Work Text:
Stockwell
October 24th, 2019
The front door to Martin’s dingy flat clicks shut behind them, and the utter and complete silence within is so very still it makes him want to throw up. His mind buzzes still with the shadow of the loud, bustling noise of the city and the shrieking sounds of the underground, all indecipherable whispers and maddening shrills. The keys to his flat, the ones he’s holding in a grip so uncomfortably tight that metal teeth dig painfully into the soft skin of his palm, feel as heavy as pure lead and utterly foreign, as if he’s never held them before in his life.
He knows he should be grateful for the peace and quiet that engulfs him now, he knows that — but after complete solitude, there is no sound as loud and as persistent as that of a lonely home. Even the faintest of sounds and the simplest of feelings burrow deep beneath his skin when his mind is left to its own devices, making themselves at home in the caved hollow spaces that are left behind by something he doesn’t quite remember being there in the first place. And God, does it itch.
“Martin?”
Jon’s voice is gentle as he speaks, absurdly quiet in the unnatural silence of the flat. When did he become quite so soft spoken?, Martin finds himself wondering, a faraway afterthought that almost doesn’t feel like his own.
The man standing in front of him now is but the shadow of the one he first met — his abrasive and fearsome boss, perfectly put together and wanting so very desperately to be taken seriously. His voice had not boomed through the archives then, but it had been louder still; assertive, leaving no room for questioning. And Martin, walking in a liar’s shoes, had never even tried to question it.
There is almost nothing of that man within this one now but his fiery stubbornness. When Jon had realized just how much his voice carried power, his words had become softer, fainter. He would hesitate more often than not, fear and insecurity lacing his tongue as his words stumbled over one another in a desperate attempt to be listened to and to be believed, like cards slipping out of a shuffling deck held by wavering hands.
In the very few times Martin had seen Jon during his time of purposeful isolation, he had been taken aback by just how small Jon had looked, wrangling his hands together and looking at him with desperate eyes sunken with exhaustion, so heavily rimmed with dark circles as to almost look bruised. His t-shirt had looked crumpled, his hair had grown untamed, and he had clearly not shaven in more than a week, his scruff rough-looking and messy. But he had stood in front of Martin’s desk nonetheless, seemingly unawares of his current state. His stance had been unsteady, and his hands had been shaking.
Martin had stood there himself, so long ago now — shakingly and pathetically and clutching a jar of worms until his knuckles had turned white. The only difference had been that Jon’s office did not have windows, and it had not been thick with fog. Martin would’ve found it almost funny, if there had been anything to laugh about, how their roles had been so dramatically reversed in an eternity and yet no time at all, like a mirror stretched all throughout another lifetime. In some sad, regretful way, Martin mourned the time he had not been there to witness such a change.
But there is no point in that now, he thinks with as much clarity as he can muster. He’s here now, Jon is here now, standing ramrod still in his dull living room and heaving with fatigue, smelling faintly of sea salt and acrid smoke. There is a small splatter of blood on his jumper (one Martin knows is his but does not quite recognize) and he looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t know what.
Martin can’t help but reach out, in one brief moment of free will, framing Jon’s face with a slight tremor. He had only vaguely acknowledged how terribly cold his hands had been before, wrapped as tightly as they had been in Jon’s, but he could feel it all now, icy fingers against flustered cheeks, burning in a way that almost borders on unpleasant.
He closes his eyes and lets himself selfishly leech off that warmth for just a moment, his teeth clicking and his breath coming in ragged and laboured.
But Jon doesn’t seem to mind. There is the faintest rustle of fabric as Jon shifts, his movements followed by careful hands sliding over his chest, just as tense and tentative as his own, and he leans into Martin’s touch like a man starved.
When he dares to open his eyes again, he finds Jon already looking up at him, his expression open and vulnerable. His eyes are wide and hopeful and so very afraid — and there is not much else Martin can do but to lean down to kiss him.
It’s nothing more than a delicate brush of lips, clumsy and unplanned and barely even there, but it’s enough to gather the scattered pieces of Martin’s mind within the perimeter they’re delimiting. He is as safe as he is adrift, his world tilted ever so slightly forward. There is nothing but pitch black behind his eyelids and his ears, which had been pounding with panic and numbness alike and whose maddening shrill had been impossible to ignore, are finally quiet.
