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Their connecting train was leaving at 16:23, which meant they had exactly 27 minutes left to wait. Even though he had already checked the display at least five times in the last 15 minutes, and even though Beholding was far more accurate than any train schedule anyway, Jon threw another glance at the departures screen, just to make sure – and to have something to pass the time. Of course, he could try to strike up a conversation with Martin, who was currently slouched beside him on one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs, staring listlessly down at his phone.
If only there wasn’t the small issue that Jon had no bloody clue what to say. What were you meant to say to the man you had spent months, maybe even years, pining for, the man you had just rescued from the physical manifestation of loneliness, the man who might return your feelings or who might have long since moved on? It was hardly appropriate to make chit-chat about the weather, he thought.
“…our train is leaving in 26 minutes,” he said in the end. Not his finest moment.
Martin made a vague hum of acknowledgement, not raising his eyes from his phone screen. Jon twisted his hands in his lap, fumbling for something better to say, something that wouldn’t sound utterly inane, something that might actually get Martin to look at him.
On their hasty escape to King’s Cross, just briefly stopping by their flats to throw their most essential belongings into a duffel bag before hurrying to the station, there had been far more pressing matters to focus on than idle conversation. The next direct train to Inverness had been fully booked, so they’d had to go for the next-best option, which was to change trains in Edinburgh Waverley. Jon hadn’t minded much, desperate as he was to get out of England as quickly as possible, to escape the radar of the London police force, and Trevor and Julia, and the many other dangers dogging their heels.
His plan didn’t extend much further beyond a) get to Daisy’s safehouse and b) hope for the best, but he didn’t have the energy to come up with something more elaborate. Whatever nourishment he had gained from Peter’s statement had been depleted by the strenuous effort of pulling Martin and himself out of the Lonely, and now he was just... tired. Bone-weary, exhausted to the core, at the end of his tether in every way possible.
But he had to put on a brave face, at least for now. Martin was fragile enough already, and he needed an anchor, someone to lean on. Jon would just have to muster whatever tiny reserve of strength he had left in him to keep it together for both of them. After he’d come so close to losing him forever, he was willing to do whatever it took, to endure any measure of pain that was required of him, just to give Martin even a little bit of comfort. He deserved that. He deserved so much more, truth be told, deserved all the things he would never get from Jon, and Jon deserved… well, not much. Nothing good. Certainly not Martin.
But here he was regardless, and Martin needed him right now, and so all he could do was be there for him. And hope he wouldn’t ruin it all.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. Martin just shrugged, so Jon pressed on. “You must be hungry. You haven’t eaten in, what, a day?”
Neither had Jon, to be entirely truthful. In fact, it had been much longer than that for him: the last time he had tried ingesting any form of human food was three days and seventeen hours ago, when he had eaten an apple that he had promptly vomited up. He was ravenous for something food could never give him, starving for the suffering of others. Sometimes it felt like he couldn’t think of anything else, like he was a creature made of hunger alone. Like, if he didn’t give in to his monstrous side and feed his patron, his desire would devour him alive.
Peter’s statement had been a satisfying little morsel to scratch that incessant itch deep in the pit of his stomach, to soothe that vast emptiness that seemed impossible to fill, but now it was beginning to wear off and the gnawing hunger made its dreaded reappearance. Withdrawal heightened all his unpleasant sensations and made him hyperaware of his own dissatisfaction, reminiscent of those miserable few days after he’d quit smoking, but a thousand times more intense.
There were exactly 34 people in the station at this moment who had encountered one of the Entities at some point in their lives, and had lived to tell the tale. Exactly 34 people who had a statement for him. The Eye had kept reminding him of that fact ever since their train had entered the platform, first as a soft whisper of information in his ear, a gentle nudge towards the path of no redemption, then growing in volume and intensity until it might as well be shouting, drowning out the noise of the bustling station and all his other thoughts.
