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He is cold, achingly cold, in the immediate aftermath of The Lonely, like all memory of human touch and warmth has been stripped from his skin. The first time Jon reaches to touch him, it takes everything he has not to flinch from the contact, the simple heat of his hands feeling blindingly real against his salt-scraped skin. It’s almost too much, too momentous. The way Jon seeks for him without thinking about it, as if he so unquestionably belongs by Martin’s side and Martin by his-- it almost feels like a trap. It feels too unbelievably special and precious to be allowed to exist, and he is so terrified of breaking it, making a mistake with it.
He has to relearn how to walk in step with this reality again, how to wander without getting lost, and the miracle is that this time he has Jon to anchor him. Martin doesn’t know what to do with something as simple and devastatingly important as that. He is afraid to let Jon hold his hand, because Jon is warm and real and important and Martin’s hand is so cold that he’s sure it’s infectious, that the chill will sink its teeth into Jon and bleed him dry of all the warmth in his entire being and Martin wants to say sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry but his lips won’t quite form the words.
On the train as they make their way to Daisy’s safehouse, Martin finally works up the courage to make a joke about it. They’re sitting side by side, and it’s-- it’s so simple as to be absolutely nothing, and yet it’s just so much. If the first time they touched Martin had to consciously stop himself from drawing away, the second time Martin has to stop himself from leaning into it, drinking it in like he’s never tasted human contact before and can’t ever hope to get enough of it. He wants to rest his head on Jon’s shoulder. He doesn’t. Too much, too much, too much. He wants it anyway.
Careful, or I might just steal all the heat out of your body, Martin says with a tiny, nervous laugh, and immediately wants to take the words back, afraid that Jon might realize he made a mistake in letting Martin in this close.
But Jon just smiles, shaky and tired, and says, you can’t steal something that’s been given willingly, can you? Like that isn’t the end of the world to Martin in this moment. If he had an ounce less of self control than he did, he would have burst into tears and cried and cried the rest of the way there with how much that meant to him. It’s so, so much, this feeling, it’s scary and it hurts and he wants it, loves it with every fiber of his being.
All he can do is squeeze Jon’s hand in silent appreciation and hope that it’s enough, and revel in the pleasant sting of heat against the inside of his frigid wrist where Jon’s fingertips press.
Maybe it was just the poet in him that wanted so badly to commit this small, singular moment to memory, etch the importance of it into his bones. Maybe it was just the optimist in him that wanted to believe the comfortable quiet spoke as loudly to Jon as it did to him.
It was a part of him he’d tried so hard to kill, once, and not so long ago. Battered and weary, covered in cuts and bruises and heartaches with lungs full of fog, yes, but still alive, despite unspeakable odds. It made him want to hold up the little ways it hurt to readjust after the emptiness of The Lonely and choose to see them as reality’s way of saying, welcome back. Welcome home.
There is exactly one bed in the safehouse.
Jon learns this only after getting all ready to go to sleep, because they’d arrived just before dark, and they were tired, and the only thing in the world they wanted to do was rest. Martin had changed first, and then Jon, and in the time it took Jon to come and join him, the bed had at least been made, Martin sitting timidly on the very edge . However, the fact that it now wore a decent set of sheets did nothing to change the fact that they were both left staring blankly at each other and wondering how much of a problem this needed to be.
“I’ll take the s--” Jon starts.
“No, you won’t,” Martin immediately cuts him off, and Jon can’t help it, he laughs. They argue lightly about who’s definitely, totally going to take the sofa, or the floor, and leave the bed for the other, and no matter how reasonable Jon is with his arguments that Martin needs it more and that he doesn’t want to intrude, Martin just won’t have it.
“Well,” Jon huffs, putting his hands on his hips, “we seem to be at an impasse, then, because I’m not going to have you experience any more discomfort on my behalf if I have any say in the matter at all.”
“Oh my god, Jon, just get in the bed,” Martin declares, and then promptly pulls Jon down onto it.
