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It wasn’t exactly simple, having friends. Not nearly as simple as Martin tried to make it sound when Jon had cornered him and spouted that he worries about living in Scotland. He was just projecting his own anxieties, Martin thought. His husband wasn’t exactly in the running for the Nation’s Most Emotionally Well-Adjusted Man.
But… Maybe he’d had a point.
Martin had plenty of friends in town, or so he’d thought. Upon inspection, really he just had two friends - a young couple their age named Sherie and Declan who were the only ones who’d really surpassed the rank of acquaintances to say hello to in the store.
It was just Sherie and Declan who’d ever actually put themselves out to have them round for dinner or to invite them along to the pub with their other friends. And it was nice, it really was. They felt so normal, Sherie and Declan. Just really, really normal. Sometimes, Martin relished in that, that these deeply normal people felt he was normal enough to be invited into their home, to gossip and share stories and holiday wishes with. Sometimes.
Tonight, they were joined by chronic fifth wheel Ben, one of the few Sherie and Declan had actually gone to school with who stayed behind in town. Though by the way they talked about him, Martin figured they probably had a long list of people they’d have preferred to stick around. It went without saying that Jon couldn’t quite stand the man. That would be, if Jon ever actually left it unsaid rather than ranting about him without fail the second the door closed behind them after an evening spent withstanding his inane remarks and tasteless jokes.
Ben was brash and loud, a ruthless drinker who easily swept Declan up in constant refills but never seemed to provide the booze himself. He was more Declan’s mate than anything, and if you were perceptive enough, you could spot the cracks in Sherie’s gracious veneer when he came around. Somehow, Declan had let Ben corral the post-dinner hours in the direction of juvenile drinking games, claiming it would be funny, like they were teenagers again, nothing but a simple laugh and no need to think very hard.
Jon was highly capable of sitting and smiling politely when evenings transformed into tipsy raucous in any other company, but Ben brought out something special in him, slipped the key right into the box containing his petty nuisance streak and unlocked it in full. Ben suggested a handful of asinine games and Jon vocally refused each one until Never Have I Ever entered the mix. Jon paused, gave a small shrug, and said, “That could work.”
Martin narrowed his eyes, searching his smug face for his ulterior motives. Perhaps it was simply suitably uninvolved in comparison to some of the games Ben had thrown out with a wealth of arcane rules, but Martin had an inkling that part of Jon was rather interested in at least collecting some potentially saucy personal details while he inconspicuously offered none.
They went for a few rounds, learning some ever so vaguely interesting tidbits increasing in intrigue as the game unfolded. Ben had never been out of the United Kingdom, Declan had never been on a boat, and Sherie had never had an office job. Martin, of course, had to do his duty as the gay man in the room and pull the dirty trick of declaring that he’d never kissed a woman. Jon proudly admitted that he’d never read War and Peace all the way through only to be figuratively laughed off the stage for that one.
It wasn’t long before a lull fell over the room, and Martin hoped that maybe the game had run its course as well as the evening itself.
“It’s your turn, Ben,” Declan said, nudging his shoulder where he slouched back into the sofa.
“Again?”
“Yeah, again! It’s been the same order this whole time, mate!”
Ben groaned, taking a huge swig of his beer despite the fact that it was the very thing that was being used as a penalty. “This game is hard for me, you know that?” He made a show of wracking his brain, tapping the lip of his bottle against his chin for a few moments until he seemed to settle on something. “Alright, alright. Here. Never have I ever been slapped across the face.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Declan muttered with a smirk.
“Not a word of a lie, mate. Hand to god.”
Martin almost laughed it off as outlandish a suggestion for any of them as having read War and Peace until he watched Jon casually take a sip from his wine glass. He didn’t even bother to make eye contact with anyone as if it was just that banal to admit. Martin’s stomach twisted in an instant and he had to actively work to keep his face from falling in horror as it dawned on him exactly when Jon had been slapped, by who, and why.
Sherie piped up. “Jon?”
“Yes?” he said, glancing up from his drink.
“You’ve been slapped?”
“Oh,” he said. “Yes.” He then glanced around the room, noting that everyone was indeed looking at him. “Am I the only one?”
“As of now, yeah,” Ben said with a smirk.
“Who slapped you?” Sherie asked, leaning in for the scandal.
