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By all means, this should be a perfect day. Jon knows that, even cherishes the feeling. The warm morning light washing over their house, day with nothing planned except enjoying his fiancés company. Birds singing, it's so domestic he wants to be sick. A scene taken right out of a Hallmark movie his fiancé secretly loves watching, one where everything ends happily ever after. Of course life isn't a Hallmark movie. Jon hates being reminded of that.
He doesn't know when he started dreading coming home from work, when their house no longer felt like home. All he knows is somewhere along the past four years, he fell out of love with Darby Allin. Google does nothing to help, he doesn't know why he thought it might, thought it would tell him what to do. More often than not, relationship questions he sees are about how to get over loving someone, how to stop loving them. Nothing about how to start loving again.
It breaks Jon's heart that he can't love Darby, not like he deserves to be loved. He deserves to be cherished, given the world. Jon can't do any of that for him anymore, not like he wishes he could. He spends more nights than he'd care to admit alone in the dark, drinking and begging his heart to do what he wants it to do. Pleading with it to just love Darby, like it had done once before, like it should be doing now and forever. But it's cold as ice, and every morning he wakes up without that love burning in his chest.
Yet it would be wrong to say Jon doesn't love him. Jon adores Darby, loves him even, but while he struggles with defining the line between platonic and romantic, he knows Darby is firmly on the side of platonic. That love, it's why he can't bring himself to break up with him. He knows it's unfair, he should be honest and end this. Except every day he puts it off until the next, and before he knows it, it's been months since he finally admitted to himself he didn't love his fiancé.
October 1st. It comes sooner than Jon wanted it to, selfishly he hoped the world would end before then so he wouldn't have to follow through on the promise he made himself. The day he swore he would find the courage to break up with Darby. Because it's unfair to both of them to keep this up, lead him on in a loveless relationship. In the hall outside the boiler room, Jon almost walks away. He's so close to doing it, but he remembers he's not a coward, he doesn't run from his problems, no matter how much he wishes he could.
Walking into the room, Jon takes a breath, steeling the churning in his gut and pushing away the dread in his heart. He has to do this. "Hey Darbs-" He can't do this.
"Yeah?"
Jon just shakes his head, ducking his head and cursing himself for not being able to get those words out. He made a fatal mistake. He looked into his eyes, saw the pure love and trust. Something he wishes with every fiber of his being he could mirror. "Just wanted to say good luck tonight, love you."
"Love you too." Darby grins, getting up and pulling him into a kiss. It gets face paint all over him, Jon should care more than he does.
Instantly, Jon kisses back, holding him close and pouring whatever memories of love he can into it. Pulling on the coat of a loving fiancé, because that's what Darby deserves. He's been through too much to endure another heartbreak, Jon can't do that to him. He loves him too much to do that, and can't hurt him. Not now, not ever.
So he sucks it up, carries on in the role of loving fiancé. Until that gets updated, when he turns into a loving husband. Loving to everyone else, Jon knows the truth. That he hasn't loved Darby in that way in years. But every morning, seeing the happiness in his husband, Jon thinks he can learn to be content in this, trapped in a loveless marriage for love.