The bed groans and Jon yelps in surprise, and then surprise gives way to laughter, which in turn falls away into a breathy sigh as he takes in the tangle of limbs they’ve landed in, Martin’s comfortingly soft shape pressing into him. “Oh,” he breathes softly, almost instinctively wrapping his arms around Martin and pulling him closer.
It shouldn’t be this… easy, Jon knows, distantly. It shouldn’t feel this natural, curling into the familiarity of him like they’ve done this a thousand times. They haven’t. They still haven’t talked about any of this. They’ve just been so focused on getting out alive, and the fact that they’ve made it at all is so miraculous-- it makes Jon weak with relief just to hold him and know that he’s real.
I really loved you, you know, Martin had said in The Lonely with a defeated, resigned acceptance, like he was laying the words to rest, crushing them to dust in his hands and letting them slip through his fingers like ash.
That’s far too much for Jon to confront right now. He is afraid to know whether or not that still holds true-- if his clinging to Jon and wrapping his arms around his torso is merely a matter of necessity, the need to fill an emptiness with comfort and contact, if Jon is simply the most practical option.
Even if that were the case, he knew with a soft, aching certainty, he would still give it willingly. He loves Martin. Whatever capacity he would accept him in, Jon would take it-- because his friendship is more than enough, of course it is-- but he thinks of Martin’s words in The Lonely, and he tries not to think of the dozen things it could mean, or not mean, and the enormity of how much they haven’t said is daunting.
They have to talk about it. But right now, selfish as it may be, all Jon wants to do is bury his face in Martin’s hair and breathe him in and revel in the fact that they made it.
The morning sun streaming in the windows of the safehouse did little to banish the chill, which they had discovered in a right hurry. Shuffling over the wooden floors first thing in the morning in bare feet was a mistake, but Martin has since learned his lesson.
On this particular morning he awoke first, quietly untangling himself from the still peacefully sleeping Jon, and nearly losing all resolve to get up early and surprise him with breakfast when Jon made an instinctual whine of protest and a weak grabbing motion at the loss of Martin’s warmth. It was ridiculously unfair how weak Martin was for that. But all the same he did his best to steel his resolve with the knowledge that the look on Jon’s face when he saw Martin’s little surprise would be worth it, and so reluctantly he pried himself out of bed. Gently he had pulled the covers up over Jon’s shoulders, and then headed into the main room to get a fire going in the fireplace.
Currently he is standing in the kitchen. He has a pan of scrambled eggs just about done, and water ready for tea, and a plate of toast sits off to the side because he apparently hadn’t been thinking very strategically with his timing. Points for effort, he hopes. It’s nothing extravagant, but… it was the gesture of the thing that mattered.
Right as he figures he’s just about done, he hears a clumsy shuffling noise from down the hall-- and there is Jon, right on cue. Martin turns to greet him, but his words catch in his throat the moment his eyes fall on him.
He has a blanket draped over his shoulders, and oh, underneath that, pulled hastily over his pajama shirt, Martin recognizes one of his own jumpers, far too big for Jon’s small frame. He’s practically swimming in it, his hands hidden by the sleeves, and his hair falls messily around his shoulders.
“Martin?” Jon calls out for him in a worried, sleep-soft voice, small and disoriented, clearly having just woken up. He rubs his eyes blearily, blinking, and it registers to Martin that his immediate instinct upon waking, before anything else, was to find him.
“Oh,” Martin breathes, completely unprepared for the tide of affection that wells up and fills his chest, so quick it leaves him dizzy.
He turns off the burner, takes the pan off the stove and immediately moves to meet Jon, scooping him up in a hug as Jon slumps unresistingly into him. “Hey,” Martin whispers into his hair, smiling against him as Jon’s hands belatedly find purchase in the fabric of Martin’s shirt. “You alright? Sleep well?”
“You weren’t there…,” Jon mumbles so quietly against Martin’s shoulder as to be nearly incomprehensible.
