Chapter Text
The moment Martin had been pulled the final step down to the Lonely, his focus had shattered. No, not quite—shattered implies a splintering, a sense of overwhelm. It implies a scattering cacophony across the ground. If anything, his thoughts had imploded, collapsing into nothing. Everything that made up Martin Blackwood had condensed into a tight little stone, then condensed a little more until it sighed away in a wisp of wind. He didn’t enjoy it, because he couldn’t think, but at least he wasn’t suffering.
When Jon cupped his face and stared with too-many-too-large eyes and told him to look, he gathered everything that was left in him to follow the instruction. He grasped desperately at his self, which was shimmering away in a haze, and somehow it worked. In a way.
He wasn’t all the way back yet. He knew some of him—most of him—was still on that beach. He knew he should maybe be concerned that he left it behind, but the part of him that was able to be concerned about these things was one of the parts that was missing. He knew he didn’t literally leave most of himself on that beach, but he also knew that pulling himself back into a human shape would take just as much effort whether the rest of him were physically or emotionally away.
For now, the only part of him that he called back was the part that was focused on Jon. A deep, bitter part of him, shouting from behind a bank of fog, accused this part of being the Eye. He did his best to ignore it.
He had one scrap of focus right now. It wasn’t much, but he was good at budgeting. He was also selfish, which is why he spent it all on Jon.
Jon had wrapped both arms entirely around Martin’s elbow at first, but walking like that had made them both trip, so he eventually detangled himself and settled for intertwined fingers instead. He looked so frustrated with himself settling for arm’s length. Martin tried to memorize his expression. Jon always made the funniest faces, and Martin suspected this was only because he never seemed to be aware he was wearing his mind so blatantly on his features. Later, when Martin took his pleasure out of storage, he would probably like the face he was making now. His whole face was pinched up in determination, his mouth and brow set in resolute lines, but his eyes were almost comically wide in worry, dashed with charcoal-black eyebags underneath. They should be conflicting emotions, but they sat together with practiced ease across his features.
Exiting the Lonely was an obscure process—for Martin, at least. He was sure Jon could see every sliding puzzle piece as reality shuffled back into place. It was in the way his usual two eyes were blacker than before, extra heavy, and the notion of other eyes lurked heavy in the contour of his skin, out of the periphery of vision. Martin’s glasses were fogging up, but the condensation cleared every time Jon looked at him. Jon never smiled when he did this, but he always nodded to himself, as if there were something correct about Martin being there.
One moment, they were nowhere, and the next, they were in the Panopticon. Jon seemed to suddenly find himself in an enormous hurry, then, and nearly tripped over…Martin couldn’t—wouldn’t— think about what—who—was in the way right now. He nearly tripped again, fumbling his way down the narrow stone steps, but Martin was able to pull him back by their clasped hands (to think, Jon still hadn’t let go). Jon finally smiled, then, looking back at Martin with shaking shoulders. He looked so tired, and delicate. It didn’t suit the danger buzzing under his skin.
Jon was back to just two eyes—though it was debatable whether he ever literally had more—and they were roving the stone walls in a methodical and deliberate pattern. His grip on Martin’s hand was probably too tight, but Martin didn’t care. All that he cared about was watching Jon.
He had years of practice to draw from.
Eventually, they made their way back to the Archives. If the Lonely was a blanket smothering Martin, the Archives felt like a dissection table. It was like a blustering wind blowing open every door in his mind. All his neat tidy boxes of emotions kept their lids on, but only barely. Another thread of focus escaped into the forefront of his mind, rather against his will, and he was suddenly struck by how quiet it was. He expected ongoing carnage, or at least sirens. Instead, there was a dead, eerie quiet.
Jon, frantic just moments before, slumped in defeat at the sight before him. It was, objectively, disheartening. Desks upended, files defaced, personal affects crushed. The inside of Jon’s office was worse—his desk was cracked clean in half, with the rolling tracks for his drawers rent wildly from their courses. Some of the jagged splinters were painted in blood, though whose, it was impossible to say. Even Jane Prentiss’s ashes were scattered on the ground, a grim and sandy trophy.