There was a woman sitting just two rows behind him who had investigated an abandoned house with her best friend as a teenager, but they had gotten separated somewhere in the labyrinthine hallways, and when she found her friend again at last, her body was hollowed out and covered in cobwebs, tiny scuttling things crawling all over what was left of her skin. To this day, the woman still saw spiders out of the corner of her eye wherever she went.
The full story, with every little grisly detail, was waiting for him inside the woman’s mind, like a heaping plate of delicious trauma. All he’d need to do was ask and it would come spilling from her lips, and he could drink it all in. And once he’d whetted his appetite on her statement, he could move on to the next person, and then the next, feasting on the suffering of every single wretched soul inside this train station, until maybe, just maybe, his all-encompassing hunger would finally be sated.
The worst thing was that without Martin beside him, he might give in to the siren-sweet temptation of Beholding, might stop clinging stubbornly to the tattered shreds of his humanity and accept that there was nothing left to salvage. He was so, so weak, his whole body thrumming with unabated hunger, and he knew it was only a matter of time until his craving grew too strong to ignore and he surrendered to the Archivist once and for all.
Maybe it would be a relief to let the monster take over. Maybe the heady rush of other people’s terror would be enough to silence all the guilt.
But no matter how hard the pull of the Eye was to resist, he couldn’t do that to Martin. He might not have any faith left in himself, but he still had hope for Martin, and right now he needed Jon, Jon-the-human and not Jon-the-Archivist, needed him to ground him to reality. He’d been through so much already, and Jon wasn’t going to abandon him now. Even if the hunger hurt like hell, for Martin he could pull through, pretend to be human a little longer. He could do anything for Martin. He could be his anchor, no matter how unmoored he felt himself.
God, if only he could talk to Martin. If only he knew what to say.
Well, there was one thing he could do, at least. Martin needed to eat – all humans needed food, after all, not like Jon, who wasn’t human anymore, who would never be human again – and he had to be hungry, even if he was still too numb to realise it.
So, Jon decided, he was going to get him some food. He might be lacking in almost all areas of interpersonal interaction, but he could trust himself not to mess this up. A simple task. Something to give him focus. A thin thread of purpose among the overwhelming hunger. The Eye, helpful for once, informed him that there was a Caffè Nero nearby, but the barista had had a run-in with the Flesh in 2013, so that was out of the question.
He would have to go for the small Costa then, which was a little busier but also closer to the waiting room, and free of anyone touched by the supernatural. There were still 22 minutes left until their train departed, and he predicted that given the current size of the queue (four people), it would take him no more than five minutes to fetch a sandwich and return to the waiting room with plenty of time to spare. Besides, he was rather grateful for the chance to stretch his restless legs.
“I’m going to get us something to eat,” he announced, and set off without waiting for a response he probably wasn’t going to get anyway. There was a niggling anxiety somewhere in the back of his mind at the thought of leaving Martin on his own, even just for a few minutes, but he doubted the Lonely could exert its influence in a busy train station, and he supposed that the uncomfortable silence festering between him and Martin at the moment made for far better feeding ground for Forsaken than mere solitude.
Inside the Costa, he cast a doubtful eye over the exhaustive selection of lunch items on display. He really should have paid more attention to Martin’s sandwich preferences back when they were still getting lunch together on a semi-regular basis, damn it. He hesitated for far too long before the pointed cough of another customer spurred him into action, and he settled on a ham and cheese panini – you couldn’t go wrong with ham and cheese, could you? Unless Martin was a vegetarian, of course. But no, Jon was pretty sure he remembered him eating meat on at least one occasion. With some reluctance, he grabbed a BLT for himself as well – he didn’t think he could stomach food right now, but Martin might start to worry if he didn’t eat, and that was the last thing Jon wanted.
The barista asked him if he wanted any drinks with his order, and Jon had to consider for a moment. He figured a hot beverage might help settle his stomach a little, but he couldn’t stand the taste of coffee, nor how jittery it usually made him, and he didn’t trust a coffee shop chain to serve tea that didn’t taste like dishwater.