Martin had no time to prevent Jon instinctively glancing in his direction.
“Don’t look at me!” he blurted, desperately hoping Jon would take the hint and deflect, make something up off the cuff.
Sherie’s eyes widened, now on Martin. “Was it you?”
“No!” he shrieked, silently begging Jon to say it was a bad ex, or his grandmother when he was a child, or a case of mistaken identity, anything but the truth.
But Jon’s brow furrowed in confusion, bless this poor man’s stupid, frank soul.
“Martin, what? It was.”
Sherie’s mouth fell open. “It was?”
“Like a proper slap?” Declan asked, tentative but intrigued.
“Well, yes,” Jon answered. At least he remained completely nonplussed about this information, for whatever the hell it was worth.
Martin groaned, melting into the back of the sofa. “Jon, you did not need to tell them that.”
“Why? It was for good reason.”
“I—I don’t know, was it? I—“
“Christ, Jon,” Declan laughed. “What did you do to him?”
“It wasn’t something I did to him, exactly,” he said plainly, only now starting to look concerned that no one else was ready to move on from this conversation.
“Well, Jesus, don’t stop there!” Martin cried, looking out frantically at the rest of the group. “It’s not like it was normal! He was, ah… It was a, er… He was in a sort of state, mentally, I guess, and—and I couldn’t snap him out of it and I got desperate.”
“Oh my god,” Sherie said, her interest in gossip fading into genuine disturb.
“Yeah, it… was years ago, it was a—a really scary time. Not like we were in a fight or something. It was–I just, I panicked. Not my greatest decision, but–but yeah.”
“I mean, I didn’t figure it was something you’d do,” Sherie hurried to say, looking a bit guilty. “That’s why I asked.”
Martin let out a humorless laugh. “Well, thanks for that.”
Declan held up a hand in apology. “Sorry, mate. Didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s alright,” Martin said, trying to shake it off by nudging Jon’s shoulder with his own. “He’s the one who just let that bit of information go willy nilly.”
The evening recovered on shaky ground as the game dissolved into casual conversation, but Martin’s spirits were gone for good, no return in sight. He could tell Jon knew, too, the way he kept his hands to himself in moments that might usually be marked by casual touches. He kept making furtive glances his way and Martin couldn’t quite understand how he managed to ask a question so very loud without saying anything at all.
It wasn’t long before they seemed to agree it was time to make their excuses and head home. As much as Martin wanted out of there, he could also stand to put off the inevitable conversation, the potential fight, whatever it was that was surely about to erupt between them before their night ended.
They hadn’t talked about it specifically in years, the slapping. Every so often, the topic of their final moments in the Panopticon reared its head. That was too big to ever truly sit with comfortably. But there were other things, seemingly smaller and less grave, that fell by the wayside between them. Perhaps they both thought of them every so often but silently agreed that bringing them up would just be poking at a wound that had healed well enough. Why reopen a jagged scar just to leave it more jagged than it already was?
They stepped out into the mild autumn evening, the silence between them chilling Martin more than the air. Jon didn’t go for his hand, so Martin kept them stuffed in his pockets.
“Are you angry with me?” Jon said after a moment.
Was he? Maybe a little bit. It’s not as if Jon had told them what he did in order to be petty, or to call Martin out or make light of it. He just really wished he’d considered how Martin felt about that particular bit of their history before plainly laying it out for three of their only friends to gawk at.
“Was it really necessary to tell everyone I know that I’ve slapped you?” he said, sounding snippier than he’d intended. Sometimes he thrived on having these kinds of confrontations on a walk home, keeping his gaze straight ahead, absolved of having to face the guilt in Jon’s eyes, or the lack thereof.
“I really didn’t think anything of it,” Jon said. “I was just playing the game.”
“Well, game or not, some things just don’t need to be shared.”
His own brisk tone hung in the air between them for a moment. Martin braced for Jon to snap back, ready to carry a fight back through their front door, but he didn’t.
“Martin, I’m sorry.”
Well, god, if Martin wasn’t going to wither at the sound of that. That wasn’t his indignant, only-apologizing-because-he-was-supposed-to tone. He felt truly bad and Martin knew it. He should really drop it, rather than continue to lash Jon for something that he’d only done by innocently missing some social cues. But the hurt was already there, and if it wasn’t Jon’s fault, Martin needed somewhere to put it. He felt the path of the blame redirecting inward, twisting and swirling around himself now like a hurricane veering off-course over a city that hadn’t bothered to prepare.
