purely platonic) sleepover when Tim had stayed over during the time Martin had lived at the Institute. And even Sasha had done that, once or twice, but she didn’t undress in front of him, of course–
Jon makes an aborted noise, and then, “Martin.”
“What?”
“Why did I just get a memory of Tim naked?”
He cringes. But he doesn’t bluster ahead to explain; he knows Jon Knows it wasn’t like that– even though it could have been, at any time, Martin was sure– but, more importantly, “are you in my head??”
“No!” Jon frowns. “You were…” He seems to struggle with words. “Projecting,” he settles on, sheepishly. “Very clearly. It just… popped in.”
“Sorry,” he says, on reflex, even though it isn’t his fault. “Tim’d probably be flattered,” he adds, because he can’t help but smile at the thought of Tim, with all of his exuberance, aw, boss, you were daydreaming about my arse??
Jon smiles, too, and looks just as sad and just as fond. “Probably,” he agrees, and if it’s begrudging, Martin knows he’s just teasing, then, too. They both miss the old days.
But the current ones– very current, anyway– aren’t so bad. Martin fumbles with his zip and shucks his jeans down past his thighs. A little nervewracking, but… domestic, for however long it lasts. Martin wants to make it last.
He doesn’t have to take his trousers off to make it last, he knows, but it’s harmless, and worth the smile that doesn’t leave Jon’s face when he does. It’s definitely worth the smile, and the interest… Christ, Martin’s so weak for Jon being interested, always has been, but there’s a difference now, acceptance and love, in Jon’s way. It’s charming.
Even Jon’s eyes, unabashedly taking in Martin’s skin again, are charming, in their way. He means– well, he’s definitely not going to be entirely comfortable with eyes anytime soon– a hazard of the job– but it’s getting easier. Even just within the past couple of minutes, actually.
“Nothing much more to see,” Martin says, half joking. “More freckles.” He grabs his sweats. “And a scar.”
“I noticed. It’s very… normal. How–”
It was very normal. Hide and seek, when he was younger. He’d decided at the last possible second to switch hiding spots, and had been sneaking to find a different place. And he’d been trying to be so quiet that he’d overcompensated on the step along the path, tripped and crashed to his hands and knees. On the bright side, he hadn’t cried and given up his location! Ooooon the other hand, it’d put a rather fast end to the game when they’d found Martin, bloody hands and kneecaps, tear-stained and trying to play it off. Only his right knee had ended up scarring, though. It was fine.
“Oh, Martin.”
He smiles, not because of the tone of voice– Martin, why didn’t you tell someone? – but because he had been projecting that. “It’s very normal,” he agrees, and looks down at the marred skin on his knee. “I actually wasn’t very clumsy as a kid.”
“God, I was.”
Martin laughs, because “yeah, I can imagine that.”
“I always did try to hide it from my grandmother when I did get home, though.”
“What, did you sneak out?”
“Constantly,” Jon admitted. “I was… easily bored, as a child.”
“Oh my god.”
“I feel bad for my grandmother, in retrospect.”
All the while, Jon’s been staring, eyes taking in Martin like he wants to circle him ‘round and drink in every detail of his exposed skin. And Martin doesn’t know if he wants to be flattered or scared or– or horny, really. No, he really doesn’t want to be horny when he’s standing in nothing but pants and about to crawl into bed with his boyfriend.
“Jonathan Sims,” he murmurs, finally stepping into his sweatpants, “problem child.” He doesn’t say that surprises him, because it doesn’t, really.
Jon drops his gaze as Martin finishes redressing, and takes a step back to the bed. “So we know where the me of today gets it from, then.”
“Maybe a little,” Martin admits, and goes to join him. Crawling into bed feels like bliss now, comfortable and warm as he slips beneath the covers. Jon’s already on the other side of the bed, pulling his side of the blankets back too. “But that’s why I love you, I s’pose.”
“You suppose?” Jon echoes, playful, and Martin rolls his eyes, jerks the blankets up over the both of them as they settle in.
“I suppose,” he says, like he’s all begrudging when he’s not. Jon settles in next to him, chuckling, and lets Martin put his arm around his shoulders as usual and rests his head on his arm. And then, when they’re comfy, when Martin doesn’t quite feel like he’s about to implode for one reason or the other, he has to ask the question he’s been thinking of since Jon had stopped him from going to change in the first place. “Jon?”
“Hm?”
“All of this…” He gestures vaguely towards his discarded clothes. “Can I ask?”
“I…” Jon tenses, just a little. Martin rubs his shoulder, coaxing whatever words he wants to give out of him. “I mean, yes, of course. It’s just… I’m not sure you want to hear it.”
