Chapter Text
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
***
The rancid bitterness of an unclean mouth tasted like rotting glue on Jon’s tongue. His joints felt tight, rotated like windup toys then left to bear the potential energy in perpetual tension. Syrupy sweat pasted dirt and hair to the raw skin of his neck while fervent sunshine lit the blood vessels in his eyelids, insisting upon its own existence despite his lack of acknowledgement.
Rest. All Jon wanted was for his ugly, aching body to bleed the pain into the dirt, return it to the earth just long enough for him to sleep. Then he’d reshoulder the mantle of monster, heaving and buckling as he trudged through the rotten Earth with Martin, the man who held the monster’s hand.
Martin.
Oh no. No, no, no, no. Martin. The man with poet’s eyes and a waterfall heart. Martin had come for him. Those beautiful eyes shining with tears and betrayal and fear. All Jon wanted was to protect the world. Save Martin. He had never felt more monstrous than when he was beholden by someone so good, so beloved.
Jon shot up from the hard ground on which he lay. Heavy softness fell to his lap and terrible heat pushed through him from his spine, into his belly. He let out a strangled cry of pain as Martin's arm brushed against his wound.
"Martin! Martin are you alright? Please, please wake up"
John crawled closer to where Martin was lying on his back. His palms kissed Martin's cheeks and he felt Martin's breath, hot and dry, pass over his cupping hands. A questioning moan creaked from Martin's lips as his eyes opened, squinting in the sun. Then,
"Jon? Oh God. Jon".
Twin drum beats of pain jolted through John's elbows as they crashed into the hard dirt. It was quickly forgotten as Martin's fists balled up in his collar, pulling him close for a wet, desperate kiss. Martin only pulls away to hiccup through the tears and smile. Oh God. He's smiling at Jon. It's been so long since he's seen Martin smile.
"Jon" Martin repeats his name, tears streaming into his smiling mouth. "We’re together."
"I’m so sorry, Martin." He had hurt Martin. Again.
"I'm not. We're together. You kept your promise after all." Martin gathered Jon's hands up in his own. His palms were warm and soft, as if he had just been nursing a cup of tea. Jon felt the pinching pain between his eyes begin to recede.
"I had you to set me right," Jon said. "Like always. I don’t know where I'd be without you Martin."
"Probably suspended over Jonah Magnus’s corpse, muttering about suffering for all eternity." Martin laughed for a moment until Jon's eyes began to cloud. "Hey, wait, wait. It was a joke," Martin spluttered. "I’m sorry. That looked terrifying just for the moments you were tethered." Martin ran one of his hands through Jon's hair before gently resting it along his jaw. Jon allowed his chin to be tilted up but did not meet Martin's eyes.
"You looked terrified." Jon said.
"I was."
"Of me.”
"I was. ...No, I wasn’t actually." John's eyes meet Martin's, blazing with disbelief. Martin smiled softly, resolute. "I was terrified you weren't you anymore. That the monsters had finally taken you from me," he said.
"Martin, I am the monster.” Tears pulled the grime on Jon’s face down to his chin.
"No, Jon. You’re not.” Martin pressed a kiss to one of Jon’s sleepless eyes, tasting the saltiness that clung to his lashes. “You're the man who dove into the coffin to save Daisy.” He kissed it’s twin. “You're the man who rescued me from the Lonely. Twice.” A kiss to the forehead that transitioned into tucking Jon beneath his chin, nuzzling into the familiar scent of his scalp. “You just saved the world, Jon. And you’re still here with me to see it." Martin said, his arms encircling Jon’s narrow shoulders.
Jon laughed into Martin’s chest. “That last bit is entirely thanks to you.” Martin pulled Jon in tighter while the latter wriggled so that he could wrap his arms around Martin’s waist.
Martin murmured into Jon’s hair. “Well, you saved the world. The least I could do was save you.” Jon felt the jostle of shared laughter. Clever man.
Martin pulled back and looked at Jon’s beaming face. He looked happy, but pale. As Martin reached a blood-soaked hand up to stroke Jon’s cheek, he remembered why.
“Jesus, Jon. I stabbed you!” Martin yelped. He reeled back, his hands bloody from where he had been holding Jon.
“That was my thought at the time too.” Jon offered with a smile all too wry for how much of his shirt was darkened by parts of him that should have remained safely enclosed within his skin.
“Jon, shut up and help me with first aid.” Martin said. Jon couldn’t help but laugh as a vision of the old, fussy Martin flashed in front of him. The stakes were rather more dire than Martin worrying that the tea wouldn’t be to his grumpy boss’s liking, but the familiarity filled Jon with warm nostalgia. He chuckled. Until bits of him burbled out over his belt.
“Right. Of course.” Jon sobered at the sensation. “Give me your jacket and I’ll hold pressure. Maybe you can find some help. An ambulance or-” Jon trailed off as he and Martin finally took in their surroundings. The two of them were seated in a crater in the dirt. Shallow, but about thirty feet in diameter. The smell of burnt plastic wafted through the air from where piles and piles of unwound tape sat melted and steaming along the crater’s perimeter.
“Oh dear.”