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They stopped just beyond the threshold, staring awestruck at the world unfolding before them. They wore matching expressions of wonder and glee.
“Are we dreaming?” Martin asked.
“The same dream?” Jon replied in a haze.
“We have to be! This place is too perfect. There’s no way this is real!”
But it was. They squeezed each other’s hands a little tighter to confirm they were both, in fact, awake, and standing just inside the door of this very real shop in this real village just a thirty minute walk from Daisy’s cabin. The shop was overflowing. Every shelf and countertop was covered in piles, and so was much – in fact, most – of the floor space.
Books and DVDs.
So. Many. Books. And. DVDs.
The entire front space of the shop was overflowing with movies and the occasional children’s or comic book, and up a small set of stairs beyond the counter was another room so full of books you couldn’t read them all in two lifetimes. Jon was already drifting towards that room like someone called by some otherworldly power – the nice kind, for once. Martin was being summoned in the other direction, through the shelves towards the massive wall in the back of the room that was entirely covered, top to bottom, by DVDs. There were stacks in front of the shelves so high you’d have to move most of them to see what was on the bottom shelves. Martin’s heart soared at the challenge.
The safehouse didn’t have a lot of things in the way of modern luxuries. Running water, an electric kettle. They were lucky to have so much as a refrigerator and a washing machine. But one luxury they did have was a small television in the living room. It didn’t get access to any channels at all, but it was just old enough that it came with a built in DVD slot.
Martin was about to take full advantage of that fact.
*
By the time they found each other again, the amount of cheap DVDs Martin had selected made up their own significant pile on the floor beside him, where he sat perusing the last shelf of the family movies section. The fact that there was even a semblance of a system in this place was beyond impressive. Jon put his stack of books next to the DVDs and knelt beside Martin. “Enjoying yourself?”
“You have no idea. They have films in here I’d totally forgotten existed. And some I’ve been meaning to watch for years! And look at this!” Martin grabbed a handful of pink covers and held them up proudly. “Barbie movies! I’m only getting my favorites but I’d completely forgotten how much I love these!”
“Barbie? Really?” Jon looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be skeptical or disgusted. It was what Martin privately referred to as their “first-year archivist face”.
“Don’t give me that!” Martin smacked the covers lightly at Jon’s arm before returning them to the Pile. “They’re sweet and have beautiful friendships that are kind of perfect when you’re a lonely kid, and the songs are sometimes really pretty! Also the pets are adorable. The villain songs are ridiculous but in like an amazing way, like there’s this one where some evil rats are just singing about cheese, and–” Martin cut himself off when he found Jon staring at him with some kind of expression he couldn’t quite interpret. “What? Are you that ashamed of your boyfriend loving Barbie movies?”
The teasing tone startled Jon out of his thoughts. “No, actually,” they said with surprising shyness. “I was…Will you tell me more? About why you like them?”
“Oh…Sure?” The question was surprising, but Martin was never one to pass up an open invitation to infodump. “Well, the animation style is really particular and there’s something about it I always really loved. As a kid I would actually try to copy the way the characters moved. Something about the animation just made them seem so…I don’t know, elegant? And I was a clumsy kid, always in the way and stumbling around and there was something about moving my arms like a Barbie character that made me feel really, I dunno, pretty? It’s silly, I know, but it was nice.” Martin had completely forgotten about scanning the shelf for more films at this point, lost in the thrill of prattling on about something he cared about. “And I know the plots can be simplistic and the characterizations can be silly, but they were also really relatable a lot of the time, you know? Like there’s this dragon in Rapunzel? Penelope? She was always my favorite. Her dad was all about wanting her to be a big mighty dragon, but she really doesn’t want to be some scary beast and she’s bad at breathing fire, yet she doesn’t want to let him down and I…Well, I guess I could sort of relate, you know? Not to the fire thing, obviously but. You know. Parent being constantly disappointed, expecting you to be something you know deep down you’re not, caring about a parent who doesn’t love you for who you are…Ah. Heh.” Marin rubbed the back of his neck. “Guess these films meant more to me than I realized, looking back.”
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Jon said with a fond smile. “Keep going. If you want.”
“This seriously can’t be the best use of our ti–”
“No, I mean it! It’s…nice.” A barely detectible flush crept across Jon’s dark cheeks. “Seeing you like this. Passionate. I, uh. I know it doesn’t happen a lot with things from your childhood and it’s. Well. It’s a rather lovely look on you.”
Martin stared, unsure if he should laugh or cry. He was still getting used to this; being appreciated and wanted. Being…admired, by someone who truly cared. Someone who even cared enough to listen to him going on about Barbie movies. How’d he ever get so lucky?
Before he’d even made the conscious decision to, he leaned towards Jon and pressed a soft, gentle kiss to their lips. The love in Jon’s eyes when he leaned back warmed every inch of Martin’s insides. “Alright, so –”
He managed to keep talking about his favorite Barbie movies all the way through them dragging their selections to the counter, and for at least part of the walk back to the cabin.
That night, the two of them curled up before the tiny, ancient television, and Martin got to share some of his old favorites with the person he loved, and he looked forward to hearing Jon infodump about all the books he purchased in the morning.