Jon finally let go of Martin’s hand to crouch down and ran his fingers through the grit which had once been the Flesh Hive. Martin’s reins on himself failed, for the briefest of moments, and he blurted out, “You are not taking a pocket full of Jane Prentiss.”
Jon looked back up at him, startled, and Martin realized those were his first words since the Lonely. He suddenly felt very real and present, in a way in which he was not prepared to be. Jon’s eyes were nearly magnetic, and it took everything in Martin to look away, but he managed. He could still feel Jon’s gaze practically burning a hole in the side of his head. His next words were aimed at the pile of Jon’s pens on the floor. “I, er, well I’m not saying I feel I owe her any particular respect, but there’s something, oh, I don’t know, grimy, about just having a handful. Which is all you’d get, given-given the urn is broken. Um.”
It was a deeply uninspired line of conversation. He felt profoundly foolish for having brought it up, especially when their last conversation had been so emotionally ripe. He almost felt like he should be fading at the edges. Martin Blackwood, pulled out of hell by the long-standing man of his dreams, and all he can think to say is that putting the ashes of their oldest enemy in his pocket would be ill-advised. Peter was never right about anything, really, but surely somebody besides him had said Jon could never love him. Elias? Another untrustworthy source. Maybe Jon himself, once.
Jon laughed grimly, and Martin wanted to die a little more. To Martin’s surprise, though, Jon’s next, fond, words were, “Ah, no. If you can believe it, it’s something even stupider.” He shuffled through the ashes a moment more, before pulling out something pale and curved from the mess. As he blew the dust from the surface, Martin remembered the truly unfortunate tape wherein Jon went out to find an anchor.
Ordinarily, his heart would probably break, but he wasn’t prepared to feel that way yet. That emotion, especially, was at the bottom of his pile of feelings to unpack. Instead, he snorted out a soft guffaw and gestured at the rib in Jon’s hand. “I mean, it’s a part of your body, I guess I can’t fault you for taking it with you.”
Martin risked looking back at Jon’s face. He was looking down at his hands, rubbing his thumb down the ridge of the bone. “I mean, I guess I never really cared about it, if I parted with it so easily. It’s mostly, ah,” he looked vaguely ill as he swallowed around his next words. “I can still sort of feel both of them, in an abstract way, and I don’t want this one getting broken.”
This conversation was going precisely nowhere Martin expected it to. He had no idea how to react to what Jon was saying. He was once again sharply reminded of the fact that he hadn’t really spoken to anyone but Peter for several months. How does a person even react to that? Did normal people know how to react to that? For Martin, at least, the answer was apparently, “Well if you’re only taking one thing from the, uh, biohazards drawer, better this than the remains of the worm lady, I suppose.”
Jon looked up, successfully catching Martin’s eye, and chuckled softly. “Yes, I suppose so,” he murmured, and proceeded to maintain eye contact with Martin for an uncountable moment. Martin couldn’t look away. Was it because Jon’s dreadful transformation had come with a black hole gaze, or because Martin was stupidly in love, to a degree he would never be able to fully push away? Either way, the atmosphere went from charged, to comfortable, to extremely awkward, before Jon finally coughed, looked away, and began to gather his other things off the ground.
He was smiling to himself, though.
After a few minutes of Jon sifting through the ruins of his office, he perked up, eyes cast to a strangely specific height in the doorway, which was shortly filled by Basira’s face. Her eyes were puffy—had she been crying? Was that something she did?—but she was otherwise entirely composed. She immediately scrutinized Martin, scanning him up and down with a calculating eye. Martin’s focus slithered back out of his grasp and he looked at Jon instead.
He didn’t follow the ensuing conversation. There were frequent overlapping objections, interspersed with just as many grim silences. Jon gestured often toward Martin, seeming very passionate as he did so. At one point he reached for Martin’s hand—with his right this time, so the texture was different—and didn’t let go. He looked up at Martin, then, seeming to expect something which he didn’t find. He seemed very worried for the rest of the conversation.