“It’s alright,” he muttered, sinking into it, more and more disgusted with himself by the second. “I just… I still feel really weird about it.”
“Martin, I forgave you a long time ago. It’s not as if you hit me in anger.”
He spared a quick, tentative glance at Jon and suddenly felt like he’d just told a lie even though he hadn’t said a thing.
“You didn’t,” Jon insisted, his tone faltering just a bit. “Did you?”
“No!” he cried automatically. “I mean, no, I didn’t—I–I felt like I had to at the time, but my feelings were all over the place so… I don’t know. Sometimes, I worry there was something a little bit angry mixed up in it. Maybe not at you. Maybe at everything, but… I just hate it. I hate that I ever touched you like that. And I mean, not to mention—”
“It’s alright,” Jon said, as if just to prevent him from finishing that sentence.
A prolonged silence stretched between them, broken only by the sound of their footsteps on pavement.
“Is it?” Martin asked.
Another moment, only footsteps.
“It’s not as if it was pleasant,” Jon said, soft and short. “But you kept us moving. I wasn’t always in control and you did what you had to do. I don’t exactly have room to fault anyone for things they did in that time, do I?”
It was just a few blocks now until they reached their house. Martin could even see the gleaming golden dot that was their porch light, always left on if they knew they’d be returning in the dark. It foreboded comfort, comfort he didn’t always deserve, and right now, he certainly didn’t deserve to walk through that warm and welcoming door and continue playing house with the man he claimed to love and then hurt.
“We’re not going to talk about that right now,” he said. “Not if you’re going to try to twist it into you deserving to be hurt.”
“I’m… not trying to do that,” Jon said, tired and uncertain.
“Just because you think you deserved to be punished doesn’t make it okay. That I hurt you. I don’t care what–I don’t care. That would never be okay.”
He could practically feel Jon’s eyes studying his face from the side but he refused to meet them, refused to be caught in this and forced to face that he was self-flagellating or being obtuse or whatever it was Jon thought he was doing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jon’s head tilt down toward the pavement.
“I didn’t… I mean, I suppose I could have known,” Jon said. “I should have known. But I didn’t realize how much this bothered you.”
Martin didn’t need Jon, didn’t need his therapist or anyone else to tell him why exactly this made such an impact.
Slapping Jon a few times to pull him out of a statement wasn’t even close to the worst he’d hurt him physically. Martin killed him. Literally murdered the love of his life with his own two hands and held him while he bled, kissed him and then plunged a knife into his chest and waited for them both to die. The fact that they were here and together, the fact that they’d had five years of relative peace and bliss in this facsimile universe... As much as Jon would never be able to understand why he was rewarded with a life after ending the world, Martin could never quite get over being rewarded with Jon after what he’d done to him.
“Yeah, Jon,” he said, short and clipped. “It bothers me.”
Jon reached into Martin’s jacket pocket to pull his hand into his own.
“I’m sorry I brought it up. I wouldn’t have if I’d realized.”
“It’s alright,” Martin said at length. Jon squeezed his hand tighter and didn’t let go.
Something still sat heavy in the pit of his stomach the rest of the walk home, drawing his shoulders and the corners of his mouth down with it. It was the type of feeling that might not even be cured by sleep, might follow him into the morning and sit on his chest and keep him weighted down in bed, leaving him too paralyzed to do anything and too empty to cry.
Jon wordlessly unlocked the door in the glow of the lamplight and ushered them in, letting them both kick off their shoes and hang up their coats before he turned to Martin, effectively barring his entry to the kitchen.
“What?” Martin said.
Jon gave him nothing but a pitying look and then took one hand in his, nodding towards the sofa and beginning to tug him there.
“Sit,” he urged, and Martin did. Some distant, fuzzy instinct told him he was about to be chastised, like a child who’d done something wrong and spoiled a perfectly good evening, or an incompetent assistant about to be torn to shreds by his disappointed boss.
