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1.
martin’s hand is warm.
martin’s hand is warm. when was the last time martin felt warm at all? now that he’s got heat in his fingers again, now that the cold is receding, martin realizes he genuinely can’t remember.
the lonely numbs you to everything, he thinks. and numbness is… it’s just what happens when you’re too cold for too long.
when had martin stopped feeling the chill? he flexes the fingers on his left hand, almost does the same with his right, before he remembers— oh, right. his hand is warm because it is wrapped tight in jon’s.
martin almost stumbles under the sudden weight of remembering he has a body. another thing he’d barely noticed: how long they’ve been walking. that they’re still walking. that the world around them has shifted from empty fog to dark concrete and city lights.
startled, martin blinks against a quiet incredulity. “oh.”
jon falters, turns to look at martin. “oh?”
“we’re… uh.” real? here? alive? together? martin’s not sure how he intends to finish that sentence. each word his brain supplies seems more unlikely than the last, and he can’t seem to decide which one marvels him the most. instead, he just asks: “w-where are we?”
“ah.” jon’s thumb brushes absently against the back of martin’s hand. it feels like sticking his hand into a bonfire. “your, um. your flat should be coming up? j-just another block or two…”
“m-my flat,” martin repeats blankly.
“yes.”
so martin takes a second look, and… yeah, god, the buildings are familiar. he recognizes the names on the street signs. they are close to his place. he walks this way from the tube, on the rare nights he actually leaves the institute.
“you said… you said we were going home?”
jon shrugs; martin feels it in their joined hands. “yes, i, uh. i hope you don’t, don’t mind me… er, knowing where you live.”
martin bites the inside of his cheek. jon said let’s go home and brought them to martin’s flat. “yeah, no, that’s, that’s fine, i think, given the. uh. circumstances.”
jon lets out a relieved sigh. “good. good, i. er. we should be getting close.”
“yeah, i know,” martin tells him. “i do live there.”
“right, yes.” jon huffs nervously. “you do. o-of course. yes.”
so, feeling more sure-footed, martin overtakes jon’s steps, pulling ahead on the dark sidewalk, and leads him up to his flat. this one has a peephole, because martin is a man who learns from his mistakes, thank you very much. he hesitates on the threshold, realizing he’ll need his hand back to let himself in, and realizing a second later that he doesn’t want to let go.
martin hunches his shoulders, swallowing thickly. “you… you’ll stay, right? w-with me?”
he’s not looking at jon, but martin still hears his sharp intake of breath, feels him shuddering on the exhale. “of course. there’s, there’s nowhere else i’d— i-i’m not going anywhere.”
martin’s shoulders slump, tension washing out away from him like a sudden pull of the tide. “okay. t-thank you.”
jon squeezes his hand, until martin looks over at him. “you don’t need to thank me. i-i… i should thank you for letting me into your space.”
and martin… martin doesn’t have the words for the way that makes him feel. “i’m just glad you came for me,” he admits, murmuring quietly.
“always,” jon says, “i’ll always come for you.”
martin shuts his eyes. he nods: an acceptance, an understanding. and then, finally feeling confident enough to do so without losing himself, martin slips his hand free from jon’s. his keys are probably back in his bag in his office, but he keeps a spare in a lockbox next to his door that he clumsily opens, putting in the combination with his shaky, clammy hands.
the door squeaks open — old hinges. annoying sometimes, but at least martin will know if anyone tries to get in — and hovers on the threshold, trying not to be awkward.
he doesn’t do this. doesn’t bring people here with him. he doesn’t know the script for this on his best days.
“right, well—” martin says, at the same time as jon says, “so, shall we—”
they both stop.
they look at each other.
jon’s lips quietly slip into a shaky smile. cautiously, martin holds a hand out. jon’s eyes soften, and he takes it.
“come on,” martin says, and together, to go inside.