Martin realized they weren’t in the institute anymore. This was potentially troubling, as he didn’t remember leaving. But Jon was there, so really, it couldn’t be that bad, no?
Jon kept looking at him. It made it very hard to avoid thinking about being a person, when there was an anxious man staring at him fifty percent of the time. And it was just Jon; Martin didn’t feel the branding press of the Eye, only the uncomfortably soft caress of a fretful glance. Maybe it was good, since it was probably the only thing keeping him from shutting down entirely.
And then they were at the door of an unfamiliar building. One Jon evidently did not have the keys to, as he was currently fumbling with a set of lockpicking tools on his keyring. He initially tried maneuvering the picks primarily with his right hand, though he dropped the ring twice before apparently remembering his predicament and shifting to his left hand. It was a little endearing, and a little sad.
Inside, Jon took Martin’s hand again (again! It kept happening!) and pulled him down the hallway. They stopped at an…unfamiliar door? Was it actually unfamiliar? As Jon knelt and resumed his standoff with this building’s locks, Martin belatedly realized that this was in fact his own flat. How long had it been since he’d been back? It could honestly have been as recent as yesterday. Peter had initially encouraged him to go home every night, probably to stew by himself for a few hours, but he never seemed to object whenever Martin would stay up all night at his desk, resolutely thinking of nothing in particular.
He didn’t actually remember. This was probably not ideal.
The lock clicked and the door slid open an inch. Jon looked back at Martin, probably for permission to enter. Martin looked at the open gap in the doorway, the apparent dust accumulating on his floor. “You could have just asked for my keys, you know,” he said. It was maybe supposed to be lighthearted, or joking, but it quite evidently fell short of the mark, given the way Jon winced and curled in on himself. Martin didn’t know what to do about that. He considered stepping over Jon and just walking in.
He leaned down, offering his hand, and, when Jon took it, pulled him up to stand at his side.
Martin pushed the door open to what was, ostensibly, his flat, and tried to familiarize himself. It was small, an open concept with his bed and dressers shoved into the corner opposite the kitchenette, and two doors in the wall to the left which were undoubtedly a closet and bathroom. He had a vague recollection, now, of when he first bought this flat two years ago. He’d had depressingly little to his name at the time, having to sell all his old furniture because it had been too big to take with him into the archives. When he finally had his own place to live again, he’d bought a twin mattress and an ikea dresser and told himself he could replace everything else later. He’d bought dishes, (admittedly tacky) paintings, tchotchkes for nonexistent shelves, garlands for his wall, dressings upon dressings around the negative space of a life he was yet to rebuild. It was just that furniture would have been expensive, and there were so many other things to worry about.
He still didn’t have any sort of bed frame. Or a table.
Jon was drinking it all in like it was anything more than evidence of a life in shambles. Martin wanted suddenly for him to leave. He didn’t want Jon to see the garbage bin overflowing with takeaway boxes, or his unfolded clothes in a heap next to his dresser, or the very telling indent in the center of his mattress. The longer he spent here, the more incriminating details returned to him. As a matter of fact, there was nothing he wanted more than for Jon to be anywhere except here.
If Jon left, Martin might never do the same.
He didn’t say anything.
Martin considered jokingly asking why Jon looked so curious about his flat, even after the stalking, but given the reception of his last attempt at a joke, he feared it would land flatly sincere instead of sarcastic, and then Jon would shut down.
“Why are we here, Jon?” Martin finally thought to ask, after a few horrifically silent moments in which neither of them moved. Jon startled, and blinked up at Martin in a very birdish way. He seemed very lost, like he didn’t know a thing, for a change. Then his brain visibly caught up to him, and as he processed the question, his shoulders inched upward in an uneasy crawl.
He lifted his right arm, which had a backpack slung over the elbow. “We’re packing, Martin.”
Martin took the bag. Now that he was looking, Jon had one too, sat at his feet, except his was full. Had he packed it while they were still in the archives? Martin didn’t remember him picking up anything but his rib and his pens. Maybe it had happened while Basira was there.