It’s the surprised, almost imperceptible gasp that comes from Jon that wrenches him back to where he’s standing — not in the darkest places of his own mind, but in a bare living room that should by any right be his yet feels anything but, with salt water-soaked clothes and kissing the man he loves in a haze of terrifying relief. Shame burns fiercer than he remembers, making his skin tingle and his blood run cold.
“Oh, God. Jon, I’m so sorry, I — ” Martin chokes out. It’s the first words he has spoken since leaving that dreaded beach, and he almost cringes at the way his voice croaks and cracks with disuse. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked — “
He tries to pull away, but Jon doesn’t let him. Despite being so frail and looking one breath away from keeling over, the grip he has on the lapels of Martin’s jacket is surprisingly firm. There is something in his eyes, something both stubborn and resolute, and before Martin knows why he’s doing it, for no question has been asked of him, he nods.
Jon’s lips are on his in a matter of seconds, so fast and so eager their teeth click together almost painfully. There’s the half-formed start of an apology in the following breath, coming from who it’s impossible to say with any certainty, before even that is silenced by a second, more careful kiss. Jon’s hands leave his chest in favour of burying themselves in his hair, tilting Martin’s head in such a way that makes him feel woozy and unsteady. The door behind his back is as much of a solid presence as Jon is, something tangible and real that keeps him rooted to the spot where his feet meet the floor.
In all the many scenarios in which Martin had dreamt himself kissing Jon (many signifying a great many, much to his mortification), none turned out to be quite accurate. Desperate and tender, Jon kisses the same way a rollercoaster drops, that terrifying pull of gravity kicking the air right out of your lungs — and Martin can’t help but huff out a disbelieving breath at the impossibility of it all.
He's the one that pulls away eventually, if only to regain a small amount of composure, the pads of his fingers pressing over cheekbones and pulse point, their foreheads a fixed point of contact. Jon seems content, catching his breath as he pushes even further into the contact, adjusting his grip in Martin’s hair and even huffing out what sounds like the memory of a laugh. So Martin is sure there was no warning, no tell-tale for what would happen next, but for a slightly sharper intake of breath.
And then the dam breaks.
A sob wracks through Jon then, impossibly loud in the deafening silence, and Martin feels his heart plummet.
He tries to take a step back to look at him, see what’s wrong, but Jon only tightens the hold he has on him, his arms a desperate vice around his neck, his hand buried in his hair so tight it stings. Pressed as close as they are, with both their glasses askew, it’s close to impossible to properly see him, but Martin doesn’t have to. He can feel Jon shake in his arms, too exhausted to try and hide it, wet sobs escaping his lips with every gulp of air he tries to take in. He can feel hot, heavy tears slip through the empty spaces his fingers don’t quite fill and slide down his wrists, soaking up his sleeves from where his hands are still cupping Jon’s jaw at an angle that is anything but comfortable. Beneath his fingertips, Jon’s pulse leaps and thrums frantically, not unlike a moth banging against a glass — and as he shifts to wrap his arms around him, Jon only sobs harder.
Martin closes his eyes and just holds him as he cries then, knuckles white with strain as he keeps Jon’s jacket balled up in his fists in a desperate attempt to pull him as close as one can. He realizes in that moment, as he rubs an unsteady hand up and down Jon’s back, that all throughout three kidnappings, uncountable loss and no small amount of physical injuries, Martin had never actually seen Jon cry. No matter how much his voice cracked or how glassy his eyes would get, there had never been a single tear shed in front of others — and the mental image of Jon crying by himself within the four oppressing walls of his office, miserable and so very alone, makes his head swim with guilt.
They stay like that for a while, in a silence broken only by the occasional sniffle and the clock hanging over his front door ticking softly. Martin’s mind has finally stopped buzzing, and the dull ache beneath his skin has subsided into plain old weariness, something present and tangible and a warmly welcomed change from painful numbness.