He wondered what Martin would like to drink. He struck Jon as the kind of person who secretly enjoyed sweet things, but rarely allowed himself to have them, like he believed himself unworthy of indulgence. He was the kind of person who deserved sweet things. In the end, Jon went for two Salted Caramel & Cream Frostinos, the sort of thing he would never order under normal circumstances.
When he returned to the waiting room to hand Martin his drink and sandwich, he was rewarded with a slight upward quirk of Martin’s lips, something that could almost pass for a smile, and a whisper that was too quiet to make out but sounded like Thanks. Martin unwrapped the sandwich and stared down at it with an expression of mild confusion, like he’d never seen one before in his life, but to Jon’s relief, he began to eat right away. In small, hesitant bites at first, but then faster, like his appetite was gradually returning to him.
That had to be a good sign, Jon thought. Maybe it meant that his other emotions and sensations would follow suit, that the Martin Jon used to know would be back with him so very soon. If that Martin was still in there, of course. If Jon hadn’t lost him yet.
Jon smiled to himself as he watched Martin eat, feeling a rare, fleeting rush of hope, but it evaporated quickly when he looked at the sandwich resting in his own lap. Just the sight of it made his stomach turn. He freed it from its plastic film, though the meaty smell emanating from it made him even more nauseous, and tried not to gag as he lifted it to his mouth. He took one single bite and chewed thoroughly, though his mouth threatened to clamp shut, and forced himself to swallow it down.
He was uncomfortably aware of that tiny piece of sandwich travelling down his oesophagus and into his empty stomach, how it seemed to swirl and churn in his insides, like a contaminant his monstrous body tried its hardest to reject, punishing him for not granting it the gruesome nourishment it truly desired. It took all the willpower he had left in him not to vomit right on the spot.
He put the rest of the sandwich back inside its wrapping and threw both into the bin that was conveniently placed right beside his seat.
Martin glanced over at him, the slightest hint of concern in his eyes. “Not hungry?” Those were the first words he’d spoken since leaving the train, and Jon should be glad of this small sign of progress, but instead he just hated himself for making Martin worry.
Yes, I’m hungry, he wanted to say. I’m so hungry there’s no room left for any other feeling. But not for food, not for anything… human. I hunger for things you would never forgive me for. Things I would never forgive myself for. It’s like there’s this huge gaping maw lined with rows of razor-sharp teeth right at my core, and if I don’t feed it what it needs, it will devour me instead, from the inside out. God, I’m so hungry.
But he couldn’t tell Martin that, not now, maybe not ever. So instead he gave him an unconvincing attempt at a smile and shrugged. “Not really, no. Sorry.”
“’s okay,” Martin mumbled, and turned back to his sandwich.
Jon tried a cautious sip of his drink instead, hoping against hope it would be easier on his stomach, but the sweetness of it poisoned his tongue, like his palate could only tolerate bitterness. He threw it in the bin as well, long past concerns about food waste, then folded his hands in his lap and leant back with his eyes closed. He tried to focus on something else, something pure and untainted, anything other than the heavy, cloying bile swirling in his mouth or the voracious hunger hollowing him out inside or the names of every potential statement giver in his immediate vicinity, the Eye marking their coordinates in bright red reticules.
But there was nothing. Nothing he could hold onto, no anchor, no lifeline. Just bottomless, all-consuming hunger, and the fear that he would soon be too weak to resist it.
They waited in silence, and walked to the platform in silence, and boarded the train in silence. The carriage was almost empty, occupied only by a young woman wearing over-ear headphones and an elderly couple who were both immersed in their respective books. Jon felt a little flutter of unease at this observation – were Scottish trains usually this deserted? – but he tried his best to ignore it. If the Lonely had a hand in this (and there was no conclusive evidence to prove it had), he would be here to protect Martin. He’d pulled him from the Lonely before, and he could do it again. Probably. Hopefully.