Martin nodded shallowly. “Hm. Yes. Why?”
Jon swallowed, and his gaze started to dance around Martin’s periphery. There was an impression that he would ordinarily be averting his eyes, but some strange desire to look at Martin was overriding his discomfort. “We’re leaving, Martin. We have to—for several reasons, it’s not safe for us in London anymore. We have to get away, far—far away, as far as possible.”
Martin laughed joylessly. “I don’t think anywhere’s safe for us, Jon.” He looked down at the bag. It was big, a proper hiking backpack with four pockets. He wondered where Jon had gotten it. Probably from Basira, but wouldn’t it be funny if Martin had missed an entire run to a store?
No, not really, to be honest.
Jon looked annoyed at this (accurate) observation, which honestly annoyed Martin right back. He would let Jon say his piece, but really, Jon, you should know this by now. We just have to accept it.
Jon rolled his eyes (the audacity!) and huffed “I know that, Martin, I’m not blind. Far from it, need I remind you.” Here, he gestured aggressively at his previously bespectacled face, unadorned since the day he woke up. “But at the very least we can get out of the country and remove ourselves from this particular situation.”
This was the final straw for Martin. A strange limit, but what do they say about the straw that breaks the camel’s back? They were leaving, not just the city, but the entire country. Martin found himself entirely unable to care. “Well then,” he said flatly. He possibly didn’t want it to be flat, but he also didn’t have the energy to worry about reception. “I guess I’ll start packing.”
Jon evidently got the hint, because they didn’t have any more conversation the rest of the time Martin spent packing.
~~~
Jon had been in Daisy’s truck several times before, but never in the driver’s seat. It felt different.
Most of the time, when she dragged him from his office, they walked to whatever destination Daisy picked. She always said it was so he would get off his ass once in a blue moon and exercise mildly, but Jon knew the real answer. She had spent months not moving, and she was worried she would lose the ability again if she didn’t practice. Jon didn’t know if he had pieced this together himself, or if she had told him straightforwardly at some point, or if he just Knew. No matter the method, it was a fact he was aware of.
Some days, though, the uncountable cramped time caught up to her, and her fears came true for a day. Or, more rarely, Jon would hide his own aches and pains poorly enough that Daisy took pity on him. Those days, they would go driving instead. Once or twice, both happened on the same day, and they tried to find levity in the fact that both of their bodies were rebelling against them.
Daisy drove a dusty, decade-old dark red pickup truck. A few times, Jon contemplated asking why she even had it, as it was extremely conspicuous in a city, but he never seemed to get around to it. She drove it with a practiced ease, and clearly treasured it. It drove worryingly jerkily, and Jon was always half convinced it would die with him inside, but it never did. Jon had heard entirely too many episodes of The Archers from its passenger seat.
And now he was in the driver’s seat. He hadn’t driven in…years. Not since before he was employed at the Institute, that much was certain. He’d gotten a license as a teen, because driving could take him much further afield than walking, but even then he only rarely had occasion to actually practice the skill. He didn’t think he had ever been particularly good at it.
No matter his atrophied level of experience, he had to drive now. Basira had handed him a key hob and a page of scribbled directions along with the bags, and as tempting as it was to just take public transportation as far as they could up into the Scottish highlands, leaving that sort of trail would be practically begging Hunters or Strangers to come find them. Also, despite Martin’s height he looked rather ordinary, while Jon…didn’t. Properly eye-catching, Jon was. The fewer people who saw them, the better.
That being said, the truck was exceedingly difficult to manage. It jerked and jumped and all around felt like a bull trying to buck Jon off. He knew how to drive stick shift, at the very least, but that didn’t mean he was adept at it by any stretch of the imagination. Watching Daisy drive, he had started to take for granted the ease with which she conducted the machinery. If he were not running for his life, he would be mortally embarrassed at his poor showing in this department. As is, the mortification was overridden by sheer frustration, as well as the novelty of being behind the wheel, while Martin sat to his left.
