Chapter Text
In the wake of the Lonely, everything feels strange. The world is both alien and familiar, loud and achingly quiet.
Martin loses moments.
They walk down the misty beach for innumerable minutes, hand in hand. Martin marvels at that, at the ease with which Jon touches him. When he found him, when he placed his hands on Martin's cheeks and stared him in the eye, Saw him and let himself be Seen in turn. How that moment fell into the next, Jon's arms around him, hands in his hair and on his back, soothing circles into his chilled flesh. How tightly Martin held him back, fingers twisted into the wool of his jumper.
He remembers speaking, vaguely, Jon's assurances that he knew the way out. Awareness wavered, and they were holding hands, walking along the cove. Walking down the streets of London.
It's dark, Martin notices. He tilts his face towards the sky and tries to pick out the stars. He sees satellites instead, maybe; blinking lights that move as they move, growing distant, growing closer. White, white, red. A lighthouse, a warning. There is something here. You are too close.
Jon's hands in Martin's pockets. Searching for something— for his key, right, he needs that to unlock the doors to the tenement, to his flat. How did they get here? Martin doesn't know how long they walked. His feet are numb, just like the rest of him, all except the spots Jon touched. The back of his head, his shoulder blades, clavicle to navel. His hand, still held tight in Jon's.
Martin blinks. He's laying down, staring at a small laundry basket, half full, sat by his door. When did they get to his room?
Where's Jon?
Oh. There, behind him, arm wrapped around his stomach and forehead pressed against his nape. Feet tangled with his ankles. The warmth of his body a searing brand against Martin's back, the warmth of a fire after hours in a winter storm. Flesh turned numb by cold; waking, pins and needles and blood vessels expanding, breaking. His skin will surely bruise, Martin thinks. Black and blue, purple and green. Yellow. Fading to normal, forgotten but for the time taken to heal. A distant memory, so far from now. Soon, as time ticks by even now. Every breath takes him further away.
The arm around him tightens, Jon curling closer. "Sleep," he whispers, and Martin does.