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“Jon, you’re shedding faster than Purrl is. Forgive me if that worries me a little bit!”
“I’m not…I’m not a cat, Martin!”
“Exactly! You shouldn’t be losing so much bloody hair then!”
“I can’t exactly control how many hair follicles decide to have forsaken me…”
“You can control whether you eat enough to be a functional human being or not, though.”
Jon froze, feeling the fight threatening to leave him in an instant at the direct words, and forced his response into some sort of level normalcy that he hoped didn’t sound too defeated.
“That…has very little to do with this.”
“Really, Jon? I’m not…” Martin heaved a quiet sigh, lowering his voice. The argumentative tone dropped, as well as the hardened look on his face. Replacing it, unkempt softness and concern. It made Jon’s stomach turn, the intensity of it. The kindness, directed at him. Still, on days like this, it whittled him down to his core and proved to him just how undeserving he was of those soft tones. Just a look, holding everything he could never deserve and shoving it right in his face. Begging him to accept it.
“Look, I’m not trying to corner you. But I can see how sick you look and how much you’re struggling and I can’t just let that go on without saying something. I don’t want you to have to feel like that. And if it’s bad enough that you’re losing hair like that again, and you’re shaking so much all the time, and you almost fucking fainted on Tuesday? I, I think we need to address it. Please , Jon.”
The silence stuck, too loud, to the thick and heavy air in between them. Jon stared down at his hands, picking at the hangnail that never really seemed to go away on his left thumb. (Wonder why it never left, hm.) Martin stared down at him with knitted brows, eyes kind but unwavering, and the moment hung on far too long to be comfortable for either party.
Why couldn’t these kinds of conversations just be easy?
Why did they have to have them at all ?
It wasn’t like this wasn’t how he survived the first 26 years of his life.
That. That was a good point. That was understandable point, proof. Proof that this was alright and Martin didn’t need to waste his energy worrying over something so mundane.
“This has been much worse before, and I ended up perfectly fine those times. This really isn’t a cause for concern, Martin.”
The sharp intake of breath across from him spoke to the fact that those were, apparently, not the right words.
Martin had to fight to keep his voice steady, quiet enough to not come off as frustrated. He felt it, god , he felt it. Everything in him wanted to get loud, wanted to be direct, just wanted to do something. But this wasn’t a debate you won by going on the offensive. Especially not against Jon, of all people.
“You’re not a very good judge of what is “bad enough”, Jon.” A loaded pause, the words hovering for a moment as he looked pointedly across to the other man. “You literally died and came back and said it was fine . That you were fine. So I’m sorry, but I’m not going to take “It was worse before!” as a reason not to be concerned when this is clearly harming you. I don’t want to see you like this, in any level of severity. And…from an outside perspective, from somebody who sees you every single day? From somebody who has known you for years, and seen you at almost every “worst”? It seems pretty bad. It…seems bad enough to be genuinely concerned about.”
Jon didn’t respond, swallowing the guilt threatening to bubble over and focusing, instead, on the redness appearing around the irritated nail. He continued to dig, scraping and keeping his attention on the slight pain that sprang up with every pass.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. But I’m also not going to watch you kill yourself with this for reasons that I don’t even know. ”
“I…have reasons, Martin.” He took in a breath, feeling the words starting to bubble out of him. “It’s just who I am, at this point. Ha.”
“It’s really not…”
“Yes, it is .” He let out a mirthless chuckle, shaking his head at the spot on his thumb, that thin sheen of clear wetness from the scraped-off flesh, speckled with the faintest hints of blood, where he dug his finger in over and over. He couldn’t look at Martin for this. Couldn’t see what the confession would do to the soft eyes and caring facade and gentle love. He couldn’t watch it break, under his own selfishness.
Still, the words came, and he didn’t try nearly hard enough to stop them.
“I’ve spent most of my life in some state of this, and it doesn’t boil down to something as simple as superficial reasons. I wish it did sometimes. I really do. It'd be easier to understand, to let go of.” He settled on the words, thinking for just a second before letting his voice carry on without his thoughts, letting it spout out all the horrible things he kept nestled close to his ribs. “I wish it was just that I wanted to be smaller, to be more frail, to be seen as as hurt as I feel. Wanted to be saved, ha. And maybe that has become a small part of it. But mostly, it’s…it’s something that has always called to me. It’s always been my predisposition. My grandmother was a scarce eater and I never liked to wrench away from my reading long enough to eat more, anyway. It just seemed…pointless, when I was surviving just fine as I was. And you get used to it - your mind sharpens , you lose the emotional weight that holds you down. You feel good . Even if you shake and your body gives out and you have constant headaches, it’s worth it . Because you feel like you’re clear-headed. It just, it keeps you above it all. It can’t hurt you like that. You can think more clearly. Everything feels clean and crisp and obvious .” He shrinks into the thought, blooms into it, in turns. He hates the reverence his voice puts to the statement. He hates the way Martin freezes a little more at it.