2.
the train is uncomfortable in too many ways to count.
it’s cold, but martin’s whole body still manages to feel clammy. there’s too many people and martin feels crowded, but then the compartment empties at one of the mid-way stops and suddenly it’s too empty and martin feels deeply, unnervingly exposed.
at least the crowd offered some kind of protection, some kind of shield from, from prying eyes, or monsters, or the police... he clamps his hands into tight fists until he feels his short nails press into his palms.
the last time martin was on a train he was going to his mum’s funeral. it had been overcast, then. not quite raining, just dull and gray. fitting, he’d thought at the time. martin had worn his suit on the train because he didn’t want to wrinkle it in his bag. his mum would’ve hated that — her son looking like a rumpled slob, like someone who couldn’t afford to keep his things neat.
he’d sat there for the whole journey, stiff and uncomfortable and shot all the way through with an ache that didn’t fit right inside of him; too big one moment, too small the next.
he hadn’t cried. not on the train, not at the funeral. not until he got back to his own, lonely flat three days later and realized that everyone he had in the whole world was gone, now. he’d sat on the floor at the foot of his bed and hid his face in the crook of his elbow and lost half an hour to quiet, dizzying tears.
it’s overcast again today.
martin’s been watching the scenery pass by; watching the cityscapes of london turn to farmland and now to sloping, rolling hills, and all backlit by the endless gray the sky has decided to give them today. he can’t even see the sun; can’t use it to gauge the time. it could be 10:00 in the morning or it could be the middle of the afternoon and martin would have no idea.
how long have they been on this train? martin’s mind still tingles with static — not the creaky static of a tape being played back that he’s starting to associate with jon, but the fuzzy white noise that’s been a constant backdrop to his entire solitary existence this past year.
he’s not sure if it will ever leave him entirely, but in moments like this it creeps up on him until it seems to match the frequency of his neurons, making his whole body feel like… like background noise, like he’s blending into the air around him, completely detached from anything that could be called a self.
it’s like he’s drifting out to sea on gentle waves, and he’s not present enough to even want to try and swim to shore.
and then: a gentle touch on his arm.
taking a sharp breath, he blinks, turns his head away from the window. jon is looking up at him, head tilted just so, brown eyes soft yet piercing. he gives martin’s arm a squeeze with one hand, rubs his other over martin’s shoulder in a gentle, steady rhythm.
“are you here?” he asks, low and gentle. “are you with me?”
martin’s face heats with a blush — a flush that tingles like capillaries expanding; with shyness, and embarrassment at being caught, even though he’s not sure what he’s been caught doing, entirely. his voice shakes a little bit when he finally finds it. “um. y-yeah?”
jon hums. he drops his hand from martin’s shoulder, instead wraps it around his wrist, a steady pressure. “good. you seemed like you were… drifting, a bit?”
martin ducks his head. “maybe. i-i’m here now, though.”
jon’s thumb is resting right above martin’s pulse point, and martin is so aware of it he swears he can feel the whorls and twists of jon’s fingerprint on his skin when he moves it, in a gentle back-and-forth motion. “i’m glad.”
martin nods slowly. “what time is it? how much longer?”
“we’ll be in edinburgh in an hour, and then we need to change trains,” jon tells him, pulling his phone out of his pocket one-handed (leaving the other still resting on martin’s wrist) as he goes. “and it’s… half-two.”
“okay.” martin slouches down in his seat, rubs at his eyes, pushing away the lingering vestiges of static. “okay, right. thanks.”
jon is looking at him when martin opens his eyes again, quiet and considering. “are you tired?”
“maybe, uh. m-maybe a little,” martin admits.
“y-you should rest.”
“oh, i… i’ll be okay. we, we’ll be there soon enough.”
“i-i can wake you when we stop,” jon offers. “h-here, you can—” he shimmies around in his seat, sits up straighter. gingerly, he tugs on martin’s arm. confused, martin lets himself be guided until— oh. jon pulls martin into his side, lets martin lay his head on his shoulder. it should be funny, or awkward, being so much taller than jon, but the way they’re sitting, it… it works. it really works. heart stumbling like a fawn learning to walk, martin tucks himself closer, burrows his face into jon’s cardigan, pressing against his side from shoulder to thigh.
slowly, martin slips his arm around jon’s middle, tucks his hand between jon’s cardigan and his t-shirt. without looking up, he asks, “is this… okay?”
jon lets out a long, deep breath. “yes.” clumsily, he wraps his own arm around martin’s shoulders, holds him close. “yes, this is. this is good.”
faintly, martin becomes aware of the fact that he’s smiling into jon’s neck. he lets his eyes closed, and drifts off like that: warm and protected.
