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Reality isn’t objective even at the best of times.
And at the worst of times--following several murders, a pair of onimous employers, layers upon layers of mysteries, endless paperwork, a severe lack of human interaction, and quite possibly the worst beach to ever exist--it doesn’t seem very objective at all.
In fact, Martin thinks reality couldn’t be any more subjective if it tried. The problem, therefore, is that it is trying.
He knows that their safehouse is most likely connected to The Lonely so he really shouldn’t entertain what it makes him think or how it makes him feel, but he’s also too weak to keep his guard up.
He’s weak and clumsy and on the verge of shattering and so it doesn’t take much for his hold on reality to crumble like a sandcastle in the face of nothing more than a singular wave. The wave in question being, of all things, his reflection .
It would be a lie to say he’s never had trouble with his reflection because he’s grown up resenting the way he looks and there’s always been a fault--if not several--to be found in the face that stares back at him with an expression that can’t quite be defined but probably falls somewhere between hopeful and hateful.
Not to mention that he’s barely glanced at mirrors since he’d found out exactly why his mother hates--hated the very sight of him. And when he had, there was usually too much fog floating around him to catch any details, leaving him with fragments of someone he’d more or less forgotten how to be.
So yes, he’s never been best friends with his reflection or anything, but he’s never been so wholly terrified of it as he is when he looks up from washing his hands in what was supposed to be somewhere they were safe. As if he could ever be safe.
“Close your eyes,” he whispers to himself, because it’s a trick that’s always worked in the past.
But the trick seems to have lost its charm because he can’t bring himself to close his eyes so he just continues to look at his reflection, at the monotone copy of someone that looks like him but can’t possibly be him because he can’t possibly be so blank .
A small voice in the back of his mind that sounds suspiciously like a certain archivist tells him it’s fine, it’s just The Lonely playing tricks on him and everything is fine, but the voice is almost immediately drowned out by the way he doesn’t at all recognise whoever it is watching him struggle from the other side of the mirror.
“Close your eyes, close your eyes, close your eyes, please just close your eyes…”
He doesn’t.
He bites his lip as some hollow version of himself does the same, static emerging and swirling around him like the very fog that had nearly swallowed him whole not long ago. He digs his nails into his palms because he refuses to go down so easily but even that pain doesn’t ground him--it barely even registers as pain--and he finds his breath getting caught somewhere in his chest.
“Close--Close your--close--eyes--close--clo--”
The words tangle on his tongue so he goes back to biting his lip, watching as fog swirls in the mirror, on the mirror, away from the mirror, and then towards him, reaching out as if to comfort him.
But it’s not comforting.
It can’t be comforting when it’s so cold and sharp and bitter and unforgiving.
And yet, he doesn’t pull away from it. He doesn’t have anywhere to go with the limited dimensions of the tiny bathroom but still, he doesn’t even try to pull away.
He doesn’t try so it’s his fault and his fault alone when the fog parts just enough for him to catch an undeniable glimpse of pale eyes that glisten like ice and chilled hair that curls like broken snowflakes. He blinks. And blinks again. And again. The image doesn’t fade and his lungs are frozen even as the fog covers it back up, refusing to let him breathe.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no…”
But his spineless attempt at denial only makes things worse for his lungs and he ends up wheezing, the knot in his chest tightening until it explodes into blinding panic, taking out his knees as his muscles quietly but fiercely scream for him to stop being so utterly useless.
There’s something that might be a sob climbing his throat but he can’t feel it because he can’t feel himself and he can’t breathe and he’s not sure where all of his limbs are and he can’t breathe and the ocean is filling his stomach with so much saltwater that he feels sick and he can’t breathe and there’s no air and he can’t breathe and the sand under his legs is pulling him down, down, down, down, down, down--
“Martin!”
Who’s Martin?
He blinks again, and ice hits his cheek.
He looks down--at least, he thinks it’s down, he’s not sure with all the fog--and he can see his trousers through his arms and he thinks that’s all wrong because he’s supposed to be able to bleed and he can’t bleed if he doesn’t have blood but he doesn’t have any blood because blood is opaque and he can see through his arm so he isn’t opaque and he can’t bleed if he’s transparent and--
“Martin, please !”
Please.
What a funny word.