They had their pick of seats, and Jon gestured to a random row, preferring the closeness of two adjacent seats to the wide open space of the tables. He let Martin take the window seat, then sat down beside him. He had the irrational thought that this position would make it easier for him to defend Martin against potential assailants, which was ridiculous. This was just an ordinary ScotRail train, free of supernatural entities or their murderous acolytes, and he really needed to stop seeing monsters around every corner. And even if they were attacked, what exactly was Jon going to do about it? Watch them to death?
Except… that was very much something he could do now, it seemed.
He swallowed hard as he tried to force the image of Peter Lukas’ mangled corpse from his mind, how stark a contrast the vivid red of blood and viscera had been to the grey, washed-out backdrop of the Lonely. He didn’t regret killing Peter, not one bit – he’d been a vile, pathetic man who deserved nothing better – but it was still terrifying, the knowledge of what he was capable of. Not only could he haunt people’s nightmares and force them to relive their worst traumas over and over again, but he could end someone’s life with a single intense look and the crackling static in his voice.
Was this the point of no return? Was this where he crossed the unambiguous line between human and monster, and would never be able to go back?
Martin, sweet and kind and deserving of so much more, was sitting next to a murderer. Jon should ask, tell, beg him to leave, to save himself while he still could, to understand that there was no hope left for Jon at all. But he didn’t, he couldn’t, and he didn’t know if it was out of some noble resolution to shield Martin from the Lonely, or out of a far baser, more selfish desire to keep him close.
Either way, he owed Martin something more than tragedy and gloom, just this once. Something normal, something to tether him to reality.
He risked a furtive glance at Martin’s face, feeling like he was breaking some unspoken law. Martin was staring out of the window, his expression betraying no hint of emotion whatsoever, watching the Scottish scenery roll by. Jon chewed on his bottom lip as he deliberated his next move, which seemed as nebulous as if he were playing a drawn-out game of eight-dimensional chess.
It had been much easier on the train from London to Edinburgh, when Martin had been so exhausted that he’d slept through almost the entire duration of the journey, and Jon had felt unreasonably guilty when he’d had to nudge him awake upon their arrival. Somewhere around York, Martin had shifted in his sleep and let his head drop onto Jon’s shoulder, though it was far too bony to make a good pillow.
For the remaining hour of the journey, Jon hadn’t dared to move, had barely even dared to breathe, all senses focused on the reassuring weight of Martin’s head on his shoulder and the gentle warmth of his breath against the skin of Jon’s neck. Even the incessant hunger had been relegated to the background. He’d secretly wished that the journey would never end, that Martin would forever remain asleep on his shoulder, but of course he wasn’t so lucky.
And now that Martin was awake and showed no sign of drifting off again, now that Jon finally had the chance to talk to him, he was at an utter loss for what to say. What could you say to your co-worker whom you’ve barely spoken to in over a year, with whom you were trying to escape a workplace pledged to an Eldritch god? Hey Martin, what was it like serving the fear of Loneliness and living in near-total isolation for months? Tell me, what did you get up to while I was in a coma and after your mother died? Any fun stories?
Out of the question, of course. Even he wasn’t that socially inept. And he couldn’t exactly talk about his own life either, unless to regale Martin with anecdotes of how he’d repeatedly served as a punching bag for various Entities, and he somehow doubted Martin wanted to hear those.
He’d always been bad at this. Talking to people. Socialising. All those things that seemed to come so easily to everyone but him.
When he was in sixth form, his English teacher had asked him to stay behind after class one day, only to tell him gently, eyes wide with concern behind her round glasses, that while his academic achievements were excellent, it worried her that he didn’t seem to be connecting with his peers. He’d found her insufferable back then, the kind of teacher who insisted on acting as her students’ personal therapist instead of just teaching them Shakespeare like she was supposed to, but now he had to concede that she might have had a point.