But Jon just followed into his lap, bracketing his hips with his knees and draping himself across Martin’s body, hands soothing up his shoulders, his neck, over his cheeks and into his hair. He leaned in and pressed a deep and precious kiss to Martin’s forehead, and when met with no protest, proceeded to lay his lips down everywhere and anywhere across his face, each kiss as soft and tender as the last, each kiss lingered in for just a second longer. He traced the curve of Martin’s cheek with the tip of his nose until their lips were close enough to touch but not quite, silently pleading for Martin’s gaze. He acquiesced and met Jon’s eyes with his own, so oppressively kind and loving that he immediately had to pull back before Jon could kiss him properly.
It wasn’t hard to pick up what Jon was getting at. He was trying to convince Martin that they were past it, that he was forgiven, that he trusted him and wasn’t afraid of Martin’s touch. He appreciated the effort. Still, it didn’t seem to soothe the reminder that he’d done things he couldn’t take back. At the very least, he deserved the punishment of one night spent sick with regret, as if that was sufficient. And Jon wouldn’t even let him have that. He continued to press his lips to his temple and Martin couldn’t bear to push him away, even as his continued onslaught of gentle affection made his skin crawl with shame and guilt. All he could do was let it happen until Jon chose to quit.
Eventually, Jon showed mercy and let up, pulling back to gaze at him while keeping his fingers tangled up in the hair at the back of his head, scratching so softly at his scalp in that way that usually made Martin’s eyes flutter in bliss. Now, it just made him feel sick.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, withering under Jon’s sickeningly sweet gaze.
“What for?” Jon said. He sounded so preemptively forgiving, like he’d already decided to absolve Martin of anything, regardless of the crime.
“I got myself in a mood.”
“You don’t have to apologize for that.”
“It might… linger,” he said, sounding so pathetic and small. “It feels bad.”
“Well,” Jon said. “I’ll be here while it lasts and I’ll be here when it ends.”
And that was enough to do it. The deadweight inside him bubbled up and out as his breath caught and his eyes began to sting, and he lurched forward to bury his face in Jon’s shoulder. Jon’s arms clamped tight around his neck and Martin let himself throw his own around Jon’s back, pulling him in and plastering him against his own body, holding him so much closer than he deserved to right now.
Martin sobbed in a way he couldn’t have predicted by how their night started. Maybe it had been too long since he’d had a really solid breakdown. Maybe it was overdue, an exorcism of leftover trauma that just needed to happen every once in a while, no matter how long their lives had been quaint and quiet.
Jon’s whispers of, “It’s alright, it’s alright, darling,” only served to fuel the tears, and if he’d been able to do anything but gasp for breath, he’d be shouting, It’s not, it’s not alright. Martin always felt the fuse to a time bomb light the second he started crying, ticking closer and closer to the threshold where a forgivable breakdown crossed into one that lasted too long and demanded too much. Even though Jon had never once implied he’d gone on enough and should get himself together already, Martin just knew. He remembered the point at which his mother had always patted his shoulder and told him to clean himself up and stop moping and get on with it. He imagined Jon must feel the same, but at least loved him enough to refrain from hurting him. Not as if his mother had cared much about that.
He didn’t know how long he whimpered pathetically into Jon’s collar, soaking his shirt with tears and snot, just that Jon never stopped soothing his hands over his rounded spine and telling him he loved him. It seemed like he would keep at it all night if Martin required it, so he willed himself to pull it together. He refused to take advantage of his kindness, not with the matter at hand so clearly in focus.
When he finally got a hold of himself, he lifted his heavy head and met Jon’s eyes with his own, wet and swollen and pathetic. Martin took his face between his hands, the very cheeks he’d once struck with his own palm in a world where he’d been willing to do unspeakable things to survive. He stroked across his cheekbones with his thumbs and watched Jon’s eyes soften more, his mouth even curving into a small, relieved smile.
“I’ll never hurt you like that again, I promise I won’t,” Martin whispered, squinting back another bout of tears and successfully keeping them at bay.
Jon threaded his fingers together behind Martin’s head and cradled the base of his skull. “You don’t need to promise that. I know you won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I know you,” he whispered, almost defiant. “That’s not you.”
Martin choked out a miserable groan. Was that not exactly the mantra of a battered partner who wanted so desperately to see the best in the one who’d beaten them?