Martin lets out a small, breathless sound of sympathy. “I didn’t want to wake you up,” he says gently. “Come on, I made breakfast. I’ll get you a cup of tea,” he says, and the warm, sleepy smile that spreads across Jon’s face is something he never, ever wants to forget.
They sit at the table and talk about this and that, and the tea seems to help Jon wake up a little, at least. Martin eventually brings up the fact that Jon is wearing his jumper, and Jon looks him directly in the eyes and says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and Martin nearly chokes on his toast laughing. Then, pointedly, “it was cold, and I missed you,” said while firmly looking anywhere else, and Martin thinks not for the first time that they are incredibly lucky to be here, together, incredibly lucky to be able to bicker about nothing of importance and enjoy each other’s company without hurry.
“Well, it looks adorable on you,” Martin blurts out, and Jon scoffs.
“Nothing about me is adorable,” he says, so offended and serious, “I have never been described as adorable before, ever, in my life.”
“Mm, I find that hard to believe,” Martin says simply, and Jon shakes his head in mock-disgust.
Jon does the dishes, after, because although Martin tried to argue with him and insist that it was his turn, Jon having done it the night before, he just wouldn’t have it. Instead, Martin sits at the counter as Jon starts to dry the dishes, swinging his legs idly and humming under his breath, until Jon simply says, “play a word game with me,” and so they do. One of them says the name of a food, and the other says the name of another that begins with the letter the last one ended on. It ends when Martin says chicken soup and Jon says peach cobbler and Martin, thinking he is about to be very clever, says rice chex, because absolutely no sane or reasonable food item begins with the letter X, and surely Jon will be stumped and declare that Martin has outwitted him fair and square.
Except then without missing a beat Jon simply says, “xanthan gum,” like Martin is supposed to know what the hell that even is.
“What the hell even is that,” Martin says, in fact.
A smug grin forms on Jon’s face. “It’s a food additive,” he says. “It’s a thickening agent that increases the viscosity of substances, such as liquids, or, for example, doughs and batters in some gluten-free products.” He looks pleased, as if it isn’t extremely weird that he just knows that, and also annoyingly endearing.
“Okay, no. A food additive is not the same as a food item, that doesn’t count,” Martin says, and Jon laughs.
“Who says?”
“I do!” Martin exclaims. “Using chemicals and junk like that is hardly fair--”
“It’s not a chemical, it’s a th--”
“Same thing,” Martin cuts him off before he can go on a tangent about the industrial applications of whatever the hell he said it was called.
“Alright, alright,” Jon relents, and Martin foolishly assumes this means he has won their little game at last when Jon hums and says, “xylitol candy, then.”
“Now you’re just showing off,” Martin says accusingly.
“Maybe just a little,” Jon admits with a tiny smirk. Martin wants to wipe that look off his face. He wants to grab that cocky little face of his between his hands and kiss him, this pedantic, infuriating bastard of a man, and-- he turns away sharply, standing up and moving to the window, pretending to be suddenly interested in the scenery outside so Jon won’t see his face heating up at the thought.
Eventually Jon finishes up with the dishes, and comes to join him. “Thank you for breakfast,” he says. “That was… very nice of you. I’ll have to repay the favor sometime.”
“You could repay me by giving me my jumper back,” Martin says lightly, not meaning it in the slightest.
“Hmm, no, I don’t think I will,” Jon replies, and Martin just laughs. Jon leans into his side, and Martin snakes an arm around him, closing his eyes and enjoying the simple comfort of his presence.
He wants this to be forever, he thinks suddenly. He wants to spend every morning like this, wants to never have to leave Jon’s side again, wants to wake up every morning and know with complete certainty that he will not have to face this day alone and that he never will again.
He’d give anything to get to keep this, to have a thousand more quiet mornings as simple and perfect as this one. He has felt happier in a handful of days here with Jon than he has in… years. The thought is almost sad, tempers his enthusiasm and colors it a shade more somber, because he knows this is fragile and new and he is trying so hard to be careful with it.
He’s terrified of asking Jon for too much, in case it breaks this spell and pushes him away. But Jon makes him happy, and he’s happy when they’re together, and that alone is precious to Martin.