3.
in his dream, martin walks on across endless stretches of pale sand.
he doesn’t know how he got here, only that he’s been here for a long, long time. some part of him feels like he’s always been here. another part of him wishes he could find a way to feel anything but indifference about that.
the fog follows him; it’s almost thin enough he doesn’t notice, but it shadows his every move. he can see it sliding past him, snaking around his ankles. it tugs at his arms, pulls at him like an insistent, needy toddler. the fog says stay; whispers of filling martin’s chest with the same thick nothing that is all around him.
but martin doesn’t slow down. he knows, in that strange logic of dreams, that he can’t stop. he has somewhere he needs to be... right? maybe… is there someone he needs to find?
there’s something, he knows. even if he can’t remember what that might be, he’s… he’s sure of that.
he thinks he’s sure of that.
he just… he needs to keep going. he needs to go… somewhere.
he needs to find…
“martin?”
martin opens his eyes.
it’s dark, but he can tell, somewhere deep in his bones, that the fog is gone, was never here in this room with him. jon’s face swims into focus, hovering above martin, eyes wide and dark and endlessly lovely in the faint moonlight filtering in through a crack in the curtains.
"jon?" martin croaks.
jon nods. "i'm here."
martin hums. of course he is. he's been right there all night.
“in your sleep, you were…” jon strokes his thumb over martin’s cheek, fingertips behind his ear. he is so unspeakably, unbearably gentle… it nearly burns. martin’s still not 100% sure how to handle this, how to take the proffered hand and let himself be held, be cared for. “you were calling for me.”
“oh.” the dream is already fading; all that remains is the dense cotton-headed feeling, the memory of cold fog coiling around everything that makes martin martin. “i was dreaming… i think i was looking for…” he swallows. “i think… i was lost.”
jon breathes out slowly. “you’re here. you’re here now.”
“i’m here,” martin confirms, and he’s not sure if he’s saying it for himself or for jon. “you’re here with me.”
“i am,” jon agrees, “i’m here with you.”
martin rubs his hands over his eyes. “thanks for waking me.”
“you’re welcome,” jon answers. “would you, ah… would you like to talk about it?”
martin hums. jon is still hovering over him, one hand on his shoulder, legs tucked under himself. he looks small, like he always does when he gets scared. martin doesn’t like making jon scared, but… maybe that’s just the point of them, these days. being afraid for each other. it’s all but second nature by now.
“i… i dunno?”
jon nods slowly. “okay. that’s, that’s okay.”
“can’t even remember much,” martin elaborates. “just… uh, c-cold dreams.”
“oh.”
“yeah…”
“i can—” slowly, hesitantly, like he’s somehow (somehow!) unsure of his welcome, jon scooches down and settles back in bed, but this time he curls his arm around martin, pulls him in. “er. i’ll keep you warm.”
martin likes that idea. he’s too sleepy not to like it. he’s not good at this, but he can’t find the energy to fire off any of the alarms that normally flit across his brain.
jon is warm, is the thing.
martin slides his hand up jon’s chest, twists his fingers into the fabric of his shirt to keep him there, yawning and nodding into his pillow. “okay,” he agrees sleepily. “okay.”