Why she’d taken a liking to him in particular, however, he would never understand. Maybe she saw him as a project, a challenge, the poor misunderstood orphan boy who needed her guidance to steer him onto the right path. But she was unsuccessful, because he refused to listen to her advice and instead launched into a pretentious diatribe on how other teenagers were a horde of mindless buffoons and he preferred to devote his time to more intellectually stimulating pursuits, thank you very much. (Seventeen-year-old Jon had been a bit of a prick, needless to say.) It still made him cringe to think of it.
His teacher had raised an eyebrow but otherwise remained unfazed by this, and just handed him a book about social skills, claiming it would help with what she termed his ‘autistic tendencies’. Helping him get an actual diagnosis, however, she clearly deemed above her paygrade. He’d nodded and given her a perfunctory thanks, desperate to get out of this whole ordeal as soon as possible, and had thrown the book in the nearest bin once he was outside, without a single glance at its contents.
Now he rather wished he had kept it. Taken some helpful notes or at least rifled through its pages enough to retain a vague memory of its key points. Maybe then he would know what to say now.
Or maybe not. Maybe Martin had enough self-preservation not to accept Jon into his life, to burn every bridge he tried to build, and could Jon honestly blame him for that? He loved Martin, he knew that with a far greater certainty than he had ever known anything, and that meant he had to give him the freedom to make his own choices, no matter how much they hurt.
But was distance from Jon really what Martin wanted? It was what he should want, sure, but Jon knew all too well that people seldom longed for the things that were good for them. What if, against all odds, for some unfathomable reason, Martin wanted Jon to reach out? Didn’t he owe it to him to make an effort, at least?
But not a single sound would make it past Jon’s lips, so he had to stick to sneaking covert glances at Martin out of the corner of his eye, as if looking at him directly would be like staring right into the sun, as if it might burn his eyes. Martin was still watching the shifting Scottish landscape through the slightly murky glass of the windowpane, his expression unchanged.
“Never been to Scotland before,” he murmured, more to himself than to Jon, but it was an opening anyway. It was a start.
“Um, well, er… there’s quite a lot of sheep,” Jon stammered, and winced inwardly as soon as he’d processed his own words. ‘Quite a lot of sheep'? Really, Sims? That’s the best you can do?
Martin was kind enough not to comment on this, at least, though that didn’t reassure Jon as much as it maybe should have. The old Martin wouldn’t have been able to resist teasing him a little, he thought. Not in a meanspirited way, not to be cruel, but in a way that would have broken the ice, given them both safe ground to walk on. But then again, maybe Peter had been right. Maybe he didn’t know Martin that well at all.
But he would like to get to know to him. Not in the greedy, voyeuristic manner of Beholding, but in the mundane, human way, in a way that belonged to him and him alone. He wasn’t going to share Martin with his patron. Martin was the only part of him that he would never be willing to sacrifice. No matter what was going to happen, he was rather keen on making this work, even if only for a little while. Whatever ‘this’ turned out to be. He'd sworn off romantic relationships altogether after Georgie broke up with him, deeming them to be a tedious waste of his time, but he was willing to try again with Martin, to open his heart even if that meant running the risk of having it broken.
If it wasn’t already too late, of course. If Martin hadn’t abandoned his inexplicable infatuation long ago. Regardless, Jon wanted to be there for him in any way he was allowed to, wanted to offer him whatever paltry fragment remained of his humanity and assure Martin it was all his.
Martin’s right hand was resting on his thigh, and Jon’s gaze dropped to it, enthralled by it as if by an enchanted object. His hand was much larger than Jon’s small, fine-boned one, and Jon was sure it would dwarf his own if he gave in to the temptation to hold it. His eyes roamed over every tiny detail of Martin’s hand, the soft valleys between his knuckles, the light smattering of hair on his fingers, the nails bitten almost to the quick.
Jon vaguely remembered a time when Martin’s hands were perpetually covered in ink stains, probably from writing his poetry. Jon had more than once reprimanded him for his ‘slovenly appearance in a professional environment’, unable to admit to himself just how endearing he found those ink-blue splotches on Martin’s hands, those little signs of his personality. He’d been in denial about a lot of things, back then.
