Work Text:
It’s pleasantly quiet at the safehouse. Beyond the evening crickets in the grass outside, the rustling of his book when Jon turns its pages, and the gentle breathing of his lover across the couch, there’s not a noise to be heard. Every moment he spends here feels like a victory. This peace, temporary as it will inevitably be, is a hard-won spoil of war. They’ve lost their battles time and again, settling for half-victories they could never quite manage to convince themselves were worth the cost. Their respite here is a precious gift, especially since they have the chance to share it together.
With Martin so close to him, Jon can nearly convince himself the past few months had been a bad dream, or that this is just a particularly good one. He feels the need to pinch himself sometimes to remember that they’re here, this is real. The love of his life is there, sitting there on the cushion, eyes fixed on the rolling fields out the window, an empty cup of tea in hand, and only centimeters away. Jon is usually quite a fast reader, but with Martin in his line of sight he finds he gets through his books rather slowly. Of course, he has no problem with that, Martin’s much more lovely to look at than some ink printed on paper.
Eventually, Martin stands, he stretches his arms up to the ceiling- Jon doesn’t fail to notice how his shirt rides up, exposing his soft, fuzzy, exceedingly adorable tummy, and is temporarily paralyzed by the urge to just put his face in - and he lets out a little yawn. “I think I’m going to bed.”
“Alright, have a good rest.” Jon smiles up at him.
Martin’s brow furrows. “When are you going to bed? I don’t think I’ve seen you sleep since you got here.”
“Ah, well, I- I don’t? Anymore?” Jon’s voice gets smaller by the end, he shrinks in on himself. He knows he’s fucked the moment he’s said it.
“You don’t sleep ?” There’s Martin’s protective instinct flaring up.
“I mean whenever I sleep at the same time my victims do, they have horrible nightmares! ”
“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sleep, Jon.” Martin’s towering over him now, his large frame as attractive as it is terrifying.
“I- I mean- I don’t need it anymore-”
“Yes you do. Do you see the bags under your eyes? God, no wonder you’re so droopy all the time.”
“I am not droopy .”
“Yes you are. Now you’re going to come to bed with me right this instant young man!” Martin points an accusatory finger at him.
As much as the idea of sharing a bed with Martin makes him feel very warm in the face, he refuses to give in. “I just don’t have the- the right to, not after all I’ve put them through. If my staying awake stops them being tortured, it’s worth it.”
For a moment, Jon thinks that he won Martin over. He goes back to looking at his book, curling inward a bit and definitely not sulking, thank you very much. He’s almost halfway through “reading” (and not actually processing) the next page, when he feels Martin’s arms tuck underneath him. Before he can ask, the world shifts suddenly downward with a whistle of air past his ear, and Martin’s warm chest is pressed against his side, and oh god. Martin’s carrying him. Oh. Oh my.
“ Oh good lord, ” he whispers as his heart starts to pound its way out of his chest.
Jon can feel how strong he is. Martin had always had big arms, he was a big guy, but Jon hadn’t really figured until now that they might have more than just plush fat behind them. He’s beginning to understand why Tim and Sasha always called on Martin to carry around the heavy boxes of statement files for them.
“You’re coming to bed Jon,” Martin says firmly from somewhere above him.
“ Mhm. ” His own voice sounds strained, he can’t fathom why.
Martin starts to carry him over to their room, and the walk itself is probably very short but Jon can’t be sure. He’s on cloud nine right now, feeling Martin’s strong, soft arms around him, his soft sweater and soft body pressed against him, and seeing his soft determined smile when Jon can finally process more than hearts and exclamation marks in his periphery. Jon feels very soft right now too, like melted chocolate. Maybe it’s infectious. When they finally get there, they can’t quite fit through the doorway to their bedroom, and Jon has to tuck further into Martin to make it in. Consequently, this brings him in even closer to him. Well how about that.
He’s placed down gently on the bed like he’s something that deserves to be held gently and barely keeps a bereft whimper from escaping when Martin pulls away. Martin, being a perfect boyfriend whom he adores, lifts his shirt off for him, and once he’s got Jon’s binder off he takes it and tosses it into his open suitcase. He rubs the red marks left behind, soothing them with his fingers for a moment, before handing back the shirt and helping him in.
Martin lifts the blanket for Jon and tucks him in with a kiss on his head. Martin leans away, pulling off his own shirt and his own binder, but Jon swears can still feel those lips on his skin. He settles in on the other side of the bed and Jon’s soul punches out of his body when Martin reaches his hand around and rolls over to spoon him, completely wrapping Jon in the world’s greatest weighted blanket.
“I-is this okay?” Martin seems nervous.