+1.
martin wakes the next day with sun in his eyes.
he blinks away heavy sleep, lets the world crystallize around him. the same crack in the nearly-drawn shades from last night lets in enough light to warm martin’s cheeks. the bed is empty, but somehow, martin manages to keep calm about it. it strikes him as totally mundane, waking up to find jon already up and about; he’s always been an early riser.
martin thinks back to the early days, that first week he’d spent living in the archives, when jon had seen him in his boxers because he’d been at work at 6:45 in the morning. martin had been mortified, at the time, but thinking back on it all he can do is smile. it’s funny, with a few years and so much tragedy between himself and the initial embarrassment.
martin sits up and stretches, shoulders popping and back cracking. he might barely be in his 30’s, but no one seems to have told his joints that. he climbs out of bed clumsily, drowsy and not in any rush. he can hear sounds of life filtering in through the bedroom door, left slightly ajar; “puttering,” he wants to call it.
he and jon are only three days into their tenure as outlaws, actual fugitives from the law, and it’s only their second morning waking up in daisy’s safehouse, but. these sounds: the faint clink of dishes. quiet footfalls on old linoleum. the swish of fabric. these are the sounds that drift through a home, he thinks.
martin pulls on his discarded flannel pajama bottoms, swaps his t for a long-sleeved shirt against the gentle bite of morning. it isn’t cold in the way martin’s life has been so devoid of warmth lately. it’s just early autumn in scotland, and the cottage has no central heating. the chill that raises goosebumps up and down martin’s arms is, thankfully, of the perfectly natural variety.
the floorboards in the hall are quiet under martin’s socked feet. when he rounds the final corner and slips out into the kitchen, martin is met with something bright and golden: jon moving about the kitchen, serene in the morning light. standing on his toes to pull a mug down from the cupboard, because martin’s the one who uses them 90% of the time so he’s never bothered moving them to a lower shelf.
martin pauses in the doorway. takes a moment just to watch.
martin has never seen jon looking so relaxed as he does here, which. might seem strange, given… everything, but. but martin gets it. every minute he spends here unwinds more and more of the tension that’s been piling on his shoulders from the last three years of his life.
martin doesn’t notice himself letting out a besotted sigh until jon turns, raising his eyebrows and smiling as he looks back at martin. “hi.”
“hi.”
jon sets his mug on the counter, turns to fully face martin. “did you sleep alright? i-i mean, after…” he waves his hand.
“yeah.” martin nods. he doesn’t return the question — he knows enough about where jon goes in his dreams to not want to drag him back there when he’s awake and everything feels so calm. instead, he just smiles. “i did, actually.”
“good,” jon says. “i was going to make tea, if you’d like some?”
martin nods. “sure. that’d be nice.”
jon hums and turns back around to take down another mug. “have a seat,” he throws back over his shoulder, soft as the sunlight silhouetting his face as he fills the kettle with water. “i’ll bring it over when it’s ready.”
so martin pulls out a chair at the kitchen table, eases into it, cradles his hands together in his lap. jon hums while he works — not like musical humming, but just an assessing “hmm” or an approving “mhmm” carefully punctuating his every action like the world’s most dear collection of verbal apostrophes and commas.
jon turns and brings the tea over a moment later, sets his own cup down by an empty seat and then carries martin’s to him, holding it out. martin takes it with one hand, sets it on the tabletop, and takes jon’s hand. he pulls him close, leans up, and meets jon for a quick-yet-unbelievably tender kiss.
“thanks,” martin breathes, as he pulls back, absolutely sure his entire face has caught on fire.
jon hangs there a moment, one hand braced on the table, mouth slightly open, not moving.
it’s… gratifying.
martin has to bite back a smile. “you alright there?”
jon blinks, eyes snapping up and focusing on martin’s face. “uh.”
his fingers tighten around the edge of the table, and then jon brings his free hand up to cup martin’s cheek, and swoops back in, catching martin’s mouth for a kiss that is more ardent and passionate by leagues. awestruck, martin is utterly unable to do anything but let himself be kissed, and kiss right back.
(he only wishes he’d remembered to brush his teeth before he came out here, but. it’s a nice moment, anyway.)
the kiss ends with a sigh, a contented puff of breath martin feels on his lips as they draw apart, and jon is smiling when martin’s eyes finally flutter open.
he clears his throat, trails his hand from martin’s cheek into his hair, tucking it behind his ear, carding his fingers through it until finally settling at the nape of martin’s neck. “i’m. yes, i’m alright.”
martin smiles. “yeah?”