Martin’s hand was clean now, not even the faintest stain to be seen. Jon’s gaze lingered for a moment on a small raised scar on Martin’s index finger, wondering where it came from. But their relationship was so fragile at the moment that he didn’t want to jeopardise everything by asking an invasive question, and it probably wasn’t a happy story anyway.
Slowly, tentatively, almost of its own volition, Jon’s left hand began to inch towards the edge of his seat, and then onwards into the novel territory of Martin’s space. He let it hover just above Martin’s hand, his heart hammering a staccato beat in his chest, and asked, “May I…?”
His voice was quavering so hard that he wasn’t sure if Martin had even heard him, but eventually Martin gave a nod, brief but decisive. Jon let his hand rest on top of Martin’s, surprised by how cold it was. He’d always expected Martin’s hands to be warm. The residual effects of the Lonely, he supposed.
After a few seconds of tense silence, Martin turned over his hand to press their palms together, and Jon let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Emboldened by Martin’s initiative, he laced their fingers together and lightly squeezed Martin’s hand. Martin responded in kind, his grip firm and grounding. His hands were soft but strong, Jon noted. Just like the rest of him.
He raised their joined hands to his face and murmured again, his lips just inches from Martin’s skin, “May I…?”
Martin didn’t hesitate before nodding his approval this time. Jon closed his eyes and pressed a chaste, almost chivalrous, kiss to the back of Martin’s hand. Martin sucked in a sharp breath, but didn’t move his hand away, which Jon took as a sign to keep going, peppering small kisses over Martin’s knuckles. His skin was soft and smooth, smelled of soap and summer days, and Jon wanted to keep kissing him for the rest of his life.
He took Martin’s hand in both of his and coaxed his fingers apart, then kissed the centre of his palm, the callouses on his fingers, each of his fingertips in turn. Maybe he was just imagining it, but he could swear he felt Martin’s skin warming up beneath his lips, like Jon’s kisses were enough to breathe warmth back into him. To drive the Lonely away. He moved on to nuzzle against the soft skin of Martin’s wrist, pressing his lips to his pulse point, relishing the shiver that ran through Martin’s whole body. He pushed Martin’s sleeve up a little to drop a few more kisses along his forearm, tracing the constellations of his freckles, then drew back with a contented sigh, dazed on kisses and closeness and Martin.
Martin’s eyes darted over to meet Jon’s, just for an instant, before snapping back to his own lap. His hand found Jon’s again, linking their fingers together, and Jon stroked his thumb over the back of his hand. A faint flush was rising on Martin’s cheeks, a welcome contrast to the sickly pallor he’d exhibited before. Jon longed to kiss that blush, to press his lips to Martin’s round cheeks and feel the heat under his skin, to tangle his free hand in Martin’s hair and pull little gasps from him as he worked up the courage to let his kisses gravitate towards Martin’s mouth.
And there was nothing stopping him from asking Martin for permission to do just that, nothing but his own cowardice. He was terrified of crossing an unspoken line, of being too forward, too greedy, of Martin never speaking to him again. Of course, he could just look inside Martin’s head and clear up all his uncertainties, but he refused to stoop so low. He was going to have to figure this out for himself, without using the Eye to cheat.
Maybe it would be easier to start with one thing at a time, and work his way up to the big stuff. He lifted his right hand to Martin’s head and asked again if he could touch him.
“Yes,” Martin answered out loud this time.
Jon slid his fingers into Martin’s hair, gently sifting through the tangled curls. It had grown rather long in the past year, giving him plenty of material to play with. Jude Perry’s burning handshake had caused him to lose most of the sensation in his right hand, but there was enough left to give him an idea of how soft Martin’s hair was. For a little while, he lost himself in the sensory bliss of it, twirling a strand around his finger and lightly tugging on it, before releasing it and moving on to the next one. The angle was starting to get rather awkward, though – with his left hand still joined with Martin’s right, he had to twist his torso to an uncomfortable degree so his other hand could reach Martin’s hair.