“Yeah…” Now he sounds far away. He feels far away too. The only thing running through his mind is Martin . Martin Martin Martin. A chorus to the tune of his racing heartbeat.
Tired as he is, Jon can’t fall asleep. A fevered barrage of half-formed thoughts, mostly about Martin pinning him down and kissing him into the mattress, or picking him up and holding him there, never letting go, run through his mind on loop.
Wonder of wonders, he feels when Martin’s breath begins to slow, evening out as he gently drifts off into sleep behind him. Soft puffs of warm air press against Jon’s head, and he thinks he might be vibrating like a motor. He’s trying very hard not to actually explode. It does not help the daydreaming.
When Jon’s body finally calms down, it’s past midnight, and kept warm and safe and comfortable as he is- in Martin’s bed, in Martin’s arms- he’s out like a light.
Jon awakens to a lightened room, an empty bed, and the smell of something pleasant cooking not far away. He drags himself out of the blankets, steals one to wrap around himself as he goes, and barely spares a glance out the window, the sun, having long since risen, above the green pastures beyond, before marching over to the kitchen.
Predictably, Martin is there, flipping pancakes and humming something to himself, swaying to his own tune. The scene is so domestic that he aches. Figuratively, and literally, their time here has given Jon’s facial muscles a real workout, he’s never smiled so much in his life. Jon walks over and leans over the counter.
“Hi.” His smile clearly makes it into his voice.
Martin smiles back at him, “Good morning Jon. And I want no comments about how I’m making breakfast today.”
He winced. “Sorry I woke up so late.”
“No, you clearly needed the sleep. What was that, like, fourteen- fifteen hours?”
“Ten ,” he replies, since the Eye decided to so kindly place it in his head. “A good, reasonable amount of sleep.”
Martin gives him an odd look. “Did you wake up in the night? We went to sleep at seven.”
“No! It was just a bit hard to get to sleep with the heart attack you gave me last night.”
“Heart attack?” Martin’s face dropped. “What do you mean?”
Jon realized, in that moment, that he might have said too much. “Ah- nothing to be concerned about, just-”
“Did I do something wrong? You have to tell me if I did something-”
“I was just- surprised is all.” Martin made a ‘go on’ gesture. Jon ducked into his blanket like a snail. “W-when you carried me?”
Jon watches as the realization slowly begins to dawn on him, and his expression shifts from concern, into surprise, into pure smugness. Martin had him flagged.
“So you liked it?”
“I- I mean objectively -“
“You did! You- no. You liked it enough that you lost hours of sleep about it?” Martin gawks in disbelief.
Jon responds only by hanging his head in defeat. Someone could probably fry an egg on his face with how warm it is. Martin bursts into a fit of giggles.
“Holy shit,” he sounds oddly breathless. Jon looks up to take a peek at Martin’s expression. His eyes are wide and his cheeks are looking pretty rosy, giggling like a teenager.
His initial fluster doesn’t last for long though. In a flash, Martin’s got Jon by the waist and is dipping him down, until the blanket falls from his shoulders and his weight entirely rests on Martin’s sturdy hand. Jon entirely short-circuits.
“Having trouble there?” Martin’s grinning smugly at him. He has no right to look so arresting like that.
“Ah- um, hmm.” Jon’s mouth is incapable of forming coherent sentences, much like his brain is incapable of forming coherent thought.
His grin widens. “You really do like it!”
“ Mhmmh ,” Is Jon’s educated response.
With his other hand, Martin moves to cup Jon’s face. He traces his thumb across Jon’s lip, which he parts on instinct, even as his mind stays entirely too empty to do anything else. He thinks he might’ve whimpered a little.
“Poor thing,” Martin whispers an inch from his face. Jon shivers. Martin leans in and finally kisses him, holding him close and pressing in deep. Jon is sure he kisses him like he’s starving for it, because he absolutely is.
Eventually they have to pull away. The pancakes are done, and they unfortunately have more important things to do than kiss all day. By the time Martin sets him back on his feet, Jon feels like his head’s spinning. Martin only gives him a smirk before plating the pancakes and setting them out for the two of them, circling back to get some forks and butter knives.
“I… woah,” Jon says when he is once again able to speak.
“Did you like it then?”
“Yes, I- I’d say.” He breathes.
Martin is positively beaming. “Good, ‘cause we can definitely put more of that in the books… iiiif, you’d maybe eat some pancakes?”
Jon marches over without hesitation, plants himself in his chair and slices himself a piece, chewing as quickly as possible. Martin giggles, but he’s not exactly eating slowly himself.
The both of them can hardly wait.
edit: incredible art for this work by my friend, c0l0re on tumblr <3
