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Jon turns to their left, then to their right. Turns back to face their reflection directly, narrows their eyes. Bounces, just a little, on the tips of their toes, ignoring the heat prickling in their cheeks, ignoring his grandmother’s voice warning him of the dangers lurking within his reflection. Says, Hmmm, skeptical, but wondering. Bounces again. Maybe … ?
They turn back to their left. Looks over their shoulder and slowly rotates their torso, following the line of his chest in the mirror. Is that a faint swelling, there where before he has always been sharp and nearly concave? He rises up onto his heels, bounces. Hesitates a moment before reaching up and cupping their—their pec, with one hand, trying to imagine—is there perhaps a weight there that hasn’t been before? A curve rising to meet their palm? She pushes her palm up, a little higher, cupping the line of her chest, trying to decide if the artificial swell is larger than it was yesterday, or the week before, or the month before.
“Jon,” Martin calls through the closed door, “you’ve been in there half an hour. Can I at least come in to brush my teeth before bed?”
Jon huffs and lets her hand drop from her chest. “Fine,” she says, voice curt though she doesn’t mean it to be. “Door’s unlocked.”
“Oh, uh, okay,” Martin says, and then there’s the turning of the doorknob, and Jon sees Martin’s reflection appear in the mirror, peering out behind the door with one eye squinted half-shut as if to preserve Jon’s modesty. Between Jon’s scowl and Martin’s scrunched-up face half hidden behind the door, they make quite the picture.
“Oh,” Martin says again, clearly taking in Jon’s appearance—clad only in sleep shorts, their shirt crumpled on the floor next to their feet—and his eyes crinkle at the corners with the breadth of his smile. “Hi, love.”
Between Martin’s expression and the casual endearment, Jon’s ears go hot. She fights not to cover herself, not to curl her shoulders upward and hide herself beneath a scowl and crossed arms. She looks at Martin in the mirror, maintaining eye contact as Martin comes up behind her and slips his arms around Jon’s middle. Martin kisses Jon’s temple, rubs his stubbled cheek against the crown of Jon’s head. The breadth of his shoulders frame Jon’s in such a way that Jon idly thinks of matryoshka dolls: A perfect fit.
Well.
Almost perfect.
“It’s been thirteen weeks,” Jon says unhappily. They know they sound petulant. They don’t care.
Martin squeezes Jon gently. “It’s been only thirteen weeks,” he says, just as gently.
Jon wrinkles their nose. Glares at the reflection of their stubbornly flat chest. “Research indicates that breast growth is often one of the first effects of starting treatment, with some reporting development as early as only a few weeks. It’s been over three months. And nothing.”
Martin nuzzles Jon’s temple, presses a kiss to the corner of Jon’s scowl. “But your hormone levels are good, I thought?”
Jon scoffs. “Even if they are, they’re not exactly doing anything, are they.” She gestures, short and sharp, at the mirror. Beneath the embarrassed frustration, there’s a sliver of something cold and insidious in his throat. In the empty space of his rib cage. “Stupid,” he mutters, without meaning to. Then, meaning to, “This was a stupid idea.”
“Hey, hey.” One of Martin’s hands spreads wide on Jon’s belly, warm and broad. The other curls, lazy and familiar, around Jon’s hip. Martin dips just low enough to press his cheek to Jon’s; shuffles forward as he tugs Jon back towards him so no space remains between their bodies. “Give it a couple more weeks,” Martin says, breath curling against the curve of Jon’s jaw. Their reflection sways gently. It takes a moment for Jon to realize it’s not their reflection—it’s Martin, rocking them in a soothing arc. “Just until your next appointment. Be patient.”
Jon scoffs again. “‘Be patient,’ says the man who couldn’t wait a week for the local Tesco’s to restock Yorkshire Gold. I seem to recall you complaining at length every morning you had to suffer through drinking store brand. Even refused to take the bus out to the Sainsbury’s.”
In the mirror, Martin’s face screws up into a pout. “That,” he says primly, “is a matter of principle. And besides. I wasn’t that bad.”
“Weren’t you?” Jon asks. His mouth is twitching up into a smile despite himself. “‘We may be in the middle of nowhere, but I have standards,’” he says, pitching his voice upwards in an approximation of Martin’s higher tenor. “Went to the shop every day, if I recall correctly. Always came back in a right mood.”