“So, what do you want to do today?” Jon asks him after what feels like ages, but is probably only a moment.
Martin considers. “I’m not sure,” he says. It’s the truth, or most of it; what they do doesn’t matter so much to Martin as long as they’re doing it together, but he’s just a little bit afraid to say it out loud.
“That’s alright,” Jon says gently. “We’re in no rush.”
Martin hums softly and says, “it’s a beautiful day out, you know. I think I might like to go for a walk, i- if you want to come, I mean. Or if you’d rather, we could, uh…”
Jon reaches for his hand and squeezes it. “I’d like that,” he says warmly. Martin tentatively smiles, savoring the way Jon smiles back at him.
He thinks, suddenly, that Jon has a lovely smile, and that it feels good to be the reason for it.
The next time they head into town for supplies, they pass by a dusty little used book store. That is to say, they immediately forego the rest of their errands and spend the next hour and a half browsing in a dusty little used book store, because they are predictable.
Daisy did not have the most… extensive literature collection in the safehouse. Which was fine, obviously, and they were hardly in much of a place to judge or complain. But when Jon went through her bookshelf and held up romance novel after trashy romance novel with an absolutely comical look of utter contempt on his face, Martin laughed so hard it made his ribs ache. Still, they have to restrain themselves from picking out too many books, because they also have groceries to pick up, and they’ll have to carry everything back, but Martin selects a couple of dog-eared poetry collections with marked-up margins, and Jon picks up a book about the history of the area.
At the grocery store, they’re passing through a little baking aisle when Martin picks up a package of yeast and says, “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we baked our own bread, just for the hell of it?”
Jon, of course, tries to protest that he’s not much of a baker and that he’s never done it before and he doesn’t know how, but the more Martin thinks about the idea of it, the more he likes it, and his enthusiasm is contagious enough that Jon finally relents. Martin is quietly smiling the whole rest of the time they’re there, or he is right up until the point where he ends up carrying the bag containing the flour, among other things, which is heavy. The cost of homemade bread is apparently a couple pounds and some rather sore hands by the time they make it back. Such is life.
The sun is high above them in the mid-afternoon sky as they walk home, and Jon points out different types of birds they see, for no discernible reason. Martin also starts pointing out birds, but he doesn’t really know anything fun to say about them.
“Look, a crow,” Martin says, indicating a dark silhouette of a bird flying high above them in the distance.
“Actually, it’s a blackbird,” Jon says casually, hardly even looking.
“Yeah, how can you tell? It’s so far away,” Martin points out, and Jon makes the strangest face, suddenly looking utterly bewildered.
“You know what? I can’t,” Jon admits, “but I just know.” Martin rolls his eyes, and very nearly trips over a branch in the path and spills his groceries everywhere, and then decides that he is in fact done thinking about birds for the day.
When they get back they pile all their bags onto the kitchen counter and start putting things away, minus the one bag that is decidedly not like the others, which Martin deposits on the sofa to eventually be sorted into the bookshelf before returning to the kitchen.
Martin hasn’t made bread in what feels like ages, but he used to make it all the time on the premise that it was cheaper than buying it premade from the store. That was back when he still lived with his mother, who didn’t really appreciate his consideration on the matter nor his efforts to fine tune his recipe for maximum cost efficiency in relationship to quality. It had become a chore, then, and eventually he just didn’t have the time or energy anymore, and so he stopped doing it.
But it was different with Jon. This was for fun, just because they could. Or rather, everything was all fun and games as Martin directed him to get out ingredients and do this or that until Jon went ahead and spilled a bunch of flour all over his black shirt. At that point it became all fun and games for Martin, who tried very hard not to giggle (and failed), and not so much for Jon, who stood there looking like a rather disgusted cat, trying unsuccessfully to wipe it off of himself and only managing to get it everywhere.