That wasn’t the right analogy, he knew that. He knew he’d done it under duress, that every extenuating circumstance possible had come to pass and stacked one on top of the other into the most tenuous, terrible pile of stressors. He knew he didn’t make a habit of it, wouldn’t dream of it outside of a world turned upside down where nothing was certain and nothing made sense, where everything posed a threat to his own hold on Jon. Martin knew it wasn’t in his true nature to hit anyone, much less someone he loved, but somehow, he’d still done it.
“I just never want to touch you any way other than gently,” he whispered.
Jon then raised a brow and tucked his chin in towards his chest, a mischievous smirk spreading across his face. “Unless I ask nicely?” he said in a cartoonishly low and sultry tone.
It took a second for his brain to switch gears, but Martin managed to roll his eyes. “Stupid,” he muttered, punctuated by a disgusting sniffle and the hint of a reluctant smile.
Jon grinned back at him and swiped his thumbs over the corners of Martin’s eyes, catching some of the lingering tears. “You do remember all the things I’ve done, correct?”
“Look, I know.”
“And you’ve forgiven me.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Then there we have it.”
It wasn’t that simple, though, never had been. Jon had fought for the exact opposite of his own point countless times before when their roles were reversed. Martin didn’t have the energy to point that out, not now.
Jon slid off his lap only to sit as close as possible by his side, leaning against him with one arm around Martin’s shoulders and the other strewn over his middle. God, why was he being so sweet? Both his hands gently stroking at the spots they’d landed, still ensuring he felt entirely encircled by Jon’s love, now leaving Martin space to collect his thoughts.
“I just…” he began, drawing each word out with excruciating effort. “I hate so much that… I mean, the amount of people who have hurt you, not just in general, but really, physically laid hands on you and hurt you… The list is so long already, it’s horrifying, and the fact that I’m one of them! I just–it’s, it’s, it’s–”
“Darling. Stop. Martin.”
“What?” he said miserably.
Jon looked at him, head tilted and eyes impractically kind. “Do you really think that’s how I see it?”
“I don’t know. You could.” He averted his gaze from the blinding rays of affection that Jon wouldn’t stop razing him with. “Maybe you should.”
Ever so gently, Jon tapped his chin. “Look at me. Look at where we are.” He glanced around, implicating their home, their life together, the few photos they’d managed to print of them side by side with matching grins at one special place or another, their notes to each other tacked to the fridge, the leftover half of the loaf of sourdough they’d made together last weekend. He wedged his hand under Martin’s and thumbed over his wedding ring. “Look at what’s on your hand.”
“What?”
“Do you really think that’s how I categorize the man I married?” Jon said. “You are not by any means defined by what you did in desperation during that time. We both hurt each other in the process of trying to do the right thing, trying to survive. But we haven’t had to do that for a long time.”
Martin bristled to hear him try to lump those two things together, as if Jon’s own plans for ‘doing the right thing’ didn’t typically involve him not surviving. It wasn’t the time to snap about that, not the time to dredge up that age-old argument, so Martin just kept quiet, his eyes darting around between Jon’s face and their hands in his lap.
“I love you,” Jon went on. “And I trust you more than anyone in this world or the last. I never imagined I could be loved so well. You will never just be someone else on the list of people who have hurt me.”
Martin contemplated that in silence, staring at the wall beyond Jon’s head like a petulant child while the gears in his brain ground against each other, desperately trying to keep the guilt machine running. Jon reached to gently pet his cheek, eventually breaking the standoff with another soft kiss there, leaning his forehead against Martin’s temple.
“We’ve talked this all to hell and back for years, darling.”
“That doesn’t mean we never talk about it again,” Martin said. “Sometimes, it still needs to be talked about.”
Jon let out a deep breath and nodded. “That’s true, and I understand that. And I know it’s never… simple. It never will be. But just like you tell me, I need you to know that I’m not going to wake up one day and take it all back. And nothing you say can ever convince me I should. That’s not what talking about it is for.”
Martin ran his thumb across Jon’s knuckles over and over. He heard his own wisdom in Jon’s words, lobbed back at him and refitted to soothe Martin himself, the bastard. He huffed a barely-there laugh.
“And you’ll remember saying all this the next time you try to remind me you’re an unforgivable monster?” he said with a weak smirk.