“I had to walk a mile, uphill both ways, just to be disappointed,” Martin huffs. One big hand strokes over Jon’s belly, a gentle circle. “But fine, fine. You’ve made your point. Patience isn’t exactly my strongest suit, I get it.”
“Precisely. So. Pot, kettle, black.”
Martin rolls his eyes, but he gives Jon a little affectionate squeeze. “Fine, so I’m a hypocrite. Never said I wasn’t.” Then, gentler, “But it really hasn’t been that long. These things don’t happen overnight.”
Jon scowls at his reflection. At his stubbornly flat chest. “I know that,” he snaps. Then winces and screws her eyes shut, puts a hand over them so she stops looking, so her reflection can’t draw her in, can’t trap her there. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “It’s just—it’s—”
There’s a terrible tightness crawling up their throat, welling behind their eyes. She falters, presses her palm hard against his eye until sparks burst in the blackness of his vision. Martin, blessedly, doesn’t push him to continue. Jon knows he’s all but biting his tongue trying not to prompt Jon, It’s just what?
(This is what they’re learning, in the quiet of the aftermath. The give and take of a relationship. Learning how to communicate without terror beating them down. Martin learning to recognize Jon’s effort in the spaces between his words. Jon learning to explain the convoluted pathways of her thoughts without making Martin feel Less Than.)
“It’s just,” Jon says again, voice wobbling, “I haven’t—I haven’t noticed anything. I’m, I’m not—my chest isn’t, it’s not sore, and my hips aren’t aching, and my libido certainly hasn’t changed, and it’s—most people notice something by now, don’t they? So why not me? Is it—” and here he has to fight to catch his breath, fear—more familiar now to him than any other feeling save perhaps the desperation of hunger—clutching at his ribs—“Is it because of what I did? What my body did? Is this—is this what I deserve?”
Beneath his hand, throbbing below his closed lids, his eyes are hot. She sniffs and presses her hand down harder, hating the heat, hating what his eyes are, what they represent even now. Willing the heat not to turn into tears.
“Hey,” Martin says, low and intimate into his ear. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. This isn’t anything you did, this isn’t a—a punishment, or whatever you’re thinking. We’ll talk about it with your doctor, alright? She’ll know if everything’s alright.” His hand leaves Jon’s belly and alights instead on the trembling hand shielding Jon’s vision. “Hey,” he says again. He pulls gently at Jon’s hand. Jon lets him guide her hand away from her eyes, folding it instead into Martin’s own hands clasped in front of them.
“Open your eyes?” Martin says, and there is a long moment in which Jon resists, his fear spiking into a terror that he will not recognize himself in the mirror. She takes a trembling breath and lets the terror sweep through him, acknowledges it, denies it power over himself. Opens her eyes.
In the mirror, Martin presses his cheek against the crown of Jon’s head and smiles. Such a tender, quiet thing. Jon can feel the curve of his mouth against their head, concrete and real in a way that makes her heart twist in on itself.
“There’s my beautiful girlfriend,” Martin murmurs, and the twisting in Jon’s heart crawls up his throat to lodge itself in among the fear, sinks into his belly, something so terrible and wonderful that he is almost dizzy with it. She blinks at her reflection, trying to see past the disheveled man in the mirror who has a flat chest and the shadow of a beard and a haggard, pained expression beneath the scars. He tries to find the beautiful girlfriend waiting, impatient, behind.
“I can’t—” Jon starts, and her voice fails. “I—I don’t—I’m not—”
Martin’s arms tighten around him. “You are,” he says fiercely. “I am so, so lucky. You’re lovely, Jon. All of you.” His hand skates up Jon’s lopsided ribcage, towards the flatness of her chest, and panic stabs through Jon lightning-quick. Martin’s hand is broad and strong beneath his own, but Martin stills immediately. Lets Jon’s trembling fingers hold his own still.
“Sorry,” Martin says. His face has creased in worry. “I’m sorry, Jon, I didn’t—”
Jon swallows the lump in his throat. “It’s okay.” But she holds Martin’s hand firmly just below the line of her chest. Afraid to let him touch the absence there.
“Still,” Martin says. “I shouldn’t have assumed.” And he squeezes Jon against him, and murmurs in their ear, “It’s true, though. You’re gorgeous.” He bends, kisses Jon’s neck just below their ear, a spot that never fails to make Jon’s breath catch in their throat. “This place, right here,” he continues softly. “Where I can smell your shampoo and your sweat. Feel your pulse against my mouth. Your skin is so soft.” He brushes his mouth further down, presses a feather-light kiss against a cluster of scars where worms had burrowed into Jon, trying to make her a home. “And here—what you survived—what we survived—”
“Martin,” Jon says. His eyes are hot. He can’t say anything else.