Apparently he then decides vengeance has to be had for this, because the moment he realizes he’s not going to be able to get all the flour off of his shirt is the moment he starts trying to wipe it on Martin’s, and Martin flees from the kitchen, shrieking with laughter. Jon eventually catches him, and when he does he throws his arms around Martin and hugs him-- Martin, a fool, melts into it for a moment with full belief that his intentions are innocent, until he realizes that it’s simply a tactic of Jon’s to inflict his flour curse upon Martin.
“Bastard,” Martin breathes, and Jon just laughs, evilly, because he’s terrible and a menace.
Once they’ve finally got their bread in the oven, all that’s left to do is wait, and so they do. Jon goes to change into a clean jumper, and the jumper is definitely, absolutely one of Martin’s and not his own. But Martin doesn’t protest except for a fond little shake of his head, and so Jon decides he is going to take this as permission to keep doing it.
He comes back into the living room to find Martin already curled up on the sofa with a mug of tea sitting beside him on the coffee table, and a book in hand, one of the poetry collections he picked up at the bookstore that day. Jon sits down beside him, and they don’t say anything for a moment.
He could grab his own book, do some of his own reading. But, somehow, he finds that he doesn’t quite want to.
“Is it any good?” Jon finds himself asking, indicating Martin’s book.
“Hm? Yeah,” Martin says, not looking up for a moment. “I’ve actually read this one before, believe it or not. But it’s been a long time,” he tells him.
“Really?” Jon says. “You know, when I was younger, I always hated reading things I’d already read before. Even things I hadn’t really read before-- if I felt like I already knew them, then I just wouldn’t bother.”
“You don’t ever reread things to see if your perspective on them has changed?” Martin asks.
“Can’t say that I do,” Jon admits, and Martin just hums.
He considers that, for a moment.
Jon has never been one for poetry, not really. He’s never quite seen the appeal, before, not when what he’d been searching for had always been something to sate an endless, gnawing curiosity that refused to ever be sated. If it didn’t soothe the aching need to know new things constantly, then it was worthless to him, or so it had always been.
He wonders what Martin sees in poetry that Jon does not. He wonders what it’s like, reading without hunger, reading solely for the sake of feeling the weight of the words and enjoying them. He wonders what it’s like, revisiting familiar pages just to see if there’s something new to be made of them, something to hold up against the past as proof that you’ve changed and grown.
“Would you… read it for me?” Jon finds himself asking before he can fully think it through.
Martin becomes still for a moment. “You don’t like poetry,” he points out bluntly.
“But you do,” Jon counters, “and I like you,” and then he rapidly reconsiders his word choice, but not before Martin begins to blush, “a- and I’d like to… engage with your interests, that is,” oh god, this isn’t coming out right, Jon’s going to make a fool of himself, “if it’s important to you, uh, I think… I’d like to see what it is you see in them. Th- The poems. I mean.” A beat. “I just think it would be nice,” Martin just stares at him, “a- and, well, I like the sound of your voice. And--” Jon finally just shuts his mouth, his face burning, aware that he’s said far more than enough.
Martin looks at him with the oddest expression, fond but guarded. The look he’s giving him is a soft little smile, until it isn’t, and it falls from his face. “Jon,” he says, “you don’t have to force yourself to like things just because I do. It’s fine.”
“I know,” Jon says, something in him crumpling. “but I just… I mean… I don’t know. Forget it. It was stupid, I don’t--”
“Hang on a moment,” Martin interrupts gently. “That’s not, uh… I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. If you’re… If you’re sure.”
Jon immediately brightens again. “I am,” he says.
“I mean, I really don’t want to bore you, or anything--”
“--You won’t,” Jon says quickly.
“Please don’t make fun of me,” Martin adds hurriedly. “I- It’s fine if you don’t like it, but just-- if you have any, I don’t know, literary criticisms, just-- just keep them to yourself, alright?” He says, and Jon’s heart breaks just a little, to think of the fact that it reads so easily in his wary protection of what he loves that he is so hesitant to show his hand and expose something vulnerable. It hurts to think he had once been part of that. He wants to be better. Martin deserves that much.
“I will,” Jon promises.