He’s spent a lot time whispering that word to himself and just as much time screaming it at himself because the universe seems to hate him and so do most of the people in it--himself included, of course--but the word itself means nothing because it’s never worked and all it’s done is give him something he’d childishly thought was hope but now knows was a desperate and futile sort of faith that could never have--
“ Martin, open the door!”
But there are no doors on the beach.
There also aren’t any people on the beach so he has no idea where the voice is coming from and, if he’s honest, he just wants it to go away. It’s loud and jarring and the fog seems to recoil from it and he is the fog and the fog is him so if the fog doesn’t like it, he must not like it.
He doesn’t know what he likes and he’s not quite sure what it even means to like something but the fog is nice, it’s gentle and envelops him like a perfectly heavy coat and he feels less like dead weight when he’s floating in it, with it, under it, so he thinks that must be what it is to like something.
And besides, it’s not like he has anywhere better to--
“Don’t you dare, Martin Blackwood!”
The fog flinches.
“ Don’t you dare leave me again, Martin, please… please, you have to come back to me. You have to-- Martin, can you hear me?”
The fog snakes back around him, reluctant to let him go, and it’s so nice to feel wanted that he’s not sure why he would listen to the voice telling him to leave as if leaving the fog wouldn’t mean he just ends up all on his own again.
“I’m here, I’m here and… and I love you and I can’t lose you again, I-- Martin, please , you have to come back to me. Please , please don’t give in. Don’t--don’t leave me, please…”
He doesn’t understand.
He’s always, always the one being left behind, he doesn’t understand why he’s suddenly being accused of leaving someone else behind. And he doesn’t understand how he could be loved; there’s nothing to be loved about him.
He’s dull and boring and foolish and he takes up too much space and he’s cold and he’s a mess and he’s good for nothing and he can’t tell whether he still has any blood inside him and he’s tired and he’s heavy and he’s transparent and he's just an endless series of mistakes and he’s--
“Martin! Martin, please! I love you! I love you and you love me and--and that’s enough! Martin, please , that has to be enough! I love you, Martin, so would you please look at me!”
Oh.
He’s Martin.
He’s not the fog.
The fog isn’t him.
He’s Martin Blackwood.
But does that mean he’s…?
“Martin? Hey, hey, that’s it, look at me. Come on, Martin, you can fight it, I know you can. Stay with me, Martin, please don’t leave me again. I love you and I need you to stay with me .”
Oh.
That is what it means.
He is loved .
He is Martin Blackwood and he is loved .
“Martin?”
He is loved and he is needed.
“Jon?”
Loved and needed and wanted.
“I love you.”
He is Martin Blackwood and he is loved and needed and wanted.
“You--I--Jon?”
“I’m here, Martin, I’ve got you. I love you. You’re okay because I’ve got you and I love you so you’re going to be okay, I promise.”
Martin blinks.
The ice on his eyelashes melts and flows over his cheeks until tears take its place and he can’t see not because of any fog but because the sob trapped inside him finally emerges with an awful vengeance.
Every single one of his bones collapses all at once and he’s alarmingly aware of the way whatever is left of his body slumps so he expects the pain of an awkward landing but he doesn’t even get to the falling part because there’s something wrapped around him and--no, there’s someone wrapped around him, making sure he doesn’t slip into wherever he’d almost gone.
“Jon?”
His voice barely even counts as a whisper but it does not go unheard. The arms around him tighten and someone presses a kiss to his forehead and it burns so loudly that his eyes finally agree to close and his lungs can finally, finally, finally defrost.
“Jon?” he asks again, though he doesn’t know what the question actually is.
“I’m here, Martin. I’m here , I promise, I’m not going anywhere. Neither of us are, okay? I love you.”
“You do?” he asks without thinking.
It’s a clumsy question but for once, he doesn’t get reminded how stupid or hopeless or incompetent he is. Instead, he’s met with an answer so raw and so genuine and so beautiful that it almost hurts: “More than anything.”
Martin sobs again, curling into what he now knows is the warmth of Jon’s embrace. His head falls onto Jon’s shoulder and he almost flinches at the heat of his skin but it’s the nice sort of heat that reminds him he’s alive and he isn’t fog and everything is going to be okay because he isn’t transparent and he isn't alone and he's okay.