Jon didn’t quite know what to do with Martin. He felt like Tantalus, except the fruit was finally not only in his reach, but in his hand. He had admittedly had a bit of a thrill upon finding out they were supposed to go, alone, just the two of them, to a remote cabin in Scotland. Alas, the reality was frustratingly more complex than some sort of romance novel. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t know if he should coddle Martin. Was this the sort of condition to be gradually eased out of, or fully pulled away from as soon as possible? He hoped Martin would be able to tell him, but he also knew it was unlikely.
He also felt a little guilty for not being able to fully address the situation yet, due to adrenaline. First Trevor and Julia, then Not-Sasha, then Elias, then entering the Lonely, then taking Peter’s statement, then finally, finally getting to Martin…he had enough adrenaline running through his veins to power a car. He wasn’t even scared, for a change, just running on pure energy. It also didn’t help that he had incurable road rage, which was temporarily taking his mind off the greater situation (possibly good) by having him yell at strangers (definitely not good).
But really, who told Basira leaving London at five in the afternoon on a workday was a good idea? They were barely moving.
(The door in his mind shivered, and he suddenly Knew that the 2007 Toyota HiLux was known to have inconsistent handling due to its unconventional suspension, and that Daisy’s in particular struggled with the gear shift up to fifth. The most recent model was the top-selling vehicle in Australia this year. Daisy had made no modifications to it, save one occasion wherein she replaced the upholstery due to extensive bloodstains. Both of the front seats had had to be replaced.)
After assuring that yes, the traffic was still entirely stationary, and it probably would be forever, Jon risked a glance at Martin. He still hadn’t really spoken beyond simple responses and directions since they had been in his flat. Jon wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong, and he felt like he was walking on eggshells trying to avoid a repeat performance. Right now, Martin looked frighteningly disengaged from reality. Out of the corner of his eye, Jon could almost swear his glasses were fogging over, but every time he fully looked they were crystal clear.
The quiet inside the car was oppressive. There was an uncrossable gap between them, and Jon knew that he would just have to take action, a leap of faith, but it was still terrifying. After so many months of Martin brushing him away and hiding, Jon had become wary of reaching out.
He didn’t plan on letting that stop him, of course. Some things were more important than fear.
That didn’t make him any less apprehensive.
Drumming his fingers anxiously, Jon cleared his throat. When Martin didn’t react, he cleared his throat again, then winced at the passive aggression. This was off to a terrible start. Jon reached into his pocket and pulled out the written directions Basira had given him and held them out to Martin. His hand was shaking, which was ridiculous. “I, uh, these are the directions to where we’re going. If you could be my, er, navigator, please?” A truly disproportionate amount of blood rushed to his face as he said this. He hoped Martin wouldn’t notice. He felt like he was fourteen.
Martin took the sheet, and their fingers brushed for a moment. Jon shivered. This was unfathomably stupid. This was quite possibly the worst time to be so constantly plagued by thoughts like this. They were literally running for their lives. Jon couldn’t afford to be distracted by sappily romantic inclinations. He was a fully grown adult who could stay on top of this sort of thing.
He kept his eyes on the road ahead for now. The person in front of him had stickers on the back of the car implying they had three children, a dog, and a love of Harry Potter. Jon wondered if any of them could be blamed for the driver’s horrible response time and evident inability to signal. The crinkling sound of Martin smoothing the crumpled paper filled the air, and Martin hummed. It was the first he’d used his voice since they’d gotten in the truck.
”Where are we actually going?” Martin asked. “You never said.” Jon barely refrained from replying that he hadn’t said because Martin had entirely shut down when he brought this subject up last.
”Scotland,” Jon replied. He risked a glance at Martin, and found him examining the list of directions. He was less faded around the edges, in a sense. That was good. “Daisy has a safe house up North, and that’s where we’re headed.” He tried to guess how Martin felt about this news. Mostly contemplative, as far as Jon could tell. He looked back at the road ahead and—“Oh, for fuck’s—” found a car wedged diagonally in front of him. He briefly weighed the merit of exiting the truck and bodily fighting the driver of that car.
