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The trip to the safehouse took over seven hours – four and a half hours spent on a train from London to Edinburgh, twenty minutes spent in Waverly waiting for the next train, forty-five minutes spent traveling from Edinburgh to Stirling, nearly an hour huddling under a cold and drippy bus stop in Stirling, then a final forty-five minute bus ride to the small and unassuming town where Basira thought they might be safe – and Jon did not sleep for a single minute of it.
He couldn’t, even if he’d wanted to. His nerves were utterly frayed. It felt as though his body had been stuck in fight-or-flight mode from the moment he’d found Martin’s tape, and nothing – not the gentle rocking of the train, not the soothing silence of the late-night air, not the fact that Martin was curled into the seat beside him, hand still loosely wrapped around Jon’s even while he slept – could convince his body that the danger had passed.
And, well, it wasn’t as though his mind was fully convinced of that fact, either. Lukas was dead, but there was no reason to believe the Lonely would release its grip on Martin so easily. He hadn’t dissolved into a wisp of fog, like Jon’s nervous system remained convinced he would if Jon let him out of his sight for even a moment, but he still seemed… off. Like he’d been thawed in a microwave – still frozen to the touch in some places, burning hot in others. He’d flinched the first Jon tried to touch him, but by the time they got settled on the train he was all but clinging to him, grabbing Jon’s hand and pressing it to his chest like a security blanket.
When they stopped by a convenience store in Waverly – buying milk, tea, instant noodles, frozen vegetables, whatever they could find that might hold them over until they could have a proper grocery run, plus a few sandwiches for the trip – he seemed normal. He’d loosened his grip on Jon’s hand but hadn’t let it go altogether, and he’d had strong opinions on what kinds of tea they ought to buy, and he even managed a quiet snort when Jon suggested they get one of every variety just in case. But by the time they’d found a bench to sit on while they ate, he was gone again. His expression had fallen back into that awful, blank, dissociative haze, and only after repeated prompting did it occur to him to eat. When Jon asked him if he was alright, all he would say was “Fine.”
Mostly, though, he’d been asleep. Jon was glad. Much as he might want to talk things out, the fact was that Martin had earned a bit of a rest. He spent the majority of the seven-plus hour trip snoring gently into Jon’s shoulder while Jon held his sleepless, restless vigil beside him. When Martin shifted in his sleep, Jon turned his head to bury his nose in Martin’s hair. He smelled like sea salt, and like rain, and like whatever cheap shampoo he used – a sharp, overtly-synthetic scent that probably got marketed with some nondescriptive, performatively masculine name like Ice Shard, or Ocean Blast, or Power Sport.
“Stay with me,” he whispered into Martin’s hair. “Please, Martin. I can’t lose you.”
By the time they reached the safehouse, he was well and truly exhausted. He barely had time to take in the room that the front door opened up into – a dusty little kitchen that might optimistically be referred to as “cozy” but more realistically would be described as “cramped” – before he stumbled into one of the chairs at the kitchen table.
Martin flicked on the lightswitch, bathing the room in the butter-yellow glow of an ancient incandescent filament.
“Should I put the kettle on?” he asked.
Jon nodded. He meant to say something affirmative, but he found he was having trouble opening his mouth. He set his head down on the table, and told himself he was only going to rest his eyes for a second.
Jon didn’t think he was asleep for very long. When he woke up, he woke in stages. For a few minutes, he was “awake” by only the broadest definition of the term. His eyes were open, he was vaguely aware of his surroundings, but his brain was not processing anything. Instead he just floated on a warm, sleepy bubble of contentment, lulled by the familiar sounds of tea being brewed.
Then his memories returned to him with all the urgency of a shot of adrenaline to the heart. He sat bolt upright and whipped his head around in a muddled, desperate search for Martin, where was Martin, Martin was gone–
A hand came to rest on his shoulder, and he relaxed. Martin was here. He hadn’t been pulled back into the Lonely, or killed by the NotThem, or arrested for Peter’s murder. He was standing beside Jon’s chair with a cup of tea in hand, whole and unharmed.
“Bad dream?”
“No,” Jon shook his head, and he really mustn't have been asleep that long, if his regular selection of nightmares hadn’t had a chance to get started. “Jus’ worried.”
“About what?”
“You.”
“Oh.” Martin blinked. “I’m sorry,” he said, but he said it exactly the same way he had in the Lonely. His voice was detached and distant, like he was observing his own emotions at an arm’s length and was faintly surprised at what they turned out to be.
“Don’t be sorry,” Jon replied. “Only fair, really, given how many times you had to worry about me.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Martin mused in that same dispassionate tone. “I don’t miss that. Thought I would, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“When Peter offered me that deal, I think he thought that was a selling point. He never did really understand people. He’d talk about giving me an ‘escape from my grief’ as though I wanted that–” There was still an upsettingly clinical edge to Martin’s voice, relaying his memories as though they had happened to someone else, but a bit of emotion was beginning to creep in. “–but honestly, that was the worst part. You were… gone, and my grief was all I had left of you. The idea of not even being able to miss you anymore… God. It felt like I was betraying you, it felt– it felt worse than if he’d just asked me to kill you.” At some point, Martin had started crying. He lifted his hand to his cheek and looked surprised when it came back wet. “God, talking about this is bringing it all back up.”