Jon gave a soft eye roll. “I’ll do my best.”
He cradled Martin’s cheek and turned his face towards him, angling for a kiss but noticeably hanging back, letting Martin make the decision on whether or not to meet him there. Of course he did, could never resist him for long, especially not when he’d just poured his heart out to make Martin feel better. Jon only ever seemed to be able to conjure all the vulnerability in the world if it meant tugging Martin out of a spiral.
“I love you,” Jon said again, still stroking his cheek. “I’m sorry.”
Martin covered his hand with his own. “S’okay. I’m sorry, too.”
But Jon just shook his head, as if he’d been the one in the wrong all along. “I realize I need to think before I share things related to… all that. It seemed like a simple fact to me in the moment, but it’s not. I see that.”
“It’s okay, just… yeah,” he said, pulling Jon’s hand down towards his chest, squeezing it like a stress ball. “Some things are easier to laugh off than others.”
“I think you’re quite right.” Jon kissed him again, briefer this time, and gave his cheek one small pat before letting his hand fall away. “Let’s get you in bed.”
“I’m fine,” Martin sighed. The last thing he wanted was Jon thinking he needed to be coddled after all that.
“So am I,” Jon countered. “Let’s go be fine in bed. It’s freezing down here.”
Oh, it had started to get cold overnight in the last week. “We never called anyone about that, did we?” Martin said. They hadn’t bothered to get their heating fixed when spring came unseasonably early last year.
“No, but seeing as it is rather late, I think my ideal solution right now would be getting under the covers and all but crawling inside your skin with you.”
Martin wrinkled his nose, but couldn’t keep from smiling. “Ew.”
Jon leaned into him even more, digging his chin into his shoulder just to be that much more of a bastard. “What, not romantic?”
“Not really.”
“All I’m saying is we’ll call for maintenance tomorrow, but for tonight, your body heat is my body heat.”
“For tonight?” Martin said, idly playing with Jon’s hand, trying to muster up the will to joke with him. “Isn’t it always?”
“Mm. That should have been in our vows.”
Martin chuckled, letting his head fall against Jon’s. “I could use a cup of tea first,” he muttered, making to get up. Jon stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Let me.”
“Seriously, Jon. I’m fine. I’m the one who brought all this on, really.”
“That’s not entirely true. Let me bring us tea to bed, please?”
Jon got to his feet and leaned over him, cradling one cheek in his hand and tenderly kissing the other.
“Alright,” Martin said, letting him slip away before he succumbed to the urge to pull him into his lap again and delay their bedtime any longer.
Martin took himself straight upstairs while Jon made the tea, giving him a moment to breathe and sigh and stare at his miserable face in the mirror, still oscillating between mantras of he loves you and you hurt him. But he shook himself out of it when Jon came up, set steaming mugs on their respective side tables, and went about getting ready for bed himself.
Martin slipped under the covers and waited for Jon to join him, staying on his own side of the bed in his own personal space when he did, just in case. But Jon promptly turned over, tossing one leg over Martin’s and wedging his arm under the pillows to face him. He caressed over Martin’s face, gazing down at him with the same soft eyes he’d been using all night. He smiled in that way he did when he looked like he was wondering how he got so lucky, and it still just made Martin even sadder.
“I think I was wrong,” Martin whispered.
“I’m sure that’s not possible. My husband is always right. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?”
Martin rolled his eyes, keeping it light to not brush off Jon’s joke. But Jon revised his tone anyway and looked back at him with sincerity.
“What about?”
Martin shrugged. “About… making friends here. And fitting in.”
Jon gave one understanding nod, and then propped himself up on an elbow.
“Well. I don’t exactly recall you ever saying anything about fitting in, just that we could have friends if we wanted to. And I think, thanks to you, we do.”
Martin worried at the inside of his lip, scraping at the walls of his brain for some articulation of his feelings that wasn’t just going to make Jon swing the other way and tell him he’s good.
“But I think… Maybe, that’s part of it for me,” he tried.
“Fitting in?”
“Yeah.” God, he felt like such a stupid impotent child, stumbling over words to explain what friendship meant to him in the most ridiculous, shallow way possible. “I think in my head, having friends means that… you blend in? And no one ever questions whether you belong there. You sit in a room of people and you feel normal, just because these people have invited you and allowed you to be there with them.”