Martin laughed—barely an amused huff, if anything, though it made Jon feel warm inside—and said, “I’ve never been to Scotland, but it’ll certainly be an adventure at the rate we’re going.”
Jon rolled his eyes. “Most of it isn’t going to be like this, we’re just caught in commuter traffic because somebody thought it would be smart to have us leave in the middle of rush hour.” He impatiently flexed his hands against the wheel, and the leather cover squeaked unpleasantly. “We’re sitting ducks for whatever could want to kill us, like this.”
Martin didn’t reply for several seconds, until he timidly asked, “Do you think that’s a risk?”
Jon’s first thought was to deny, and claim he was being hyperbolic, but no, it was distinctly possible. Although— “No. Trevor and Julia are definitely too preoccupied with Daisy, and the Not-Them is hiding from all three of them. We should be fine for a few days at least.” He tried to force himself to believe it.
Martin let out a small breath of relief, then took a larger fortifying breath. “And, well, I really don’t want to ask, but, er, is Elia-Jonah…? A threat?”
Jon didn’t look at Martin. He also didn’t look at the road, at least not more than was necessary to survive. And what did he get? He got you. The thought of being a prize in a wager made him uncomfortable. For all that he was the Archivist, like it or not, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want him. Usually the most anyone wanted of him was to die, while Elias seemed set on his survival. As much as he hated to think of all the people who wanted him dead, he feared anyone who might want him alive. He truly couldn’t imagine why anyone would have that as a goal.
He realized he had fallen silent, which was the opposite of reassuring. “Well,” he started, and then realized he didn’t have a plan for an optimistic end to the sentence. “Well obviously, Martin, I can’t think of a way to avoid him. But at the very least, he doesn’t seem to want me dead.” He looked at Martin and tried to smile reassuringly. Martin’s returning smile was mostly skeptical and was probably just to humor him, but it looked nice nonetheless.
Once again, looking back at the road was a mistake. It felt like he was being conspired against. How did this happen every time he looked away? Maybe some avatar of the Spiral was orchestrating this maddening crawl. (Oh, god, what if it was an avatar of the Spiral? Jon would be on edge for the rest of the day now.)
Martin laughed again, an undignified squawk. It was the best sound Jon had ever heard. Jon turned to see what had finally broken through Martin’s icy shell, and Martin chuckled again. It was church bells, it was a chorus of angels. (It was a sign Jon needed to get a grip.) “It, it’s just, you’re getting so angry, and, and you were making this fantastic face, like this—” Martin then did his best gargoyle impression “—which was even better because I don’t think you even knew.”
Jon scoffed and looked back at the road. It was the usual sort of horrible, but he was too self-conscious to be mad now. “Of course I knew,” he lied. “I can feel my face muscles perfectly fine.”
“I don’t know if I believe you,” Martin teased. He paused for a moment, then continued, in a more subdued voice, “I guess it’s sort of nice that you’re so worked up about something normal, instead of the usual nonsense we have to deal with.”
Jon hummed. “I’m glad to see you enjoy my suffering.” He immediately regretted saying this, as it was definitely too standoffish. Why was this so hard? He was going to lose Martin again.
Martin tsk’ed at him. “Oh, don’t be like that, you’re ridiculous. I honestly should have guessed you’d be like this about traffic. Though, I didn’t know you could drive?”
“Barely,” Jon scoffed. “I haven’t driven in years.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Martin reach up for the handle above the door. “Oh, stop, I’m not that rusty. We won’t crash. Probably.”
“Excellent words for a tombstone,” Martin muttered darkly. The truck moved forward an inch. What astounding progress.
“You know, Jon,” Martin began in a tone which made Jon feel like he was about to be made fun of. He chanced a look at Martin’s face, and—yes, he was about to be mocked. He wanted to be annoyed, but Martin looked so genuinely excited, in a way he hadn’t in so long, that Jon mostly just fell a little bit more in love. “You can adjust the seat forward before you start driving. It’s generally encouraged, actually.”