“And here,” Martin says, stroking his free hand over the slope of Jon’s hip. “I love holding you here. When you’re trying to put the groceries away and you can’t reach, and your shirt rides up, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather put my hands. Or you’re sulking about whatever’s got you in a mood, and I can pull you close and you grumble but let me and then you just—melt. Like you can’t get close enough.”
“I do not melt,” Jon manages to say. Trying for faux affront, but unsure if he quite manages around the thickness of his throat.
“Mhmm,” Martin says, indulgent. His hand is a searing heat against Jon’s hip. Jon stares at it in the mirror, the thick fingers and broad palm, holding him together as something inside him starts to fracture. The cloying fear breaking apart. Something else, something as terrible as it is wonderful, blossoming in its place.
“And your face!” Martin continues. Voice brightening out of its serious tone. “God, every time I wake up in the morning and your face is the first thing I get to see, I think, I can’t believe that’s my partner. I get to kiss this person. Smother their adorable face in kisses.” And he kisses Jon’s cheek, loud and a little messy—an exaggerated mwah that would normally force a giggle out of Jon, but now only makes that terrible-wonderful knot behind his sternum tighten painfully.
“And don’t even get me started on your eyes,” Martin warns. “I’ve written poetry about your eyes, you know. Even when I thought you were a right prick. I was so annoyed that my asshole boss had such pretty brown eyes.” A fissure of guilt opens in Jon’s belly, an old mistake she has never forgiven herself for. But Martin is barreling on before Jon can voice the apology bursting on her tongue, sounding almost wistful as he says, “I would get so distracted, coming in to get a file or give a report. The way you looked up at me from your desk? All stern and tired and unfairly gorgeous, honestly, especially when your hair was a bit ruffled from you running your hands through it. I never wanted to look away from you. I still don’t. I want to look at you all the time. My stunning, brave, clever, gorgeous partner—”
“Martin, please,” Jon says around the terror-wonder-pain-pleasure in her throat. He sniffs and tries to surreptitiously turn her face against Martin’s chest to hide the redness of his eyes. “Just–” he says, and falters. “Please,” he says again, so pitiful he’d be embarrassed if he could think around the enormity of the feeling he can’t put words to.
“I can’t compliment my girlfriend?” Martin asks, voice light, and Jon shudders with a sensation that could be pleasure or pain, so intense she feels it to the tips of her fingers.
“Too much,” Jon says. Their voice cracks. “I can’t—I can’t.”
“Okay,” Martin says, so damnably gentle. “Okay.” He tucks his face into Jon’s shoulder and kisses the tension there.
Jon breathes through the pressure, eyes squeezing shut, the acrid pain of it tinged with sweetness around the edges. Enveloped in Martin’s soft bulk, the heft of his arms and the breadth of his chest and the roundness of his belly, he feels very small and vaguely off-kilter, like their bones are connected by fragile wire that trembles and bends and threatens to break. They can feel Martin’s heartbeat solid and slow against his back. A quiet rhythm that Jon can feel in her chest, a counterpoint to the lurching trot of her own heartbeat. The syncopation shudders through him as his heart rate begins to slow.
Fight or flight, he thinks idly, though he is not sure why he’s fleeing, or what from.
She cracks one eye open, enough to take in her reflection once again. Their gaze skirts the stubbled jawline, the wiry neck with its puckered and slashing scars, the narrow shoulders with their cresting collarbones. The flat, stubborn chest.
When he was a child, he was obsessed with his reflection. He would stand in front of the mirror with photos of his parents carefully pinned to the wall, using the edges of the pins to hold them up rather than poking holes into the fragile relics of a past that seemed farther away than the moon. She would try to match their expressions. The quizzical lifting of his mother’s eyebrow and the tiny half-scowl as she looked up from the book she’d clearly been interrupted from reading. The thoughtful frown on their father’s face as he stared at something out of view, arms crossed. She would try to find their features to her own, matching the wave of his hair to her mother’s, the sharp line of his jaw to his father’s.
Her grandmother didn’t approve, of course. In Jon’s memory, she had never been particularly religious, and his own upbringing had been largely agnostic, but there were certain superstitions she never let go of. She warned him away from mirrors, lecturing him on the dangers of losing himself to the reflection.