“I needed that. God, I needed that. The distance. The detachment. The surety. And with, with everything else that has happened, everything I couldn’t control? Everything that was just a puzzle I had to be smart enough to solve, but never quite could? It just…made sense to let it be my comfort.” He stared at the abstract redness on his thumb, numbly taking in the fact that it was bleeding in true now, and pulled his anxious finger away. “You…know how I was when we started at the Archives. And then, ha, after the Unknowing. It was on their insistence that I starved. And you know, I couldn’t find it in myself to disagree with them? For entirely selfish reasons, I suppose, but I agreed, regardless. I - I don’t know, Martin. I have enough experience with this to know when it’s dangerous to me. This isn’t there yet . So it’s fine . You don’t need to worry . ”
A long pause choked the room, only Jon’s stuttering breaths and Martin’s nearly imperceptible ones, quiet and empty, to fill the space.
“...I, wow. Okay...Thank you for telling me, Jon.”
It was far too soft, too delicate, like it was a breath instead of a statement. Like speaking too loud would break him.
He couldn’t stop the incredulous huff that immediately came.
Yes, thank you for telling me your conceited reasons for causing so much trouble. Thank you for proving how even your attempts at altruism and penitence were tainted with selfishness. Thank you for telling me the reasons why I have to treat a grown man like a porcelain doll, in case he shatters and refuses to eat for a week as a result. Thank you for telling me.
“Hey…hey. Jon. Look at me. ”
Large hands came to his face, the pressure startling but not unwelcome, warm enough that he instinctively leaned into them at the contact. He drew in a long breath, mouth twisting slightly at the gnawing hatred inside of him, before setting it and forcing himself to look up in Martin’s general direction. Not quite at his face, but close enough to show he was listening. His jumper was worn and warm-colored, a muted orange that complemented his hair. The collar had a small rip next to the right collarbone and Jon remembered fiddling with it, a few weeks prior, lamenting their need to get a little sewing kit. Martin had laughed, disregarding it and taking Jon’s hand in his own, urging him to finally just go to sleep, Jon. We’ll worry about it in the morning.
Martin was close, now, kneeling in front of him. Hands on his face, worrying.
(When did they end up on the floor? Surely he’d have remembered it with his knee aching the way it did, these past few days…There was a gap, though, where no hazy memories of his descent to the chipped hardwood seemed to even exist.)
(God. Maybe Martin was a little bit right.)
The pale blue eyes in front of him were glimmering with an unpleasant shine, the lips held taut and strained against emotions that didn’t want to be let loose. He’d nearly made Martin cry. He was going to make Martin cry, no matter what he did now. He knew how these horrible moments always went, these scenes where he could never quite bring himself to hide away the loathing enough to not make Martin upset. Where he could never hold his tongue enough, say the right things, to prove to everyone else just how fine it was. How it wasn’t worth the worry, the effort.
Not for the first time that day, Jon wished for a stronger distance from himself. To be someone, anyone else, hovering away from all the things that made him him.
Selfish, selfish, selfish. He was the one who caused this. He was the one who had to sit through it, who had to stay present and help fix it , help assure Martin that it was okay, he was okay, it was all fine. It wasn’t worth the heartache or the lines of concern etched into his face or the way Jon’s fingers trembled, despite him, as he laid them over the too-soft grasp on his face. It wasn’t worth any of this commotion. The dramatics he couldn’t help but indulge in. Selfish.
He breathed in, and out. And looked up fully.
Martin met his eyes with a gentleness that almost made him recoil.
“Jon. Thank you for telling me. I’m not going to pretend it makes it easier to…to know how to help , really. But I want to know these things. I want to know about you . I want to help you take care of yourself, like you do with me. Please let me do that?”
“I don’t help you, though, Martin.” He laughed, choking on it.
Then it was Martin’s turn for the incredulous scoff to ring out, dark and grating in his usually cheerful voice. His voice dropped, bitter and harder than it’d been even in the beginning, when the argument still felt like an argument. It was that hateful tone Martin reserved only for himself, in the times when he fell into his own spirals, his own hauntings, and couldn’t keep up with the pretense of self-directed amicability.
Fuck.
He sounded like he was going to cry, still, every time the hardness shifted or splintered. His voice was thick, heavy, and all in all, sad .
“You’re the only thing keeping me out of the Lonely, Jon. The only thing." A stuttering breath, close to a sob. "You’re the one who holds onto me when I try to pull away for all the wrong reasons, when you know I need it. You’re the one who brings me nice smelling flowers to remind me of the life outside of here. You’re the one who sits with me and talks for hours just so I have something to focus on, so I don’t fade. You’re the one who keeps me safe , Jon.”
Martin leaned down, breathing out the last sentence like a prayer, like a plea. The hardness was gone, just a desperate, soft sadness remaining.
Let me do the same for you. Let me keep you safe. Let’s keep each other safe and alive and happy, together. Please. Please. Please .
Their foreheads met as Jon closed the gap, a soft movement that sent jolts of warmth and electricity down both their spines. It made him feel sick, letting himself have this. Letting himself lean into the comforting words, suspending his disbelief enough to even consider them. It felt treasonous. Greedy.
Just because he did the bare minimum for Martin didn’t mean Martin should have to shoulder this .
But part of him – the part of him that still panicked at the wavering spots in his vision, the part that thought of soft smiles when he felt himself shaking too much with half-unresponsive limbs on the kitchen floor at 4 am – it wanted to. It wanted him to match his breath with Martin’s, chests moving slow and steady in time, and feel the warmth against his cool skin. It wanted him to pretend, just for a little while, that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to not be sick. To not be floating, held away from everything that meant being real. Maybe he could stay, and he could feel it, and he could let himself choose this.
Maybe he could choose to live, if it meant Martin would be there to live with him.