“I love you more than anything.”
He gasps, disbelief striking a chord inside his heart even as he tries to cling to the words as if they can shield him from the cold. Because he is still so cold.
“Martin?”
Words fail to form on his tongue but he curls his hands into fists around whatever it is Jon is wearing, the fabric almost as soft as his voice as he continues murmuring into Martin’s ear. The murmurings pretty quickly stop making sense but it doesn’t matter because he keeps hearing his name and he thinks Jon’s voice could bring just about anything back to life so it makes sense that Martin could also be brought back to life.
Because that’s what he is.
Alive.
He is Martin Blackwood and he is alive and he is loved.
Loved more than anything.
“Jon,” he breathes, “Jonathan Sims.”
The murmuring stops, and Martin feels burning hands gently cup his face, manually lifting his gaze until he can see familiar eyes, familiar green eyes.
“Your eyes are green,” Martin manages.
Jon frowns for a moment before his gaze softens and he nods. “Yes, they are."
They're green and they're lovely and they're so full of emotion that they make something within Martin ache in the most perfectly painful way and they're green and they're alive and they’re nothing short of incredible.
Martin nods back, bites his lip for a moment, and then dares to ask, "What colour are my eyes?"
The following pause is colder than anything about Jon should be and for a moment, for one very long moment, he thinks his question will go answered like so many of his previous ones have done. But then Jon sighs and brushes the tears away from under his eyes using the pads of his thumbs, both of them ignoring the way Martin shudders at the sensation.
"Grey."
The strangled noise that leaves Martin might be a whimper but he's not entirely sure because less than a second passes before a mighty wind is whistling in his ears and sand is sliding over his toes and goosebumps are rising along the skin he may or may not still have and his lungs are freezing over and he can’t breathe and he can’t--
"Martin! No, no, don't --don't do that. Please, Martin, it's okay, it's okay , it doesn't matter, please, please don't give up now."
He blinks, and the burning of Jon's hands around his face returns, a little less intense but warm enough to convince him he still exists. Green relief fills his line of vision as he swallows down any remaining nausea and focuses on the way Jon’s fingers are gently playing with the ends of his hair.
"Grey… my eyes are grey. Grey, Jon, they-- they're grey…"
"I know," Jon whispers, "I know. And I don't care . Didn't you hear me? I love you more than anything."
"But--"
Jon leans forwards and presses his lips to Martin's nose so very fleetingly but so very firmly that his protests lose their form. The action might have made him giggle in better circumstances and although he’s not yet capable of laughter, it's still silly and sweet enough to quieten the ringing doubt inside him.
"I love you. I love you more than your eyes or your hair or your body or anything else about you that might change. I love you more than anything and I promise there is no limit to that, physical or otherwise, do you understand?"
Martin's expression folds in on itself as he sobs once more, trembling in Jon's arms as he borrows the other man's warmth and allows that same warm love to form a bridge of reassurance between them.
"Jon," he gasps between sobs, and he doesn't have to say anything more because Jon tightens his grip and pulls him closer, impossibly closer, until they might as well be glued together.
"I've got you. It's--it's okay, I've got you," Jon says, and, despite everything fighting to sway his decision against it, Martin can't help but trust him.
He also can’t help but cry, cry as if he’s never cried before and this is the first time he’s ever been given a chance to express his emotions as much as he likes without the looming threat of serious consequence. If he were to really think about it, which he won’t because it hurts a little too much, he’d realise that’s exactly what’s happening.
"Jon."
"I love you too."
Martin exhales a slow jagged breath and nods, burying his face further into the crook of Jon's neck, not sure whether he's imagining the feel of his heartbeat but not really caring either way, letting himself melt into the soft certainty that Jon loves him .
“We’ll be okay,” Jon mumbles into his hair, and there isn’t even a hint of The Eye fueling the reassurance because all it needs is love, of which he has plenty.
They’re rather awkwardly crumpled both on tiles that don’t even belong to them and on the cusp of what might be the end of the world as they know it but somehow, some very insanely how, in the same way he always has done because some things will never change despite anything and everything else that happens, Martin trusts Jon.
They will be okay.
They are loved and they are in love and they will be okay.
And that is enough.
That is more than enough for now.