After what feels like forever and no time at all, Jon eases his hold, the soles of his feet coming back down onto the floor unsteady and wobbly. His arms slide from Martin’s shoulders, tired and boneless, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. But he doesn’t drop them — he brings his hands back up instead to rest on Martin’s face, cradling him ever so gently.
He can feel the pad of Jon’s thumbs, still shaky and tentative, stroke his cheekbones with a reverence he doesn’t quite know how to receive. He strokes underneath his eyes, drying his tears, and oh, so there are tears now.
The scarred tissue of Jon’s hand is altogether too rough and too soft as it touches his still frost-bitten face, but Martin doesn’t find within himself to care. He remembers instead, although with memories made hazy, that this is not the first time he has felt it.
The night before the Unknowing, Martin had cried, and cried, and cried some more, and then he had gotten himself up and he had brought Jon a cup of tea, like he had never been crying at all. He had found him sitting on his lonesome at the tiny breakroom table, his brows furrowed and his leg nervously bouncing so high it risked slamming into solid wood with each movement. There had been nothing comforting about the sight, that of a broken man covered in plasters and wrapped up in misery — but the tiny, sad smile he had given Martin as he had accepted the cup offered to him with whispered thanks had been nothing but genuine. That, at least, had quelled the hollow pit in Martin’s stomach just enough. They had drunk their tea in a silence as comfortable as it could’ve gotten in those days, but even the sweet taste of it turned sour on Martin’s tongue with every sip.
He remembers he had scalded himself at some point, making a face and a muted, painful hiss at the sudden sting, and he had put his mug down with a little more force than had been necessary. He had felt his eyes start to well up at that, but whether it had been from the burn or overwhelming heartache he didn’t quite know, and he had dug his nails in the pad of his palm in the desperate hope that none would spill. But whatever Martin had expected to happen, if he had even expected anything to happen at all, Jon reaching out and carefully putting his hand on his balled-up fist truly hadn’t been it. And he remembers, with no small amount of shame, that he had almost flinched, at both the surprise of another’s touch and at the foreign feeling of such a raw scar against his own skin.
“Are you alright?” Jon had asked, voice soft despite the emptiness of the room, despite no one being around to hear but him. His voice, hoarse and raw as it was, made Martin want to cry just a little bit harder, so he had tried to focus on Jon’s hands instead. From such a close distance, Martin had been able to see how the fingers of his hand didn’t close quite right anymore, and that they held a slight, almost imperceptible tremor.
No, God no. Martin had wanted to blurt out through the lump in his throat that choked him so painfully it made him lightheaded. How can I be when I know I won’t see you again?
But he had said none of it, for he was ever the coward, and had instead turned his hand in Jon’s until their palms were pressed together, scar tissue against calloused fingertips. He had smiled a watery smile, the edges of it quivering with the effort it took not to weep.
“Yeah” Martin had lied through his teeth — a lie for another’s comfort, something he had always been good at. If it would’ve truly been the last time he were to see Jon, he wouldn’t want it to be through a wall of tears. So he resolved to give his hand a light, careful squeeze, the warmth of it a solid reminder of what it felt like to be hopeful. “I’m alright”
This time, in a present he still doesn’t quite believe he belongs in, it’s Jon’s turn to smile a watery smile, the corners of his mouth barely able to contain his joy. Despite the puffiness of his eyes and the tear marks drying on his face, his beauty is all but unmatched.
“I thought I had lost you” Jon says, his fingers still stroking his cheeks. Martin isn’t quite sure he knows he’s still doing it, but he doesn’t find it within himself to tell him to stop.
You nearly did. He doesn’t say, but not out of cowardice this time. Jon’s eyes, bright and lovely, are skimming his face as if searching for something he has already found — and Martin knows Jon is aware of it, that he had always been. He had been aware of it when he had torn down a man, fuelled by stubbornness and devotion alone, for just one chance had had to be better than none at all.
“You didn’t” is what Martin says instead, truth soothing the lump in his throat in its finality.
“No,” Jon smiles. His voice breaks around every word, but not due to sadness. It’s something lighter, the hysterical bubbling laughter of someone who rarely gets to see wonder. “I didn’t”