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God, and it really shouldn’t be a thing. Martin knows better, has known better, has stated the facts for years and somehow managed to completely steer around them.
Jon’s down at the market, meeting the town, breathing in bloodless air, and Martin-
Well, to put it frankly, Martin is damp and feels like shit.
The hair is too long, first off. He hasn’t cut it, didn’t bother for the last- Christ, almost a year- because why would it have mattered when nobody ever saw him? Even through the curls, it seems to hang limp and cold, like seaweed. It brushes his neck and makes him flinch when he pulls the hair tie of the day out.
And from there- eugh. There’s just too much , in all the wrong places, like someone spilled him all over his skeleton. It all sticks together as he hangs up his towel, dumps his clothes in the washing machine, falls out of his head over and over to avoid his chest, his legs, his stomach, himself.
One p.m. finds him standing like a freckled ghost in the hallway, absently scratching at his mysteriously dry elbow as he walks with too-big feet attached to too-wide legs to a bed that creaks loud enough to wake the dead, but begrudgingly supports his weight. He wouldn’t blame it if it collapsed, honestly, if the whole rickety house just gave up and let him and the pillows be sucked into a sinkhole. He doesn’t want to die, he thinks, just be hidden, entombed.
He pulls the covers up and wishes they were clay as his breathing comes faster and faster, shakier and shakier, like a self-contained earthquake. There’s no one else around, but he tries to muffle his pained sounds, curling up and curling up and flinching away from his own touch, and fuck , why can’t he just be over this, why can’t he feel okay?
If he’s using the metaphor of roots, well then, there’s a whole goddamn tree of insecurity sprouting out of his head. Some days it’s better, some days he lets himself be seen. Today, well. Today it’s worse, and he wants to scorch out the eyes of everyone who has ever looked at him and thought he could stand to lose some weight .
Martin knows, he knows, he really does. The world is not innately awful, and neither are other people, but he can feel their eyes on his curled-in form now, crawling, writhing, slipping into every crack and seeing everything he doesn’t want to be as he chokes on tears and the dead air of under-the-sheets.
He should get dressed. Layers of fabric, that helps.
First is the binder, snapped as tight as it can go and yanked over his head as quickly as possible. Martin feels his mouth tighten bitterly as he pulls it into place, letting the elastic thwip meanly at his skin. It’s not tight enough, never has been, never will be, and he remembers crying, not out of relief, but out of frustration, when he’d first bought one. Binders were supposed to be the thing that fixed it, that made things start to feel better, but instead all he could see was the still-present curve, the way his stomach rolled out from his shorts and his chest, and he’d sobbed until the sun went down outside the curtains.
Boxers, next, then sweatpants, because honestly, is he going to wear something with even a hint of a tight waistband after that. He doesn’t even register which ones they are, just tugs them up over his hips and tries not to let the fabric brush against him until they’re on and he can move forward with it. He’s always worn his pants slightly too high, sometimes covering his belly button, as a reminder, as a feeble shield.
Finally, he reaches into his backpack, grabbing a bulky, mustard-yellow jumper and slipping it on with a breath, not of relief, just of finality. It’s done. He’s covered. Jon will come back soon, with armfuls of food and new clothes, and Martin will say he just feels a little sick, maybe he’s allergic to something in the fields, can he go lie down and eat later? And after, when Jon’s forgotten that he never got up to have dinner, when arms wrap around the bulk of him and hands find his hips as Jon sleepily mumbles love into Martin’s shoulder, well, he’ll just make sure not to tense up too much.
Oh, who is he kidding. He’ll eat on reflex, and he’ll cry to Jon on reflex, and he’ll never fucking change because nothing being different means nothing gets harder. Fucking pathetic.
Martin sits down on the bed, and shifts his legs so they won’t touch each other, and bites his nails down to the quick as his breaths come out wrong over and over. The binder doesn’t help, cinching him in like earth, tight-packed and hidden like a crumbling fossil.
And that’s all he is, really. Is there anything left of him for Jon to love? Was there anything that had earned it to begin with?
Martin looks down at his hands, and he’s faintly aware they are clenching, and the fat of his neck brushes against his chin as he stares detachedly at the pink blooming at the spots where he chewed at the skin a bit too far and suddenly it’s too much, too much, too much. He trembles and shakes and he shatters to fucking pieces.
“Martin? Martin, I’m back.”
The words find their way to his ears, distorted and muffled, a million years away. Who’s calling for him? Why would they?