Jon steered him into a chair and grabbed his hand. “I’m so sorry, Martin–”
“No, this is good,” Martin said. “Jon, I feel awful!” Jon started to point out that that didn’t seem good, actually, but Martin cut him off. “I didn’t think I’d feel anything this strongly ever again.”
And Jon could see how that was a good thing. “I’m… glad,” he said, squeezing Martin’s hand. “But if you’re going to remember how to feel emotions, perhaps we could start with some better ones? You must have some good memories you could talk about? Granted, with how the past few years have gone…”
Martin cocked his head, considering. Jon found himself painfully aware that Martin was running his thumb in absentminded circles around Jon’s knuckle while he thought.
“Do you remember when I first moved into Document Storage?” Jon nodded. “We’d never really talked before outside of work, and– and it wasn’t like we talked all that much then, but it was– it was nice. It was the first time I ever really understood why Tim and Sasha liked you. I remember I told some dumb joke, and– and I don’t even remember what the joke was but you laughed, and all of a sudden I thought, ‘Oh, okay. I get it now.’”
“I, um.” Jon cleared his throat. “I don’t remember the exact verbiage but I think it was a play on the phrase ‘the early bird gets the worm.’”
“That sounds… terrible.”
“It was,” Jon agreed. It had stuck with him precisely because it was terrible. For weeks afterward, he would think back to that moment, and curse himself for laughing at something so trite, and said by Martin of all people, and he didn’t stop to consider any other reasons why he kept returning to the memory of Martin making him laugh. “You could barely finish the joke because you started laughing halfway through.”
“Oh, God. I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“Oh, God,” Martin repeated.
It all seemed so close all of a sudden. Like the gulf of three years and a thousand traumas had all disappeared, and if Jon simply willed it hard enough, he could go back to that moment – sit with Martin in a Document Storage that had never known infestation, reach out to him with hands that had never been scarred, speak with a voice that had never reached into the depths of a stranger’s mind and pulled out their darkest traumas. Be a person who might, in a thousand years, be worthy of Martin’s affection, instead of the person he was now.
“Did I miss my chance?”
The words slipped out before Jon could think better of them.
“What?”
“I–” Jon gathered his words. “I thought, before the coma, that you might have been… interested in me. And maybe, if I’d worked up the nerve to say something back then, we could have had something. Is it too late for that now?”
Martin drew back, pulling his hand out of Jon’s grip. “I’m not the same person I was.”
“Neither am I.”
“Whatever it was you liked about me back then, I’m not sure I… have it, anymore.”
That was an answer, certainly. One that Jon could accept – should accept, probably. But he couldn’t bring himself to give up just yet, not without a clear and unambiguous answer.
“Is that a yes?” he asked, feeling needy and more than a little pathetic. “I missed my chance?”
Martin hesitated. “You missed your chance with the person you knew.”
“And if…” Jon swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “If I’m still in love with the person you are now? What then?”
Martin responded to that with a very quiet, “Oh.” And then, to Jon’s horror, he started to cry.
Jon stumbled out of his chair and knelt beside him, driven by an anxious but unfocused need to fix this. “Oh, God, Martin, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed–”
“You’re an idiot,” Martin whispered.
“I am.” Jon wasn’t going to argue with that, not now of all times, when he’d just made Martin cry. What was he thinking? “I’m sorry, you don’t have to–”
Martin cut him off once again. “Of course you still have a chance,” he said, and Jon’s heart stopped. “God knows why you’d want one, but you do.”
Jon reached up to cradle Martin’s wet cheeks. “Because I love you.” Saying it once had loosened his tongue, and it was all too easy to say it again. “Martin, you’re incredible–”
Martin sniffed. “Don’t push it,” he said with a wet laugh. “I’m still getting used to this whole ‘emotions’ thing, remember?”
“I’m–”
“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Martin said before Jon could finish the thought. “You don’t have to be.” He pulled Jon off the floor and into a hug.
Martin’s arms were a firm and solid weight around Jon’s shoulders, and his sweater was soft against Jon’s cheeks. It had the same sea salt smell as his hair had done, but with something warmer and more Martin-y underneath. He let his eyes slip closed.
“Jon?”
Jon stirred awake.
“Did you just fall asleep?”
“No,” Jon lied, badly.
“Alright, let’s figure out where the bedroom is in this place. We can talk more in the morning.”
Jon didn’t argue. He lifted himself up on tired legs and followed Martin through the hallway and into a sparsely-furnished bedroom at the back of the house. As he shrugged out of his jacket and his shoes and took off his belt – the closest thing to changing he had the energy to do – he expected Martin to turn around and explore the rest of the house, get himself situated, put away the groceries. He’d already gotten plenty of sleep. Instead, Martin took off his own shoes and slid into bed beside him.
Jon shifted closer, and Martin wrapped his arms around him once more. As Jon’s eyes drooped shut once again, he heard Martin whisper to him.
“I love you, too, you know. That never changed.”
And then Jon was asleep, secure in the knowledge that Martin would be there when he woke up.