Jon looked down at his legs in confusion (just briefly, though, lest someone try to invade his lane). “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Martin. I’m perfectly fine.”
Martin sucked in a breath through his teeth, which really cemented the idea that he’d done something wrong. “You’re sat on the edge of the seat, Jon. Generally you’re supposed to be sat all the way on it.”
Jon, of course, knew the seat adjustment existed, as he was not stupid. The seat adjustment had just…entirely slipped his mind as he was getting into the car, though. Funny, he’d remembered to do all the mirrors for once, but not the seat.
His first instinct was to make up some reason this was intentional, but he could tell by Martin’s spreading grin that any lie he told would be seen through immediately. “Fine, fine, I forgot to adjust the seat, but I don’t see you driving this truck,” he snapped. A voice in the back of his head told him he’d overshot again, gotten the tone wrong again, and Martin would slip away.
For all his immediate regret, his momentum was too strong to back out of this exchange. He blustered on. “I don’t want to hear this, this sort of petty criticism from someone who can’t even drive.” That one tasted like a lemon coming out. He was definitely wrong for saying it. It was almost impressive how he could say so many things he immediately felt bad about. He didn’t look at Martin.
“What makes you assume I can’t drive?” Martin asked mildly. His tone betrayed nothing. Jon couldn’t tell if this was banter or if he’d majorly misstepped. Maybe he’d be able to tell from Martin’s face, but he was too afraid to find it blank to check.
Jon swallowed and considered a moment, searching for answers in the sea of red brake lights. “W-well, first of all, you live in London. Not much point having a car. And also, um.” Jon weighed his options and opted for possibly rude, over the prospect of Martin sniffing out a lie. “You just don’t…seem the driving type?”
Martin whistled. “Wow, homophobic, much?”
Jon really wanted to laugh, but the day had been so unfathomably long that for reasons he didn’t understand he started crying. It didn’t even have anything to do with Martin’s joke. It just seemed he had reached the limit of his capacity for life, and in fact crashed into said limit at Formula 1 speeds.
Martin rushed to reassure him, “Aw, hell, Jon, I didn’t mean it, it’s just a joke—” and this time Jon did manage to laugh, as waterlogged as it was.
“It-it’s not that, Martin,” he warbled. (Embarrassing.) He wiped at his eyes with his fingers (though, disconcertingly, his vision had never gone blurry. Convenient, perhaps, but a deeply unpleasant reminder of who, and what, he was). “It, it’s just, it’s barely been a few hours since I followed you into the Lonely, and before that I was already dealing with Trevor and Julia, and everything with Elias as-as Jonah Magnus, and I’m driving Daisy’s car while she’s as good as dead, and—” he cut himself off, took a deep breath, and turned to fully look at Martin, not just a glance. He looked concerned, and he had a deflated and flat look to him that was obviously a relic of months spent in service to the Lonely, but he was here. That felt truly magical. “I’m so glad you’re here with me, Martin.”
Martin blushed (less extreme than he used to, probably as another side effect of the Lonely, though it still looked nice) and smiled nervously. His eyes traced a path anywhere but Jon’s face, and his mouth gaped like a fish as he made several false starts to speech. Eventually his eyes locked on the road ahead, and in a tone that was blatant conversation changing, said, “Um, Jon, you need to move forward.”
Jon, still searching Martin’s face, had no idea what Martin was talking about. What did he need to move forward from? The day they had? It didn’t seem like Martin to trivialize that sort of thing. His freckles had faded; maybe they’d come back at Daisy’s safe house.
Martin sighed. “The road, Jon. You’re driving, in case you forgot.”
Jon had not forgotten, thanks for asking, but appreciated the reminder. Another tear traced his cheek, burning a damning, searing trail. He’d fallen quite behind in traffic. Maybe he was unfit to be driving.
Though if he didn’t, who would?
At least, as they moved from dense traffic to sparse houses to rolling hills, he would have Martin again, at his side.