Jon looked down at him with an inscrutable pity. He then shook his head as if banishing a daydream.
“Sorry, I’m just imagining what you would say to me if I told you that was my definition of having friends.”
Martin rolled his eyes. “No, no, I know it’s… I know there’s something wrong there. It just… It extra bothers me when stuff like this comes up in front of other people. I just feel like it makes it so clear how bloody fucked up we are when it comes out that we have this whole mysterious sordid history where terrible things happened and we did terrible things to each other and we can’t explain it to anyone.”
“I know,” Jon sighed.
“So I just… Sometimes it hits me. That we’ll never… Well, obviously, we’ll never be normal. But we might never get to feel normal, either.”
Jon’s brow furrowed at that. “You don’t… feel like you’ve had moments where you can feel normal, even if it’s sort of pretend?”
“No, I do,” he sighed. “I know I do. I know I’m just being dramatic–”
“It’s okay. I know it can be hard to remember when you feel like this.”
“Yeah.”
Jon rolled onto his back, and Martin immediately knew that he’d actually finally crossed the line where he couldn’t pretend to be sympathetic anymore. This stupid pity party had gone on long enough, eaten up half their entire evening, and Jon was understandably sick of it. Martin waited for him to turn over and switch off his light, but he just looked at him and held his arm aloft.
“Come here,” Jon said.
“Come where?”
He scoffed, as if that was the stupidest question he’d ever heard. “Come lay on me for a change.”
Martin squirmed, staying firmly rooted on his own pillow. The distance between them in the bed started to feel simultaneously cavernous and claustrophobic.
“I hate squashing you.”
“Shut up,” Jon said, beckoning with his hand once more. “You don’t squash me and you know I enjoy it and I know that it’s just that I’m not that comfortable to lay on. But do it.”
“Fine,” he sighed, and somehow broke from the chokehold self-denial had on him for just long enough to scoot over and lay his head on Jon’s chest.
He really did love Jon’s persnickety form of comfort. It was exactly what he needed sometimes, not so much sticky sweet cooing and pleasantries (though there was plenty of that laced in as well,) but such pure and authentic acts of care that were just so uniquely and undeniably Jon. Martin always struggled receiving sympathy he felt like was just compulsory pity, a prepackaged act someone knew they had to put on to maintain nice person status . It’s not that Jon wasn’t nice. He just didn’t change himself into some unrecognizable nicety machine when Martin was upset. He stayed himself, maybe even moreso, and reminded him just exactly who it was that loved Martin so dearly.
Martin nestled into the spot Jon had made on his collarbone, conspicuously relishing in the feeling of Jon’s arm wrapping around his back, nudging him even closer.
“You said you were going to keep me warm,” Jon said, just this side of petulant.
“We should just get you a weighted blanket if that’s what you’re after.”
“You’re much better than a weighted blanket.”
Martin chuckled into his neck and breathed in the scent of him. Nothing really calmed him like a lungful of Jon, tipping off his brain that he was safe, that Jon was safe, here and breathing beneath him with an evenly beating heart, fervently welcoming him into his arms and practically refusing to let him be even centimeter farther away.
“Thank you,” Martin whispered.
“No thanks needed.”
He picked his head up to catch his eyes. “No, I mean it. Thank you for talking me through it. And for forgiving me.”
Jon’s fingers swept through his hair. “Only returning the favor you’ve done a thousand times over for me.”
Martin rested his head on him again, wrapping his own arm around and wedging it under Jon’s back until they were practically reclining in a full embrace.
“I’m so tired now,” Martin muttered.
“Then we should sleep.”
“Is it… is it okay?”
“To sleep?”
Martin fiddled with the fabric of Jon’s t-shirt, twisting it around his fingers where it bunched up under his back. “Yeah, I mean… Are we okay? I don’t want to–I feel like I’m leaving things unresolved. I mean, are you okay?”
“I am just fine, darling,” Jon said, his lovely voice as smooth and soft as the bed they laid in. “You don’t have to feel better. It doesn’t have to be fixed. But you do need to believe that I love you. We can’t sleep unless that’s settled.”
Martin smiled to himself, if only because he was sure Jon couldn’t see. “It’s settled.”
“Okay, good.”