Martin must have noticed the same, because he let out a little laugh, hesitant and shaky but like the sweetest music to Jon’s ears.
“Come here,” he said with fond amusement, patting his lap.
Well, who was Jon to decline such an invitation? He scooted over onto Martin’s lap with an eagerness that should have probably embarrassed him, but he couldn’t care less right now. Martin’s lap was amazingly comfortable, so comfortable in fact that Jon decided he would not require chairs from now on, because no other form of seating could hold a candle to Martin.
It also had the added benefit (or risk factor?) of bringing his face rather close to Martin’s. It was a nice face, for sure – warm brown eyes that Jon could very well lose himself in if he wasn’t being careful, handsome features, full lips that were parted just a little, as if in expectation...
Jon’s gaze lingered on those lips for a prolonged moment, probably rather too long, but in his defence, they really were excellent lips, how had he never noticed that before? The perfect shape for kissing, he thought, and felt an immediate surge of heat rising to his face. They were so close together that Martin had to feel the heat emanating from Jon’s skin, had to feel the erratic thumping of his heart, and he could definitely sense the way Jon was staring at his mouth like a besotted fool, because his own blush deepened and the tip of his tongue, smooth and pink and utterly fascinating, darted out to wet his bottom lip.
Jon summoned all the courage he had left in him to lean in even closer, praying he had read Martin’s signs right, praying he wasn’t about to make a terrible mistake.
“May I…?” he whispered once more, so close that his lips were almost moving against Martin’s, that their breaths were mingling into one.
Martin responded by bridging the miniscule distance that was left between them. His lips were as soft as they looked, an intriguing contrast to Jon’s own chapped ones. Their first attempts were chaste and a little clumsy, both of them still figuring out how to align their mouths and where to put their hands, but they gradually gave way to something deeper and more assured.
Jon sank his fingers even further into Martin’s hair and relished in the delighted gasps he could draw from him with every little tug on a curl. Martin was an excellent kisser, he noted with the small part of his brain that was still capable of coherent thought, and he idly wondered whether it was a skill that came from practice or if Martin was just a natural. Jon was far from an expert, certainly, but he hoped to make up for it in enthusiasm.
When the need for air forced them apart at last, Jon slid his arms around Martin’s waist and rested his head on his chest, breathing a soft sigh and nuzzling his face into the worn fabric of Martin’s jumper. It struck him only then that he’d almost forgotten about the hunger, that the aching, desperate need for a statement had not crossed his mind even once in the last ten minutes. It was still there, of course, it had never left, but it was more like his heartbeat or his respiration now: an intrinsic, essential part of him, but not one he was consciously aware of most of the time. The pain hadn’t disappeared, but it was small and manageable, no longer tearing him apart.
He smiled into Martin’s jumper, huddling even closer. Wasn’t it fitting that their mutual intimacy could both keep the Lonely at bay and alleviate Jon’s supernatural hunger? Like the gentle inverse of the usual nightmare logic of the Fears. For a stray second or two, he entertained the idiotic idea that Gerry had been mistaken and Entities of love really did exist. But it all sounded too good to be true, which probably meant that it was just that: not true. Whatever reprieve he may have been granted from his addiction, from his gnawing hunger, he knew in his heart it was destined to be temporary.
One day, the Archivist would be back and hungrier than ever before; one day, Jon wouldn’t be strong enough to resist him; one day, Martin would be the one to bear the consequences.
If Jon were a braver man, a better person, he would learn to let Martin go, would accept that the greatest act of love he could show him was to leave him to live a brighter life, without binding himself to a monster. But as it was, he was selfish and weak and oh so afraid, and he needed the comfort of having his anchor close. Needed to hold on to the illusion of being human for just a little longer. Needed to seek refuge in the desperate, pointless, but somehow still indefatigable hope that they would be alright.
Maybe they were doomed, maybe they had been doomed right from the start, but whatever their future held in store, they would always have right now.