He’s on… a beach. His beach. His knees, damp from sitting in the pearly sand for so long, are near swallowed by a thick mist. Good. That’s good.
Not enough.
He draws up the fog around him, creates… something. Protection. Hiding. That’s good, too. He doesn’t want to be seen, not now. Maybe not ever.
A quiet thud. Footsteps? A knock? He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care.
“Are you in there? I have a few different options for dinner, and I don’t know which to…”
He lets the mist flow into his ears, drowning out the rest of the sentence. Unseen, unneeded, unwatched. Martin spreads himself out on the beach and the tide sweeps uncaringly over him. Faintly, he’s aware that he’s being disappointing. This has happened before, he knows the tune of the cold spray of seawater well, and here he is, indulging again, tucking himself away for what? To feel better? Martin doesn’t feel strictly better , just- less. Like he’s wearing earplugs.
“Oh Christ, you- I- I just found you, I can’t lose you again.”
Such loyalty to someone who really treats you very badly. Elias’s voice floats into his mind, and he chokes out a laugh through a sob. How things have changed.
He hardly notices his fog dissolving, too caught up in a full bodied shudder at the memory of someone touching his every imperfection with hands like marble and blank eyes like frozen steel.
“It’s alright, it’s okay, I’m here for you, Martin.”
He’s shaking. His jumper is sticking to his skin with sweat. There is a hand ghosting along his jaw.
Martin is still, ironically, damp and feeling like shit.
“ There you are .”
Jon’s arms wrap around him, and he breathes , gasping in the comfortingly stale air of the bedroom as his fingers twitch back to life, scrabbling for a hold. He’s crying still, and Christ his ribs ache, his ankles are bent at an uncomfortable angle beneath him as he gags on his tears. Through his blurry eyes, he can see that the light in the room is the golden-orange of a fast approaching sunset.
“I- I’m so- sor-ry- I tho- thought I could b- be bett-ter f-for you-”
Jon just hugs him tighter, murmuring into the side of his neck, hair brushing against his cheek, and he moves in such a genuine, loving way that Martin can’t help but take it.
“I love you, you’re not going anywhere, everything’s okay.”
Martin pushes him back slightly and just looks at him, hands gripping his bony shoulders like he’s the last real thing on Earth (which he is, sort of) and after a moment, kisses him like it’s the only thing keeping him alive (scarily close to the truth). It’s awkward and they’re both oddly sticky, Jon’s all tangled angles and Martin’s still crying a little and he couldn’t fucking care less.
It’s an excellent kiss.
One of them breaks off first, probably Jon, doing the sensible thing for once, and they share breaths for a moment, Martin’s eyes fluttering open. He snorts as Jon flinches at the leftover tears that flick at him off Martin’s eyelashes, exchanging a fond look before Jon’s face melts back into concern.
“What- what happened , Martin? I-I came back and you were-”
Martin looks down, a hot wash of shame coming over him as he realizes how it must have looked. How- god, it must’ve been just like before for him. Martin had had months to get used to the Lonely. It was like Jon had figured out how to dive before ever swimming. And to make him do that again?
“I- that’s- it doesn’t matter. I’m alright, and you’re alright.”
Martin smiles weakly around the lump in his throat at him. Jon’s face does something upset and scrunchy, and they’re hugging again, knees bumping against each other as Martin sits up further and Jon shuffles forward.
“Please, tell me, I- I want to know if I can make it better.”
And fuck, it’s sad how much Martin needs those words. He can feel his fingers again as he lets a few shuddery tears run their course into Jon’s shoulder.
“Just- got out the shower and-”
He makes a vague bleagh noise. Jon nods, a hand coming up to grip his shoulder.
“I-it was m’ hair that did it, really. Everything else just sort of, um, t-tumbled out after.”
Jon’s fingers smooth over the wrinkles in his jumper as he mutters into Martin’s breastbone.
“I can cut it off, if you like?”
Martin sniffs, not unhappily.
“Dunno if I trust you with sharp objects any more than I would a four-year old-”
“I resent that-”
“ But , but- I- I’d like that.”
It comes out soft and thankful, a whisper of a prayer. The dying light of the day stains the room- their room- golden-brown and shimmering.
Jon takes his hand to pull him up, and the laugh that startles out of him as Martin falls into him, hands clasped with his, hair mussed, is near holy in its wholeness.
Fuck , that’s some good poetry. He’ll have to write that down after he finally gets that hair cut.