That really just serves to make him more curious. “Oh?” And he’s not sure he ever wants to not hear anything, anymore. Not these days. “Why?”
“It…” He looks contrite, which does little to prepare Martin for the next words. “It was something Peter said, in The Lonely.”
The words hit him hard, somewhere between his chest and his gut, and still manage to knock all of the breath out of him. It hasn’t been enough time for him to have gotten himself… even remotely near to reconciling his ties to The Lonely, to Peter. The biggest mistake of his life, one he regrets, and one he’s still terrified over. And one he can still remember feeling, deep in his bones, the moment that Peter had died, no matter how he tries to forget. How upset it still makes him, even now, and how that upsets him because he doesn’t want it to but it does.
And, all of that baggage aside, Jon initiating something, anything, because of something Peter had done… it feels… uncomfortable.
But even then. Martin takes a breath, and squeezes Jon’s shoulder again. “I still want to know.” Jon, of all people, won’t begrudge him for wanting the truth.
“He…” Jon sighs, shifts closer. “He said we didn’t know each other. And that we were chasing… I don’t know, an illusion of what we wanted.”
“Oh…”
“And I would very much like to prove him wrong,” Jon continues, voice taking on that distinctly stubborn quality again. “Thus…”
“Knowing me,” Martin murmurs. That was the reason Jon had phrased it the way that he had. I’d like to know you, instead of I’d like to watch you or I’d like to look at you.
“Yes…”
That’s… he knows Peter is right. Was right. He and Jon, they’d hardly shared words outside of work and they had absolutely never been personal regardless. That was why his little crush had always been as frustrating as it had been; Jon had done absolutely nothing to attract him and yet he’d fallen in love with him before he’d even known simple things, like age or, you know, preference. Oh, he’d picked up things along the way, sure. The way Jon took his tea or liked the silence to clear his head, his penchant for sweets and ability to fall asleep on the train. And Martin had dropped facts about himself, too, equally as unimportant: he liked spicy food and was rubbish at mobile games, hadn’t gone to uni and really wanted to go to Rome one day.
But knowing each other? He and Jon really… didn’t. But he would have followed Jon into hell, anyway, and Jon actually had for him, and… things had changed in the past couple of weeks. There’s still so much more Martin has to learn, but he thinks he’s gained a lifetime’s worth of knowledge in the past two weeks already.
Jon, a late sleeper with no deadlines or destinations, sleep ugly and groggy over hot cereal and toast. Jon, curled onto the sofa, legs tucked up beneath him, reading an actual book instead of a statement. Jon, humming some song he said he couldn’t remember the name of while cooking lunch– something he was actually really good at? Cooking? Which Martin hadn’t expected at all, for some reason, but Jon had had to grow up fast and had lived on his own for a long while now, so he guessed he hadn’t thought it through very well, huh? Jon, dozing in the sunshine on the porch, or talking about public libraries, or a bit about his days in university.
Trapped here together, on the run from the end of the world here together, Martin’s learned more about Jon in the past two weeks than he has in the past few years. Maybe all they had ever needed was the chance, an opportunity to get away from it all and just be… Jon and Martin. This is the first time he’s really had the chance to appreciate themselves being just Jon and Martin in a long while.
“We might still have a lot to learn,” he says shortly, and Jon tilts his head to look at him. “But I think we’re doing okay, Jon.”
“Yeah?”
“At our own pace,” Martin clarifies. “And… while I don’t mind taking my clothes off for you–” here Jon huffs a breath of almost laughter, “you could have just, I don’t know, asked my favorite color or something to start with.”
“That’s…”
“Boring is nice,” he interrupts, before Jon can say it. “Boring is so not bad, right now, yeah?”
“I… suppose you’re right.” Jon tilts his head back to the ceiling. “I’ll save that one for a rainy day, then.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Martin teases, and strokes his hair.
Jon says nothing asides a little “hm” that’s mostly just an exhale and nothing else, but he relaxes into the touch, Martin’s fingers at his scalp, and it’s just another example. They don’t have to bare everything to bare their souls.
Jon falls asleep first, like that. It’s the only way to get him to settle sometimes, drawing him into bed with him, and it’s not often Martin’s the last one awake. He keeps playing with Jon’s hair, just a little, watching him sleep. Taking in the curve of his jaw and the stubble on his chin and the way his lips part in sleep. How peaceful he can be as just Jon. It nearly takes Martin’s breath away with fondness.
No, maybe they don’t know each other as well as they could, but Martin believes that now, for now, they’re very much well on their way.