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“Jon!” Martin crashed through the door to the safe house, locking it for all the good it would do and drawing the curtain to block out the all seeing sky.
As Jon put so eloquently before losing consciousness, it was looking back, and Martin had zero desire to engage in a staring contest. He doubted the efficacy of such an action but it calmed the animal part of his brain that didn’t enjoy being watched and allowed him to focus all of his attentions on the crumpled man folded up on the floor. It hadn’t been an easy drop. Jon’s arm was twisted uncomfortably beneath his body, the side of his face that impacted the floor blossoming into a bruise that didn’t begin the healing process like Martin expected it to.
“Jon?” Kneeling, Martin gently turned his cheek toward him, brushing a thumb over the contused bone, swollen and hot. There was no response; not a groan or a flicker to reassure Martin that there was anything left of Jon at all and he swallowed down the clot of emotion coating his throat like ash and dust. He felt feverish, and when Martin lifted him off the floor, Jon hung lax and loose, stomach rising and falling unevenly when he breathed. With his head thrown over his arm, Jon gaped like a fish, mouth slack and accentuating his irregular wheezing. “Oh, darling.” It sounded neither comfortable nor easy, strained like a broken bellows. Under his hands Jon’s muscles spasmed and Martin wanted to get him as comfortable as possible, whisking him to the bedroom and laying him down among bedclothes still unmade from this morning. “Hey now, it’s time to wake up.” He swept damp and messy strands away from his face, noting his ashen pallor now accented by the flush settling so high in his face.
Martin spent the next quarter hour carefully spooning dosed tea into Jon, holding him close in his lap and counting down the minutes until it was supposed to take effect and rocking them both. Frowning, he pressed his lips against his blistering forehead, hoping, wishing for a change, however slight, and there was none. If anything the fever had risen and Martin perversely found himself praying that the Eye would protect him. It could do them this one favor couldn’t it? It’d taken everything else. Hurt them. Almost torn them apart.
Thoughts like circling vultures followed Martin wherever he went. Fear and anxiety and the feeling of being watched made the small hairs on the back of his neck stand up and as much as he wanted to be with Jon, sit with him, watch him, protect him, the silence only made it worse. So, wrist deep in sudsy water Martin methodically scrubbed their breakfast dishes, fighting back tears because this morning everything had been different. Almost hopeful.
And now--
Martin was jolted from his thoughts by a crash, followed by harsh, damp coughing, and he was sprinting to the bed room they shared with his hands on him in seconds, drawing a strangled moan from where Jon was drowning on the floor.
“I’m sorry, love, I’m sorry.” Jon was on his back, hugging his stomach, viscous, black ink streaming from his lips, his nose, his eyes like oily tears. Gently, Martin turned him onto his side, petting back his sweat soaked curls and holding him there as the coughing eased and he labored for air, sweat lining his face in a thin sheen. “You’re alright, breathe, darling.” His skin was a brand against Martin’s, hot and dry, fever burning through him like a prairie fire. “Jon?” Cradled there, in Martin’s hands, glassy brown slipped over him like a river over stone and he laid limp and kitten-weak on the floor like that for long moments until his seeking, searching eyes fluttered shut again. With shaking fingers, Martin smudged the sticky black tracing the curvature of his cheek before realizing it had been too long dried there and leaving to fetch a cloth. With care, he scrubbed away the residue, tugging off the oversized tee before rinsing away the mess and sweeping down his neck, the shallow wells above his collar bones, letting the air wick away the heat buried like coals banked beneath his breast bone. Rather than risk another article of clothing (of Martin’s clothing) he gathered up Jon’s wayward limbs and tucked him between the sheets without before settling down beside him, hand moving over his brow, along his jaw, memorizing familiar planes to soothe himself to sleep.
Martin woke later, drenched in sweat from the spike in Jon’s fever. He was restless with it, falling in and out of static and statement and Martin lost track of how many times he begged Jon to come back to him, to resist whatever was trying to steal him away because he belonged here with him. Though the light no longer changed, Martin spent what seemed like hours running a damp flannel over Jon’s hot skin as he shifted fitfully on the pillows. There was nothing to do for it but persist, last long enough to win out over the Eye’s cruel machinations, whatever they might be.
“I’m here, darling.” Bright, acid green lit up the room in flashes, not unlike a lightning bug trapped in a jar, drawing a distorted magnetic tape whimper from the depths of his throat. “Hush, now.” Carefully, Martin slid an arm under Jon to prop him up, tipping a mouthful of water into him at a time. “Jon.” Firm and demanding, Martin shook him by a narrow shoulder, the tide of fear rising higher and higher and threatening to close over his head.
If he could just slip back into the Lonely for a little while--
The sudden chill and scent of seasalt in the air shocked him out of the all too easy descent.
“Alright, love.” Muttering mostly to himself Martin pressed yet another kiss to his forehead, watching his chest hitch unevenly with a harsh, agonal breath. Jon may not be altogether human, but Martin wasn’t sure anything could burn like this for so long without doing permanent harm. He lifted a thin hand, kisses lingering over each knuckle, and went to run a tepid bath. Utterly silent, Jon sank, head pillowed on a folded towel and held above the water because he wasn’t able to hold himself. Slowly, Martin cupped water over his shoulders, drawing damp fingers through tangled curls, again and again, thumbing carefully over the still angry bruise, droplets like tears carving through the watercolor wash still clinging. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw a mark remain this long. “Come on Jon, I can’t wake for you, dearest.” Murmuring sweet nothings he continued, soaking his hair and clearing away the tenacious inky stains from nigh translucent brown vellum.
“Mmmah…” Jon tried to speak, attempt limned with the Beholding’s corruption, and he coughed a river of iridescent black that cascaded down his naked chest, billowing out in obsidian clouds over the water’s surface. “S’s’sor…” Like a skipping cassette, and the second gush threatened to choke him. Head bowed, a few tears dripped into the tub like the indiscriminate ring of a wind chime.
“Shh, shhh.” Please, let this be like a poison leaving his body, a purge of some sort that signalled the end of whatever Jonah had done to him. “Just relax, love, let me take care of you.” A soft cloth lathered with a neutral smelling soap removed the ichor, and Martin massaged shampoo into his scalp, careful to keep it out of Jon’s heavily blinking eyes until they closed again. Dried and dressed, this time with just the slightest bit of awareness, Martin tucked them both in, tugging Jon’s damp head under his chin and running his palm up and down the smooth skin of his back, fingertips ghosting over the raised edges of scars. Jon was sick several more times before finally falling into a deep, restorative sleep, and Martin wasn’t sure what he was going to tell Daisy about her sheets if--when all this was over, but he didn’t need anymore guilt hanging over his head.
A strangled noise roused Martin from where he was curled around the empty Jon-shaped space and bleary eyed he raked over the room to find him peeking through a slit in the curtain. Even from the bed Martin could see how much his hands trembled and he pushed himself up out of the warmth to go to him.
“Jon-darling. You shouldn’t be out of bed.” As though on cue, his knees buckled under him and Martin rushed to catch him up, lowering them both to the cold floor. Jon held on so tight to his jumper his knuckles turned white and he pressed the heel of his palm hard against his temple, shaking, breath hitching, eyes huge and wet and scared.
“M’Martin.”
“Shh. You’re alright.” Gently, he pressed a kiss into his hair, over the shadow that remained of the bruise. Jon's voice was his own again, raw and ravaged as he pulled away to stare, already Seeing, already Knowing, into Martin’s eyes.
“Wh’what have I, I done?”