“more than alright. i’m…”
“i love you,” martin tells him, and watches jon’s face split into a mirroring smile.
“you do? y-you still do?”
martin nods. it’s all he can do.
jon’s fingers tighten — not enough for discomfort, but more like a reminder, grounding, like he’s reassuring himself martin’s really there. “i love you, too.”
martin’s hands find their way to jon, one at his elbow, the other on his shoulder, half on his t-shirt, half on the warm skin of his neck. for the first time since… since he left the lonely, really, martin’s life is rooted solidly around him, real and tangible and gentle.
“we should take our tea outside,” martin suggests. “enjoy the weather while it’s still nice out, before it starts to turn”
jon hums. “that sounds nice. maybe we can go on a walk later. say hi to those lovely cows.”
“ooh, they were lovely.”
“they were,” jon agrees fondly.
jon offers martin a hand. martin takes it, lets jon haul him up out of his chair. they dawdle, undeniably, holding on for a moment, before dropping each other’s hands to replace that warmth with the ceramic of heated mugs and cardigans from the backs of chairs. the sun is out, the days still mild, but it’s early enough that the leftover blanket of cold from last night hasn’t yet burned off, and martin knows well enough by now he’ll need the extra layer even with jon beside him and tea steaming against his palm.
the door squeaks and the porch groans underfoot and it is all so hopelessly real it settles deep in martin. the sun shines on the back of his hands, and he sits next to jon on the top step. gentle, tentative, jon lays his head on martin’s shoulder, and martin instantly drops his head against jon’s.
when martin breathes out his lungs are clear of fog. “jon?”
“hmm?”
“is it… is it weird that this is… is it weird that i’m, erm. i-i’m so glad to be here?”
“why would that be weird?”
martin huffs. “i mean, we’re on the run? after something really terrible happened? peter lukas, jonah magnus, et cetera, et cetera?”
“ah, yes.” martin feels jon shift as he nods his head, once. “i had, uh. i-i suppose i… wasn’t, er. thinking about that aspect of things.”
“really?” martin asks, incredulous, pulling away so he can look at jon.
jon picks up his head and peers back, shrugging. “it’s easy not to think about, wh-when. when it’s you and me. it doesn’t…” his voice fades out, quiet and unsure. he looks away, out over the highlands. martin gives him time, lets him sit with it until he can figure out where he’s going. “this doesn’t feel like something awful. it just feels like…”
the words “like coming home?” slip of martin’s mouth before he can find the types of walls he’s spent years building so carefully to stop him saying things like that.
jon just sighs, something velvet-soft coming across his face. he looks back at martin, picks up his hand, squeezes it. “just like that, yes.”
“yeah, that’s…” martin looks down at his hands. looks at jon’s fingers between his own. “yeah.”
“m-maybe… maybe it is strange, b-but. i, i think after e-everything, we… we deserve some. some niceness. some peace.”
and… even martin can’t argue with that. the desire for even just a minute of rest goes so deep it must go all the way down to the atomic level. “yeah.” he squeezes jon’s hand, sets his tea down beside him and wraps his other hand around jon’s, too. “maybe we do.”
he knows this — this moment of tranquility, this crystal-clear moment of humanity, this respite from every awful thing that has been clawing at them the last handful of years — is temporary; a calm before the storm. he knows he could wake up tomorrow shrouded in mist and aching from the cold. he knows basira could tell them to run again at a moment’s notice. he knows they might not even get that warning, that something dreadful could just as easily deposit itself on this very porch and rip apart the delicate poetry he and jon are weaving together with blood-stained fangs. he knows either one of them could have a very mundane bad day, a normal reaction to trauma and stress, just like any other person on the face of the earth.
but.
but for now, it’s good. for now, jon’s body is warm against martin’s, and the sun is still able to chase off the incoming autumn long enough that they can walk hand-in-hand and go see those very good cows down the road.
for now, martin can let himself feel like he’s home, and that can be good.