But she hadn’t been seeing herself, Jon had tried to say. It was not his reflection he was looking for, but that of his parents.
The qareen doesn’t care whose reflection you’re trying to find, his grandmother had said, exasperated. It will reach out and steal you no matter if you are looking for yourself or someone else. Expression pinched and mouth stern. Worry in the crease of her eyes.
It has been years since she did that. After Mr. Spider, their grandmother’s warnings didn’t seem so silly. Something had already reached out from beyond what he could see, nearly taken him, had opened its long spindly arms in an inviting embrace, luring him into a gaping darkness he only escaped because someone else stepped into that embrace first.
(Part of them, too, had been convinced that they would not grow old enough to match their adult face, their finished features, to that of their parents. That Mr. Spider would find her and take her before she could. And by the time he was a teenager, and then an adult, the habit of looking for his parents in the wave of his hair and the sharpness of his jaw was long behind him; a remnant of a time she had tried to know the people she was supposed to be grieving.)
Jon blinks at their reflection and wonders who they’re trying to find now, in the absent lines of their chest and the angles of their face and the hair slowly growing long. When it grows past her chin, to her shoulders, beyond, she wonders if she will find her mother in the mirror.
Behind him, Martin hums thoughtfully, and then the warmth of his chest disappears from Jon’s back as he bends to pluck Jon’s shirt off the ground. “Here we are,” he says brightly, and in one movement he brings it over Jon’s head and pulls it down.
Jon sputters as his mouth gets caught briefly in the collar and his arms get pinned to his sides. “Martin,” he complains, trying to raise one arm to shove it through the sleeve and instead getting it caught awkwardly between Martin’s breadth and his own torso, only her hand poking out from the cuff. She swats at Martin lightly with her trapped hand, something bright brimming up from her stomach. Chasing away the fog of fear still lingering.
Martin laughs, says, “Sorry, sorry! Here, let me just—” and then he steps back just enough for Jon to squirm his arm free and get it through the sleeve. Her reflection looks back at her, shirt askew, and her nose wrinkles into a pout.
“You’ve put it on backwards,” she accuses Martin, slipping her arms out of the sleeves again so she can twist the shirt around and get it on properly. “Honestly, Martin.”
“Oops?” Martin offers. “Looks like you’ve got it all figured out, though. Well done!”
“Oh, hush, you,” Jon grumbles. He casts a quick glance at his reflection again. When his eyes skate past the folds of the shirt hanging over his chest, it takes them a moment to recognize the emotion swelling up in them as relief. Hidden beneath her shirt, she is allowed to look away.
Jon takes a deep breath and turns away from the person in the mirror. “Time for bed?” he asks, a tentative smile on his lips.
Martin squeezes her hip. “Still got to brush my teeth,” he reminds Jon. “Someone took forever in the loo.”
Jon snorts and steps closer, right into Martin’s space, so she can rest her head against Martin’s shoulder and loop her arms loosely around his waist. “Terribly rude of them,” he says mildly as Martin’s arms tighten around him in turn. Martin hums in agreement.
They hold each other for a long minute, the relief and the lingering fear and the final remnants of that wonderful-terrible nameless feeling draining out of Jon slowly. In their wake, he finds himself nearly swaying on his feet with exhaustion. Her eyes sink closed beneath its weight. Without Martin’s support, she thinks she may have sunk to her knees.
“Hey,” Martin says softly, after Jon doesn’t know how long. Jon hums against Martin’s shoulder, not bothering to open their eyes. Martin sighs and ducks a little closer, tucking his face down against Jon’s neck. Cradling himself in the curve between throat and shoulder. “I’m really proud of you, you know,” Martin whispers, lips moving against Jon’s exposed shoulder, words that Jon feels more than he hears.
The words seep into Jon’s skin and settle in him, deep in the hollows of his bones. She wants to protest, tell Martin that she has done nothing to be proud of. That she hasn’t found herself in her reflection yet, that her body is a stranger to her, that all she has done is blindly wait for yet another unknowable force to change her body.
(And yet, he thinks, this is an unknowable force that he has chosen—willingly, with clear eyes.)
She doesn’t say that, though. He swallows down his protests and lets Martin’s quiet pride embrace him, hold him firm and gentle. They can be patient, they think, if only they get to keep this.