“Okay,” Martin says, and his eyes are bright and hesitant. He folds the corner of his page, flips to the beginning, and clears his throat nervously.
And then he starts to read.
At first, his voice is uncertain and self-conscious, but he eases into it, relaxes as Jon listens attentively and squeezes his hand reassuringly. He starts reading a poem about a house that doesn’t change and people who do, people who leave, and who leave things behind. Jon isn’t sure he understands it, but somehow, the words sound right in Martin’s mouth. He reads a handful like so and asks, “you sure you want me to keep going?” and Jon nods his head, and shifts a little closer to him. Their legs are pressing together now. Martin is warm, and Jon is not, and Jon guiltily drinks in the warmth of their contact as Martin reads a poem about a moth who longs to taste the light of day and trembles before the blinding resplendence of the sun. This is the point where Jon begins to think he has figured out how to understand, as he curls closer and closer to Martin and tries not to think of how lovely the pattern of freckles over his face is. Martin wraps an arm around him almost unthinkingly, pulling him in just a little closer. Jon feels like he’s burning up, and he loves it.
Jon has never been read to before. No one has ever thought to do so. He is The Archivist. He reads to quiet the ache of his own need to Know, and to feed the insatiable, unstoppable hunger of The Eye. He reads to experience. He reads to understand.
He has never been read to before, he realizes, and it feels… nice. He likes it. He can’t help but zone out just a little, close his eyes and let the words wash over him. The cadence of Martin’s voice feels good as it sinks into him, he savors the way it fills his head and reverberates through his ribcage. The background droning of affection steadily grows into something overwhelming, until he feels so in love he can’t even think anymore. He feels warm, and safe, and good, and he has hardly realized that he’s crawled into Martin’s lap, barely registers what he’s doing until he’s kissing him, and even then it’s only the faint thump of Martin readily abandoning the poetry book to wrap his arms around Jon and pull him close that makes him realize he’s doing it at all.
Distantly, he thinks of how quietly, secretly nervous he has been since the moment they got here together, afraid that at any moment he could make some unforgivable misstep and finally ruin everything. He doesn’t feel that way now, not anymore. He sighs contentedly into the kiss, Martin’s hands tangled in his hair, and everything feels dizzyingly right.
They have to talk about this, of course. They’re going to talk about this, and properly, at length, they’ll spill their guts about all the fears and heartache and longing they’ve endured to make it this far, they’ll talk about it until there’s nothing left to talk about. They’ll hold each other’s hands and they’ll figure out exactly where they stand, and it won’t be as hard or as insurmountable as they’d feared at all.
They’ve already been loving each other, in dozens of little ways, haven’t they? Martin has already said I love you a thousand times in a thousand gestures, countless cups of tea brought and surprise breakfast made and hands held even when the chill was so sharp he was scared of letting Jon feel just how deep the fog had reached. Jon has already reciprocated over and over and over again, seeks him out like sunlight, like there is nowhere in the world he belongs more than at his side, even if that means he has to go through hell to meet him there.
They’ll talk about it. And they’ll laugh, too, and they’ll finally be able to rest easy knowing that there are no more secrets between them, that they don’t have to worry the enormity of their affection might scare each other away anymore. More pressingly, in a few minutes the timer they’ve set in the kitchen will ding and they’ll get to go admire their handiwork. Jon will get to taste Martin’s bread recipe that no one has ever appreciated before now, and he’ll appreciate it enough to make up for all the rest. And then he’ll swipe some stray flour on the counter in Martin’s direction, knowing they’re going to have to sweep either way. Martin will laugh, and he’ll treasure the sound of it, because Martin’s happy-- and when he’s happy, Jon’s happy.
But right now, in this moment, their lips part, and Martin breathes soft against him and quietly says, “Jon,” and doesn’t finish whatever half-formed, love-drunk thought he’d started, because he doesn’t need to.
Jon thinks, dizzily, that he would like to kiss him again. So he does, and the fond curve of Martin’s smile tastes like warm chai and sunlight.